The new rules provide "a strong national standard for pollution prevention and environmental protection while maintaining our country's economic and agricultural competitiveness," said Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for water, in a statement.
Environmentalists have long complained that animal feedlots - the large farm operations where hogs and cattle are fattened before slaughter
- pollute waterways because of their huge buildup of manure which is piled up or spread across the land.
The EPA issued new pollution control requirement on such feedlots in 2003, but that regulation was overturned by the courts two years later. The rules issued Friday, to go into effect next February, are an attempt to meet the court's concerns.
Under the rules, a feedlot would not automatically have to obtain a pollution discharge permit and could be certified as voluntarily complying with the "zero discharge" standard. Operators would determine whether their facility is releasing or will release pollution into waterways based on the design of the facility and its operation. If they conclude no discharges will take place, they can operate without applying for a federal permit.
Environmentalists complained this provision will let many of the feedlot operators off the hook.
"This regulation allows these industrial meat farms to avoid the Clean Water Act altogether by certifying that they have taken voluntary action to avoid discharges," said Eric Schaeffer, a former EPA enforcement official who now is director of the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group.
Because feedlot owners are allowed to determine whether they should seek a pollution permit "it literally puts the foxes in charge of their gigantic henhouses, as well as hog and dairy confinement operations," said Schaeffer.
The EPA estimated that the requirements will prevent the release into streams, lakes and other waterways of 56 million pounds of phosphorous, 110 million pounds of nitrogen and 2 billion pounds sediment a year.
