Dairy Needs to Make a Decision Soon: Air Emissions Consent Agreement
Posted: Jul 03, 2004
The current air quality related issues making news are not about odor. This is a whole new arena, which involves how much ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and particulate matter is being emitted from an animal facility. Citizen groups are saying that animal agriculture was not exempt from the 1997 Clean Air Act and EPA should be enforcing these regulations against AFOs (Animal Feeding Operations). Technically, EPA could go back starting in 1997 and fine an operation that exceeded air quality parameters or did not apply for appropriate permits.
The current air quality related issues making news are not about odor. This is a whole new arena, which involves how much ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and particulate matter is being emitted from an animal facility. Citizen groups are saying that animal agriculture was not exempt from the 1997 Clean Air Act and EPA should be enforcing these regulations against AFOs (Animal Feeding Operations). Technically, EPA could go back starting in 1997 and fine an operation that exceeded air quality parameters or did not apply for appropriate permits.
EPA is about to issue a proposed agreement to remedy this situation. The Air Emissions Consent Agreement (safe harbor agreement) is the result of effective lobbying by agricultural interest groups, including dairy, swine, egg producers and poultry meat production, over the last two years. In the most recent version, EPA has agreed to halt air quality actions against animal operations until better emission data is available to determine animal operations that would have to comply.
A critical part of this consent agreement is a 2-year monitoring and data collection period, financed by farms that participate in the agreement. An independent research team would collect air emissions data for use by EPA and the agricultural community in developing and responding to air quality regulations. Producer organizations for egg layers and swine are both responding as an industry and using check-off money to cover the cost of the necessary data collection.
Participating AFOs will have to sign individual agreements and pay the appropriate penalty. This will provide the producer with protection from EPA action during the data collection and regulation development periods.
Currently, there is no organized effort by the dairy industry to respond and fund the needed research. The big hurdle for dairy is its large number of independent farms, no national organization or infrastructure similar to the swine and egg producers and no common money source. It has been determined that dairy check-off money cannot be used for this purpose.
Various dairy farmers, organizations and advisors are struggling with this issue and trying to build a consensus for a group response. If there is no industry-wide response, each individual AFO will have to decide for itself what action to take and share directly in the cost of data collection. Owners, managers, lending agencies and insurance companies may all have a stake in this decision. If you are concerned about this issue, discuss this with your local and state producer organizations, cooperative representatives, contact EPA or your federal representative.
Virginia Ishler, Dairy Alliance
and
Robert E. Graves, Professor
Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department
