Pollution from factory farms up for review in EPW panel

[nosmokes]

Another corporate tool disguised as a Democratic Senator. So Ms Lincoln doesn't believe the tons of hormone and antibiotic contaminated manure is toxic waste and that farms(what farms?)CAFOs should be exempt from having to clean up after themselves.Larry Craig of airport restroom fame was her big ally in this fight. I guess he din't believe in cleaning up after himself either... I'll tell ya, with folks like this looking out for us, we're in a big lagoon of *non-toxic* manure.
--###--
original-earthnews

Pollution from factory farms up for review in EPW panel
Posted on September 4th, 2007
By Allison Winter


E&E News: Large-scale animal agriculture comes under the scrutiny of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this week as members consider water pollution, waste and human health risks.

Staff to EPW Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the hearing will address cleanup protections, community safeguards and “the importance of maintaining pollution reporting.” U.S. EPA officials, farmers and the Oklahoma attorney general will testify.

Some environmentalists said the hearing may also be a move to pre-empt any attempts to exempt farms from responsibility for the pollution.

The hearing comes as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) looks for a home for legislation that would exempt “CAFOs” and other farms from the Superfund law. Lincoln has said she would consider attaching the legislation to the farm bill, as farm groups and many members of the Senate and House Agriculture committees support the exemption.

Lincoln’s bill says manure should not be classified as a hazardous waste under CERCLA — the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, commonly known as Superfund.

Lincoln and the farm groups that support the exemption say CERCLA was written for industrial contamination, not farms. They are worried it could shut down small- or mid-sized farms with penalties of up to $27,500 a day for violations. Farm groups note that agriculture operations are already regulated under the Clean Water and Clean Air acts.

But environmentalists say Superfund is important, because it is the only law that can force operations to report their emissions or help pay to clean up waste. They say the exemptions could prevent communities from taking recourse against huge concentrated animal operations whose emissions can exceed those of chemical plants. And the Sierra Club’s Ed Hopkins said the EPW Committee hearing would remind Lincoln “what committee has jurisdiction over the issue.”

~snip~
.
.
.
complete article here

[Robbien]

1. "CERCLA was written for industrial contamination"

Exactly.

Factory farms are industrialization of family farms. Family farms do not qualify under this law. Factory farms are exactly what this law is all about. Lincoln herself says in this article that about a quarter of factory farms exceeds pollution levels mandated by CERCLA and would be shut down.

[nosmokes]

3. The legislation Sen Lincoln is pushing would *exempt* CAFOs from CERCLA

as if they were farms, not the Industrial torture abominations they are.

[kestrel91316]

2. A well-run farm is not going to produce anything remotely resembling

hazardous waste, and the RW needs to STFU with the scare tactics they use on small farmers. They know FULL WELL that it is factory farming by greedy corporations that creates the problem.

Any smaller farmers affected by these rules can easily deal with contamination issues by NOT plowing from property line to property line, but rather leaving a strip of native vegetation to trap runoff.