Owners of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) received some good news in June when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule exempting animal waste at farms from reporting air emissions under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
Two EPA laws — the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) — require the reporting of releases of hazardous substances that meet or exceed reportable quantities within a 24-hour period.
The purpose of reporting is to allow federal, state, tribal and local officials to assess the need for an emergency response to mitigate the effects of a hazardous release to the community. CAFO barns and manure cesspits routinely emit into the air ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and other contaminants, according to researchers.
Since December 2008, only small livestock operations were exempt from reporting hazardous-substance air releases from animal waste under EPCRA, but CAFOs were subject to EPCRA reporting. Several groups successfully challenged the validity of the 2008 rule and the exemption now extends to CAFOs. On June 4, 2019, EPA Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler signed a final rule to add a reporting exemption for air emissions from animal waste at all farms.
The amendment to the EPA rule does not exempt all releases from animal waste at farms but limits the exemption to a specific type of release: air emissions from animal waste at farms. A release from animal waste into water, such as a manure spill, or a release from an anhydrous ammonia storage tank into the air remains subject to emergency reporting requirements if the release exceeds the applicable reportable quantities.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is charged with enforcing EPA rules that apply to CAFOs in Iowa.
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