Posted January 30, 2015
The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) is being sued by five animal activist and environmental
organizations because they never responded to an earlier concentrated animal
feeding operations (CAFO) petition, according to a Meating Place article
available here.
Feedstuffs also published an article available here
and Agri-Pulse.
The Environmental Integrity Project, the Center for Food
Safety, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Clean Wisconsin, Iowa
Citizens for Community Improvement and Shafter, Calif.-based Association of
Irritated Residents (AIR).
The
lawsuit seeks “injunctive and declaratory relief” for the EPA’s “failure … to
answer a 2011 legal petition as required by law.”
In 2009 the
HSUS filed a petition requesting that EPA list CAFOs as a category of sources
of pollutions under the Clean Air Act, and set performance standards for new
and existing facilities. In 2011 the Environmental Integrity Project asked EPA
to set health-based standards for ammonia, according to Feedstuffs.
The
lawsuits request that the court forces EPA to issue a final decision on the two
petitions within 90 days.
The
plaintiffs are claiming that the 20,000 CAFOs in the U.S. contain billions of
chickens, hogs and other animals that emit air pollutants, including ammonia,
hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, methane, and particulate matter. They
also claim that these air pollutants are causing health problems in humans and
polluting the air and waterways, according to Agri-Pulse.
“The
agency has a lot of information before it that we believes demonstrates very
clearly that there is an imperative to regulate these emissions,” said Tarah
Heinzen, attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project.
For more information on the Clean Air Act, please visit the
National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
