 |
Note: This information is provided for reference purposes only. Although the information provided here was accurate and current when first created, it is now outdated. |
|
Note: This information is provided for reference purposes only. Although the information provided here was accurate and current when first created, it is now outdated. |
1 PUBLIC LISTENING SESSION
2
3
4 DRAFT USDA/EPA UNIFIED NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR
5 ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIONS
6
7
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9
10 DECEMBER 9, 1998
11 4:00 - 7:00 PM
12
13 CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO HOLIDAY INN
14 1400 MARKET STREET, CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE
15 ----------------------------
16
17
18
19 MODERATOR: DR. BILLY HICKS
20 DEAN
21 UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE
22 AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICE
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1 LISTENING PANEL MEMBERS:
2 GLENDA HUMISTON,
Deputy Under Secretary
3 for Natural Resources and Environment
4 JAMES FORD,
USDA/NRCS
5 State Conservationist for Tennessee
6 MIKE MCGHEE,
Director
7 Water Management Division
EPA Region 4
8
LOUIS BUCK,
9 Assistant Commissioner
Tennessee Department of Agriculture
10
PAUL DAVIS,
11 Director
Tennessee Division of Water Pollution Control
12
FRED LINDSEY,
13 Deputy Director
Office of Waster Water Management
14
WILL HALL,
15 Team Leader
National APO Strategy
16 EPA Headquarters
17 JOE DELVECCHIO
Team Leader
18 National AFP Strategy
USDA Headquarters
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1 TECHNICAL PANEL REPRESENTATIVES:
2 JAMES SIMS,
USDA-NRCS
3 Tennessee Conservation Engineer
4 ROGER PFAFF
Program Manager
5 Water Programs Enforcement Branch
6 ROOSEVELT CHILDRESS,
Chief
7 Surface Water Permits Section
EPA Region 4
8
9 STEVE CARMICHAEL,
USDA/NRCS
10 Liaison to EPA, Region 4
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1 MR. LINDSEY: Good afternoon, ladies
2 and gentlemen.
3 I'm Deputy Director of the Office of
4 Waste Water Management at EPA, and I would like
5 to start by thanking each and every one of you
6 for taking time out of your busy schedules to
7 come down here today and share with us your
8 thoughts, your concerns and whatever issues you
9 may have related to this Animal Feeding Operation
10 Strategy Draft that the EPA and Department of
11 Agriculture have put together.
12 This is the eighth of twelve of these
13 listening sections that we're conducting across
14 the country. We'll finish this process next
15 week.
16 The Draft Unified Strategy came about
17 as a result of direction which we got from the
18 president back in February, that the two agencies
19 participated, along with other agencies, in
20 something called the Clean Water Action Plan.
21 It's a -- the Clean Water Action Plan
22 is a list of some hundred activities and actions
23 that the president wants various federal agencies
24 to take to get on with and finish the job of
25 protecting our nation's surface waters from the
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1 human health and environmental perspective. And
2 the National Strategy for Animal Feeding
3 Operations was a major plank in this Clean Water
4 Action Plan.
5 I think the -- no one would disagree
6 that over the last twenty years or so there have
7 been some rather dramatic changes in the animal
8 feeding industry, and this has certainly promoted
9 some public concern, and we think that's
10 demonstrated the need for a nationally consistent
11 approach to protecting public health and the
12 environment.
13 Certainly, production technology has
14 changed and there has been some centralization of
15 the industry in various areas, and individual
16 operations have certainly gotten larger over
17 time.
18 What we're trying to do with the
19 strategy is to develop a protective level playing
20 field on a national basis by developing national
21 performance expectations for these kind of
22 operations. And we recognize that in order to
23 preserve, not only health and the environment,
24 but also to maintain a sustainable and economical
25 viable animal feeding operation, that we're all
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1 going to have to work together in this area.
2 And what we're trying to do here
3 today is twofold, really. One is to help further
4 inform those of you who have shown interest in
5 this area, and certainly you have by coming down
6 here today, a little bit more about what we're
7 arguing and why we have done what -- what we have
8 in this strategy, what it contains, but more
9 importantly to hear from you, as I said earlier,
10 what your interests are, what your concerns are,
11 what issues you may see and what problems you may
12 see, so that we can get back together and take
13 advantage of those in producing a more -- a
14 better document in the final analysis.
15 From the standpoint of the
16 Environmental Protection Agency, I would just
17 like to say that we're delighted to be a partner
18 with the Department of Agriculture in this
19 activity.
20 The NRCS brings to the table some
21 sixty years or more of experience in working with
22 the producer community on a variety of voluntary
23 programs such as this in environmental and other
24 fields, and just has a series of networks and
25 mechanisms and tools which really complement what
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1 we have.
2 Our expertise is obviously in the
3 environmental field, and our tools are for the
4 most part regulatory, so I think we complement
5 each other in this case. We think that the
6 linchpin of this whole strategy is probably the
7 development of the Comprehensive Nutrient
8 Management Plans and implementation of those
9 management plans.
10 Our goal is that by 2008, that we
11 would like to see every animal feeding operation
12 have a nutrient -- Comprehensive Nutrient
13 Management Plan, and we think that will largely
14 resolve any of the problems that may exist.
15 All of this is, of course, going to
16 take resources. For our part, we're working hard
17 to obtain the necessary resources, and we will
18 hear some of that a little bit later.
19 And we know that it's going to
20 require resources in the private sector, as well,
21 but we think that the results will be of
22 tremendous value to human health and the
23 environment.
24 In sum, just let me say that this is
25 a Draft Strategy, something that the two agencies
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1 have put together. And we're making these rounds
2 and obtaining these comments, getting written
3 comments, which incidentally are due on the 19th
4 of January for anyone choosing to make those.
5 And we will then put together a work
6 group to finalize this document and then move on
7 from there.
8 It is not -- it does not implement
9 any new regulations or regulatory programs or
10 anything like that. I like to think of this as
11 sort of a road map from where the two agencies
12 are heading as we try to deal with this issue.
13 With that, I would like to introduce
14 my co-chair, if you will, of this session, Glenda
15 Humiston, who is Deputy Under Secretary for
16 Natural Resources and Environment at USDA.
17 Glenda?
18 MS. HUMISTON: Thank you, Fred.
19 It's really a pleasure to be here. I
20 have had this position as Deputy Under Secretary
21 at the U.S. Department of Agriculture for just
22 not quite five months now.
23 The very first task handed to me was
24 putting together this Draft Strategy.
25 Some of you who may have been at
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1 meetings a little over a year ago, when the first
2 draft of the Clean Water Action Plan came out.
3 Might remember that my boss and Fred's boss were
4 joking on the difficulty of trying to get EPA and
5 USDA cultures together.
6 And as I remember, what they said was
7 all of EPAs programs are 319 and 205 and 208
8 where at USDA we have EQP and WRP and CRP and ACP
9 and all these other programs. And what it looked
10 like is EPA didn't know how to spell and USDA
11 didn't know how to add.
12 And trying to put that Draft Strategy
13 together, sometimes it felt like that.
14 Well, I have to tell you working on
15 the Animal Feeding Operation Strategy, we moved
16 right into long division and really serious
17 technicalities of grammar, as it were.
18 I think it's a good strategy that we
19 have laid out for y'all to respond to.
20 All I would say in my comments to
21 start this off before we turn it over to the
22 staff, who are going to do a fantastic job of
23 laying out the basics of it for you, is I would
24 like to emphasize three things in particular.
25 As Fred mentioned, this is not a new
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1 rule. We have actually had some confusion in
2 previous sessions with people thinking this is a
3 rewrite of the Clean Water Act itself, and it's
4 actually not. What this strategy is built upon
5 is existing authorities, existing regulations of
6 law and existing programs.
7 Now, as Fred also alluded to, as far
8 as the program delivery goes, all of us are
9 fighting some budget situations, and in
10 particular some serious budget cuts for FY 99,
11 and as far as the regulatory authorities go, I
12 think it's fair to say that the Clean Water Act,
13 as many of our senators have said, is going to be
14 reopened in the 106th Congress, and who knows
15 where that is going to go.
16 But with this strategy you are
17 looking at existing law. And what we have tried
18 to do is put that regulatory existing law into a
19 complementary program with voluntary technical
20 assistance programs that USDA offers. And we
21 have also tried to clearly maintain what the
22 Secretary and Administrator Browner have called
23 fire walls between the two.
24 In other words, protecting the
25 confidentiality of proprietary information, that
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1 say a private landowner might provide putting
2 together a conservation plan.
3 Now, when the conservation plan, when
4 that landowner turns that conservation plan over
5 to the EPA or state regulatory agency to use in a
6 permitting situation, that's up to them. But the
7 background info, which sometimes is financial --
8 and one thing I like to remind folks who have
9 been a little bit unhappy over that
10 confidentiality issue is that I don't think many
11 of us would like our IRS text returns turned over
12 to the general public either. So there's that
13 type of specific info.
14 The other thing I would remind you,
15 and this is actually an apology, some people have
16 been upset that the verbal comments you make
17 today are not part of the official Federal
18 Register. Part of the reason for that is that we
19 were only able to select twelve cities and
20 it's -- it gives an unfair advantage to citizens
21 around those cities versus citizens who aren't
22 able to get to those cities for verbal comment.
23 That's why we're insisting, if you
24 want to be part of the official Federal Register,
25 you have to send it in writing. But we do have
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1 addressed envelopes to make it easy. But let me
2 assure you, we do have a very wonderful
3 stenographer over here or whatever -- I probably
4 screwed the term up -- court reporter, thank you,
5 who is getting this down verbatim.
6 So your verbal comments will be
7 available to us verbatim as our staff works on
8 this in January, if you aren't able to get
9 written comments in. But please, I would urge
10 you to do that, which kind of segues into my last
11 point is that we truly are here to listen.
12 This is the first attempt to put a
13 strategy like this together. And even though I
14 think we did an awfully good job, we had a lot of
15 staff working on this.
16 We went through it with a fine tooth
17 comb trying to make it a good comprehensive
18 balanced strategy. I'm quite sure we missed some
19 stuff. And also, I'm quite sure there are some
20 pretty fantastic ideas -- that's always been my
21 experience -- out in the field, that frankly we
22 just didn't know about. Examples of how to make
23 something work or examples of a new way to do
24 something, new technologies, perhaps, to help
25 solve problems.
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1 So I would urge you today that if you
2 are here to tell us to just throw this thing
3 away, I urge you to rather come up and tell us
4 how we can make this thing really good, this
5 strategy, because it is going to be worked on, it
6 is going to be rewritten and we're going to move
7 forward with it.
8 So, with that, I am going to turn it
9 over to our moderator, Dr. Billy Hicks, from the
10 University of Tennessee, and he will be the boss
11 for the rest of this session.
12 MR. HICKS: Thank you.
13 The first thing I would like to do is
14 make the announcement for the hearing impaired.
15 Would the signer come forward?
16 We have a signer here for the hearing
17 impaired and we would like to know that now, so
18 that if the person is not needed, then we can
19 discontinue that phase of the operation.
20 Is there a need for the hearing
21 impaired?
22 Okay. Thank you very much.
23 I'll let you folks go ahead. Come
24 forward and pick up with the overview then of the
25 Clean Water Action Plan.
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1 MS. FARZAAD: They're all doing this
2 because none of them can say my name.
3 I just thought I would fill you in on
4 this little secret. My name is Marjan Farzaad.
5 I work down in Atlanta in EPA Region 4 and I'm
6 the Clean Water Action Plan coordinator.
7 About nine o'clock Monday morning, I
8 was told I would be here this afternoon, much to
9 my surprise and joy. And so what I'm going to
10 try to do is tell you all 111 action items in the
11 Clean Water Action Plan in less than ten minutes.
12 Absolutely not.
13 But I -- what I will try and do is
14 give you some idea of what it is, why it came to
15 be, how the Animal Feeding Strategy is decided,
16 if that's the right word for it.
17 Can y'all see this? If I am in
18 y'alls way, just holler at me.
19 There are several things that
20 happened and led us to the point of this plan
21 being developed and getting all these federal
22 agencies together to talk to one another.
23 In order to appreciate it, we find
24 you have to look back at the history of how did
25 we do on our waters over the years to get to this
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1 point.
2 You think back to the seventies and
3 the environmental movement and clean water
4 becoming a goal nationally and people becoming
5 aware of it, most of which we were concerned with
6 was point source discharges.
7 What that means is coming out of a
8 pipe, coming out of a ditch. It's coming
9 generally out of a factory or a sewage treatment
10 plant or something to that effect.
11 And it had certain advantages. You
12 could come up with a technology-based control,
13 namely a system of treatment or machine or
14 something that took the nasties out. But you
15 knew where the nasties were coming out and how
16 many of them there were. There were
17 approximately sixteen thousand of them
18 nationwide.
19 And then you would be done.
20 Well great, the world changed in the
21 meantime. So instead of sixteen thousand pipes
22 and sixteen thousand factories, or whatever they
23 were at the beginning, about five or ten years
24 ago when we started reassessing our nation's
25 water, we said, well, gee, you know, we did
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1 pretty darn good. We've got quite a bit of
2 reduction and the problems that we had in the
3 environment, most of our water is a whole lot
4 better off than they used to be.
5 Then why is it that forty percent of
6 them are still not meeting the goals that we set
7 up for our nation's waters?
8 Well, see, you look at the landscape,
9 you have got the answer. I'm sure every one of
10 you lives in a community where you look at urban
11 sprawl taking over, where there's a lot of
12 conversion to a lot of different types of
13 activity going on from farming to partial
14 cultures -- either one to development and
15 industry coming in where it didn't use to be.
16 And we got into this business of what
17 they called polluted runoff or non point source
18 pollution coming off of every piece of land in
19 this country.
20 I don't care how good government is.
21 I don't care how much our hearts are in it. We
22 can't be on every piece of property in this
23 country. So we can't fix it alone.
24 So inherent in the idea of the Clean
25 Water Action Plan was the thought process that it
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1 is going to take all of us to make it work -- not
2 just government, not just regulatory agencies,
3 not just even just incentive-based programs, but
4 all of us in one way, shape or form.
5 Now, in order for that to happen a
6 lot of other things have to happen.
7 Let me just give you some background
8 in the action plan itself. As we mentioned
9 earlier it was introduced in February by
10 Vice-President Gore. It targets the programs of
11 nine different federal agencies. I brought a
12 bunch of copies of it in the back, but y'all have
13 to sign an affidavit that you're going to read it
14 before you take one, because I didn't bring
15 enough for everybody. They didn't tell me who
16 they invited to the party.
17 So either share, be good citizens and
18 share or really read it, if you take one, because
19 it is relatively pretty voluminous. It does have
20 some good things to say about a whole lot of
21 things, so it's not that bad of a reading. So if
22 you take one,please do try to read it.
23 We'll talk about how Animal Feeding
24 Strategies fit into all this in a second.
25 So we talked about the fact that
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1 there are still some problems out there we need
2 to address, and the nature of them is very
3 different than what it used to be.
4 The concept of cleaning your own
5 house first, federal government, then becomes the
6 second guiding principle of all this. The non
7 federal agencies I mentioned, each and every one
8 of them, have programs that somehow feed into the
9 concept of clean water, better environment,
10 healthy places for people to live, clean drinking
11 water.
12 How to tap for -- all these things
13 mesh together. And historically we have all been
14 doing them separately. We haven't been
15 necessarily discussing each other's priorities
16 with one another and NRCS might have been doing
17 something here. EPA is doing something right
18 next door we didn't even know they were there,
19 vice versa, and on and on we go.
20 So, the first thing it lays out in
21 front of us is a bunch of different things that
22 say y'all need to work together.
23 No new programs, as we mentioned
24 earlier, but what you're doing today we need to
25 do better together.
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1 Let's get rid of the duplication and
2 let's come up with some better ideas and pool our
3 resources. Let's find new ways and better ways
4 to do the same thing that we have been doing with
5 the existing authorities that we have. Okay.
6 Also inherent in that concept is the
7 federal government manages a whole bunch of land.
8 And so if it's important for y'all to do
9 something right on your land, it sure as heck is
10 important for the federal government to do the
11 same thing.
12 So agencies such a the U.S. Forest
13 Service, U.S. Department of Interior -- those are
14 the two biggies with the Bureau of Land
15 Management, who are charged with doing certain
16 things better and given certain goals to carry
17 out on the federal lands that they have
18 responsibility for.
19 So this concept of integration,
20 you're going to hear this over and over again as
21 I go through, is very key to making this plan
22 work. We need stakeholder ownership. What is
23 that and how do we get it?
24 Well, stakeholders are you, you're
25 here because you have shown an interest, and it's
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1 me and it's your neighbor next door and it's
2 whoever else is around.
3 But how can stakeholders become
4 owners of the concepts that are going to work on
5 the ground?
6 Well, this strategy that you're going
7 to be hearing about tonight is probably one of
8 the better examples we have of this.
9 Once again, it is the philosophy that
10 works. If the nitty gritty of stuff y'all don't
11 like, y'all think that there is something wrong
12 with it scientifically, economically, we have got
13 to hear from you.
14 You have heard that before and you
15 will hear it again.
16 In order for the citizen to do the
17 right thing, and we're operating under the
18 premise that most people, given the facts, will
19 do the right thing, if it's feasible for them,
20 you have to know what the right thing is. You
21 have to have the information.
22 So in the Clean Water Action Plan,
23 one of the biggest chunks of things that has to
24 happen is you agencies go out there and get the
25 information to the people. There are several
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1 moves afoot to use -- for instance, the world
2 wide web is a very big tool, to present massive
3 volumes of information that have been sitting in
4 different government agencies for a long time,
5 available to anybody who can go to a public
6 library and access the systems for free.
