After years of focusing on soil conservation and water quality, farmers and ranchers are increasingly finding air quality on their lists of regulatory concerns. September 2006 was a big month for air quality issues, including:
- A final rule for federal particulate matter (PM) standards, released on September 22;
- Bills in Congress seeking to exempt manure on agricultural operations from regulation under the “Superfund law;”
- The kick-off to a nationwide study on the impact of animal feeding operations (AFOs) on air quality.
Big decisions on small particles
Tiny particles just 1/6 to 1/25 the diameter of a human hair have been the subject of big debates over the past couple of years. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a final rule containing standards for PM, including compliance levels and details on monitoring and regulation.
Coarse particulate matter—from 10 microns down to 2.6 microns – will be regulated separately from fine particulate matter, which is 2.5 microns and smaller. Particulate matter is classified as “PM” (for particulate matter) followed by a number indicating the maximum size, in microns, of the particles. For instance, PM2.5 refers to fine particulate matter.
Fine PM includes extremely tiny particles as well as precursors of smog, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone and ammonia, and has been implicated in respiratory problems. Many of those smog precursors have been linked to agricultural operations, whether from the engine exhaust of pumps and equipment, or from livestock and their waste. The extent of agriculture’s contribution to fine particulate matter will be studied in detail over the next two years. In the meantime, states with areas out of compliance with fine PM standards are working on plans due in 2008 detailing how they will meet the standard; the plans will have to be implemented by 2010.
Among the biggest concerns with fine particulate matter is the effect of lowering the threshold for PM2.5. The daily fine particle standard has been strengthened by nearly 50 percent, from 65 micrograms of fine PM per cubic meter of air to 35 micrograms.
That change could significantly increase the number of areas in PM2.5 noncompliance, including many areas with significant ag production or processing, warns Rebeckah Adcock, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation in Washington, DC.
Coarse particulate matter (PM10-2.5) is subject to other debate. Highly visible and easily linked by passers-by to fieldwork and other agricultural operations, debate rages on whether coarse PM from farms and ranches is actually a health hazard. Adcock points out that earthen-based dust from farms and non-urban areas is very different in composition and health threat from the tiny bits of toxic metals and combustion products that come from tailpipes and smokestacks in urban areas. If it’s not a health hazard, it should be exempted from the regulation, she asserts. However, the new rule appears to have no exemption for agriculture-related PM.
Agriculture industry advocates will also be anxiously reading the new standard for details on monitoring coarse particulate matter. Farm Bureau and other groups have taken EPA to task over the accuracy of sampling equipment in areas where particles larger than PM10 have skewed results, or where fine and coarse particles are not properly distinguished. They also complain that sampling at the edge of farm property rather than near houses or towns farther from the dust source can inflate estimates of how much dust actually leaves farming areas to affect human health.
“Currently, [Farm Bureau is] reviewing the new rule internally to determine exactly what it does and does not do, how it impacts agriculture,” says Adcock. “Suffice it to say we are very disappointed that the rule does not include an agricultural exemption.”
The final rule is posted on EPA’s web site.
Superfund law generates super-sized debate
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Lawmakers are seeking exemptions for manure in key air quality regulations, while scientists are launching a two-year study of the effects of livestock operations on air quality.
Photo courtesy of Steve Werblow. |
When Congress passed CERCLA—the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, also known as the Superfund law—in 1980, the story of a toxic soup of industrial chemicals leaching up from beneath the homes of Love Canal still echoed in national headlines. Though industrial pollutants were at center stage when the law was drafted—and the law excludes normal applications of fertilizer from regulation—Congress didn’t specifically define manure to be included in the exemption granted to fertilizer.
In a couple of recent court cases, judges have suggested that livestock operations emitting more than 100 pounds of methane or hydrogen sulfide per day may need to report those emissions to EPA under CERCLA (other operations may report smaller emissions voluntarily). Depending on how an operation stores and handles its manure—lagoon design, pumping procedures, etc.—current data indicate that the reporting requirement could include operations ranging in size from 500 dairy cows in a freestall barn to 1,200 farrowing sows or 25,400 broiler chickens.
In the 2004 City of Waco v. Schouten case, a group of 14 dairies argued that manure wasn’t classified as “hazardous waste” under CERCLA. Although the case settled before trial, the court determined that the phosphorus in the manure was indeed regulated under the law, and that fertilizer applications constituted a “release.” Under a related law, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA), there is a debate over whether farm releases of the constituents of manure—gases like ammonia or hydrogen sulfide—exceed thresholds that require farmers to report their emissions, notes EPA’s Bob Kaplan, division director, Special Litigation and Projects Division.
