The US Environmental Protection Agency has ended its effort to develop methods for monitoring air pollution from factory farms, bringing to a close more than two decades of stop-and-start work on regulating the facilities under the Clean Air Act. The announcement came shortly before the midterm elections, and the agency described the decision as long-awaited relief for farmers.
Concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, can release pollution from animal waste through ventilation fans and large lagoons of liquid effluent. The emissions include fine particulate matter, ammonia, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds. Research cited in the report links emissions from these operations to nearly 12,700 deaths in the United States each year.
CAFOs are generally required to obtain Clean Air Act permits and report emissions under two federal laws: the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. However, a deal involving the EPA and the livestock industry has shielded participating facilities from those requirements for more than 20 years.
The arrangement began in the early 2000s, after the EPA sought to prosecute CAFOs for exceeding limits on some pollutants. Industry representatives argued that no adequate measurement methods existed. The agency then worked with industry groups on an Air Consent Agreement, which offered thousands of CAFOs protection from legal action in exchange for taking part in an industry-funded study.
Critics say the EPA’s decision to abandon the monitoring effort effectively leaves the agency without a path to enforce Clean Air Act requirements at factory farms.
Sources: Ars Technica.