7 It will be there. So you want to
8 learn about your watershed, which is the area
9 that drains that little water body that we all
10 live close to, whatever that might be for your
11 neck of the woods, or you want to learn about it
12 in a larger scale all the way up to the
13 Mississippi River watershed, which drains half of
14 this North American continent, you can go in
15 there and do that -- find information about who
16 is involved, what's happening and what kind of
17 information is being gathered, what does it mean,
18 what industry is doing good, what industry is
19 doing bad, and why.
20 And finally what can you do to become
21 involved, help, or, you know, if it's just to
22 satisfy your curiosity, that's okay, too.
23 What we're hoping though is that once
24 the citizens know the information, they will
25 become part of mechanism that develops the
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1 solution.
2 We don't want to develop all the
3 solutions. We can give you technical
4 information, but we don't want to develop
5 necessarily all the answers out there on a
6 watershed basis around the country because then
7 it's our answers and not your answers.
8 And guess what, you're going to be a
9 lot happier doing things you think are right and
10 you have put blood, sweat and tears into than
11 something that I came up with sitting in a
12 cubicle on the 15th floor in Atlanta.
13 Makes sense, right? Okay.
14 Now, in order for you to come to
15 those correct decisions and develop those
16 solutions, we do recognize, and you have heard
17 this before also tonight, that you do need
18 certain responses -- access to good technical
19 information and advice and the financial
20 resources to then take those solutions and
21 implement them on the ground.
22 We're not saying we have enough of
23 those, but we're saying we'll work with you to
24 find them. It's the best we can do given the
25 budgets and what's going on. But even so, doing
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1 something is going to be better than doing
2 nothing.
3 The 111 action items -- there are a
4 couple of them that I want to point out, which
5 once again demonstrate how they fit into the
6 concept you'll talk about tonight. It was
7 mentioned earlier there are 111 action items.
8 One of the big ones was a charge that
9 was given to the states and the tribes of this
10 country to go out there and once and for all --
11 it's an ongoing process -- but once and for all
12 to start -- to start looking at the watersheds
13 within the boundaries of their states and tribal
14 nations and make an assessment as to the
15 condition of these watersheds.
16 If you are familiar with the United
17 States Geological Survey Hydrologic Units,
18 because they were looking at the whole United
19 States, and it directed them to look at these at
20 the eight digit mapping unit, which is a very big
21 area. It doesn't necessarily matter what it
22 means right now, but it's a big chunk of land.
23 Once those watersheds were assessed,
24 the states and tribes were directed to work with
25 the stakeholders in those watersheds, and we'll
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1 talk about it in a little more detail in just a
2 second, to develop something called Watershed
3 Restoration Action Strategies. Just keep these
4 tucked in the back of your mind for a second.
5 And the AFO strategy will be in a lot
6 of those watersheds, a big chunk of those
7 Restoration Action Strategies. Hold on to all of
8 that for a second.
9 Okay. How are these assessments
10 done, what did they say and how are they going to
11 work?
12 They said go out there and tell me on
13 this eight digit mapping unit whether the
14 watersheds in your state or tribe are a Category
15 1, namely they are impaired. Impaired doesn't
16 mean if you touch them, you're going to drop dead
17 because there is nasty stuff in the water, it
18 means they're not meeting certain clean water or
19 national resource goals.
20 What does that mean?
21 Well, it means there could be one
22 criterion that is causing it not to meet
23 standards, namely for instance, sediment.
24 It might be oversedimenting. It's
25 getting too much runoff from the land around it.
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1 It might have a pathogen problem, critters
2 floating around the water that we don't want in
3 the water, which ties in very big with the AFOs,
4 if you get into nutrient richness and fecal
5 coliform bacteria. You might have heard of that.
6 It's all over the place. We just
7 don't necessarily want it in our drinking water.
8 It doesn't do very good things inside our
9 systems. These aren't creatures from Mars, but
10 they are things that affect each and every one of
11 us.
12 So Category 1, impaired watersheds.
13 Category 2, they meet standards.
14 They might be threatened and maybe urban sprawl
15 is coming. They may not been in the best of
16 shape, but for now they meet standards.
17 Category 3 are watersheds that have
18 very large chunks of federal land on them. It is
19 supposed to tie in with some of the other action
20 items under the Clean Water Action Plan, because
21 like I said, there are nine federal agencies
22 involved.
23 Category 4 is not enough information.
24 And many of our great states are in a position,
25 because of dirth of resources to where they
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1 haven't got around to assessing each and every
2 watershed. They have only managed to go around
3 to places where there's been a need or where they
4 have traditionally done monitoring. So that
5 identifies that there are places that we just
6 need information on.
7 We just don't know enough yet.
8 Doesn't mean it's good, doesn't mean it's bad.
9 It means we have got to find out.
10 Then they were charged, of those
11 Category 1 watersheds, to select three to five
12 that we can start working on now.
13 In order to support that, EPA under
14 their 319, here's one of those numbers. It's the
15 Non Point Source Grant Program. It's a non
16 source program, but under the large grants
17 program was given a chunk of money to put into
18 those priority watersheds selected by the state
19 or tribe, to work on the Watershed Restoration
20 Action Strategies, that are developed by
21 stakeholders.
22 See how all of this reinforces
23 itself? It's got to come from bottom up. Yes,
24 we'll do the assessment. We'll give you the
25 data. But the how to fix it and what your goals
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1 are on the ground level best comes from you.
2 Okay. Now, then there's roles for
3 local, state and federal governments in that.
4 There are things that each of us do better, given
5 the scale of operation that we're in.
6 Local government can deal with
7 issues, for instance, through zoning. Federal
8 government doesn't do zoning. You don't want us
9 to do zoning, and that's cool. We don't want to
10 do it. State governments, they are going to be a
11 whole lot closer to the issue of economic growth,
12 sustainability resource management of that state
13 than either, once again, the locals or the
14 federal.
15 And last but not least, the Feds
16 bring to the table programs that, through
17 matching by the state and local programs, can
18 really give leverage to make those states and
19 local programs a whole lot more than that what
20 they are in terms of resources to start with.
21 So each and every one of us has a
22 role in this. The stakeholder develops it. The
23 rest of us will help you get it on the ground.
24 Okay.
25 You start looking at strategies these
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1 folks are going to lay out for you, if you
2 haven't spend time reading it already, which I
3 assume the reason you're here is you already know
4 a little bit about it, if not all of it, and you
5 see certain parallels between the AFO strategy
6 and the Clean Water Action Plan right off.
7 It involved integrated planning.
8 We're not going to do it alone. We're going to
9 do it with you, and we're going to do it between
10 agencies that are involved and it's going to go a
11 whole lot further than just EPA and NRCS. It's
12 our strategies, granted, that were draft
13 strategies we're putting forth to you but in
14 order for it to be a reality on the ground,
15 there's going to be a whole bunch of other people
16 that need to become involved.
17 And maybe you might provide the
18 mechanisms for their involvement. Maybe you are
19 representatives of them.
20 That includes environmental groups.
21 That include the Soil and Water Conservation
22 districts and a whole bunch of other folks.
23 Okay.
24 It needs to be stakeholder driven.
25 If you don't have buy-ins to whatever specific
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1 management strategy you want to put on the ground
2 on your particular piece of ground in your
3 watersheds, it's not going to work.
4 The specifics can't be the same from
5 place to place. They cannot come up with a
6 strategy or a plan that prescribed to you what to
7 do on this farm because what to do on this there
8 farm isn't the same thing to do on the next farm
9 in another watershed.
10 Your practices might be different.
11 Your soil type might be different. The watershed
12 itself, the hydrological characters might be
13 different, so it has to be site specific and who
14 knows your land better than you? Okay.
15 There will be incentives provided
16 through the voluntary programs to help make this
17 implemental because we do realize it does require
18 resources.
19 There's a regulatory side to this
20 equation. My analogy for it -- how am I doing on
21 time -- is that you're the mayor of a small city,
22 everybody in the city is a vegetarian and they
23 are all overweight. And you need to come up with
24 somewhere for the waste water to go. That's my
25 analogy for a confined, you know, the larger
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1 animal operations.
2 So just as we regulate our own waste
3 water treatment plants certain amounts of
4 regulation are necessary for the very large
5 operations for them to work.
6 Folks ask us to go into detail and we
7 did cover it. We do need industry leadership for
8 this to work. I can't stress that enough. And
9 let me admit to the fact that we have got a long
10 way to go and there's a lot of things we don't
11 know.
12 You all know what happens if you have
13 got a thousand AFOs in the same small watershed
14 and half of them are doing right and half of them
15 aren't doing right. There is going to be some
16 cumulative impact. We'll need to work through
17 those together. And stakeholders in that
18 watershed need to be involved in what ends up
19 being decided, maybe through the Watershed
20 Restoration Action Strategy.
21 We do realize that our own roles
22 aren't necessarily aren't figured out all the way
23 down to the details. You've got to save some
24 delegated programs and save some non delegated
25 programs. Where do you do assistance and where
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1 you do enforcement? Who is the good guy and who
2 is the bad guy? We don't necessarily know all
3 this stuff yet. We're just trying to be honest
4 with you and realize that there is a lot we need
5 to work through as well.
6 The state of science is always
7 changing. The plans need to be flexible to
8 accommodate that. And the state of your
9 watersheds are always changing. Nature is
10 dynamic. It's not a static force.
11 So, with that, I'll let the folks
12 fill you in on the details. Thank you for your
13 time. Appreciate it.
14 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Marjan.
15 I could have pronounced your name, I
16 just didn't know I was supposed to.
17 Now, we'll have an overview of the
18 USDA/EPA Draft Animal Feeding Operation Strategy.
19 Joe DelVecchio and Will Hall, the USDA/EPA
20 perspective.
21 MR. DELVECCHIO: Welcome, everybody.
22 My name is Joe DelVecchio and I am
23 from the USDA, and we're going to start out today
24 hopefully with a computer that works here.
25 I tried it, but it didn't work. The
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1 first technical glitch. Well, let me just --
2 while we're getting this computer operated, this
3 is Will Hall from EPA. And as we get this fixed,
4 let me just tell you that what we're going to do
5 for you today is a tag team approach.
6 We're going to give you an overview
7 of the Unified Draft Strategy.
8 We're going to do it in a tag team
9 format by using a presentation on the computer,
10 hopefully, and if not, I will have to dig out the
11 old technology and get some overhead up. Here we
12 go.
13 I have already mentioned that this is
14 a Draft Strategy. It's a draft in the fact that
15 we're here to listen to you for public comments,
16 and comments are going to be submitted through an
17 official Federal Register process, and we're
18 going to get back together to develop a final
19 strategy after we go through this public
20 commentary.
21 And it is a strategy. You have
22 already heard that it is not a new regulation.
23 It's not new legislation. And we just want to
24 make it clear that it is a strategy.
25 Now, you have heard already that
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1 there's been tremendous progress in cleaning up
2 the waters of the U.S. over the past twenty-five
3 years. And, in fact, a lot of that was based on
4 the fact that we cleaned up those points sources
5 of pollution.
6 But also, let's not forget about the
7 years that conservation efforts have been in
8 place, too, and the fact that they have had a big
9 impact on cleaning up the waters of the U.S. for
10 probably more than the past twenty five years.
11 So I just want to give credit where credit is
12 due.
13 In the development of the strategy,
14 what we started out with were some general
15 guiding principles as to what we should be doing.
16 There are actually eight guiding principles in
17 the strategy, and we have highlighted five here
18 on the overhead, and basically we want to
19 indicate what the five most important are.
20 And basically what we want to do here
21 is to make sure we minimize the amount of
22 pollution from animal feeding operations and
23 minimize the water quality and public health
24 impacts. We also want to make sure that we're
25 spending our efforts on those animal feeding
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1 operations that create the greatest risks. But
2 at the same time, we want to make sure that we
3 promote and sustain a long term economic
4 viability of the livestock industry. It does
5 account for over fifty percent of entire
6 agricultural economy. So it is an important part
7 of the economy. And having clean water and
8 having a strong livestock industry certainly are
9 not mutually exclusive.
10 The other thing that we wanted to do
11 was we wanted to make sure that all animal
12 feeding operations owners and operators knew what
13 the goals of the strategy was, and also,we wanted
14 to give them a way of meeting that goal. So we
15 have developed a national goal and a national
16 performance expectation.
17 And finally what we wanted to do was
18 to make sure the strategy had actions and had
19 ways for people to coordinate at the national
20 level, not only USDA and EPA, but all agencies
21 involved in clean water.
22 Also, we want to make sure
23 coordination takes place at the state level, the
24 tribal level and the local level. The
25 coordination is -- it can't be stressed enough.
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1 So what is an animal feeding
2 operation? Actually there is a regulatory
3 definition, but let me just say that this is
4 not -- this is a subsegment of the entire
5 livestock industry.
6 Before you think -- I will tell you
7 what the difference is. The livestock industry
8 also includes animals that are grazing on range
9 land or that are out on pasture where they are
10 actually foraging for their own food.
11 Those are not animal feeding
12 operations. For an operation to be an animal
13 feeding operation, it needs to have the animals
14 confined, either in a feedlot or a building, and
15 they need to be fed there. Food needs to be
16 brought to them.
17 Now, in 1992 the Ag census said there
18 were about 450,000 of these animal feeding
19 operations around the nation.
20 But 1992 was six years ago, and in
21 checking with the industry now we find that
22 there's probably fewer than 450,000, but we also
23 find that the ones that are there are probably
24 larger. So there has been quite a bit of
25 consolidation in the industry, so there's
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1 transfer consolidation. That's one of the
2 reasons that we're here.
3 MR. HALL: Well, there are a number
4 of potential issues, environmental and public
5 health issues that you may have heard about in
6 connection with annual feeding operations. There
7 are air quality issues, such as odor or
8 greenhouse gasses. There is that. Other public
9 health issues such as food safety, you may have
10 heard about as well.
11 But this strategy, this Draft
12 Strategy that USDA and the EPA has put together
13 is focused almost exclusively on water quality
14 related issues, the things such as overenrichment
15 of nutrients, pathogen type problems that might
16 occur, drinking water supply contamination that
17 might taking place.
18 And again, just let me emphasize that
19 although there may be other issues that some of
20 the activities and strategies may have a positive
21 impact on, it's the water quality issues that
22 we're primarily focused on here.
23 MR. DELVECCHIO: I mentioned that our
24 guiding principles that we had wanted to
25 establish was a national goal and a national
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1 performance expectation. We're trying to
2 effectuate a change here. We want people willing
3 to change, and so what we felt, as a national
4 goal, the appropriate thing would be for people
5 to take action, those people that are operating
6 their own feeding operation take action to
7 minimize the amount of pollutants that leave
8 their operation.
9 So that's what we have established as
10 our national goal.
11 We feel that a way to accomplish that
12 goal, the expectation that we have to meet this,
13 the performance expectation, would be the
14 development and implementation of technically
15 sound and economically viable Comprehensive
16 Nutrient Management Plans.
17 That raises the issue as to just
18 exactly what is a Comprehensive Nutrient
19 Management Plan. What we decided to do in a
20 strategy is to tell people exactly what it was so
21 there would be no doubt about it.
22 There is a process, a Comprehensive
23 Nutrient Management Plan, that is done by and
24 that process is site specific. It is based on
25 the fact that certain soil or all soils or most
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1 soils are different from place to place.
2 Certainty topography is different. Climate is
3 different.
4 But in the Comprehensive Nutrient
5 Management Plan, we do want to take a look at
6 certain components. If they are applicable in a
7 plan, then we want them to be included in the
8 plan. And what we want to do is look at
9 nutrients as they go through the entire cycles
10 with the animal feeding operation.
11 And before I go any further, I just
12 want to also say that it was mentioned earlier
13 that not only are nutrients causing a public
14 health problem, but so are things like pathogens,
15 specially in drinking water. And we hope that
16 these Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans,
17 even if we used the word nutrient, if they are
18 developed properly, they will also address these
19 pathogen issues.
20 So let me just run down through a
21 list of components that are in Comprehensive
22 Nutrient Management.
23 Again, we want to sort through the
24 cycle so the first place the nutrients enter the
25 cycle are as they are fed to the animal. And so
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1 feed management is our first component.
2 And what we're saying here is, if
3 it's possible to adjust rations, to feed certain
4 supplements or feed enzymes or feed low
5 phosphorous feeds -- whatever. What we're trying
6 to do here is minimize the amount of nutrients
7 that are excreted in the manure.
8 So if there's a possible way of doing
9 that, then that should be included as a part of a
10 component of the Comprehensive Nutrient
11 Management Plan.
12 The next thing we have to deal with
13 is the other end of the animal, and that's the
14 manure produced. And we want to make sure it's
15 handled properly, and if it's stored that it's
16 stored properly. And when we say properly, we
17 mean such that it does not degrade the
18 environment, that pollutants are not lost to the
19 environment.
20 So manure handling and storage is the
21 next component.
22 The third component would be the
23 application of manure to land and making sure
24 that's done in an appropriate way in accordance
25 with agronomic rates and doing nutrient budgets
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1 and balances so it's used properly, because it
2 does have an important source of not only
3 nutrients but organic matter.
4 But we also want to make sure of the
5 next component, which is land management, is
6 done properly because we don't want to do
7 nutrient management properly and then have the
8 land erode and have the excess runoff on the
9 land, so we want to make sure we look at erosion
10 control packages and water management practices
11 so that the land is managed properly.
12 And also we want to make sure that if
13 there are water sources near the land where
14 manure is applied, that they are adequately
15 buffered through the use of either forest buffers
16 or some other type of buffer strips.
17 The next component of the nutrient
18 management plan we call called record keeping.
19 We want to make sure that as manures are produced
20 that we know the volumes that are produced, and
21 we also know where they are ultimately applied to
22 the land. An old saying in our agency used to be
23 if it's not documented, it's not done.
