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Associated Press
In an unprecedented move, the Environmental Protection Agency last month
ordered a major hog producer to obey the same law that governs industrial
and municipal pollution.
The consequences may be more than just a label change. The hog industry
fears the order could touch every hog pen, chicken coop and cow pasture in
rural America. "It's a suggestion that manure is a toxic waste," said Al
Tank, head of the National Pork Producers Council, which opposes using laws
regulating hazardous and solid waste against hog farmers.
The EPA took action after discovering excessive nitrates in the private
water well of Ana Rangel, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time. High
levels of nitrates can cause illness or death, particularly in infants.
Monitoring wells at hog waste lagoons in the area were found to have
nitrate levels that were 10 times the acceptable level. The EPA feared
waste had leaked from lagoons into the groundwater flow.
Using the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the EPA declared that the
leaking effluent was, in essence, solid waste. The act typically applies to
hazardous and solid wastes from industry or municipal water treatment
plants.
The agency ordered Seaboard Farms Inc. and former owner PIC International
to investigate and clean up any contamination - acknowledging it doesn't
know for sure if the lagoons are to blame.
"The whole idea is to protect public health," said Tim Jones, an EPA
lawyer. "Whether we know conclusively if it's coming from a lagoon is not
as important as protecting health." Seaboard's supporters say that's
unfair. Wells in this farming region have tested high for nitrates before,
and the pork industry points to fertilizer used by wheat farmers as a
source. The town of Hennessey's water supply has been cited for nitrate
violations in excess of 15 parts per million three times since 1995; 10
parts or higher is considered a health threat.
"There's a nitrate problem in this area. Is it related to hogs? We don't
see the proof," said Shawn Lepard, executive director of ProAg, an Oklahoma
lobby group that supports corporate farming. Lepard arranged a visit with
Luis and Ana Rangel, whose son was born healthy soon after the EPA order.
The couple lived a quarter-mile from a manure pit big enough to hold two
football fields. They've since moved but aren't sure whom to blame for
their contaminated well.
"We talked to our doctor who said the wheat farmers aren't very innocent
either," said Luis Rangel, a local ranch hand. Seaboard, the nation's
third-largest pork producer, is cooperating with the EPA. The Merriam, Kan.
-based company will pay for an investigation to "prove ourselves innocent,"
said spokesman Gary Reckrodt. "We are as concerned about our neighbors as
anybody. We have employees, our own families, living near sites," he said.
"If it's proven that it does have something to do with our operations,
we'll address it."
In December, the EPA declared concentrated animal feeding operations like
Seaboard's one of the nation's chief causes of water pollution. But
enforcement action has been taken only once before against a hog farm over
groundwater pollution. In that case, a North Carolina producer dug deeper
wells for nearby residents after land application of manure was suspected
of contaminating water.
The hog industry is suspicious of the EPA's timing in the Oklahoma case.
The agency has monitored the farms for years because of their risky
location above an aquifer topped by a thin shelf of sandy soil.
Roy Lee Lindsay, head of the Oklahoma Pork Council, believes the agency is
trying to bolster its case for a proposal to expand the number of cattle
feedlots and hog farms that have to get pollution permits. "We're raising
food to feed the world. To us, that's agriculture," Lindsay said.
"Opponents tell you that we're an industry. They're trying to treat us not
as agriculture producers but as an industry." Tank warns that if the EPA is
successful against Seaboard, it could use the Resource Conservation law
against manure produced by cattle and poultry operations, or even farmers
applying fertilizer to row crops.
"This is a very serious legal precedent that has implications for not only
Seaboard but for every pork producer, every livestock producer, every
poultry producer - regardless of size - in the United States," he said. Tom
Buis of the National Farmers Union doubts the case will have any effect on
family farmers and said different rules should apply to corporate farms.
And EPA spokesman David Bary said it's a leap to assume the agency will use
the law across the board. "This case is unique," he said. "It's unique
because of the demonstrated effect on groundwater and public health."
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