Livestock operations study new EPA rules

Nevada's largest livestock operators and state and federal officials are gathering this week to discuss new federal rules covering the state's biggest dairies and pig farms.

The U.S.

Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service is holding a meeting on Wednesday to explain recently-published U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency regulations concerning concentrated animal feeding operations - better known as CAFOs.

The EPA last month published new rules for CAFOs in response to growing concerns over water pollution caused by the animal waste produced by such huge livestock operations.

The state has until April 2004 to amend its regulations to be at least as strict as the federal rules, according to Bruce Holmgren, staff engineer with Nevada Division of Environmental Protection in Carson City.

Otherwise, the program would revert to the federal government which would regulate the state's CAFOs.

"We're waiting for NDEP to determine where they have to be in order to maintain state primacy," said Doug Busselman, executive vice president of the Nevada Farm Bureau.

"We don't know if there's going to be much if any changes to in the Nevada program.

If you were a CAFO before you're still a CAFO.

The net effect is still somewhat uncertain."

The division will be reviewing its options with the other state departments and federal agencies, including the Nevada Department of Agriculture, Nevada Dairy Commission and the federal NRCS, as well as local producer organizations such as the Farm Bureau, and local producers.

NDEP is working with 12 CAFOs in the state, primarily in Fallon, Yerington and in southern Nevada.

All but one are dairy farms with more than 700 animals.

A CAFO is defined as an operation with 1,000 or more animal units or one with between 301 and 1,000 animal units if it discharges pollutants through a manmade device directly into a water body or surface water drainage course passing through the operation.

The four largest dairies in northern Nevada, according to the Nevada Dairy Commission, are A & A Dairy and Hillside Dairy, both in Fallon, and Desert Hills and L & S Dairy, both in Yerington.

The new rules may lengthen that list of Nevada CAFOs, said Holmgren, to include some largescale cattle operations.

"It's possible there are some facilities out there that should have applied for permits and haven't yet," said Holmgren.

The Agriculture Department and NDEP responded to an EPA request for comments regarding the new rules before they were published.

Those comments, and the comments of other states, helped to prevent the EPA from lowering the threshold for all CAFOs to 300 animals, according to Ed Foster, a spokesperson for the state's Department of Agriculture.

More importantly, said Foster, the EPA agreed to evaluate each operation on an individual basis before including it in a list of CAFOs.

"Agriculture west of the Mississippi is very different," said Foster.

"We have open spaces here and often times we have to drill for water."

That's compared to East Coast and Midwest operations, said Foster, that are often located near surface water that can be polluted and have limited land on which to dispose of the manure produced by the operation's animals.

Under the new EPA rules, CAFOs "will be required to apply for a permit, submit an annual report, and develop and follow a plan for handling manure and wastewater." Large dairies in the state will now probably have to obtain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, as mandated under the Clean Water Act.

Right now, CAFOs here either must obtain a state groundwater permit or, if they can prove they can control a 25-year, 24-hour storm event, are exempt from permitting requirements.

"They'll need an NDPES permit unless they can prove there is no potential for discharge which is going to be tough to prove, except maybe for some rural dairies," said Holmgren.

According to Holmgren, the requirements for the federal NDPES permit do not differ significantly from those of the state groundwater permit.

The plan for handling manure and wastewater now required by the new EPA rules is called a comprehensive nutrient management plan.

It must include details on an operation's feed management, manure handling and storage, land application of manure, land management, record keeping and other options for manure use.

"The nutrient management plan is a huge thing," said Foster.

"It's a good idea for everybody to have some plan for it.

Even the smaller guys will start thinking about this.

The great thing about Nevada is we've got so much darn land we can get rid of the manure."

According to the EPA, Nevada has fewer problems with CAFOs than other states.

For one, the EPA estimates the new rules apply to about 15,500 livestock operations in the country.

Only 12, and maybe a few more once some other operations are evaluated under the new rules, are in Nevada.

In addition, the EPA says, "Nevada's arid climate makes accidental wet weather discharges rare." And Nevada operators tend to have more land available to more safely dispose of animal waste.

That doesn't mean Nevada CAFOs haven't had their problems.

Ponderosa Dairy, the state's largest CAFO, in Amargosa Valley, in 1999 was sentenced and fined $250,000 for violating the Clean Water Act.

The charge stemmed from a February 1998 incident in which the dairy's wastewater lagoon valve was left open for two days, allowing 1.7 million gallons of wastewater to flow into the Amargosa River in California.

And other operations in southern Nevada are running into trouble as the area's population grows and housing developments spread.

R.C.

Farms, a 40- year-old pig farm in North Las Vegas, for example, has faced widespread criticism, and a $69,000 air quality fine, ever since huge housing developments started cropping up around it in the late 1990s.

When the EPA announced the rule changes, the federal Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said there would be billions of dollars available in Farm Bill aid to assist CAFOs with meeting the new rules.