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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe E.P.A. Backs Off on regulating Factory Farms
The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged under the Clean Water Act to monitor Americas waterways and shield them from the toxic runoff from factory farms. But the growth of that industry, and its courtroom tenacity, has far outstripped the E.P.A.s efforts to restrict runoff from manure lagoons and feedlots.
Last year, the agency meekly withdrew two proposed rules. One would have gathered basic information from all factory farms. The other proposed rule would have expanded the number of such farms required to have a national pollution discharge permit. Fewer than 60 percent do now.
Then, last week, in yet another retreat, the agency announced that promised new regulations governing feedlot discharges nationally would not be forthcoming.
According to the E.P.A.s own studies, agricultural runoff is the leading cause of impaired water quality. The amount of manure produced by factory farms is staggering. The agency estimates that those operations create between 500 million and 1 billion tons of manure, three times as much waste as humans produce in the United States. The task of keeping those hundreds of millions of tons of animal waste out of rivers, lakes and estuaries is enormous, clearly requiring a strong set of revised regulations for the handling of factory-farm waste, including provisions for tracking waste when its been moved offsite.
Right now, the patchwork of regulations which assume a great deal of self-policing suits the factory-farm industry all too well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/opinion/the-epa-backs-off-on-factory-farms.html?_r=2&
BTW... be sure
to google FDA and chicken inspections and the new changes.
cali
(114,904 posts)so ag runoff is the LEADING CAUSE OF IMPAIRED WATER QUALITY, and the EPA under a Democratic admin is refusing to regulate.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)K&R
Well, we might as well start a list. Heard while ago that the EPA isn't going to finish a "Fracking Polution Study"..... Check it out:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023059829
Hell, it ain't no wonder everybody's sick!
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)He might like to see this too.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)Disgusting
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)Now the Agency is simply gonna rubber fucking stamp everything industry wants. Obama doesn't need to appear to give a shit any more. Just this week, the EPA decided not to publish the reports on their research into the cause of contamination of drinking water in Pavillion, Wyoming (hint: it's fracking).
Come and let me know how Obama is powerless with this Congress.
jsr
(7,712 posts)One of the four pillars of Reagan's economic policy.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)clean water anyway??