April 23, 2007

US pork producers to abide with new water rule

The National Pork Producers Council said that all pork producers in the US are ready and willing to comply with the new federal water-quality regulations whether or not they are required to obtain federal discharge permits.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has modified the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) to cover Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and will issue this summer a rule requiring them to get CWA discharge permits if they are over a certain size. Pork operations of any size will be required to get permits if they plan to discharge.

The so-called CAFO rule will include penalties of up to US$32,500 a day on producers who do not keep animal manure out of surface waterways or who fail to use specified agronomic and conservation practices when applying manure to cropland they control. The requirements and penalties can be imposed on producers if they discharge manure to water, even if they do not have a CWA permit.

The new federal rule is being imposed despite the industry's few manure emissions. A check of the top eight pork-producing states, which have their own water-quality permitting programs, shows that of the 15,460 regulated pork-production sites have less than 1 percent of manure release to any water, including surface water without a connection to a "water of the United States" - the criteria for needing a CWA permit.