CAFO Links for April 25th, 2008
IDEM clears backlog of 263 wastewater permits, nets award from the EPA:
IDEM received a two-gold-star award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of eight states in the nation. IDEM received the award for addressing the historical permit backlog and prioritizing issuing permits. The goals were achieved two years in a row, in 2006 and 2007.
(Post-Tribune). The lesson - crank the permits out.
In Michigan, the Sierra Club won a victory at the Michigan Court of Appeals:
The case, Sierra Club Mackinac Chapter v. Department of Environmental Quality, dealt with large farming entities known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, and the manner in which the DEQ issues permits for the use of manure as a fertilizer. There are 198 CAFOs in the state of Michigan, facilities where farmers raise and feed thousands of pigs or cows at a time, or upwards of 100,000 chickens or more. Such facilities generate an enormous amount of manure and farmers often try to reduce the amount they have to dispose of by using that manure as fertilizer on nearby pastures and farmland.
(Michigan Messenger story by Ed Brayton). The decision agreed with the Club’s contention that the public has the right to access not only the original proposal in the permit process, but also the Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP), so the public can see what the farms are doing with the manure.
Also in Michigan, check out the Michigan DEQ’s Statement of its Case against mega-dairy Vreba-Hoff filed last month. In it, the DEQ lists several violations and lists thousands of dollars in fines the environmental enforcer is seeking against the dairy for alleged violations of a prior consent decree.
