| 120-Day
Public Comment Period
Ended January 19, 1999 |
Online Comments Archive & Transcripts http://www.epa.gov/owm/afos/letters.html http://www.epa.gov/owm/permits/afo/public.htm |
News
&
Criticism |
Mar 8, 1999: Clinton proposal "a mixed bag" |
USDA EPA, ANNOUNCE JOINT STRATEGY FOR ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIONS
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 1998-- As part of the Clinton Administration's Clean Water Action Plan, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner today announced a draft plan to improve America's water quality and reduce public health risks associated with animal feeding operations. Glickman and Browner invited public comment on the proposed USDA-EPA Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations...
Over the next 120 days, EPA and USDA will be taking comments on the
draft strategy. Comments on the draft strategy should be addressed to...
| Denise C. Coleman
Program Analyst, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service P.O. Box 2890, ATTENTION AFO Washington, DC 20013-2890 E-mail: denise_c.coleman@usda.gov |
After the public has had a chance to review the document, EPA and USDA will hold listening sessions in several cities to get comments firsthand. The listening sessions will occur in late November and the date and locations will be publicly announced.
| Copies of the draft strategy are available from EPA's Water Resource Center at (202) 260-7786. Copies are also available on the Internet at http://www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/cleanwater/afo or http://www.epa.gov/owm/afostrat.htm |
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By Peter S. Goodman and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 14, 1998; Page A01
The Clinton administration plans to announce this week a move to crack down on a major source of pollution in rivers and streams by requiring the nation's largest livestock farms to develop plans to store animal waste as a condition of remaining in business, administration officials said.
Reaction to the new rules was mixed, with farmers fearing financial hardship from tighter regulations and some politicians and environmental groups suggesting the strategy did not go far enough.
Particularly controversial are the threshold numbers that define which farms would be forced to obtain permits. Under the draft version of the guidelines, mandatory requirements apply only to farms with more than 1,000 "animal units," which translates to 1,000 beef cattle, 2,500 hogs or 100,000 broilers. Smaller farms could be brought into a mandatory regimen in areas where there are significant water quality problems or an excessive numbers of farms.
Monday, September 14, 1998 By Julie Vorman WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Giant livestock farms that generate millions of tons of manure -- blamed by environmentalists for fish kills, groundwater pollution and smelly air -- would have to curb waste under a Clinton Administration plan, industry officials said Monday...
A state spokesman says North Carolina
already has rules that are more strict than the new proposal.
http://www.news-observer.com/daily/1998/09/15/nc05.html
Tuesday, September 15, 1998... Don Reuter, spokesman for the N. C. Department of the Environment and Natural Resources, said Monday that the proposed regulations are similar to those that the EPA drafted in February, which are not as strict as the state's rules for the management of animal waste....
Wednesday, September 16, 1998. Commentator Michael Ivey accidentally runs into a controversy in a small Ohio town over plans by an out-of-town farmer to construct a large-scale factory hog farm in the community. Ivey takes us to meet the principals in the story, and we learn about their conflicting concerns. The farmer says he has to expand his small, family-run hog operation in order to allow his two sons to join the business. The opponents in Cumberland, Ohio fear for their air and water cleanliness if the new hog farm is built. (12:30)
Thursday, September 17, 1998. NPR's John Nielsen reports that the Environmental Protection Agency has new guidelines for managing animal waste from the nation's industrial-scale hog and poultry farms. The farms employ tens of thousands of people, while producing 1.4 billion tons of manure a year. The EPA wants to increase the number of inspections, and make penalties more severe for farms that break the rules. (4:11)
Week of October 12, 1998. (Length - 5:13) Environmentalists are concerned that big business agriculture will weaken a government proposal to reduce pollution. The federal government’s proposal would make large farm feedlots come up with a management plan to dispose of animal manure. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that some farm groups are fighting it. Listen to this story in Real Audio.
http://www.outreach.umich.edu/audio/GLRC/Public/html/archivera/1998/october98ra/oct12/graham.ram