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SEPTEMBER 20,
1999 4:21 PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Sierra Club
Ed Hopkins, 202-675-7908
Megan Fowler, 415-977-5627
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| Floyd's Floods Intensify Health Risk From Factory Farms |
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WASHINGTON
- September 20 - In the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd's environmental devastation
in North Carolina and Maryland's Eastern Shore, the Sierra Club today called
upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prevent massive amounts
of animal waste from entering rivers by banning "lagoons" - the giant cesspools
used to store animal waste - and prohibiting the construction of factory farms
in floodplains.
Hurricane Floyd has created unprecedented contamination in North Carolina's
waterways. It is reported that 100,000 hogs and 1 million chickens are dead and
Neuse Riverkeeper Rick Dove has estimated that breached lagoons have discharged
an excess of 100 million gallons of hog waste. On Maryland's Eastern Shore,
massive amounts of chicken waste has washed into the Chesapeake Bay threatening
to destroy fish and wildlife habitat.
"The Sierra Club extends its deepest sympathy to the victims of this terrible
disaster. While we cannot keep hurricanes from happening, we can reduce the
damage they cause," said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.
"Recovering from a hurricane is tough enough without this major water pollution
crisis."
"Disastrous leaks and spills from these animal waste cesspools have occurred
during far less severe storms in North Carolina and other states," Pope stated.
"The environmental disaster caused by the inundation of hog lagoons and massive
hog and chicken farms in North Carolina and Maryland is a wake-up call for tough
national rules on industrial livestock operations. It's time for the EPA to
prohibit this antiquated and inherently unsafe technology and require the
phase-out of existing lagoons."
Animal waste is responsible for polluting 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states
and contaminating groundwater in 17 states, according to a 1998 EPA study.
U.S. EPA is currently requesting comments on new guidance for issuing Clean
Water Act permits for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). This is
the first action the Clinton Administration has taken since the EPA and USDA
released a strategy for dealing with animal waste pollution problems in March.
"EPA's proposal is pitifully weak and fails to address the water pollution
problems factory farms cause across America," said Ed Hopkins, Sierra Club's
Senior Washington Representative. He also noted that the agency's proposal fails
even to take obvious steps to protect water, such as prohibiting the
construction of factory farms in floodplains, requiring governmental review of
manure management plans, and phasing out the use of open-air lagoons for waste
storage.
"Regulations should be designed to protect our waterways and ensure that factory
farms are not located in areas subject to flooding and other periodic - and
predictable - natural disasters," Hopkins concluded.
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