Jan. 20–WASHINGTON — National farm groups complained Thursday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has gone too far by asking for more information about basic operations on large-scale animal farms that might pollute water supplies. But New York farmers already share much of that information with state regulators.
The EPA closed out a public comment period on the proposed rules, which would require farmers to share more information about their businesses — a move the EPA agreed to in a settlement with the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups.
Large-scale farms, called concentrated animal-feeding operations, include large dairy farms, which pose an environmental challenge in dealing with manure. A dairy farm with more than 700 cows, for instance, is considered a large CAFO by the EPA, and a farm with as few as 200 cows is a medium CAFO. Those are common in Northern New York.
"EPA should pull this rule," said Ashley Lyon, deputy environmental counsel for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, in a news release. The NCBA submitted comments to the agency Thursday.
"The agency needs to redirect its focus on working with states and other partners to attain already publicly available information that would allow them to work towards their goal of improved water quality," Ms. Lyon said.
The rule is the latest in a series of EPA regulations that have sparked opposition from farm or business groups and promise to give more election-year ammunition to Republican lawmakers who take issue with the agency's assertive approach. Republicans in Congress have vowed generally to block EPA regulations, so the prospects for the CAFO rule may be unclear, as is any potential impact on New York's reporting requirements that are already in place.
Environmental groups, such as the NRDC, have praised the EPA for taking big steps toward protecting public water supplies from agricultural threats in a farm-by-farm manner that has not been followed on a federal level in the past.
The EPA envisions two possible scenarios for the regulations. Either all concentrated animal-feeding operations will have to report basic operating information to the agency, or farms in certain at-risk watersheds will be required to do so.
The agency is seeking the information, officials say, because the EPA has no specific information on such facilities, unlike other types of businesses or factories that are regulated under the Clean Water Act. Farmers would be required to complete a survey, unless the information the EPA seeks is already available from states.
That may be the case in New York, where New York Farm Bureau has been working with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and hasn't taken strong action on the proposed EPA rules. A Farm Bureau spokesman, Matt Nelligan, said his organization has worked with the state DEC to develop "tough but fair" reporting requirements that already encompass much of the information the EPA plans to seek.
A spill at Marks Farm in Lewis County in 2005 helped spur regulations in New York. That spill killed about 375,000 fish in the Black River, DEC estimated.
The National Farmers Union said the reporting proposed by the EPA is unnecessary.
"The EPA does not need to collect any more information from CAFOs in order to monitor water quality," union President Roger Johnson said in a news release. "By utilizing existing data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and relevant state agencies, the EPA can adequately access necessary information regarding CAFOs and water quality."
