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Sunday, March 09, 2008
Environment - National study looking into release of toxic emissions
The EPA farm emissions study has been the subject of several ILB entries, including this one from April 4, 2005, and this one (2nd part of entry) from July 13, 2007.
Today Melissa Moody of the New Albany New&Tribune has this report on the ongoing study, involving participation by agricultural enterprises in an air quality compliance agreement with the U.S. EPA, in return for immunity. The story begins:
A study to measure air emissions of toxic animal waste at factory farms across the United States is being led by Purdue University’s Dr. Al Heber, a professor in agriculture and bioengineering.The purpose of the National Emissions Air Monitoring Study is to discover if there are large farms — defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as confined animal feeding operations — exceeding emissions levels set by the EPA, and where those farms are located.
More than 1,000 farms are participating in the project, including some in Indiana. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management, or IDEM, monitors 625 confined animal feeding operations in the state, which comprise 20 percent of IDEM- regulated farms.
Heber is working with universities in other states to measure average hourly and daily emissions of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, two major components in toxic animal waste emissions. The research team set up detection sites in 2007 and will monitor emissions for the next two years.
Heber gave the EPA the first set of emissions data from the study Feb. 29.
“It’s a huge study,” Heber said. “There are potential (federal) regulations in the future where this data is important and a lot of states are waiting for this study before moving forward with regulations.”
The study also will give researchers — and consequently federal and state regulators and farmers — an idea of what specific animal-related activities, such as feeding, are correlated to emissions.
“It will be helpful not only to the EPA, but producers themselves. They want to know this, they want to be better neighbors,” Heber said.
The impetus behind the study comes from lawsuits against large farms in several states, such as Missouri, Ohio and Oklahoma, over toxic emissions from animal waste exceeding acceptable levels.
The EPA told the livestock industry it would forgive participating producers’ past failures to report emissions for participating in the study and none of the participating farms would be sued.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 9, 2008 01:10 PM
Posted to Environment