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 hereand 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.
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