April 20, 2023 www.investigatemidwest.org Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting
EPA has yet to determine how to regulate air pollution from livestock facilities
The EPA’s job is to protect Americans from environmental hazards, like air pollution. Some large livestock operations emit air pollutants in quantities large enough to cause harm to their neighbors.
But the EPA doesn’t have an established method for evaluating how much pollutant a livestock operation is emitting. Without the necessary formulas, the agency can’t fully enforce the Clean Air Act.
The EPA started the process of developing emissions estimation methodologies for large livestock operations 18 years ago. It still hasn’t finished. Meanwhile, some of the biggest animal operations in the nation enjoy exemptions from rules regulating air emissions.
— Madison McVan, reporter
18 years and counting: EPA still has no method for measuring CAFO air emissions
By Madison McVan, Investigate Midwest
Yet 18 years after starting to develop methods to measure and control air pollution from livestock operations, the Environmental Protection Agency still has not complied with its own mandate to protect Americans from the harmful health effects of air pollution from big farms.
And thanks to an agreement between the EPA and livestock industries, thousands of CAFO owners are shielded from some EPA penalties while the process of developing tools to measure emissions drags on.
“It's a huge problem,” said Carrie Apfel, senior attorney in the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental justice legal organization. “The huge problem is that the agricultural lobby is hugely powerful and hugely influential, and I really think that has a lot to do with it.”
Read more.
RELATED STORY: 7 key moments in EPA's 18-year-long delay in measuring livestock air emissions
Graphic: Iowa’s hog production leads the state in greenhouse gas emissions from manure management
By Mònica Cordero, Investigate Midwest/Report for America corps member
Swine operations are responsible for 77% of greenhouse gases generated by manure management in Iowa, according to 2020 data, the most recent available, released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Iowa is the No. 1 pork-producing ranking in the U.S.
See the graphic.
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More news
Mississippi River basin should be getting more USDA conservation funding, report says
A new report from the Environmental Working Group, an environmental and health nonprofit, argues that the Mississippi River basin is not receiving enough conservation funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is one of the department’s largest conservation programs and helps farmers integrate conservation practices, such as cover cropping and nutrient management.
The report shows that 36% percent of funding from this program went to the Mississippi River basin region between 2017 and 2020. The Mississippi River basin covers more than a million square miles and touches 31 states.
“We need more funding for conservation,” said EWG spokesperson Sarah Graddy, “and we need to target these dollars to the places where they’ll have the most benefits.”
This story was published by the Harvest Public Media, part of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report For America.. Investigate Midwest is part of this collaborative.
