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Breaking News from America's Progressive Community... 1999
Releases
The press releases posted here have been provided to NewsCenter by the one of the many progressive organizations we have selected to participate. If you would like more information about this press release, you should contact the organization directly. |
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| MARCH
8, 1999 7:14 PM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Sierra Club Kathryn Hohmann, 202-675-7916 |
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| Clinton Proposal To Curb Big Pig Pollution "A Mixed Bag"; Strategy for Cleaner Factory Farms Takes Small Steps to Protect Streams and Drinking Water, Holds Owners Responsible for Manure Spills | ||||
| WASHINGTON
- March 8 - The Sierra Club today welcomed parts of the Clinton Administration's plan to curb water pollution from Confined Animal
Feeding Operations (CAFOs), but expressed disappointment that the proposal doesn't go farther to clean up the industry's practices. The
group applauded the Administration's proposal to hold corporate animal owners -- not just the farmers contracted to raise the pigs --
responsible for waste spills and other pollution.
In addition to holding corporate owners responsible for pollution, the plan also earned praise for requiring all new CAFOs to obtain an operating permit. On the other hand, the plan fails to protect groundwater, curb air pollution, ensure citizens can participate in granting permits to new CAFOs, and deal with pig factories' giant lagoons of raw manure. "The Clinton Administration's proposal for livestock factories is a mixed bag," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. "The Administration plan tackles a terrible problem, but fails to offer solutions for the most troubling air and water pollution aspects of these livestock factories. "Sierra Club is happy the government is acknowledging that the corporate hog and poultry industries are polluters out of control who need to be reigned in," Pope continued. "Sierra Club is particularly pleased that the Clinton Administration will be holding corporate owners responsible for pollution -- that's one of the first important steps toward cleaning up the livestock factory industry." Currently, CAFOs contract small farmers to raise their animals, but only the farmer is held responsible for the animals' waste. Under the new plan, animal owners who have substantial control over the farmers' practices would be prevented from passing the buck onto the small contractors. Instead, the corporate owners would share responsibility with the contract farmer for pollution clean-up. In addition, the plan will require that new livestock factories obtain operating permits. "No longer will corporate factory farms be able to shirk responsibility from cleaning up the pollution they created," said Hank Graddy, a Kentucky environmental leader who chairs Sierra Club's CAFO campaign. "Unfortunately, the Administration blew its opportunity to take other big steps to attack the pollution problem head on. This plan could have prevented environmental disasters before they happened, rather than just spreading the blame after the fact." Of crucial importance is cleaning up the giant lagoons in which CAFOs hold tens of millions of gallons of liquid hog manure -- an issue not addressed by the EPA plan. This plan leaves the nation's groundwater vulnerable to manure contamination from lagoons. Spills from these lagoons pollute streams, and manure percolates into groundwater. Until CAFOs use technology rather than lagoons to treat their manure, our streams, air and drinking water will not be safe. These lagoons are built on an enormous scale, with one in Oklahoma covering 11 acres and holding more than 42 million gallons of hog manure. In 1995, a North Carolina lagoon burst, spilling 23 million gallons of raw sewage into the New River -- an amount more than double the Exxon Valdez oil spill. That spill obliterated the river's aquatic life. "When hundreds of thousands of pigs live in cramped quarters at a livestock factory, they produce an enormous amount of waste, and that manure should not simply flow into huge lagoons to spoil our land, air and water," Graddy said. "We wouldn't allow a large city to pump its sewage into a giant lagoon and leave it there. Just as America's clean water laws require cities to treat human waste, we should require livestock factories to treat their manure." Another shortcoming is that the plan does not guarantee that citizens can participate in deciding whether to grant a permit for a new or larger CAFO in their community. "When communities are faced with the prospect of having two Exxon Valdezes worth of hog manure spill into their streams, they deserve some say in whether a livestock factory can be built nearby," Graddy said. "It's essential that citizens can participate in deciding whether or not they should have to breathe the stench of hog manure day after day." Sierra Club is continuing to call for a moratorium on new CAFOs until tough clean air and water standards are in place and existing operations are brought under control. "I'm disappointed that the Administration failed to order a moratorium on new CAFOs," Graddy said. "Livestock factories are fouling our air, polluting our water and poisoning the fish we eat. We should not subject rural communities to these monstrous livestock factories unless the Big Pig and Big Chicken owners agree to operate them cleanly. If you live downwind of a livestock factory, you can't open your windows on a hot summer day, hang the laundry or sit on your porch. And when millions of gallons of manure can seep into local wells, you certainly aren't going to trust your drinking water." ### |
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