24 And also I was thinking over the
25 weekend that -- there is an analogy applied to
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1 your taxes here. If you don't keep track of what
2 you do during the year, then you don't know how
3 you need to get involved in next year's. So you
4 need to keep track and keep records of what is
5 happening with your manure so that everybody, or
6 so that you know how to implement your plan for
7 next year.
8 And then what we have found in the
9 development of the Comprehensive Nutrient
10 Management Plan, or what may be found, is that
11 there are going to be times when there are just
12 more nutrients produced at the animal feeding
13 operation than there is land available to
14 appropriately and properly apply it.
15 So what we said as part of the
16 Comprehensive Management Plan is that you need to
17 look at other utilization options for manure.
18 And what can they be?
19 We have listed a couple of them in
20 this strategy, but here's an opportunity for --
21 to get some of those ideas that Glenda mentioned,
22 some of those great ideas that we know must be
23 out there, some of those new innovative
24 techniques.
25 What we've mentioned in the strategy
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1 are things like composting manure, treating the
2 manure, brokering the manure to areas that don't
3 raise animals, that just raise crops so that they
4 can make use of the nutrients.
5 Also the conversion of manures to
6 energy. So those are some of the ideas that we
7 have tried in this strategy, but certainly there
8 must be more and we're certainly looking forward
9 to your input on that.
10 MR. HALL: All right.
11 As was mentioned a little earlier
12 about EPA and USDA sitting down to draft this
13 strategy, I believe that there are appropriate
14 roles for both regulatory and voluntary
15 approaches.
16 With that in mind, we wanted to spend
17 some time in the strategy describing the
18 relationship between the voluntary and regulatory
19 programs as they related to animal feeding
20 operations.
21 We wanted to make sure that there was
22 a clear road map on how far each of these
23 approaches would be used and that they were
24 coordinated in complementary roles for each
25 approach.
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1 Now, overall we feel that the vast
2 majority of animal feeding operations,
3 approximately ninety-five percent of the 450,000
4 that Joe mentioned, would be addressed with some
5 kind of voluntary approach. People would
6 participate in existing programs or new programs
7 or new ideas that are developed completely
8 because they think it's a good idea and out of a
9 traditional stewardship ethic that we know many
10 producers have.
11 There are, however, we believe,
12 approximately five percent of the Entire AFO
13 universe that do merit a regulatory kind of
14 approach. And we identified the strategy, and
15 I'll describe that in a few minutes. Some
16 priority areas for focusing the attention of
17 regulatory programs.
18 Now, common to both the voluntary and
19 the regulatory approach are these CNMPs, these
20 Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans that Joe
21 mentioned a few minutes ago.
22 MR. DELVECCHIO: Okay.
23 I'm just going to spend a few minutes
24 discussing what the voluntary approach is and
25 what the voluntary approach is based on.
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1 Will just mentioned that essentially
2 the voluntary program really is based on
3 sustainability and a stewardship ethic that most
4 farmers have in regard to the land that they
5 operate on.
6 And really, that's the entire basis
7 of all the voluntary programs. One thing that we
8 have found most recently since the 1992 Farm Bill
9 passed was that no one knows their resource
10 concerns and their issues in regard to national
11 resource problems or water quality problems any
12 better than the people at the local level. No
13 one knows your problems better than you know in
14 your own community or at your own farm.
15 So when we found that locally led
16 conservation is the key issue to a voluntary
17 program. People will have much more ownership of
18 these programs if they have some impact as to
19 whether these programs are delivered in their
20 area, or whether they are a high priority area or
21 whatever they be.
22 But if they have an opportunity to
23 assess their resources and make some
24 determinations as to what the priorities are to
25 those resource concerns, then the ownership of
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1 those programs are very important, and we find
2 that the implementation is much more complete.
3 Another issue in regard to voluntary
4 programs is the need for environmental education.
5 And I'm sure Dr. Hicks would certainly emphasize
6 this in regard to the extension system here in
7 Tennessee or in any state that the need for
8 environmental education is to let people know
9 what they need to do to implement and develop
10 Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans.
11 Some people just need to have more
12 education in regard to how to do things right.
13 So we feel that certainly an essential and very
14 important component of the voluntary programs is
15 environmental education.
16 Now, of course, there is the need for
17 some consulting or some technical assistance.
18 Again it's a little bit more than
19 environmental education where people may go and
20 learn about these things, but how to implement
21 them is critically important. And also programs
22 that are available to help reduce the financial
23 burden on an already stressed farm economy are
24 critically important.
25 But one thing I need to emphasize
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1 finally on this in regard to voluntary programs
2 is that they are just that, voluntary. And even
3 though we're talking about the development and
4 implementation of Comprehensive Nutrient
5 Management Plans for all animal feeding
6 operations, certainly all we can do in a strategy
7 is strongly encourage that to happen. We cannot
8 require that to happen.
9 MR. HALL: All right.
10 There is a situation the strategy
11 devoted to describing the regulatory programs,
12 the federal regulatory program, for what we call
13 Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, of CAFOs.
14 CAFOs are included in the Federal Clean Air Act
15 in the definition of point source.
16 Point sources are required to have
17 permits under the National Pollutant Discharge
18 Over the Nation System, which is what NPDES
19 stands for.
20 Now the regulations we currently
21 have, the current federal regulations were
22 developed back in the mid 1970s and they include
23 the implementing of the NPDES permitting
24 regulations as well as the effluent guidelines,
25 which are sort of minimum technology based
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1 standards for concentrated animal feeding
2 operations.
3 Forty-three states are authorized by
4 the federal government to implement the NPDES
5 program, so therefore those states would be
6 issuing permits to the concentrated animal
7 feeding operations.
8 In states that do have a coastal
9 zone, there is also enforceable requirements of
10 the Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendment,
11 so it's the CZAR program as it's sometimes known.
12 MR. DELVECCHIO: Okay.
13 The next section of the strategy
14 deals with land application of manure. Now, I've
15 already mentioned this as a component of the
16 Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan, but we
17 felt it was important enough to mention again
18 here in this relationship section between
19 regulatory and voluntary programs.
20 What we found is that -- I mean, it
21 gets right down to the basics. There is a right
22 way of doing things and a wrong way of doing
23 things when it comes to land application of
24 manure.
25 The proper way or the right way of
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1 doing things is to have a plan developed to
2 balance the nutrients, apply it in accordance
3 with the agronomic rates so that the valuable
4 nutrients and organic matter that are in the
5 manure are utilized properly.
6 And in fact, if that happens, it has
7 an impact on the regulatory issue. People would,
8 in fact, be qualified for the Agricultural Storm
9 Water Exemption under the Clean Water Act, if
10 it's done properly.
11 Now, there's also a wrong way of
12 applying manure and that's applying it in excess
13 of the planned amount and in excess of the
14 agronomic rate. This is probably -- this is more
15 than likely going to cause some type of water
16 problem or public health probable. It's the
17 wrong way of doing things, and some people can
18 refer to it as disposing of manure on land.
19 MR. HALL: All right.
20 I mentioned earlier that for the five
21 percent of the AFO universe that we feel should
22 be subject to the regulatory program, we have
23 laid out in the strategy three priority areas for
24 that program.
25 First of all, are those AFOs that
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1 have significant manure production, generally
2 those facilities with greater than a thousand
3 animal units, where the animal unit is equal to
4 one beef cow and translated, depending on the
5 species that you're talking about the operation.
6 The second category are those
7 facilities with unacceptable conditions that
8 might lead to a direct discharge, for example,a
9 man made conveyance of some sort or a situation
10 where the animals have direct access to the water
11 body.
12 And third, those facilities that are
13 significant contributors to water quality
14 impairment as determined through water quality
15 monitoring. We feel this could be determined
16 either from in a watershed scale because of
17 cumulative impacts from these facilities or it
18 could be a case where you have an individual's
19 facilities on an individual water body.
20 I should point out that these
21 priorities do not involve revising the
22 regulations, this would be purely implemented
23 under existing regulations which were
24 promulgated, as I mentioned, back in the mid
25 1970s.
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1 A couple of notes about CNMPs as they
2 relate to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
3 or CAFOs.
4 First of all, we would expect that
5 those CNMPs would be developed in accordance with
6 guidance that EPA will provide. One of our
7 action items in the strategies is to develop
8 guidance on CAFO CNMPs.
9 Second of all, we feel that we will
10 adopt the NRCS practice standards as the
11 appropriate practice standards for the EPA
12 guidance and for the CNMPs developed for CAFOs.
13 We want to ensure that the CNMPs are developed by
14 a person who's certified to do a CNMP. This
15 would include a third party vendor such as the
16 certified crop advisors, as well as federal or
17 state officials, who develop CNMPs as part of
18 their work.
19 Of course, it could include an AFO --
20 excuse me, CAFO owner/operator themselves, if
21 they were certified to do so.
22 But ultimately it is the
23 responsibility of the CAFO owner/operator to seek
24 out assistance, if needed, in developing the
25 CNMP.
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1 MR. DELVECCHIO: While listening to
2 what Will just said, some people may misinterpret
3 the fact that NRCS is going to be providing
4 regulatory standards.
5 In fact, this is what we call one of
6 those fire wall issues that was mentioned early.
7 Will said that the regulatory agency, or EPA,
8 would adopt the NRCS standards as the appropriate
9 standards.
10 And in fact, when that happens those
11 standards become the regulatory authority
12 standards. So they will adopt them as their
13 regulatory standards, even though they are
14 adopting the NRCS's standards.
15 The other issue that I want to make
16 sure is clear is that USDA still has the ability
17 and will work with the regulated community in
18 regard to animal feeding operations. But when we
19 do did that we will work directly with the
20 producer the same way we have over the sixty-five
21 years of our existence.
22 We will develop a plan in conjunction
23 with the owner and operator.
24 As Will said on his slide here, it is
25 the responsibility of the owner/operator to
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1 deliver that plan to the regulatory authority.
2 So there will be no direct linkage between USDA
3 and the regulatory authority as far as the
4 delivery of the plan.
5 Now, one other thing that we felt was
6 important in regard to the Comprehensive Nutrient
7 Management Plans was to try to impart them as
8 strategies, some incentives for people to do
9 these.
10 And we have devised two things here
11 in the strategy. One deals with the regulated
12 animal feeding operation or the CAFO and one
13 deals with the non regulated. What we have
14 devised as an incentive is that the smaller
15 CAFOs, those that are less than a thousand animal
16 units or those that are not in watersheds.
17 The impaired watersheds that as Will
18 mentioned was one of the permitting priorities,
19 if they can develop their Comprehensive Nutrient
20 Plan and implemented it for the term of their
21 NPDES permit, which is usually a five year term.
22 If they meet all their permit requirements, they
23 are going to be allowed to exit the regulatory
24 program.
25 In implementing the Comprehensive
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1 Nutrient Management Plan, that's going to assure
2 that they are nearly, or will certainly assure
3 that they are going to meet their requirements,
4 and again, they will be allowed to become a non
5 regulated animal feeding operation.
6 Now, we certainly don't anticipate
7 that someone will stop implementing the nutrient
8 management plan at this point because if they
9 have another discharge, they are going to go back
10 to into the regulatory program. So there is
11 incentive to implement the Comprehensive Nutrient
12 Management Plan to stay out of the regulatory
13 program.
14 Now, for other animal feeding
15 operations, what we feel is a good incentive, and
16 we called it a good faith incentive, and we have
17 borrowed that terminology from the Farm Bill, is
18 that a smaller AFO takes the initiative, the
19 voluntary initiative, to develop a Comprehensive
20 Nutrient Management Plan and begin the
21 implementation of that plan, and then for some
22 reason, and I apologize to anyone whose name is
23 Murphy in the room, but if Murphy's Law is in
24 place anyplace it's always in place on a farm.
25 So, if for some reason something goes
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1 wrong, manure spreader tips over or a wrong valve
2 is turned someplace or there's actually a
3 discharge. If in good faith, they have been
4 implementing their Comprehensive Nutrient
5 Management Plan, they do, in fact, have this
6 discharge that would normally cause them to be
7 regulated, they are going to be given a one-time
8 opportunity to fix the problem, to make sure that
9 it never happens again, and stay on the voluntary
10 side of the issue.
11 MR. HALL: Now, having laid out the
12 national performance expectation and national
13 goals, as well as describe the relationship
14 between the voluntary and regulatory approaches
15 that we feel will be part of addressing AFO
16 quality issues, we also wanted to outline several
17 strategic issues that we feel are critical to
18 achieving our national goal and performance
19 expectation.
20 Now, in each case we have described
21 what the issue is and the strategy. We have
22 listed what we expect to be the desired outcome
23 from each of those -- in each of those issue
24 areas. And then finally a set of action items in
25 each issue area. Sometimes they are options,
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1 sometimes they are things we feel a bit more
2 definite about, to sort of further progress and
3 in each issue area. And what Joe and I want to
4 do is walk through a brief description of each
5 one of these.
6 The first strategic issue that you
7 have heard today that CNMPs are a major feature
8 of our Draft Strategy, and with that in mind, we
9 want to make sure there is enough capacity out
10 there to develop and implement these CNMPs.
11 First of all, we feel it's important
12 to increase the number of certified specialists
13 for both private and public sectors, who are
14 certified to develop CNMPs.
15 Now, this is particularly true for
16 the private sector because, let's face it,
17 budgets never seem to get larger in our business
18 and there is a lot of work out there to do. And
19 so we feel it's really, really important for the
20 private sector to take a leadership role in
21 developing CNMPs.
22 Second of all, we want to ensure that
23 CNMPs are implemented into the guidance of
24 qualified specialists, someone the owner/operator
25 can go to get assistance as they implement their
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1 CNMP.
2 Third, we want to make sure CNMPs are
3 of consistent quality, so if you go to a place in
4 Tennessee and go to a place out in South Dakota
5 someplace, you can see that the level of quality
6 is consistently high in CNMPs.
7 And then finally ultimately, we would
8 like to see all AFOs owners and operators have a
9 CNMP developed by a certified specialist. Now,
10 again, for ninety-five percent of the folks, this
11 is something we would simply encourage.
12 As I mentioned in the regulatory
13 program, we would expect that to be the case.
14 MR. DELVECCHIO: Our next strategic
15 issue deals with accelerating voluntary programs.
16 If the voluntary programs are going to deal with
17 the vast majority of animal feeding operations,
18 there needs to be ways to make sure that they are
19 going to available to them.
20 One thing that we have established as
21 a goal in this strategic issue is that there
22 should be, in a ten year period, and we have used
23 2008 here or maybe the final strategy will say
24 2009, but in a ten year period that all animal
25 feeding operations should have developed
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1 Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans that
2 begin their implementation.
3 Now, that's all, especially on the
4 voluntary side of all animal feeding operations.
5 We estimate there is probably 300,000 that either
6 need updated nutrient management plans or need
7 brand new nutrient management plans. So that is
8 a tremendous workload.
9 We want to make sure that as we
10 develop these nutrient management plans and
11 implement them that we're going to get the best
12 and the most environmental benefits for the
13 dollar that is expended, both in development and
14 implementation of it.
15 We want to make sure that everyone in
16 the country has access to these voluntary
17 programs on a non discriminatory basis, so that
18 there is equal opportunity for everybody to
19 participate in the voluntary programs.
20 We also want to make sure that there
21 are good technically sound national standards and
22 national guidance for voluntary programs. So we
23 feel that we can develop good guidance based on
24 science and provide that through the NRCS field
25 level's technical guide and through other
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1 agency's technical information, so that the best
2 possible Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans
3 can be developed.
4 And finally, even though budgets are
5 restricted in this year, and they seem to be
6 going in that direction, we have to find some way
7 of providing some additional financial
8 alternatives and financial options.
9 This could be not only from the
10 federal level, but many states now are getting
11 involved in these issues, and they have bond acts
12 and other types of levies that provide funding
13 for these. So we need to find some other
14 financial alternatives, even trying to get
15 industry involved in helping to finance some of
16 these issues.
17 MR. HALL: The next strategic issue
18 you can think of as the road map for improving
19 our regulatory program. And think of it really
20 in terms of sort of two phases, the first of
21 which would begin in 1999.
22 Our goal in 1999 is to issue permits
23 to the three priorities that I mentioned a little
24 earlier, priorities for permitting. And these
25 could either be individual permits or general
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1 permits. They might even be watershed specific
2 permits, if you wanted to focus on the issue
3 germane to a particular watershed.
4 Now, EPA is planning now to issue
5 CAFO permitting guides. This would be revised
6 guidance that would support this permitting
7 effort, and we also want to work with states to
8 develop state-specific permitting strategies for
9 their CAFOs.
10 Now, in terms of the CNMPs, we -- our
11 sense is this there would be an accelerated time
12 frame for developing the CNMPs for permitting
13 CAFOs, whereas the 2008 deadlines would apply to
14 AFOs, as a universe, more broadly.
15 Now, if we begin our permitting in
16 1999, the permits that Joe mentioned last for
17 about five years, the second phase would begin
18 sometime, let's say, about 2004/2005.
19 And at that time, a few things would
20 have happened. First of all, EPA has plans to
21 review and revise as appropriate the regulations
22 for concentrated feeding operations, both the
23 implementing regulations, as well as the effluent
24 guidelines.
25 So any new legislations that were in
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1 place in 2004 and 2005 would be reflected in the
2 new permits.
3 Second of all, as part of the theme
4 of our action plan, EPA is going to be issuing
5 revised guidance and developing nutrient water
6 quality criteria.
7 The states will be in the process of
8 developing water quality criteria based on that
9 guidance. And any new permits would be required
10 to reflect those new criteria.
11 And third of all, as many of you
12 probably know, there's a lot of work with Total
13 Maximum Daily Loads going on, TMPLs, in states
14 around the country. And as those are developed,
15 the new permits would need to address the TMPLs.
