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Coalition Applauds Harkin
Animal Ag Reform Act

'A good starting point' for cleaner water and healthier rural communities.


9/25/97: Washington, D.C. – The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition today commended Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on his proposal to set national environmental standards for the management of animal waste by large livestock and poultry feeding operations. The Coalition consistently has advocated national standards to reduce the environmental damage caused by animal waste from large-scale livestock confinement facilities.

"We welcome the attention to the escalating crisis resulting from the industrialization and concentration of the livestock production," said Ferdinand Hoefner, the Washington Representative for the Coalition.

"Clean water, family farmers, and healthy rural communities have been the victims of this trend," Hoefner added. "If we want to regain some control over the safety of our food and water, and retain a widely-dispersed, highly competitive system of agriculture, we've got to have a credible national approach to keep the manure from these livestock factories from polluting our water and air."

The Coalition described Harkin's approach as "a good starting point" for legislation. His bill would add several important measures to existing clean water statutes. For example, large poultry operations would be included for the first time, beyond the current law's regulation of just cattle and hogs.

The bill would also control excessive runoff of phosphorous in manure. Most current approaches address only nitrogen levels, even though both substances are known to impair water quality and trigger "blooms" of algae.

Harkin's legislation would also prevent large livestock operations from spreading manure on cropland at rates too high for plants to absorb, and prohibit large corporate livestock operations from shirking their responsibility for safe manure handling through contracting arrangements.

The Coalition urged Harkin to make clear that this bill represented a national minimum standard, leaving states and local governments free to set tougher standards that reflected differences in climate, local resource concerns, as well as regional cropping and livestock farming needs.

The SAC also questioned Sen. Harkin's designation of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) as the lead agency for this initiative, rather than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which currently has authority over Clean Water Act enforcement.

"There's no question that the current EPA and state resource agency permitting and enforcement system is broken and needs fixing," said Hoefner. "But creating a new, parallel system to be run by USDA – especially without the cash to do the job – isn't the answer."

For more information, contact:
Brad DeVries, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
bdevries@cais.com. Phone: (202) 547-5754

Source: News release from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. SAC represents a group of 12 nonprofit, farm, food, environmental, and rural organizations, which advocate public policies supporting the long-term economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources and rural communities. The Coalition works within the broader Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group.

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