Please friends, let's realize the problem with factory farms is
factory farming -- not the discharge of wastes.
Nope - both are problems, and they're not the only ones. Of course
without the factory farms the waste problem wouldn't exist, but the
waste problem is nonetheless a useful approach, for raising awareness
and for bringing pressure to bear.
There is no stretch of the imagination that can condone the torture,
cruelty and insanity of raising "food" in that way.
I fully agree.
Ever been inside one?
Yup.
Please don't even respond to this e-mail unless you have, or at
least have seen truthful film footage of how animals are raised and
treated. I'd like to think that anyone interested in biofuels would
be absolutely opposed to factory farming.
Absolutely - and if not why not.
The wastes are the least of the problems, in my view.
The wastes are a severe problem in their own right. It's all a
problem. There's nothing good about any aspect of it.
You will, I believe, find previous posts on many or most of the other
problems associated with factory farming in the list archives. That
includes for instance how the feed is produced, a whole other
nightmare, the effects of which are global, with some horrendous
results.
One reason that I posted this here is that we keep having these
band-aid allegedly new-tech industrial "solutions" offered (eg with
turkey wastes) that will turn the wastes into energy, hey, "solving"
the whole problem so we can all ride off into the sunset and everyone
lives happily ever after (except the turkeys). Then some list member
enthuses over its being wondrously environmental, and some of them
have been completely baffled when I've said there's more to it than
that. You see the problem.
Best wishes
Keith
Bo Lozoff
From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Biofuel] Cleaning Up Factory Farms
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 05:24:15 +0900
http://www.alternet.org/story/21391
Cleaning Up Factory Farms
By J.R. Pegg, Environment News Service. Posted March 2, 2005.
The Bush administration thinks it's perfectly OK to let factory
farms discharge waste into the nation's waters. A federal appeals
court says the policy stinks.
The Bush administration's regulations to limit water pollution from
factory farms violate the Clean Water Act and must be revised, a
federal appeals court ruled Monday. The court found the regulations
failed to ensure that factory farms would be held accountable for
discharging animal wastes into the nation's waters.
The ruling, released Monday by a three judge panel of the 2nd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, is a major victory for
environmentalists who filed suit against the February 2003 rules.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance and an
NRDC senior attorney, called the regulations the "product of a
conspiracy between a lawless industry and compliant public
officials in cahoots to steal the public trust."
"I am grateful that the court has taken the government and the
barons of corporate agriculture to the woodshed for a well-earned
rebuke," Kennedy said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which issued the
rules, was not available for comment on the ruling.
The decision continues a long-running battle over how to regulate
factory farms - known as concentrated animal feeding operations
(CAFOs). CAFOs have emerged as the dominant force in the modern
production of agricultural livestock as the size of livestock
operations has grown over the past two decades. These operations
produce some 500 million tons of animal waste annually - disposal
and storage of this waste presents serious risks to public health
and the environment.
CAFOs often over-apply liquid waste on land, which runs off into
surface water, killing fish, spreading disease, and contaminating
drinking water supplies. Waste can leak onto the land and into
groundwater and drinking water supplies from the massive waste
storage units on the farms.
Three decades ago the U.S. Congress identified CAFOs as point
sources of water pollution to be regulated under the Clean Water
Act's water pollution permitting program. The 2003 rule aimed to
implement that decision - it applies to some 15,500 livestock
operations across the country.
Large CAFOs are defined in the regulations as operations raising
more than 1,000 cattle, 700 dairy cows, 2,500 pigs, 10,000 sheep,
125,000 chickens, 82,000 laying hens, or 55,000 turkeys in
confinement.
The regulations require these operations to apply for discharge
permits under the Clean Water Act every five years and develop
nutrient management plans to manage and limit pollution - or
otherwise demonstrate that they have no potential for discharge.
The Bush administration said the rules balanced environmental
protection with the concerns of a competitive and economically
important industry. But the court described the regulations as
"arbitrary and capricious" and said the Clean Water Act "demands
regulation in fact, not only in principle."
The court determined the rules illegally allowed permitting
authorities to issue permits without reviewing the terms of CAFO
plans to manage and limit pollution.
"The CAFO rule does nothing to ensure that each large CAFO will
comply with all applicable effluent limitations and standards," the
panel wrote in its 65-page ruling.
The rule also "deprives the public of the opportunity for the sort
of regulatory participation that the Act guarantees because the
rule effectively shields the nutrient management plans from public
scrutiny and comment," the judges wrote.
The panel agreed with environmentalists who argued that the
regulations violate federal law because they do not ensure that
permits contain specific limits on the amount of pollution CAFOs
can discharge.
"To accept the EPA's contrary argument - that requiring a nutrient
management plan is itself a restriction on land application
discharges - is to allow semantics to torture logic," the court
said.
The agency also failed to require factory farms to use the
necessary technological controls to reduce bacteria and other
pathogens from their pollution, according the ruling.
"The court agreed that there is a better way than the Bush
administration's plan," said Eric Huber, a Sierra Club attorney.
"When technology and existing law can keep animal waste out of our
rivers, why should Americans have to settle for a plan that puts
polluters before the public?"
J.R. Pegg is Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for Environment News Service.
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