16 And I guess the final piece of the
17 improved regulatory program is an improved
18 compliance and enforcement program.
19 MR. DELVECCHIO: Our fourth strategic
20 issue deals with the coordination of research of
21 research, technology, transfer, technology
22 innovation and compliance assistance.
23 And this deals with all the good work
24 that is going on across the country, whether it
25 be in extension research centers, in university
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1 research centers, Ag research centers, wherever
2 they may be, we need to make sure that's
3 coordinated.
4 I mentioned coordination is one of
5 our guiding principles and this is the strategic
6 issue that really deals with -- especially the
7 issues of research and technology and technology
8 transfer.
9 So we want to make sure that we're
10 coordinated, and we propose a few different
11 options in the strategy. Again, this is really
12 one of those places where we're really looking
13 for some real feedback.
14 And we know we want a coordinated
15 research plan, and we know we want to coordinate
16 a technology transfer plan, but we also want some
17 kind of a -- we call it a virtual center -- in
18 the strategy.
19 And what that really is a computer
20 based website that people have access to and not
21 just the researchers, but the regular people, the
22 people that really want the information, whether
23 it be in a local field office or a regional
24 office or wherever that might be, we want to try
25 to coordinate this on a national level.
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1 MR. HALL: As we mentioned a couple
2 of times during this presentation, the private
3 sector, in particular the animal agriculture
4 industry, has a significant role to play in
5 implementing the strategy and in particular
6 developing Comprehensive Nutrient Management
7 Plans and supporting their interpretation.
8 In addition, we also like to
9 recognize that certain segments of the industry
10 have already taken the lead. The National Pork
11 Producers Council had a dialogue and produced
12 some recommendations. We very much encourage
13 that to take place.
14 There is also a poultry dialogue that
15 is currently ongoing, and we encourage other
16 parts of the animal agriculture industry to take
17 these kinds of opportunities and have these kind
18 of dialogues and discussions.
19 In addition to that, there are a
20 number of other options and proposed ideas for
21 how the federal government may support the
22 industry in taking a leadership role in the
23 strategy, and we invite your comments on other
24 ideas as well.
25 MR. DELVECCHIO: Our sixth strategic
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1 issue deals with data coordination and both the
2 USDA and the EPA have a tremendous amount of data
3 both in regard to animal feeding operations and
4 in regard to water quality.
5 Much of the data that USDA and water
6 conservation districts have delivered to USDA are
7 basically a feeling of confidentiality that the
8 producers have in giving us this data.
9 And I believe Glenda mentioned this
10 earlier, that this data is going to remain
11 confidential in our conservation case files and
12 as a matter of fact, the administrator for EPA
13 recognizes the trust relationship that has been
14 developed over the years in trying to get
15 conservation implemented and does not want to
16 violate that trust relationship.
17 But we also recognize a need to take
18 a look into the future about how data will be
19 coordinated in the future. So we have agreed to
20 develop a joint policy statement in the strategy
21 in regard to future data coordination.
22 The other thing I have mentioned
23 several times about maximizing the environmental
24 benefits per dollar spent is we want to make sure
25 EPA and USDA are both using the same methodology
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1 in analyzing that cost benefit ratio.
2 MR. HALL: The final strategic issue
3 is the answer to the question how do you know
4 that you have gotten where you intended to get
5 to.
6 It's basically performance
7 measurements accountability. This is
8 particularly important for the federal government
9 because of the Government Performance and Results
10 Act, GPRA for short, which mandates that all
11 federal agencies figure out what their objectives
12 are and measure progress where it's meeting those
13 objectives and indeed tie the budgets that they
14 receive, money they receive, to whether or not
15 they are meeting their objectives.
16 We wanted to develop a performance
17 measurement system for implementation of the AFO
18 strategy and in particular focus on programmatic
19 activities that we can measure, as well as
20 ultimately the most important, which is the
21 environmental outcome.
22 MR. DELVECCHIO: And Section 6 in the
23 final section of the Strategy Act is a section
24 that we call roles.
25 And it what this section does is it
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1 lists -- I think it lists nine key groups in
2 society that can have an impact and have an
3 effect on implementing this strategy, and really,
4 it's required that we all work together.
5 We've given like a paragraph or two
6 in regard to these nine key groups and how they
7 may be involved in the implementation of the
8 strategy, but it is certainly absolutely
9 necessary for the successful implementation of
10 the strategies to get everyone involved.
11 MR. HALL: This next slide here lists
12 some options for getting a copy of the strategy.
13 My understanding is there are probably copies in
14 the back, if you don't have them already or at
15 least an executive summary, and it is available
16 through various phone numbers and on the world
17 wide web.
18 MR. DELVECCHIO: And last, but not
19 least, we are in the midst of an official public
20 comment period -- that is for a 120 day period
21 that ends on January 19, 1999.
22 Your official comments can be sent to
23 Denise Coleman at the address shown or via her
24 e-mail address. I believe in the back of the
25 room, there are some self addressed envelopes
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1 that if you want to put your comments in there,
2 we more than welcome that.
3 Really, this is crucial to the
4 development of the final strategy. We want as
5 many comments as we can get so that we can
6 develop the best strategy. The EPA and USDA will
7 get together after the comment period ends,
8 incorporate comments that are going to help the
9 strategy better and analyze all the comments,
10 first of all, and produce a final strategy in the
11 spring of 1999.
12 Dr. Hicks, that's it.
13 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Joe and Will.
14 We appreciate the background. Do you
15 have additional speakers?
16 We're now ready for the listening
17 sessions and there are questions that may come.
18 Our panel, to my left, Glenda Humiston -- I said
19 Humiston a while ago and I was corrected by James
20 Ford. Humiston, Deputy Under Secretary for the
21 Natural Resource and Environment.
22 James Ford, USDA/NRCS, State
23 Conservationist for the State of Tennessee. Fred
24 Lindsey, you heard a minute ago or a few minutes
25 ago, Deputy Director of the Office of Waste Water
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1 Management at EPA.
2 Mike McGhee, Director of Waste
3 Management Division for EPA, Region 4, Atlanta.
4 Am I right?
5 Fred Davis, Director of Tennessee
6 Division of Water and Pollution Control.
7 And Louis Buck on the end, Deputy
8 Commissioner for the Tennessee Department of
9 Agriculture.
10 So that is your listening panel, so
11 be prepared to move forward in a moment.
12 The technical reps here, in addition
13 to Joe and Will, we have got James Sims. And I
14 hope I have got them in the right order. James
15 Sims, USDA/NRCS Tennessee State Conservation
16 Engineer.
17 Catch the next one, and I will try
18 not to get the "P" in there. Roger Pfaff,
19 Program Manager, Water Programs Enforcement
20 Branch, EPA.
21 Roosevelt Childress, Chief Surface
22 Water Permits Section, EPA Region 4.
23 And Steve Carmichael, USDA/NRCS,
24 Liaison, Region 4, EPA/AFO.
25 Okay. I will recognize the people
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1 that have signed up, or the speakers that have
2 signed up, in the order that they signed up. I
3 need to give you an introductory remark and then
4 we'll go to those.
5 I would ask that Bill Nichols makes
6 his way forward. This is a listening session,
7 and our primary purpose for being here is to
8 allow as many of us as possible to comment and
9 raise your concerns on this proposed strategy.
10 In order to facility the maximum
11 number of participants, we will ask you to keep
12 your limited remarks to no more than five
13 minutes. And we'll be keeping time and we'll ask
14 that your remarks be terminated within that
15 allotted time.
16 We apologize ahead of time for
17 restraining your comments, but we must manage the
18 time to assure that pertinent points are covered
19 and that anyone who desires to speak is afforded
20 the opportunity.
21 The listening panel may ask questions
22 for clarifications, however we would ask that
23 your statements be directed -- or direct -- for
24 there is a verbatim record being taken of your
25 comments, and the outcome of the listening
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1 session will be posted to the internet to
2 facilitate sharing of concerns across the nation.
3 Please observe the light that's on
4 the table to my right. The green light indicates
5 four minutes to go. The yellow lights, you need
6 to summarize, there will be one remaining minute.
7 And the red light means you need to end your
8 comments.
9 You do not have to take the full five
10 minutes.
11 Please, for the record, clearly state
12 your name and address and your affiliation, if
13 you care to. You have five minutes.
14 MR. NICHOLS: My name is Bill
15 Nichols. I'm with R.F. Durham Company here in
16 Chattanooga, and even though Will Hall narrowed
17 the parameters so narrowly that he eliminated
18 order management, I'm going to do about three
19 minutes on order management.
20 We think that pork producers have
21 three major problems. The first problem is the
22 profit margins are nonexistent. The second is
23 the EPA is looking over their shoulders to see
24 how they rid their waste, and the third is that
25 the neighbors are complaining about the odor.
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1 Now, we at R.F. Durham can eliminate
2 the odor, and we know that because we have worked
3 with Iowa State University for two years. We
4 developed a propane fired catalytic converter
5 that absolutely eliminates the odors in the
6 tanks.
7 Now, then we come to a real problem.
8 We cannot get a test site. This was in their pig
9 farm on campus, but we need to go to a pork
10 producer. We need a pork producer and we need
11 funding. And we have tried for two years to get
12 ahold of Senator Tom Harkin to no avail. We got
13 ahold of his chief of staff, who was born and
14 raised in Brooklyn, and I don't think he can
15 spell agriculture.
16 We have tried through Zach Wamp to
17 get ahold of Tom Harkin, and I can't do it, so
18 we're here at your mercy.
19 There should be somebody in this
20 group that can tell us how to get ahold of the
21 right people, either in Washington or Tennessee
22 or in Iowa because we're a company of twenty
23 people, and we just need minimal funding so we
24 can tell the pork producer what this program will
25 cost per marketed pig. Thank you.
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1 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Mr. Nichols.
2 I would ask that if you need any
3 questions you let me know, and we will proceed
4 accordingly.
5 The next speaker is Art Darling --
6 name address?
7 MR. DARLING: My name is Art Darling.
8 I'm an employee of Southeast Milk
9 Incorporated in Bellview, Florida.
10 We have 253 dairy farmer members in
11 Florida and Georgia who produce about 2.8 million
12 pounds of milk annually from about 190,000
13 cattle.
14 The majority of our dairy farms have
15 been in their present location for at least a
16 decade and many, at least a number of them, a
17 large number of them fifty years or more on the
18 same land.
19 I am concerned with dairy farms only
20 and concerned with existing dairy farms only.
21 Florida dairy farmers were among the
22 first to experience tough regulation. In 1987
23 our state passed a rule for one of the larger
24 areas in our state of dairy farms that resulted
25 in the closing of forty percent of those dairy
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1 farms.
2 It did improve the surface water
3 quality, but revealed that a bigger effort
4 involving other human activities needed to be
5 included. It also revealed that it was going to
6 take decades to get back to the levels of
7 phosphorus coming off that land that they wanted.
8 We have a separate project now going
9 on in the north end of the state, which I only
10 mention because we have one of our dairy farmers
11 from that area who will be speaking to you later
12 and will tell you about that effort.
13 My point is you cannot solve the
14 problems by segregating the issue and addressing
15 just large animal operations.
16 In that regard, I believe the
17 strategy must include more flexibility to
18 recognize states and state efforts that are
19 effectively addressing these kinds of pollution
20 efforts.
21 For example, Florida's DEP is working
22 with our industry, and they have been working
23 with them and we are concerned that this effort
24 will railroad -- disroad -- the effort that we
25 currently have in the state of Florida.
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1 We think that the strategy is too
2 regulatory in its approach. Even though you say
3 you're not going to have new regulation, you're
4 talking about permitting of all CAFOs.
5 In Florida, the average dairy is 660
6 cows, so you know we have a lot of dairies that
7 are unpermitted that are over 700 head that have
8 been doing things, and they are meeting the state
9 standards that we have in Florida.
10 If you're going to change that, it is
11 going to have a very disruptive effect on the
12 milk supply in our state, and I think in the
13 southeast.
14 I wish that you would review the
15 language included in the president's executive
16 order on food safety. If you will go back and
17 look at that, and perhaps maybe even be
18 consistent including that, it talks very strongly
19 to the state's role in this kind of effort. And
20 it may be one place where plagiarism would make
21 some sense.
22 We very much oppose removing the
23 twenty-five year, twenty-four hour storm event
24 exemption.
25 If you are familiar with Florida, we
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1 get fifty-four inches of rain a year, most of it
2 in four months. There are times of the year when
3 we literally have our water table at the surface
4 of the ground or a little bit above.
5 It would be just simply impossible to
6 design a system, and I asked our state
7 conservationist earlier this afternoon, it would
8 be probably be impossible to design a system
9 economically that you could work down there. And
10 if you tell us, well, maybe we shouldn't be
11 there, then I'll tell you that maybe you should
12 tell that to the five million people that live in
13 Miami, that they shouldn't be there.
14 This issue was raised at a St. Louis
15 meeting on ground water and that goes by the
16 USDA's Ag Research Service that lagoons should be
17 phased out and maybe they shouldn't be doing any
18 legislation or any research on them.
19 This alarms us. I have had the same
20 discussion -- not discussion, but I did make a
21 presentation in regard to Senator Harkin's bill
22 and made the point that in his bill, it says that
23 you can't have a lagoon that goes into ground
24 water. In Florida, everything is into the ground
25 water. So how do you deal with that?
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1 It gets back to the geological
2 situation that we're dealing with in Florida.
3 When I mentioned this to my coop president, he
4 pointed out that his lagoon is dug into ninety
5 feet of white clay that meets the Department of
6 Transportation Standards.
7 Boy, this five minutes is going fast.
8 The concept -- you need to have some
9 sort of way -- gosh, I wish I could find this in
10 here. But we need incentive. You aren't giving
11 the dairy farmers any buy-in to this approach
12 that you have got.
13 There needs to be some sort of way to
14 get a buy-in for the landowner, and it isn't in
15 there yet, ladies and gentlemen. And I guess the
16 best thing I can say is it just isn't in there,
17 and I'm going to have to put it in writing to you
18 as to how I think it could get it in there.
19 I will give it to you in writing.
20 I wish I had a little more time, but I
21 understand.
22 MR. HICKS: There may be a question.
23 MR. LINDSEY: Let me give you another
24 thirty or forty seconds, and you can give us the
25 kind of thing you think would be an appropriate
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1 incentive.
2 MR. DARLING: In Florida, if you
3 don't discharge, you don't have to get a permit.
4 You aren't defined as a CAFO. That is the kind
5 of incentives that we want.
6 My farmers, and I think any farmer
7 does not want a permit. He does not want you
8 people on his property. And I think we can use
9 the various factors in our state, and I don't
10 know about other states. I believe Georgia is
11 doing this as well, but we can use those dairy
12 inspectors, and we can cooperate with DEP and we
13 think there's a good program that will work.
14 But if you are going to come in and
15 do the permitting and require these on-site
16 inspections, I think what I'm going to have is
17 dairies shutting down because I have seen that
18 already. That's not a threat. I think that's just
19 reality.
20 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Mr. Darling.
21 I'm sure we'll appreciate your
22 written comments as well.
23 David Matteson, Mr. Matteson, you
24 have almost five minutes.
25 MR. MATTESON: I am David Matteson.
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1 I represent the Georgia Young's
2 Farmers Program.
3 I work with several dairies in
4 northwest Georgia and north Georgia, and this
5 will give you a little history of why I'm here.
6 About six years ago, what y'all are
7 talking about, we have already done. We went and
8 applied for a Section 319 grant through EPA and
9 received it in EPA and Georgia EPD, and we worked
10 with FSA and NCRS and we now -- in all the
11 dairies I work with in waste management programs,
12 we require soil samples, we do waste management
13 plans.
14 One of our problems is that one of
15 the things that you mentioned, that Bill
16 mentioned, was the high phosphorus. Our soil is
17 already high. We can't lower it, it's natural
18 and that's something that has not been addressed
19 today. Because we're not getting much change
20 when we put it out, and we put it out properly.
21 But what do you do when it's already
22 there, when God already gave it to you? So,
23 that's one of our situations that I want you to
24 address.
25 Thank you.
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1 MR. HICKS: Thank you. Questions?
2 Chris Waylor. The next speakers
3 might move toward the front.
4 MR. WAYLOR: My name is Chris Waylor.
5 I'm with the Georgia Poultry
6 Federation out of Gainesville, Georgia. We
7 appreciate the opportunity of making a short
8 statement on behalf of the Georgia Poultry
9 Federation,the Alabama Poultry and Egg
10 Association, the Mississippi Feed and Grain
11 Association, the South Carolina Poultry
12 Association and the Tennessee Egg and Poultry
13 Association.
14 We want to thank EPA and USDA for
15 their joint action in preparing the Unified
16 National Strategy for animal feeding operations.
17 We appreciate you having this meeting and to
18 provide us with additional information and to
19 hear our comments.
20 We believe that it certainly makes
21 sense to have a national plan and direction,
22 rather than having a wide variety and patchwork
23 of possibly inconsistent counterproductive
24 statewide requirements. The poultry industry has
25 a vital interest in protecting our environment
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1 for the future, and we want to be good stewards
2 of both the land and the water and all of our
3 national resources.
4 As you know, the National Poultry
5 Environmental Dialogue is meeting today in
6 Washington, DC to attempt to finalize a voluntary
7 component of the Unified National Strategy.
8 The dialogue includes representatives
9 of UPPD, EPA, USDA, NRCS, Extension Service,
10 Poultry Water Quality Consortium and a host of
11 other environmental groups -- the National
12 Broiler Counsel and U.S. Poultry and Egg
13 Association.
14 After receiving a copy of the group's
15 report and written recommendations, we would like
16 to file a supplemental written comments with you.
