CLF Calls for Cleanup of Industrial Farm Pollution: New Report Says Lack of Required Federal Permits Leaves Farmers, Waterways Vulnerable

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Colin Durrant, CLF Director of Communications
617.850.1722

Montpelier, VT (June 30, 2008) – In a new report detailing the state’s failure to control industrial farm pollution, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) today called for the immediate implementation of federal permits for water pollution from Vermont’s industrial farms.

The federal Clean Water Act requires pollution permits for discharges from industrial farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but in a report entitled “Failing our Waters, Failing our Farms,” CLF details how Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) has chosen to ignore that direction from Congress, a mandate from the Vermont Legislature and requests from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to launch the permitting program. The report also analyzes extensive public records from state agencies documenting illegal discharges of agricultural waste from factory farms and details the necessity for adequate pollution controls.

“ANR’s refusal to uphold its legal duties under the Clean Water Act is part of a troubling pattern of regulatory failure that is seriously impacting the long-term health of Vermont’s rivers, lakes and streams,” said Chris Kilian, Director of Conservation Law Foundation’s Vermont Advocacy Center.

Based on its findings in the report, CLF has also submitted a letter to the EPA requesting that agency officials require the state to regulate discharges from CAFOs consistent with ANR’s delegated duties to implement the Clean Water Act.

As critical, delegated federal cleanup programs sit on the shelf, Vermont’s water quality continues to degrade. Every year, Vermont farms generate 146 million pounds of manure, enough to fill nearly 500,000 standard American bathtubs or 3,660 ten-wheel dump trucks. Current evidence shows Vermont waters filling with manure-related pollutants such as E. coli, and phosphorus. These types of pollutants flow from poorly-managed agricultural activities that are subject to federal permitting requirements.

To address these problems, Congress and the EPA developed the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation program. The program requires industrial farms that confine hundreds and in some cases thousands of animals to obtain permits designed to control and eliminate pollution discharges from these operations.

Rather than implement the program, however, ANR has chosen a “wait and see” approach to the rules, a position a 2006 EPA communication to ANR deemed “unacceptable.” The EPA has insisted more than once that ANR implement a CAFO permitting program. The Vermont General Assembly directed ANR to adopt regulations for such a program by July 2007-yet almost a year later ANR has failed to even propose such regulations much less adopt and implement them.

Time is running out for both the state’s waterways and the state’s vulnerable farmers, who could be subject to costly litigation without necessary permits and guidance from ANR.

“We simply cannot afford to leave clean water laws unimplemented and unenforced,” said Anthony Iarrapino, lead author of the report and clean water attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, “especially when the result is raw animal waste being discharged into the lakes, rivers and streams where we fish and swim.”

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The Conservation Law Foundation (www.clf.org) works to solve the most significant environmental challenges facing New England. CLF’s advocates use law, economics and science to create innovative strategies to conserve natural resources, protect public health and promote vital communities in our region. Founded, in 1966, CLF is a nonprofit, member-supported organization with offices in Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.