That’s enough to send chills down the spines of livestock producers across the country. If manure—or the gases it produces as it decomposes—is regulated as hazardous waste under the nation’s toughest environmental cleanup laws, and emissions are reported and tracked, thousands of farms could be liable for significant liabilities. Just as bad, they could be sitting ducks for citizen lawsuits under those regulations.
A pair of bills in Congress—HR.4341 by Reps. Ralph Hall (R-TX) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) and S.3681, introduced to the Senate by Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Larry Craig (R-ID)—seek to insert language into CERCLA and EPCRA to exclude manure. Under both bills, manure derived from agricultural operations—which is defined as manure, its components, materials like straw that have been co-mingled with the manure, process water, and compost or other byproducts—would be exempted from both laws.
“This clarification is badly needed in order to protect America’s agriculture industry from onerous and frivolous lawsuits,” Domenici told the Senate in July. Farms are already regulated under an array of laws, he added, so “additional requirements under CERCLA, which is designed to clean up toxic industrial pollutants, is unwarranted and unfair for America’s farmers.” Domenici’s office expects a hearing, and perhaps even mark-up, of the Senate bill this fall.
Historically, EPA hasn’t used the CERCLA cleanup provisions against farms, notes Kaplan. He points out that the agency “enforces all laws vigorously,” but notes environmental groups, not EPA, have been at the forefront of using Superfund reporting requirements against farmers.
And even if reported farm emissions don’t trip federal enforcement triggers, Kaplan notes that there is a “panoply of state and local regulations on odor emissions and air quality,” and he acknowledges that reporting under CERCLA could provide ammunition for environmental groups who could then use those local and state laws to bring suits against farms.
Data is on the way
Though most farms reporting air pollutant emissions would likely be well below thresholds that define “major sources” in the Clean Air Act, Kaplan says he is eager to see results from a two-year study of animal feeding operations (AFOs) that will begin in the spring. “Based on current information, it appears that many farms simply will not exceed the major source thresholds,” he says. “The study will assist farms and us in these determinations.”
Viable regulations and good best management practices (BMPs) depend on accurate data, he notes. “For power plants, refineries and factories, we know what the controls are off the top of our heads,” says Kaplan. “For agriculture, it’s not like that. What are the best management practices that can serve as controls? Is it covering the lagoon? Is it a bunch of hay bales? Nobody here wants to do a Ready-Fire-Aim.”
The upcoming nationwide study should provide a vital framework of data that will help regulators and farmers take better aim at the issues. A battery of tests, outlined in a 1,500-page planning document and including 80 operating protocols, record emissions of air pollutants on 19 farms, including seven dairies, eight hog operations, three layer operations and a broiler production facility. Equipment for the study, helmed by Purdue University researcher Al Heber, will be ordered in October, and data collection will begin in April.
Though the research will focus on emissions from the operations as they are currently run, the data could help point the way to better BMPs, notes Heber.
“The stated objective of the project is to quantify the emissions and to answer the question: ‘How much?’” Heber points out. “However, the study will also provide much insight into the characteristics of the emissions and will answer the questions: ‘Where?’ and ‘When?’ For example, we will learn about the effect of animal behavior on emissions because we will monitor both their activity and their emissions in real time. We will learn about the effect of manure characteristics like pH and moisture content, and environmental parameters like temperature and wind on emission rates.”
Clearing the air
Kaplan says the nationwide study reflects EPA’s effort to balance federal law enforcement with recognizing the abundance of variables that surround agricultural operations. “[The study] is an example of trying to achieve that balance,” he says. “The usual way is you sue 10 to 15 individuals—usually the biggest folks—you make them comply, and then everybody else has to comply too. But that model really doesn’t fit here.
“There has been a lot of unfounded concern—‘Oh my God, EPA is coming into a whole new area,’” Kaplan notes, quickly dismissing fears of a campaign to knuckle down on farmers. “Especially the smaller and mid-sized folks, they’re not going to have any requirements at all. For others, there may be some reporting or a permit.”
Still, farmers and ranchers will be watching the skies—and the regulatory landscape—to keep abreast of the new efforts to enlist agriculture’s help in clearing the air.