17 Again, thank you for giving us this
18 opportunity to listen and speak.
19 MR. HICKS: Thank you. Questions?
20 Lena Beth Carmichael. You have up to
21 five minutes, Lena Beth.
22 MS. CARMICHAEL: I teach agriculture
23 at Hiawassee College in Madisonville, Tennessee.
24 I brought four of my students with me today who
25 have been accessing the internet to get
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1 information on what's going on. That was
2 required. I didn't require them to come down
3 here with me.
4 I am married to a dairy farmer in
5 east Tennessee. I have seen a lot of people I
6 know here since I came in, however most of them
7 are not farmers. Most of them, I work with in
8 extension agencies.
9 Most of the farmers I know are at
10 home working. And I had one tell me it was
11 useless to come, it's a done deal anyway, just to
12 give you an idea of how they feel.
13 One of the things I have a concern
14 about is the number of cows that are going to
15 wind up being on what would be regulated. My
16 concern is that number will keep lowering and
17 lowering and lowering until it affects all of us
18 that left financially in business in the dairy
19 industry.
20 I would like to urge you and implore
21 you to keep it affecting the large operations and
22 not the smaller family farms.
23 In reading about who's to write this
24 CNMP, I have suggested increased farmer education
25 and farmer's involvement in writing of their own
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1 CNMPs, not that it be written and handed down to
2 them.
3 I will be watching to see everything
4 I can learn about it, because on our farm if
5 we'll be involved in it, I guess I'll be the one
6 writing it.
7 Another one in Strategic Issue Number
8 2 on 5.0, Strategic Issue Number 2, the cost
9 sharing would certainly help the farmers to
10 comply. We do everything we can with genetics,
11 with feed, with machinery. And we have got the
12 weather to deal with. Finances are a problem,
13 and we do try to do the best we can with our
14 land. We are farmers.
15 We appreciate the addition of cost
16 sharing programs so that we can comply with what
17 is done, and therefore maintain to help our own
18 situations.
19 I was explaining, or trying to
20 explain to my nine year old, where I was going
21 this evening and why. This took several miles
22 going down the road to explain why mama was
23 coming down here. And as I explained the manure
24 thing, he's like, like our manure pit. And I'm
25 like, yes. And like when we pump it out, and I'm
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1 like, yes.
2 And we explained all this, and how
3 the regulations are going further and further
4 along.
5 Our families have farmed for
6 generations. He's our only hope to keep going on
7 with it. And he said, "Are they trying to put us
8 out of business?"
9 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Lena Beth.
10 The sixth speaker is Keith Shiver.
11 Did I get that right?
12 MR. SHIVER: My name is Keith Shiver.
13 I'm representing Southeast Milk out
14 of Florida. I came from a dairy farm, also. My
15 farm has been in existence since 1953. I have
16 currently come back from the farm after
17 graduating from the University of Florida this
18 past May.
19 We are currently milking about 500
20 dairy animals and grow about five hundred acres
21 of crops for our cattle and about six fields
22 under irrigation pivots. One -- the new one has
23 been enacted under the PL 566 law to help pump
24 the lagoon out on our pastures. We had one and
25 we have forty more actives now that were pumping
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1 waste out on them.
2 So -- first off, I would like to
3 thank you for having -- being able to come and
4 voice the rest of the dairy farmers in Florida's
5 opinion on how they think about the Draft
6 Strategy.
7 Producers in Florida are feeling a
8 lot of uncertainty about the new draft's
9 inability to present a plan that they feel will
10 be sustainable for in the future.
11 Producers in Florida have been
12 working hard with various state and national
13 organizations on voluntary/regulatory programs,
14 and to help -- that are helping bringing AFOs
15 into compliance with the existing laws in effect
16 now.
17 The farmers want to feel certain that
18 the time and money spent on CNMPs will be
19 sustainable way into the future.
20 The current programs that we have
21 now -- most of the concern is coming from -- the
22 programs are working. Currently in Suwannee and
23 Lafayette Counties in Florida, they are under the
24 Public Law 566 and a lot of -- as a voluntary,
25 slash, regulatory program that we've been working
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1 on, and it's working.
2 It's -- we're seeing nitrogen levels
3 go down. The relationship between the different
4 organizations and producers are very good, and
5 we're scared that if a new plan is coming into
6 effect, then this is going to hurt the
7 relationships that we're having now. And it's
8 going to break down this kind of strategy that
9 we're trying to work on as we speak.
10 Mr. Darling has really gone over
11 everything that I had planned to say.
12 As far as revenue things go, we're
13 afraid that it's going to kind of -- not just so
14 much threaten the producers and put them out of
15 business, as well as the community that we're in
16 already.
17 Lafayette County, the county that I'm
18 producing milk in, the economy in Lafayette
19 County -- eighty-four percent of the economy is
20 dairy driven. And if these policies and
21 strategies are in effect happens to have a
22 negative effect, then it's going to just really
23 kill the economy in Lafayette County.
24 The last point I would like to make
25 is the plan has a thing into effect where it's
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1 talking phosphorus levels in the soil.
2 As the other gentlemen had stated
3 before, we feel like there's more research that
4 needs to be brought out for -- there's a set plan
5 to put that into effect where there's just got to
6 be more research because phosphorus is in the
7 soil already.
8 And there's just really no way of
9 really figuring out how much the dairy producers
10 are putting into the soil without having more
11 research done.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. HICKS: Thank you. Questions?
14 Let me just say to you that the panel
15 members will be here at least until 7:00. So if
16 at the end of the list of speakers that wish to
17 be heard, the panel will interact with you and
18 discuss points of interest that you might have.
19 And we do have more speakers.
20 The seventh person on the list is
21 Mike Scudder or is that Skuder.
22 MR. SCUDDER: Scudder.
23 MR. HICKS: All right.
24 Sorry about that.
25 MR. SCUDDER: My name is Mike
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1 Scudder. And I represent the Tennessee Pork
2 Producer's Association.
3 And I would like to submit for the
4 record the National Pork Producer's Council's
5 Environmental Resource Guide. This guide
6 describes NPPC's policy regarding environmental
7 requirements for all types and sizes of pork
8 production.
9 Dr. Hicks, I guess I will just hand
10 this to you.
11 MR. HICKS: Thank you.
12 MR. SCUDDER: I have a few other
13 brief comments I would like to make.
14 Many of the ideas in the draft and
15 Unified National Strategies for Animal Feeding
16 Operations puts the requirement for nutrient
17 management plans -- mirror the recommendations of
18 the 1997 National Environmental Dialogue on Pork
19 Production.
20 This is when producers and regulators
21 sat down together for eight months and came up
22 with guidelines to ensure environmentally
23 sustainable pork production.
24 We, the pork producers, support the
25 manure management plans, and on many farms this
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1 is already being accomplished.
2 Manure should be considered as a
3 asset, not a liability. I mean, there is nothing
4 any more natural to add back to the soil than
5 what we can manufacturer today, such as
6 commercial fertilizer.
7 This produces healthy crops and
8 lowers our dependance on commercial fertilizer.
9 We encourage air quality and all research, as
10 well, providing technical assistance necessary to
11 help livestock producers make environmental
12 improvements in our operations.
13 While we're not opposed to
14 regulations, and in fact, to a certain degree, we
15 support regulations to protect our environment,
16 we believe that these regulations must be based
17 on sound science. Decisions and assumptions made
18 based only on the size of the farm, rather than
19 its environmental performance have no place in
20 regulations of any kind.
21 While America's pork producers
22 genuinely support the goals of the Unified
23 Strategy, we oppose -- we oppose any and all
24 instances where the Draft Strategy allows social
25 policy to override sound science.
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1 Our ongoing environmental programs
2 such as on farm odor environmental programs and
3 odor solution initiative reflect this commitment.
4 We're promoting environmental efforts that are
5 sensible, achievable, and reflect the varying
6 production systems in place today and allow
7 producers to make maximum use of crop growing
8 nutrients in hog manure as part of a sustainable
9 land based agricultural system.
10 Pork producers believe that a
11 cooperative effort between producers and
12 regulatory agencies is the most effective,
13 efficient and rapid way to achieve excellent
14 environmental performance at farm level. The
15 National Pork Dialogue is one example of this
16 cooperative effort.
17 Our state association, and along with
18 the National Pork Producers Council, believe that
19 producers must manage our operations in a
20 environmentally responsible manner.
21 Programs like those mentioned today
22 make this possible.
23 Thank you.
24 MR. LINDSEY: I have a question.
25 Just briefly, the environmental
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1 resource guide which you gave us, and also the
2 National Pork Producer's Dialogue, do you see any
3 particular inconsistencies between any the
4 that -- any of those items and, say, this
5 strategy?
6 MR. SCUDDER: No, sir, I don't. Not
7 major. They go along pretty well together.
8 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Mike. Our
9 next speaker is John M. Moore, another farmer,
10 Lena Beth.
11 MS. CARMICHAEL: Good.
12 MR. MOORE: As you said, I'm a dairy
13 farmer. Also on the Soil Conservation Board of
14 Supervisors and also on the Farm Bureau's Dairy
15 Advisory Commodity Board.
16 First of all, I would like to say I
17 feel like you wonder why we feel like we're
18 backed into a corner when we're given five
19 minutes and y'all are given an unlimited amount
20 of time. And we feel like we're backed into a
21 corner.
22 Then because I'm on the Soil
23 Conservation Board, I had the opportunity to be
24 in Tunica, Mississippi in 1997. At that
25 convention -- Southeast Association of Soil
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1 Conservation Farmers were there, as well as
2 middle Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas.
3 At that convention, it was stated
4 that one third of our pollution, so called, comes
5 from a national forest.
6 It's at that level coming out of
7 them, which we have no control over. A third of
8 it comes from agriculture and a third from our
9 cities.
10 With that thought in mind, if a third
11 of it we can't do any about because something
12 comes from the air and some from animals in the
13 forest, then I would contend with you that a
14 third of our pollution from the farm also comes
15 from nature, which we have no control over, which
16 would lower that considerably.
17 Also, I learned in Nashville on
18 Monday that a household of four takes forty days
19 out of the year to earn enough money to buy their
20 food. It takes a hundred and twenty plus days to
21 pay your taxes, so I think we ought to be given a
22 policy of back slap.
23 Animal agricultural is changing
24 rapidly. The economic consideration and changing
25 market make it necessary for farmers to use their
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1 animals in larger units. These changes have
2 caused greater public concern about the potential
3 for pollution and odor from animal agriculture.
4 However, our farms are not the
5 environmental hazards that some people fear them
6 to be.
7 Any regulations need to be designed
8 to actually protect the environment and not
9 simply to provide burdensome, regulatory hurdles
10 for farmers to jump through.
11 The process must be economically
12 feasible so that our family farms can afford to
13 stay in business. Complying with these
14 regulations will not increase the net income of
15 any farming operation. To the contrary,
16 compliance will cost the farmer.
17 The results are designed to benefit
18 society as a whole at the expense of the farmer.
19 Should society not pay some of the costs?
20 Does the state have the adequate
21 funding and staff to timely implement these new
22 permits? Farmers do not need to be caught in
23 paperwork backlog that causes a negative impact
24 on their farming operation.
25 On a negative perspective, point
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1 source authority there is evidence in a
2 legislative district, SWA, that Congress only
3 intended to control the release of in pipe
4 effluence from CAFOs, and only those CAFOs which
5 would collect a concentrated waste for discharge
6 to a different point source outlet would qualify
7 as point sources under the definition and be
8 subject to the National Pollution Discharge
9 Elimination Systems, NPDES, permitting program.
10 With this strategy and permitting
11 process, the department's seeking to treat runoff
12 from a prospective of precipitation as a type of
13 discharge that can turn a farm operation to a
14 CAFO. We do not believe a facility is a CAFO if
15 precipitation and runoff from fields where animal
16 wastes have been applied lead to discharges
17 entering the state's water.
18 We generally agree with the approach
19 gives priority to watersheds first. The water
20 quality data on which this premise is inadequate.
21 I'm going to run over my five minutes.
22 National water incentives in the
23 states -- it acknowledges the weakness of the
24 assessment methodology.
25 The U.S. geological survey has stated
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1 in published reports that the National Water
2 Quality Inventory Data is so severely clogged and
3 significantly clouded that it could not been used
4 to summarize water quality conditions and trends.
5 When we have more manure than the
6 land to put it on, why can't we do what the city
7 does, open our gates and let it run down the
8 streams and rivers?
9 I told you I wouldn't get through.
10 But I would like to ask you one
11 question before I sit down.
12 If because of CAFO, I have to go out
13 of the dairy business and for some reason I sell
14 my farm and it goes into a subdivision and two
15 houses per acre or three with septic tanks on it,
16 which are underground, but you don't see or
17 smell, 365 days a year, versus my animal waste
18 goes underground once our twice a year, and on
19 separate field at that, the crop growing on that
20 field will absorb and take up ninety to a hundred
21 percent of it in a normal situation, which would
22 you rather have?
23 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Mr. Moore.
24 Questions?
25 We will have time at the end to
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1 entertain other comments and questions from those
2 of you that have already spoken, I believe.
3 Mr. Charles Barker is next, another farmer.
4 MR. BARKER: I'm a dairy farmer from
5 right here locally. I think we're an endangered
6 species, and we're -- most of us, we like to be
7 treated as well as the endangered species are
8 being treated.
9 You talk about budget cuts. There is
10 not a farmer that I know that wouldn't be glad to
11 take your budget cut. When you were talking
12 about budget cuts, you were talking about the
13 increase of your budget. You cut that percent
14 increase.
15 In agricultural right now, you're
16 talking a budget cut. Most farmers -- I don't
17 know any segment of agriculture right now that's
18 profitable. I'm a fourth generation dairy
19 farmer. When my father bought that farm there
20 were ditches in that place you could put a
21 Greyhound bus in and cover it up, and you would
22 still have room to put two or three pickups.
23 And in fact, those particular fields
24 now, no ditches there, some of the most
25 productive land on our farm, and that wasn't done
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1 by somebody holding a big stick over your head
2 saying you have got to do this.
3 That was done voluntarily. That was
4 done because we saw the need. My parents and my
5 grandfather saw the need to take care of the land
6 and water resources. Everything we see is about
7 save the family farm. Everything you all are
8 doing seems to be about putting us out of
9 business.
10 You know, fifteen cent hogs and fifty
11 cent cattle, we can't do a whole lot. I think
12 most of us are doing a good job. We're raising
13 our kids right there in it, right there on our
14 farm. Nobody closer to that manure than our
15 children.
16 You know, we don't want to pollute;
17 we want to be good stewards of the land. You're
18 talking about this voluntary regulatory agencies.
19 Most people that used to -- you could go to soil
20 conservation if you had a problem, and they would
21 come out and help you develop a plan to fix it.
22 Now, most of the farmers I know, they
23 don't want those people on their place because
24 they think they are going to go talk to somebody
25 and come out there and say, well, you're causing
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1 a problem, I'm going to fine you $25,000. We
2 can't stand that in agriculture.
3 If we've got a problem -- I'm sure
4 there are a few bad apples out there, but there's
5 bad apples everywhere, but you don't throw the
6 whole bushel out for one bad apple.
7 We need a common sense approach. If
8 we have got a problem -- if I've got a problem
9 with my farm, nobody wants to fix it more than I
10 do. I don't want pollute my dairy and my farm.
11 The river on our place, when I was a kid you
12 could walk across it because it was muddy all the
13 time.
14 Now, it takes a real hard rain for it
15 to get muddy, and most of that comes from the new
16 highways they built across the mountain. Most of
17 that sediment is coming from there. And so you
18 know -- but agriculture gets blamed for that.
19 It's not our fault. We can't do anything about
20 that.
21 You know, the big stick method has
22 been tried in other countries. Look at Russia.
23 Everybody can't feed themselves now. And less
24 than two percent of the people are producing the
25 food for this country and a big part of the
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1 world. And if this thing -- things like that
2 keep going, you know, my son and daughter, they
3 are not going to have an opportunity to farm
4 because we won't be around.
5 Thank you.
6 MR. HICKS: Thank you. Questions?
7 MS. HUMISTON: Yes.
8 MR. HICKS: There's a question here.
9 MS. HUMISTON: Well, I just have to
10 ask this because I don't know that anybody in
11 this room necessarily disagrees with a single
12 thing you have just said, frankly. But as I said
13 in my opening remarks, when we put the strategy
14 together, it is based on existing law, laws that
15 have been out there twenty-five years.
16 MR. BARKER: I understand that.
17 MS. HUMISTON: And there are those
18 folks that say throughout the nation who would
19 say let's just go out there and enforce that law.
20 MR. BARKER: They've got to eat, too.
21 MS. HUMISTON: Just like I said, I
22 don't think anybody here disagrees with a word
23 you said.
24 But what we tried to do with the
25 strategy is let you know very clearly, and the
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1 public, where were going to target the
2 enforcement.
3 It's going to be the bad apples and
4 it's going to be places where you've got impaired
5 water that is clearly a problem, not where there
6 isn't a problem.
7 And at the same time, the other half
8 of the strategy, we're trying to make technical
9 assistance and educational cost share dollars
10 available, you know, even to a larger degree than
11 we have in the past.
12 Everything you said just now was
13 great, but I guess my question to you is: What
14 would you necessarily change in the strategy the
15 way we wrote it to try to get to where you're
16 going? What would you change?
17 Let me give you one caveat. None of
18 us in here can rewrite the Clean Water Act.
19 Congress is going to attempt to do that next
20 year.
21 So with that caveat, current law, how
22 would you rewrite something in that strategy?
23 MR. BARKER: I guess one thing that
24 really concerns producers -- if on my farm I have
25 got a mud hole as big as that table and I go out
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1 there drain it, and they come and catch it, I
2 will get more time in the penitentiary than if I
3 pulled out a gun and shoot one of you. That's a
4 fact.
