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Coalition sues EPA over factory farm pollution

A coalition of groups that includes Clean Wisconsin is suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the federal agency has failed to address air pollution from factory farms.

The groups — a broad coalition with animal welfare, environmental and health and safety interests — say the pollution:

• Contributes to significant human health problems, including asthma and heart attacks.

• Endangers animal health.

• Intensifies the effects of climate change.

• Causes regional haze and “dead zones” in waterways.

In the United States, some 20,000 factory farms confine billions of chickens, hogs and other animals and emit air pollutants —ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, methane and particulate matter.

The Environmental Integrity Project and The Humane Society of the United States filed lawsuits this week in federal court on behalf of rural residents and family farmers, alleging their health and quality of life is negatively affected by noxious air pollutants from factory farms.

“When the emissions are at their worst, we have had to leave our home for days at a time,” said Rosie Partridge, a family farmer whose home in Sac County, Iowa, is surrounded by more than 30,000 hogs within 4 miles. “The ammonia and hydrogen sulfide are so strong that my husband has trouble breathing.”

The lawsuits seek to push the EPA to take action on two petitions, filed years previously, that ask the agency to use its authority under the federal Clean Air Act to control emissions from factory farms.

“Factory farm air pollution harms public health, the environment and rural quality of life,” said Tarah Heinzen, attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project. “Yet EPA is looking the other way while citizen pleas for action collect dust on the agency’s shelf. EPA has acknowledged the harmful impacts of factory farm air pollution for over a decade, yet is still failing to act on the problem."

Jonathan Lovvorn, chief counsel for animal protection litigation for The Humane Society of the United States, said in a news release, “Animal factories subject millions of animals and farm workers to highly toxic levels of air pollution on the farm, and also release huge amounts of these toxins into the environment. EPA’s failure to address these impacts should be alarming to anyone that cares about animal welfare, worker safety, human health, environmental protection or the preservation of rural communities.”

"In California’s San Joaquin Valley, we have suffered a huge increase in factory farm dairies over the past decade,” added Tom Frantz, a farmer and president of the Association of Irritated Residents. “Ammonia emissions from factory farm dairies are causing the highest fine particulate matter levels in the United States, which seriously harms our health while EPA has done nothing."

The two organizations filed petitions with the EPA in 2009 and 2011 asking the agency to address factory farm pollution, but the agency failed to act.

The petition from HSUS requests the EPA to list factory farms as a category of sources of pollution under the Clean Air Act and set performance standards for facilities.

The Environmental Integrity Project’s petition asks the EPA to set health-based standards for ammonia.

The lawsuits ask the court to order the EPA to make a final decision on the two petitions in the next three months.

The plaintiffs include Clean Wisconsin, Environmental Integrity Project, The Humane Society of the United States, Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and the Association of Irritated Residents, represented by the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment.

The groups, in a news release, provided this background:

• U.S. factory farms produce more than 500 million tons of manure every year, more than three times the waste produced by humans, according to the EPA. Instead of treating the feces and urine, many factory farms store it in pits that release odors and air pollution and sometimes spill, contaminating rivers. Operators also spray manure onto fields, sending bacteria-laden droplets onto the homes of downwind residents.

• The federal Clean Air Act has been in effect for nearly 45 years, but the EPA has failed to use its authority to protect public health from factory farms that have proliferated across the United States.

• Livestock are responsible for 34 percent of U.S. methane emissions — the nation’s second most prevalent greenhouse gas —and methane has more than 20 times the climate change impact of carbon dioxide, according to the EPA.

• Animal agriculture is the nation’s leading source of ammonia emissions, which can cause nasal, throat and eye irritation, coughs, dizziness and other health problems. Poultry operations in the top 10 biggest chicken producing states release at least 700 million tons of ammonia every year.

• Large dairy and swine animal feeding operations emit 100,000 pounds of hydrogen sulfide annually, according to an EPA estimate. Hydrogen sulfide causes extreme odors and contributes to acid rain and regional haze.

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