EPA has a Proposed Rule Change up on CAFO Permits

An EPA press release announces the issuance of a proposed rule for comment regarding the NPDES permit process for CAFO’s. According to the release, the proposed rule:

Provides for greater public participation in connection with nutrient management plans. Applicants would have to submit a nutrient management plan with their permit application. Permitting authorities would be required to provide public notice and review of the plans, and include them as enforceable elements of the permit.
Clarifies the selection of best conventional technology for fecal coliform bacteria.
Clarifies that under the exemption established by the Clean Water Act, CAFOs land applying manure, litter or processed wastewater don’t need NPDES permits if the only discharge from those facilities is agricultural stormwater.

The release notes that "[t]he proposed revision is in response to a ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Waterkeeper Alliance, et al., vs. EPA. The proposed rule is open for a 45-day comment period." You can read that case yourself here(PDF). In that case, the Court said:

[W]e direct the EPA to: (1) definitively select a BCT standard for pathogen reduction; and (2) clarify – via a process that adequately involves the public – the statutory and evidentiary basis for allowing Subpart D CAFO’s to comply with the new source performance standard by either: (a) designing, constructing, operating and maintaining production areas that could contain all manure, litter and process wastewater including the runoff and the direct precipitation from a 100-year, 24-hour rainfall event; or (b) complying with alternative performance standards that allow production area discharges, so long as such discharges are accompanied by an equivalent or greater reduction in the quantity of pollutants released to other media. Additionally, we direct the EPA to clarify the statutory and evidentiary basis for failing to promulgate water quality based effluent limitations for discharges other than agricultural stormwater discharges, as that term is defined in 40 C.F.R. § 122.23(e), and also direct the EPA to clarify whether states may develop water quality based effluent limitations on their own.

You can read the proposed rule, and find out where the EPA will be conducting public hearings (the nearest place is Ames, Iowa) on the rule change here.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 5:03 pm and is filed under CAFO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.