5 And when you have got that, that
6 means that there's something wrong with the law,
7 when a mud hole is worth more than a human life.
8 MS. HUMISTON: You're talking
9 wetlands, which, like I say, we ain't touching in
10 this.
11 MR. BARKER: You can understand where
12 we're afraid this will go. I have paid taxes on
13 that mud hole, and if I can't raise something on
14 it -- if I can't get something off of it, that's
15 a liability.
16 MS. HUMISTON: Well, I'm in the
17 middle of representing the Department of Ag
18 renegotiating the wetlands.
19 My question is: This strategy
20 dealing with where there are legitimate water
21 quality problems and trying to have a balance --
22 and I would like to think positive approach to
23 solving those problems -- what would you rewrite
24 in the strategy?
25 And if you can't answer now, get it
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1 in writing. It doesn't do us any good for you to
2 come up here and --
3 MR. BARKER: And talk.
4 MS. HUMISTON: Well, I mean, it does
5 but, like I said, I don't think anybody disagrees
6 with you, but how do we solve the problems?
7 That's my question. What do we change?
8 MR. BARKER: I think the big thing
9 that needs to be changed is regulatory.
10 I mean, if I have got a problem now,
11 if I even think I've got a problem, I'm not going
12 to ask anybody for fear somebody is going to come
13 down and say, you have got do this, instead of
14 saying, well, yes, you may have a problem, then
15 let's try to do everything to fix it.
16 MS. HUMISTON: Okay.
17 MR. BARKER: I think it needs to be
18 more voluntary.
19 Nobody -- there is nobody in this
20 country any more independent than a bunch of
21 farmers. You know, that's just our nature. If
22 we wasn't, who would be raising hogs and selling
23 fifty cents when it's costing thirty cents. You
24 know, we're not for -- most of us, for the money.
25 It's in our blood. I guess it's a curse, I don't
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1 know.
2 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Charles.
3 Appreciate that. Bettye Glover, the number ten
4 speaker. Would Bettye Glover be here.
5 MS. GLOVER: I'm here.
6 MR. HICKS: Next one will be Todd
7 Jackson.
8 MS. GLOVER: Sorry, I have the wrong
9 package. Bound for a woman to be late.
10 MR. HICKS: That's all right.
11 MS. GLOVER: I, too, appreciate the
12 opportunity to get to talk with you.
13 MR. HICKS: Your name is?
14 MS. GLOVER: My name is Bettye
15 Glover, and I am chairman of the Friends of
16 Drake's Creek and Red River in Portland,
17 Tennessee. We're in Sumner County in northern
18 and middle Tennessee about five miles south of
19 the Tennessee/Kentucky state line.
20 Our citizens committee was formed
21 December of 1997 after we learned that Cagles,
22 Incorporated planned to build a hatchery and feed
23 mill south of Franklin, Kentucky about ten miles
24 north of us, and that Mr. Cagle intended to build
25 his processing plant in the city of Auburn,
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1 Kentucky, Simpson County.
2 To serve this facility, Cagles
3 targeted six counties in northern and middle
4 Tennessee including Sumner, and six in southern
5 Kentucky, 468 chicken houses which would be on
6 Highway 52. Later the number of chicken houses
7 was increased to 525.
8 With help from the Friends of Drakes
9 Creek and Franklin, Kentucky, our small citizen's
10 committee worked to educate themselves and the
11 election officials in the Tennessee counties who
12 were to receive the CAFOs.
13 And by the way, we don't have any
14 chicken houses from Cagles in Sumner County yet.
15 In late summer, 1997 our committee
16 joined the Clean Water Network and became a part
17 of its Feedlot Work Group.
18 From this vantage point, we have
19 watched the development of USDA and EPA national
20 AFO strategy. Historically speaking, feedlots
21 were recognized as the point source of pollution
22 over twenty years ago when the Clean Water Act
23 was enacted, but the NPDES requirements for CAFOs
24 had been mostly ignore rather than enforced.
25 Less than twenty percent of the ten
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1 thousand factory farms across America have
2 obtained Clean Water accruements. States have
3 established their own regulatory or voluntary
4 programs which failed to address interstate
5 waters which encouraged industries to pollution
6 shop.
7 Factory farm pollution continues to
8 pollute the nation's water and air and to
9 threaten public health. We make the following
10 recommendations, the following: they can create a
11 Clean Water Act for the control of animal factory
12 pollution.
13 Number 1, a moratorium on Clean Water
14 Act permits for new and expanding factory farms
15 should be instituted. The moratorium should
16 stand until existing facilities -- or until EPA
17 upgrades its standards.
18 Number 2, local citizens should be
19 allowed to participate fully in the decision as
20 to whether a factory farm is allowed to locate in
21 their community. Citizens should help decide
22 what pollution controls are needed. We need
23 individual site specific permits with the public
24 allowed to give input.
25 The EPA/USDA Draft Strategy heavily
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1 relies upon the use of general permits for animal
2 factories especially for existing operations. A
3 national permitting system is needed to create
4 greater consistency than is and protection across
5 the nation than is offered by current state laws.
6 A Clean Water Act permit is designed
7 to protect the water and allow citizens systems
8 to sue. Permits should be backed up by
9 meaningful compliance. EPA should require states
10 to strictly enforce the law through periodic and
11 unannounced inspections and penalties that will
12 ensure compliance.
13 I need to point out here that we're
14 talking about factory farms. We're talking about
15 the mega operations, not the family farmers.
16 I'm a farmer's daughter. My father
17 is a farmer seventy years, and they get it from
18 all directions. I would like to speak a good
19 word for the farmers.
20 We found out, at least the
21 environmental groups, have looked at sustainable
22 agriculture and have found out that our family
23 farmers can do it and do a better job and create
24 more jobs and affect the economy greater than
25 these mega farms and that needs to be looked at.
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1 I'm sorry that I forgot to bring the
2 booklet. If you want the booklet that shows all
3 this, I would be glad to provide it for you.
4 Open air manure cesspools on factory
5 farms and the spraying of manure and urine into
6 the air should be banned. Environmentally
7 friendly farming systems should be encouraged.
8 Liquid waste systems, including lagoons and
9 aerial spraying of animal wastes have proved
10 environmentally risky when they are involved on a
11 factory farm scale. They should be banned from
12 factory farms.
13 Technologies that do not rely on the
14 storage of liquid manure or that store manure in
15 a dryer form should replace them.
16 Additionally, environmentally
17 friendly farm systems should be encouraged,
18 including composting and pasture systems.
19 EPA/USDA's Draft Strategy barely
20 mentions more sustainable approaches. The
21 strategy appears to support the continued use of
22 liquid manure systems in the factory farms in the
23 short term and does commit to banning lagoons and
24 spray fields in the long term.
25 The strategy fails to embrace a
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1 comprehensive approach to addressing all elements
2 of degradation, not just water.
3 Number 4, manure should not been
4 allowed to rot on the land. One of the best
5 features of the EPA/USDA Draft Strategy would
6 require factory farms to follow plans aimed at
7 protecting soil and water from pollution through
8 the application of too much manure as fertilizer.
9 Okay.
10 Well, I have a couple of more points
11 and I'll just read the main ones. All right.
12 Number 5, the nation's water must be
13 protected from poultry manure. Chicken factories
14 should be regulated under the Clean Water Act,
15 and it goes on to talk about the problem with dry
16 litter.
17 Number 6, corporations that own
18 livestock animals need to be responsible for
19 paying the cost of waste disposal and clean up.
20 Large corporations offer contracts
21 with small producers to raise their chickens and
22 swine but do not take the responsibility for
23 disposing of the animal's waste.
24 And do I need to hand this in to
25 somebody or do I just need to mail it in?
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1 MR. HICKS: Mail it in. There are
2 envelopes.
3 MS. GLOVER: I would like to say one
4 more thing. On December 3rd, the Clean Water
5 Network and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel
6 published this report called "American Animal
7 Factories, How States Fail to Prevent Pollution
8 From Livestock Waste."
9 I am sure most of you are familiar
10 with this. This covers what is going on in
11 thirty states and Tennessee is included. It is a
12 problem of getting the law implemented and
13 enforced basically all over the country.
14 I brought extra copies of these. If
15 somebody would like to have a copy, I would be
16 glad to provide them. I don't have an awful lot,
17 but I would be glad to share what I have. Thank
18 you so much.
19 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Ms. GLover.
20 There's a question here.
21 MR. BUCK: Good afternoon, Ms.
22 Glover, how are you?
23 MS. GLOVER: I'm fine, sir.
24 MR. BUCK: I'm Louis Buck with the
25 Department of Agriculture.
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1 You talk about chicken factories and
2 animal factories quite a bit. Could you tell me,
3 and I know you are familiar with broilers -- how
4 many would it take for you to define it as a
5 factory farm?
6 MS. GLOVER: How many broiler houses?
7 MR. BUCK: How many broiler houses
8 would it take for you to define that?
9 MS. GLOVER: It's generally defined,
10 I believe, in the laws as a hundred thousand
11 chickens. I believe that's what it is defined.
12 So if you have five chicken houses
13 that had twenty thousand chickens in them and you
14 would have a hundred thousand chickens then that
15 would meet the legal requirement, I think --
16 definition of a CAFO.
17 MR. BUCK: That's correct. So you're
18 okay with -- you would call somebody that had
19 four broiler houses in Sumner County then to be a
20 family farm?
21 MS. GLOVER: No. I really think the
22 whole definition of that needs to be looked at.
23 MR. BUCK: How many broiler houses do
24 you think should be permitted then?
25 MS. GLOVER: What now?
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1 MR. BUCK: How many broiler houses
2 would you recommend -- one, two, three or four
3 would you recommend that the state permit?
4 MS. GLOVER: Well, do you mean the
5 entire state or do you just mean on one farm
6 or --
7 MR. BUCK: Well, you know we have a
8 statewide strategy as well. Or for Sumner
9 County, for that matter.
10 Do you think -- what you have heard
11 today would have a voluntary compliance for four
12 broiler houses, do you think that's sufficient?
13 MS. GLOVER: I think that the smaller
14 farmers -- chicken farmers or whatever they
15 are -- if they are responsible and can do a good
16 job, I believe when you get over forty or fifty
17 thousand chickens for one spot, problems come in
18 as to do they have enough land to properly spray
19 the manure.
20 And all of these factories that you
21 have just discussed today have to be taken into
22 consideration. I find out that usually the
23 family farmers, those that have been on the land
24 for generations, try to take care of their land,
25 try to do it properly.
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1 I know in some instances in North
2 Carolina when a poultry farmer has spread this
3 manure on their land for fourteen years, it kills
4 the land if they do overspreading year after year
5 after year.
6 I don't know how to answer your
7 question -- is this for the whole state?
8 MR. BUCK: Do I understand your
9 response to be if a farmer has sufficient land
10 mass, as determined by a nutrient management
11 plan, you have no problem if the number of
12 chickens match up with a Certified Nutrient
13 Management Plan?
14 MS. GLOVER: Well, I will go along
15 with that. I do think however, that that
16 threshold for chickens for the whole thing needs
17 to be lowered.
18 I don't think we need to put our
19 small farmers out of business. We need to do
20 everything that we can to support them.
21 But at the hearing that the
22 Department of Agriculture in Tennessee and the
23 Division of Water Pollution Control and Tennessee
24 Department of Environment and Conservation came
25 on November the 5th for the general permit for
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1 Class 2 CAFOs, and of course we had pretty much
2 the same kind of thing you have here.
3 They explained the permits and then
4 the farmers talked. And after we got through,
5 towards the end, this young former got up and
6 said, "You know, I believe I can express what I
7 have heard here this evening in one word." He
8 said, "It's called greed."
9 I really believe in this country that
10 the greedy few have made tremendous problems for
11 the rest of us. And that's the only way I know
12 how to explain it.
13 The number of chickens -- somebody
14 could take forty thousand chickens and do a super
15 job. On the other hand, somebody who does not
16 have enough land to spread the manure, doesn't
17 have a good management plan, does not really take
18 care of his process and do his job can make a
19 horrible mess.
20 And again, you have to understand, it
21 depends on where these farms are. If you have
22 got farms that if they overspread and it rains
23 and it runs off into a nearby creek or if you've
24 got sinkholes and caves in the area, I believe
25 the nutrients go down through the soil and
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1 pollute the aquafers underneath.
2 See, all these things have to come
3 into play. I don't really know how to answer
4 your question, and I didn't mean to talk in
5 circles.
6 MR. BUCK: That's all I have.
7 MR. HICKS: Thank you. Thank you,
8 Ms. Glover. There are, as I said, addressed
9 envelopes for you to send back on this. Todd
10 Jackson.
11 MR. JACKSON: I'm Todd Jackson and
12 I'm a farmer as well from Spring City, Tennessee.
13 Also, I teach agricultural as well at high school
14 here in Hamilton County. Tennessee Cattlemen
15 Association, member of the Farm Bureau Board,
16 member of the Livestock Commodity.
17 I'm not real, I guess, in tune --
18 your comment -- I'm not familiar enough with the
19 strategy to make the comments to really make the
20 comments. I will make some written comments.
21 A few things that I picked up tonight
22 at the meeting that really concerned me were
23 things that I wanted to express about.
24 Number 1, you're asking to us make
25 comments and opinions based on a strategy that
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1 you stated the regulatory arm of it would
2 probably change within five or six years.
3 How can we make comments on that now?
4 I just picked up on that tonight.
5 The other thing was on the joint
6 policy statement you made about the trust and
7 NRCS and things like that. I think Charles hit
8 on that earlier. There is a terrible distrust
9 with the regulatory functions and the farmers.
10 And then I'm afraid that of anything
11 that may enhance that, and y'all know that. You
12 expressed that, but that's something that I
13 wanted to point out as well.
14 Y'all -- the only other thing --
15 everything that I jotted down has already been
16 expressed. We are stewards of the land. We live
17 there. Our families live there. We care more
18 about it than the folks living in town.
19 The only other point that I want to
20 bring out, and Mr. Moore sort of mentioned this.
21 He was talking about the pollution was in thirds
22 at some seminar he had picked up on. I think
23 you're asking a very small percentage of the
24 population to make some pretty big sacrifices
25 economically, especially the way things have been
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1 recently to benefit a majority of people, and I
2 think that needs to be spread a little bit.
3 And society as a whole wants to
4 benefit from it, I think they need to help us a
5 little bit more with the incentive programs and
6 things like that. That's all I have to say.
7 MR. HICKS: Questions? Thank you,
8 Todd. Eddie Byrd.
9 MR. BYRD: My name is Eddie Byrd and
10 I represent Georgia Milk Producers, and I'm also
11 a dairy farmer in Walker County in North Georgia.
12 I'm in the same county as David Matteson, and
13 we're making every effort that we can voluntarily
14 to try to do what we can.
15 MS. HUMISTON: Can you put the mike
16 up a little bit?
17 MR. BYRD: We're making every effort
18 that we can to try to comply with regulations
19 before we're actually -- we get in trouble on
20 this thing.
21 Sometimes it's like David said, we're
22 doing what we can. Most of them in our county
23 probably won't fall into the confined size. We
24 don't have that many confined cattle. We don't
25 fall into the regulatory stage with them with the
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1 large amount of cattle.
2 We have several farms in the state of
3 Georgia that does, but the smaller farms, we're
4 trying to stay ahead of it. So basically what
5 we're going to need -- I'm going to try to not to
6 be redundant on what some of the others have
7 said.
8 We're going to need some cost sharing
9 on this thing. The dairy industry in Georgia is
10 in turmoil right now. I don't know if these
11 people realize it, but we have had a tremendous
12 amount of people going out of the dairy business,
13 and it's because of the cash flow.
14 And basically if we impose some high
15 costs to try to comply, then this is going to
16 happen at an accelerated rate. And basically
17 we've been trucking a tremendous amount of milk
18 into Georgia. It's like we don't have enough
19 milk for us to deal with supply now. And it's
20 pipelining right on down into Florida and moving
21 down into there.
22 But what the problem is, you know, if
23 there is a high cost imposed on these people,
24 then they can't do it. They are going out of
25 business. So basically that is kind of what, you
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1 know, what I was aiming at from mine because all
2 the rest of it as far as the compliance and so
3 forth, the people have been talking we can't do
4 this and we can't do that. Well, that's true
5 because this cash flow is going to stop us from
6 doing that.
7 We're going to have to have some sort
8 of time and some sort of help. Like I say,
9 they're leaving Georgia at an alarming rate and
10 we can't stand, you know, these other producers
11 to be going out. And we don't want to see them
12 end.
13 That's basically, you know, what I
14 had to add. Everything basically that the other
15 people have said, I had on my notes. But there's
16 no need to repeat them. So thank you.
17 MR. HICKS: Hold on just one second.
18 Is there a question? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Byrd.
19 Stefan Maupin.
20 MR. MAUPIN: Thank you, Dean Hicks.
21 First of all, I want to say it's a
22 pleasure for me to be before such an
23 distinguished panel, and it's also just a little
24 bit intimidating, too.
25 But I just want to make a few brief
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1 oral comments. My name is Stefan Maupin with the
2 Tennessee Farm Bureau. Our intentions are to
3 submit specific comments within the next few
4 weeks, written comments, but I do feel compelled
5 just to make a few points based on the strategy.
6 We are concerned with the tone of the
7 strategy. We do feel like that it has a
8 regulatory tone to it. It does make references
9 in a few cases to changing regulations, opening
10 up the permit process, enhancing regulations.
11 We believe that this strategy should
12 go along with the current regulations and just
13 should be a focused approach on the current
14 regulations without trying to make any changes to
15 what the current regulations are.
