Saturday, June 16, 2007

EPA, universities start two-year, nine-state study of air pollution from animal-feeding operations

We know manure stinks, and our personal opinion is that hog manure stinks worst, but the Environmental Protection Agency says it needs a stronger scientific basis to charge animal-feeding operations with violating the Clean Air Act, so EPA and eight universities have begun a two-year study of the operations' air emissions. Voluntary monitoring will be conducted at 24 sites in nine states -- California, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin, "representing a cross section of the country's animal feeding operations," says Brownfield news service.

"EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson says the study is a collaborative effort between the EPA and the livestock industry that will provide the agency with the information they need to ensure that livestock operations are being good environmental neighbors," Brownfield's Jason Vance writes. The study is being funded by operators of 14,000 "swine, dairy, egg-laying and broiler chicken (meat-bird) farms" as part of a January 2005 deal with EPA, the agency said in a release.

Notice they named swine first. No offense to hog farmers; your blogger speaks from personal experience, having raised hogs as a 4-H member. Click here for the detailed EPA Web site for the program. Purdue University of Indiana is the lead research agency. Its partners are University of California-Davis; Cornell University of New York; Iowa State University; University of Minnesota; North Carolina State University; Texas A&M University; and Washington State University.

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