16 Leading into my next point, I just
17 want to say that the state should be able to
18 handle their own problems. We have had
19 regulations for over twenty-five years on CAFO
20 operations. The states have come along and have
21 addressed their own problems.
22 I spoke with several of our
23 counterparts in surrounding southeast states and
24 each of the states are dealing with their
25 problems based on producer needs, the severity of
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1 problems in their states and also agency
2 resources.
3 So I would just like to say that the
4 states should be allowed to address their own
5 problems based on their own certain needs.
6 I know we have a concern about the
7 strategy in the watershed approach. The
8 foundation behind a watershed approach in our
9 mind is weak. It's based on the 303 D list and
10 we believe that the 303 D list is not the right
11 foundation for a watershed approach.
12 Not now, but five, ten years from now
13 we can see situations where operations would be
14 shut down, where they may not be permitted again
15 or would not been able to open up operations
16 based on the fact that a watershed has a low
17 Maximum Daily Load Numbers and would not be
18 repermitted or be able to proceed with permit.
19 That was based on a list that was not
20 put together for that purpose. That leads to my
21 next point, we also believe this strategy should
22 be based on sound science. The direction this
23 strategy takes USDA/EPA into should be based on
24 sound science.
25 We want to reiterate that again. We
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1 do not agree with a lot of the numbers we have
2 seen as far as percentages that -- of waters and
3 streams that agriculture has polluted.
4 We see several numbers out there that
5 we just cannot agree with. The science is not
6 there behind them. It's a shotgun approach.
7 We would just ask that this strategy
8 be based on sound science. And then I go back to
9 the 303 D list.
10 I just want to give you an example.
11 If I were a farmer in an area, and I was going to
12 have to get a permit for my operations and I just
13 happened to be within a watershed where the 303 D
14 list said that the waters were impaired, and I
15 was going to have to spend ten or fifteen
16 thousand dollars, maybe more, up to fifty to
17 sixty thousand dollars, and on my banker sheet
18 that would not equate out to a profit or being
19 able to pay back my loans -- if I were that
20 farmer, you would better believe that I would
21 want to know that I'm building my operation -- I
22 would want to know everything that is in that
23 stream or that creek and why it is polluted.
24 And based on the 303 D list,
25 sometimes it is a shotgun approach and it is not
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1 particularly based on sound science and some
2 science is old.
3 And we would ask, of course, that the
4 strategy be based on sound science.
5 Again, thank you for allowing us the
6 opportunity to come and speak with you today and
7 express come of our concerns and you will be
8 receiving our comments at a later time.
9 MR. HICKS: Is there a question?
10 Thank you Mr. Maupin.
11 MR. MAUPIN: Thank you.
12 MR. HICKS: I'm going to mess this
13 one up, too, I guess. Frank Humenick?
14 At least I got you on your feet.
15 MR. HUMENICK: Yes, it's me.
16 MR. HICKS: Thank you.
17 MR. HUMENICK: I'm Frank Humenick.
18 Work in the Animal Management Programs at North
19 Carolina State University. Virtually all the
20 technical experts and producers that interact
21 with us are very supportive of the no discharge
22 criteria for the animal industry as developed
23 according to the 1972 amendment for the Clean
24 Water Act.
25 Benefits of the no discharge criteria
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1 for effluent guidelines, and this would be no
2 discharge criteria for all units regardless of
3 size for all the producers -- easy enforcement.
4 Our producers don't have to get into the
5 monitoring and other resources requirements for
6 effluent guidelines or permits and requirements
7 and the no discharge goal supports nutrient
8 utilization on farms for substantial production
9 to perfect soil, air and water fallout.
10 The major deficiency of the existing
11 no discharge criteria is there are no directions
12 for discharge allowed for chronic and
13 catastrophic rainfall.
14 Such rainfall, especially associated
15 with hurricanes in the southeast, has resulted in
16 several lagoon failures. And NRCS in North
17 Carolina has been to install emergency overflow
18 to the lagoons for the size according to North
19 Carolina requirements to protect lagoon integrity
20 during such high rainfall events.
21 Many technical experts recommend
22 lagoons to have land receiver systems during such
23 chronic and catastrophic events, to avoid lagoon
24 failures, although there is no regulatory
25 justification for them.
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1 With the experience we have gained
2 since 1972, we should give our producers
3 direction as to how to handle the discharge
4 that's allowed during these chronic and
5 catastrophic conditions.
6 Therefore, we suggest that more
7 attention be directed to this than to develop
8 effluent guidelines to replace the no discharge
9 goal.
10 In 1998, sixteen universities and
11 fourteen states developed a proposal for a
12 national center for manure and animal waste
13 management. This proposal was submitted to the
14 USDA Fund for Rural America where it was
15 identified as the number one proposal based on
16 merit and peer review.
17 We believe the program proposed, to
18 the extent that it addresses, a significant
19 number of issues identified in the Draft
20 Strategy. And particularly Strategic Issue
21 Number 4, Coordinated Research, Technical
22 Innovation, Compliance Assistance and Technology
23 Transfer.
24 We propose that this center, which
25 includes experts from around the country, which
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1 are already working together to utilize to help
2 satisfy Option Number 1, to develop a national
3 animal feeding operation and information and
4 research centers.
5 We think this would be a very timely
6 and effective way to be able to develop this
7 virtual center type of concept to allow our
8 producers to have the latest information to help
9 them comply with these regulations.
10 Thank you.
11 MR. HICKS: Questions?
12 MS. HUMISTON: Not a question, but
13 the portion of your proposal to Fund for Rural
14 America describes what you're doing, and I would
15 urge you to make sure that you include that in
16 your written comments so that we have access to
17 it.
18 MR. HUMENICK: Yes, this would be
19 forwarded by the Six A Consortium and also the
20 group that put together this proposal the
21 administrative --
22 MR. MCGHEE: Could you expand on what
23 exactly you mean by the no discharge
24 requirements? I think what you are saying is
25 there are certain chronic conditions under what
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1 there should be allowed a discharge.
2 Could you describe what those might
3 be?
4 MR. HUMENICK: I'm not saying that
5 they should be allowed to discharge. The current
6 law does allow a discharge in excess of the
7 twenty-four hour, twenty-five year storm. That's
8 what the 1972 amendment stated for the feedlot
9 industry.
10 However, we never told them how they
11 can discharge. And so if we tell the producer he
12 can do it, but we don't tell him how, and so that
13 leaves him in a quandary. And sometimes he just
14 doesn't do anything. And that's when we had
15 lagoon toppings and lagoon failures.
16 MR. MCGHEE: So what you are saying
17 is twenty-five/twenty-four requirement can -- the
18 no discharge but we need to be more specific in
19 the guides and permits on exactly where they can
20 discharge and how to design that?
21 MR. HUMENICK: Yes. If I can, there
22 are a lot of different things that could be done.
23 A lot of things that I think that we've had
24 experience with, and I just feel we should take
25 advantage of to give the producer some
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1 directions.
2 They call us and we just can't tell
3 them because we have no regulatory or legal basis
4 for making the recommendation.
5 MR. HICKS: Thank you.
6 I would be calling for any additional
7 speakers after the next two have spoken.
8 And then if any of the previous
9 speakers would like to be reheard or have another
10 point, we will hear those.
11 Sarah Strain. There's one speaker
12 after Ms. Strain that's recorded here.
13 MS. STRAIN: My, my. I met somebody
14 out in the hall and they said this meeting was
15 going on, so here I am.
16 I represent a Chattanooga Valley
17 Resident Association from North Georgia,
18 Kennesaw, Georgia.
19 We were -- I'm a wife, a mother, a
20 homemaker, and I was living the America dream.
21 And then we found out somebody was planning our
22 America dream, and we decided we needed to find
23 out who was planning it, what they were planning
24 and where they were going with it.
25 So we started studying and
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1 discovering all these agencies and all these laws
2 and all these codes and all these ordinances that
3 affect us -- the farmers, homemakers, citizens.
4 Rules, regulations guidelines,
5 variances, mitigations, regulations based on
6 sound science. Bad water practice, soil
7 displacement. Don't disturb or build in
8 wetlands, flood plains, and on twenty-five
9 percent slopes.
10 We can all affect laws. Call your
11 congressman, tell him what you think. Write him.
12 And you at the table have an even
13 greater influence on our laws than we do as
14 common, ordinary citizens because you have the
15 influence. You are the authority; we're not. We
16 just learn from you and your papers and your
17 meetings.
18 Pollution, when we regulate farmers
19 out of farms or for other reasons, the land is
20 sold. What then? They are developed. That land
21 is developed. It either becomes commercial or it
22 becomes homes.
23 It's probably clear cut, and then we
24 have no open spaces. There are developers who
25 can use plans with open spaces, but developers
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1 not willing to do that unless they become
2 educated. And I think this and other meetings
3 are mainly beneficial for education for the
4 common, ordinary citizen to find out what is
5 available, what can be done and what other people
6 have done.
7 From agriculture farms to house
8 farms, that's what we're becoming. The
9 developers come in, you have buildings and
10 asphalt where once you had its own natural
11 pollution control of fields, forests, grass and
12 soil.
13 A form of pollution that developers
14 have is clear cutting, taking everything off the
15 soil, going all the way up to the rivers and
16 streams, putting sediment in the rivers and
17 streams. And then you have a problem with the
18 free flowing streams.
19 Our farmers are really not the only
20 problem. They are not the only problem.
21 They need to be -- these developers
22 really -- and I understand money. I understand
23 making a living. But the farmers are making a
24 living.
25 Now, when does an agricultural entity
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1 become an industrial entity? You were discussing
2 how many chicken houses would it take to make
3 this woman happy that she just has a few on her
4 land.
5 That needs to be addressed in a
6 written paper: When does an agricultural entity
7 become an industrial entity? Thank you.
8 MR. HICKS: Thank you. We have one
9 other speaker that's listed here, Joe Fetzer.
10 MR. FETZER: I'd like to ask this
11 distinguished panel if you feel like that
12 accomplishing your goals in this issue has been a
13 piece of cake, or do you feel like you just now
14 starting?
15 MS. HUMISTON: Just starting.
16 MR. FETZER: I'm a has been, as far
17 as a farmer, as a dairy farmer goes. I'm still a
18 grain farmer, but I have been in the dairy
19 business almost fifteen years of my lifetime. So
20 I think I have a vantage point that is not under
21 tension. I think you need to particularly note
22 these gentlemen, particularly the one from
23 Florida and others that have stressed the
24 hardships out here on these farms.
25 You have a piece of cake today, the
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1 American way. You are blessed with an abundance
2 of food and fiber. But if you want to impose the
3 oppression of all this regulation, you will
4 dramatically change what we know of America
5 today. You will change the family farm. It will
6 be gone as far as for most farms.
7 I think what we need to do is --
8 we're about this backwards. This woman that
9 spoke from Sumner County -- to address her
10 concerns and the farmer's concerns, what we need
11 to do is to go about it the America way, to offer
12 incentives for reaching the goals of their
13 neighbors being satisfied with the odor concerns.
14 I know that this is a distinguished
15 panel. I know that we have achieved high levels
16 of learning in this country. But there's no one
17 in any government regulatory or educational
18 authority that knows it all. The farmers don't
19 either, but they have been trying to do the best
20 that they could with what they had.
21 They have honestly and earnestly been
22 trying to be good stewards. And if they are
23 given incentive programs to do this instead of
24 regulatory loopholes to crawl through so that we
25 can have a few more regulators out here, then --
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1 and I propose we'll wind up with a bigger mess
2 than what we have got, if you continue on this
3 way.
4 You people that are regulators will
5 not been happy once you learn that where this
6 incentive is really coming from -- we have had
7 this law on this book for twenty-five years, why
8 has it not been imposed?
9 Where this is really coming from is
10 the United Nations trying to tell us what to do
11 down here in America, where we need to be working
12 out between our neighbors. We need to have
13 voluntary incentive programs.
14 You're not going to go tell me if I
15 took a truckload of manure and dumped it in the
16 Ocoee River, and someone saw it that there's not
17 something that you can do to me.
18 Now, we have laws on the books today.
19 You are trying to manage our farms. The farmers
20 are the experts. They are the ones that are
21 experts on the farm. They have taken other
22 expert's premier expertise from the
23 universities -- that has been a lot of input gone
24 through.
25 And they garner through it and they
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1 apply it to their own niche. The universities
2 can find the things that work best on their test
3 locations, but what works on Mr. Barker's farm or
4 other people's farms is different.
5 What we need is to pursue our goals,
6 the American way, instead of the dictatorial way.
7 Thank you.
8 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Mr. Fetzer.
9 Additional speakers that have signed
10 up?
11 Would any of the previous speakers
12 like an additional minute or two? In the order
13 that you signed up, if you don't mind.
14 MR. DARLING: Thank you very much.
15 There were a couple of other points that I did
16 want to bring up. Some of the dairy farmer
17 members here have talked about the proposal in
18 there to use check off funds for cost sharing
19 improvements on farms.
20 It is my opinion that were you to go
21 after that, and they are already in the dairy
22 industry paying fifteen cent a hundred weight
23 check off, if you were to add to that or use some
24 of that for this kind of a purpose, I think the
25 reaction would be strong. I think it be would be
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1 negative.
2 And I think the dairy industry would
3 probably vote that check off program out of
4 existence so that they have that whole thing out
5 of the way. And that would be detrimental to
6 them from a marketing standpoint and wouldn't
7 achieve the goal that you wanted to achieve.
8 Secretary, you asked one of the dairy
9 farmers about what would you do, and I would like
10 to respond to that in regard to what is happening
11 in Florida.
12 EPA has already told our DEP that
13 they have to go out and inspect our dairies
14 because we are also -- the entire state of
15 Florida is under the coastal management, the DEP
16 is going to inspect every dairy out there.
17 And they were kind enough to ask my
18 input on how they best go about that, and I
19 suggested to them that they needed to get with
20 qualified Ag engineers and university research
21 people.
22 And I love the remarks by Dr.
23 Humenick. I have known him for some time, and
24 those remarks were very well worth listening to
25 and hopefully considering seriously in those
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1 types of events.
2 But that they develop criteria on
3 what they would be using to inspect the farms.
4 Notify our farmers what that criteria is going to
5 be. Come out and do the inspection and notify
6 the farm of what the deficiencies are, give him a
7 reasonable amount of time to fix those
8 deficiencies and give him sources where he can go
9 to.
10 And we are looking at other
11 alternatives in Florida other than the Natural
12 Resource Conservation Service. So that's going
13 to be one of them.
14 But we're looking at Rural Water
15 Association in what Florida. That was a new one
16 on me and that, you know, provide the assistance
17 and give them a reasonable amount of time and
18 then be prepared to go after the bad apple.
19 You have got a few knotheads that you
20 just have to hit upside the head, and if you
21 would do that it would make it so much easier for
22 everybody else.
23 Why comply, and I have get this
24 complaint all the time, why am I complying when
25 Joe Doe over here has got it running on down the
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1 road.
2 You know, you really just need
3 simply -- you talk about enforcing what you have
4 already got. Please do.
5 But there is an awful lot of talk in
6 here about more regulation and revising, and it's
7 that two tier thing that I think is very much of
8 a negative. Let's give what we have got a chance
9 to work.
10 Thank you.
11 MR. HICKS: Thank you. Mr. Moore,
12 you were needing some more time a few minutes
13 ago. Would you like to speak again?
14 MR. MOORE: I will try again.
15 MR. HICKS: And then I believe I saw
16 Ms. Glover wanting to speak.
17 Why don't you come on forward and be
18 ready, Ms. Glover?
19 MR. MOORE: I'd like to start off
20 with saying that ninety-five percent of the
21 farmers in our area -- someone from that farm has
22 to work off the farm to support the agriculture.
23 You can name very few of them that a
24 hundred percent income comes from the farm -- no
25 matter what -- dairy, chicken, beef, hog, the
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1 crops or what. It's just not there.
2 And then, you know, to put us under
3 other regulations and other obligations makes it
4 harder for us to continue farming, when we're
5 doing such a good job that one of us can feed a
6 hundred and thirty people around this world, it
7 speaks highly for what the farmers have done.
8 We have done in through conservation
9 of our resources, not just the land but the
10 animal manure that comes from it. We have done a
11 good job of conserving on the larger scale.
12 But then, you know, all it takes for
13 me to get in trouble is for one person to call
14 EPA and not satisfied with what I'm doing and the
15 way I'm doing it.
16 We can't hide. We're out there in
17 the open. Why not make available to us that
18 person's name that is reporting us? It's not
19 wrong, is it? Is confidentiality so strong that
20 I can't know who is fighting me?
21 It's like taking shots -- shooting in
22 the dark. You don't know. We have a hard enough
23 time anyway. And it may be that we may have to
24 have a farmer protection agency.
25 I think that some of the people --
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1 that were so strong against farmers are kind of
2 like the congressman from Missouri that has since
3 passed away, but I heard him speak in Atlanta,
4 and I thought it might apply to this.
5 Back when the animal activist rights
6 people were so strong back in the '70s, he said
7 they had a sheep herders convention in Minnesota
8 or Montana. And they were talking about the
9 problem they have with coyotes, talking about
10 poisoning them, killing them and various other
11 methods.
12 And one of the animal rights people
13 got up and said, what y'all need to do is catch
14 those coyotes and castrate them.
15 And one old sheep farmer got up and
16 said, lady, you don't understand our problem.
17 Them coyotes are killing our sheep, they are not
18 raping them. They're raping them, they're not
19 killing them.
20 You get my message. They are killing
21 our sheep; they are not raping them.
22 So you're killing us with all the
23 regulations.
24 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Mr. Moore.
25 Ms. Glover.
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1 MS. GLOVER: I think I have this in
2 my comments, but I would hope somebody in this
3 whole group, before you have leave, this study
4 over a period of thirty years will take a serious
5 use look at what has happened to our contract
6 growers in this country.
7 You can't study this issue and mega
8 corporations and these contracts and the
9 situations that our farmers end up in and
10 sometimes they are suffered -- presented this
11 great deal and they will go into debt for maybe
12 three hundred thousand dollars to do there
13 chickens houses or facilities.
14 And in reality, it has been shown
15 that these growers make about sixteen thousand
16 dollars a year. So I hope somebody will take the
17 time to take a look at what has happened to our
18 contract growers.
19 And secondly, I would like to ask
20 this question especially of the EPA. If the CAFO
21 regulations that pertain to factory farms and
22 industrial agriculture and the Clean Water Act,
23 if those regulations had been enforced, would we
24 have arrived at this point?
25 If they had really been enforced,
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1 would we have arrived at this point?
2 I really think that the controls have
3 really gone on the large mega corporations and
4 that if they had developed the kinds of plans
5 that they needed to, I sort of doubt that we
6 would be sitting here today. This is what I think
7 about it. Take a look at that. Thank you.
8 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Ms. Glover.
9 Additional speakers, would you identify yourself.
10 MR. ROSSE: I'm Mark Rosse from the
11 University of Georgia, funded by the Pollutions
12 Preventions Systems Division of Georgia, which is
13 a rather unique relationship.
14 I had several comments, first off,
15 and my whole family farms or is in agricultural
16 research or extension. So I'm -- I have a pretty
17 significant Ag background.
18 And you have heard several speakers
19 here today say that America has the most abundant
20 food supply and the cheapest food resources. The
21 main reason for that is our farmers, but also for
22 years and years we have invested in agricultural
23 research, and we have the best extension network
24 anywhere in the world.
25 Our emphasis has always been on
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1 production until, say, the last ten years or so.
2 I think right now at the universities we're
3 seeing more and more research into animal waste
4 management and some of these solutions are being
5 developed.
6 Dr. Humenick was talking about a
7 proposal for the Fund for Rural America. That's
8 one method, but when you're looking at how to
9 allocate these resources, I urge you to look at
10 using those resources for additional research,
11 rather than some of the other measures in there.
12 The second best use of research or
13 resources, in my opinion, is cost share. And the
14 plan stresses all the NRCS cost share programs
15 that currently exists, but I know from being in
16 the field in Georgia and working with producers
17 that have problems, sometimes they can't get any
18 cost share, you know.
19 We're targeting resources in certain
20 areas, and they're not in the right area, you
21 know, they can't get equipped and then they
22 are -- the cost share programs, they look good on
23 paper, but they're not always there in the field.
24 And you need to recognize that when
25 you say well, we're giving them assistance to
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1 implement these things on a voluntary basis.
2 Nutrient management and P -- we have
3 had heard some farmers mention that. I have been
4 on farms, I'm trying to do the right thing. I
5 have adopted the NRCS standards, and they have
6 high phosphorus levels in the soil. You try to
7 do nutrient management, based on phosphorus they
8 go with no application.
9 On poultry farms, you have got a
10 solid waste trying to ship it off the farm. When
11 they have got liquid lagoons and irrigation
12 systems and high soil P levels, what can you tell
13 that farmer?
14 I mean, I can't use the NRCS strategy
15 on that farm because it says no P application if
16 you are at excessively high levels. We need to
17 address that in a plan and figure out what were
18 going to tell those farmers to do.
19 Certified plans, you know, I hope
20 that every Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan
21 is done by somebody that's trained, but you have
22 got to realize that's going to cost a lot of
23 money.
24 If you want private industry to do
25 it, they are not going to do it for free. So you
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1 have got to put your money where your mouth is if
2 you wanted them to take over and do that job.
3 Also on these inspections, working
4 for the Pollution Prevention Assistance Division
5 in Georgia, I have seen it a lot with industries.
6 They do a lot better job of going to a plant and
7 doing inspection than somebody at the EPD does
8 because they are trained in pollution prevention.
9 When you're sending inspectors out on
10 the farms, let's make this a win/win situation
11 and have them trained in agriculture in current
12 production practices.
13 When you're sending somebody to the
14 farm, they are going to be able to make
15 suggestions on how that farmer can improve his
16 operation and not just be there for a hundred
17 percent regulatory purpose.
18 So look at who we're hiring to do
19 these inspections.
20 Finally, a lot of industries moving
21 to ISO standards and doing things in
22 environmentally friendly ways and trying to
23 capitalize on that by raising prices.
24 When we're looking at these industry
25 initiatives and things industries can do, I think
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1 we can do a lot with labeling and have the
2 consumers bear some the cost for environmentally
3 sound production. That's one way of capitalizing
4 on it.
5 It's not really mentioned in the plan
6 and there's a thousand reasons it won't work, but
7 I have seen cases where it does work.
8 Organic vegetables in grocery stores
9 are a lot more expensive, but they are being sold
10 and consumers are buying them. They are paying
11 more for them.
12 Can we label some of our other
13 agricultural products in that manner and get the
14 consumer to bear some of the costs? It should be
15 considered in the plan. Thank you.
16 MR. HICKS: Thank you. I would ask
17 you to sign this list, if you don't mind, for the
18 record.
19 Would you do the same please with
20 your name?
21 MR. HASKEW: My name is James Haskew.
22 I'm a farmer in an adjoining county. As most
23 farmers, I wear various hats. I'm a certified
24 crop advisor. I'm president of my local farm
25 bureau and also I have served on the local county
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1 ASCS, which now we call FSA, and the problem that
2 is really -- it's been spoken of tonight but it's
3 been overlooked is cost sharing.
4 Having served on the ASCS committee,
5 I have reviewed many times cost sharing
6 applications for these waste management plans.
7 For instance, particularly on one
8 dairy farm, it started out with the just
9 approximately a fifteen thousand dollar cost
10 share and would probably have took eighteen
11 months to have implemented it. It turned into
12 almost a hundred thousand dollars worth of cost
13 share and I think that the Department of
14 Agriculture pitched in some.
15 It took five years. Let's get it --
16 if we're going to have a program like this, let's
17 get it realistic where a farmer, as has already
18 been spoken, they are the professionals here
19 because they are feeding the world.
20 Let's look at what they know and take
21 some of their ideas instead of sending out NRCS
22 specialists that claim they know everything and
23 look at your operation together and get this
24 thing narrowed down to about a year, and maybe we
25 would get this thing going.
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1 The farmers will work voluntarily.
2 It's a proven fact. Look at Save Our Soil from
3 earlier years of soil conservation service.
4 Farmers are voluntary leaders and they will work
5 with it, if is offered. Thank you.
6 MR. HICKS: I would ask that you sign
7 for the record. Are there questions of the last
8 speakers?
9 Did congressman Zach Wamp show up?
10 We're in his territory, and I guess we need his
11 permission to carry on.
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: He has the head of
13 the Nuclear regulatory agency coming into town
14 today and he had to attend.
15 MR. HICKS: All right. We are still
16 several minutes away from the appointed 7:00
17 time.
18 With this time, would this panel like
19 to direct any questions or any comments or
20 solicit any comments?
21 MS. HUMISTON: There is another hand.
22 MR. HICKS: Yes, sir. Would you come
23 to the mike.
24 MR. GARNER: I'm Bob Garner. I'm a
25 dairy farmer from Memphis, Tennessee and I would
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1 like to say to this panel that I'm very heartened
2 by what I have heard here today.
3 If you will do what you say and the
4 government agencies all cooperate with one
5 another and cooperate with local agencies, such
6 as soil conservation local districts and local
7 extension people and our local university people,
8 and also with the farmers on a one to one basis,
9 I think you can achieve what you want to achieve.
10 And I think it will be good for everybody.
11 But what farmers are really afraid
12 of, and I know you have heard that here tonight,
13 they don't want somebody coming down there that
14 don't know anything about their operation and
15 have only read a book, and telling them what they
16 have got to do and fining them for whatever they
17 are doing.
18 I mean, they have got to know what is
19 right.
20 Now, about ten years ago, I had a
21 good neighbor, and he reported me for getting
22 manure in the creek.
23 I had been milking in that particular
24 place for twenty some odd years at that time.
25 And every few weeks, there would be somebody from
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1 Water Quality in Nashville come down.
2 Well, they came several times. They
3 came one day in March when we had had a big rain.
4 Now, of course manure was going to the creek.
5 There was no way to avoid that.
6 Well, we had people that came out
7 there and they told us what to do. And it would
8 have been a disaster if I would have done that.
9 And you know, I had no guarantee that
10 what I done was going to be right, no matter how
11 much money I spent, nobody could say, now, if you
12 do this you will be in compliance and you can
13 produce milk and nobody will bother you.
14 Well, after a while, they told me,
15 said, well, we're going to have to do something.
16 We have got too many complaints. They didn't say
17 too many people. They said too many complaints.
18 I said, who's complaining.
19 And they said, we can't tell you
20 that.
21 Well, anybody that calls them three
22 times a day, the same person, and complain and
23 they said, we have got so many complaints, you
24 know, we have got to do something.
25 So after several months of having
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1 people come by and tell me what I ought to do and
2 what they told me would not work. I mean, I
3 would be in worse shape if I had done that than I
4 would where I was.
5 So we went and built a brand new
6 outfit. We started out spending a hundred and
7 sixty thousand dollars, and we wound up spend
8 four hundred thousand. Now, this was borrowed
9 money; it wasn't something I had in the bank.
10 We spent a hundred thousand dollars
11 of that to control our waste. We have got three
12 miles of buried pipe. We have got three hundred
13 and fifty acres that we put to waste on from a
14 hundred and sixty cows that we keep confined all
15 the time. This is milking herd.
16 We have done all this on our own. We
17 have not asked a nickel from anybody, but we
18 still don't know if what we're doing is right,
19 because we really have anything to go by and
20 nobody has told us now -- if you do this, you
21 will be all right and nobody will bother you.
22 Now, I know whatever you do or
23 whatever we do is subject to change over time,
24 everything is. But I think we have done all we
25 can do, and I would welcome anybody that will
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1 come to my place that knows what he's doing that
2 can tell me this is what you do and you will be
3 all right; nobody will bother you.
4 And I think that's what we need. We
5 need somebody that knows what's happening and
6 what is going on on the farm, not somebody that
7 just knows what they have read in a textbook.
8 Now, I had one young man come from
9 Water Quality, and this has been ten years ago
10 and he is probably no longer with them, but he
11 told me that I couldn't stir my lagoon and pump
12 that waste out, that all I could do was take the
13 super, he called it, off the top. Well, what am
14 I going to do what that lagoon when it gets full
15 because it's going to fill up with solids if I
16 don't stir it up and get it out.
17 He said, well, you will have to dig
18 another lagoon. I said, well, what am I going to
19 do then? I said, soon I will have my whole farm
20 covered up with lagoons. You know, we have got
21 do have some direction from somebody that
22 understands the problem.
23 I think you're going about it in the
24 right direction. If you get people to cooperate
25 and get all the agencies to cooperate and get
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1 people to cooperate that knows what he's doing
2 and can talk to the people on an individual
3 basis, where they are not afraid of being fined
4 for what they are doing, then I think you're
5 going in the right direction.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. HICKS: Thank you for your
8 comments. Can you identify the county that
9 you're from?
10 MR. GARNER: Lawrence County.
11 MR. HICKS: Any other speakers?
12 Panelists, would you like to makes comments?
13 Sorry come ahead, you take priority.
14 MS. BALDWIN: My name is Regina
15 Baldwin. I did not come here with any intentions
16 of speaking today.
17 However, let me say that I was raised
18 on a dairy farm and I now live on a poultry farm.
19 We have a lagoon on the dairy farm that's there
20 through cost share through cooperation with the
21 soil conservation office.
22 If you come to the poultry farm, you
23 will find a chicken composter that's there
24 through the same cost share programs.
25 We, as farmers, know what is best or
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1 our land; if not, we couldn't stay in business.
2 We are not -- we want to keep the small farm. We
3 want to raise our families on these small farms.
4 That's what important to us. We're not going to
5 go out there and destroy that because we see it
6 as a way of life.
7 As for the lady that's concerned with
8 the chicken houses, I understand that concern.
9 However, as far as her concern about a contract,
10 I read my own contract before I sign it. If I
11 can't -- I don't need to be in the business.
12 You will find that most farmers are
13 smart enough to take care of their own problems
14 and address their own problems through
15 cooperation with the soil conservation offices.
16 And we ask y'all to recognize that and we
17 appreciate your cooperation. Thank you.
18 MR. HICKS: Thank you. I will get
19 you to sign as well.
20 Am I about to overlook other
21 speakers?
22 MR. LINDSEY: Let me just close by
23 saying thank up very much again for everyone
24 coming out here and sharing your views.
25 We have got a lot of notes to go
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1 through. We have got a big job ahead of us. We
2 will take it seriously and we will cooperate, in
3 the context of the last speaker's suggestion, and
4 do our best to come up with the strategy that
5 makes the most sense for the most people.
6 Let me suggest though that you do --
7 a lot of you have taken a lot of time in thinking
8 through your statements here today.
9 Let me suggest that, even though we
10 have got a record of it, a verbatim record, that
11 you do send in those comments. You have taken a
12 lot of time to think them through and just write
13 them down and send them in. That would helpful.
14 Make sure we get it right, okay.
15 And we would appreciate that. Thank
16 you very much for coming.
17 MS. HUMISTON: Definitely after that,
18 I don't know about most of you, but I know me.
19 Sometimes after these meetings, driving home or
20 after a good nights sleep, I think of what I
21 really wanted to say.
22 But what I will close with that
23 tonight because I do want y'all to understand
24 that we are taking this quite seriously.
25 As I mentioned to you, I have been on
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1 this job five months come this Sunday. And prior
2 to that, I came out of California, where one of
3 my saddest duties was to resign on a supervisor
4 on a soil and water conservation district.
5 In fact, there in that capacity, I
6 was very proud last year to be elected
7 unanimously as president of the state association
8 of our soil and water conservation district.
9 We have got a proud tradition there
10 trying to work with both the agricultural and
11 environmental community to find solutions to
12 these type of problems that we've been talking
13 about tonight.
14 And I really want to congratulate all
15 of you tonight. The comments have been
16 excellent, and I think it's wonderful you took
17 the time to come here and truly from my heart,
18 this is what democracy is about.
19 But I think we have both got to stop
20 and really look at the realities out there. The
21 agricultural community currently is one to two
22 percent of voters in this nation.
23 And if you haven't admitted that to
24 yourself, you better start doing it. Eighty to
25 ninety percent of the voters are living in
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1 cities, and they are enjoying that bountiful food
2 y'all are raising.
3 But poll after poll, study after
4 study shows that they have a strong -- very
5 strong environmental ethic. And I know farmers
6 do too, so we have got to work together to find
7 solutions, as we've all said today.
8 Please get those comments in where
9 you think we can make this plan work together. I
10 have to admit to how that I'm probably a little
11 more optimistic than what I've heard in here
12 tonight because I have seen it work.
13 One of the projects I worked on in
14 California was a joint project in EPA Region 9
15 and the California Cattleman's Association. And
16 that was to meet clean water goals for coastal
17 zones, so the gentleman that spoke about coastal
18 zoning, you know how strict I'm talking.
19 And that what about three or four
20 years ago, and we put together a water quality
21 management plan, that cattlemen and the wool
22 growers signed onto. The farm bureau signed
23 onto, EPA Region 9, the State Water Board, the
24 enviromental groups including NRDC and Sierra
25 Club.
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1 Everybody signed onto it and what has
2 happened now, and now we have got four or five
3 years ago. It can be done. It was exactly along
4 what y'all said today, particularly the woman
5 that mentioned farms being to write a lot of
6 their own plans. That was a strong component of
7 that.
8 And if you will notice in the
9 strategy, I think we should beef this up -- more
10 opportunities for people who are technically
11 competent and others who would like consultants
12 to do that.
13 Get those kind of comments in to us,
14 and we will get that in the plan. But don't
15 think that these folks here are necessarily your
16 enemies. I know a couple of you have really gone
17 after the EPA tonight.
18 But what I have noticed in the last
19 two or three years is that when the cattlemen
20 came under attack by the environmental group, it
21 was EPA Region 9 who stood up and said, you leave
22 them alone.
23 They came forward and put together a
24 good plan and they have been implementing them,
25 these cattlemen, and they are years ahead of any
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1 implementation schedule we asked them to do, and
2 you leave them alone. And I have seen them stand
3 up in court and do that, too.
4 So, the partnership can work if we'll
5 all work together. And the last thing I will say
6 is we said we mentioned budget cuts earlier and
7 the reason I mentioned that is because the
8 federal government is not going to come in here
9 and solve this problem. We don't have the money
10 anymore than anybody else does.
11 It's going to take the federal
12 government, the state government, the local
13 governments. It's going to take public and it's
14 going to take private, it's going to take
15 universities. It's going to take a lot of
16 resources, you're absolutely right.
17 So again, get your comments in, reach
18 out to other people and approach them and get
19 comments. I do think we have got a strategy that
20 is going to work here. I have been very
21 heartened just listening to your comments
22 tonight.
23 MR. LINDSEY: One more point. A few
24 of us have to catch airplanes, so we'll be
25 elsewhere.
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1 But a number of people will be here
2 for, you know, after the meeting for some time.
3 So if you have specific points you want to make
4 to someone -- have questions or discussions you
5 want to have feel, free to approach us. Thank
6 you very much.
7 MR. HICKS: Well, I'm proud of you
8 have for your sophisticated statements and the
9 forthright manner in which you delivered them.
10 So I thank you for you good
11 statements. And I thank you for your attendance.
12 To the panelists, I appreciate your
13 patience and your indulgence.
14 And for the record, Go Vols! Merry
15 Christmas.
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