Number: 1997-09
WHEREAS, pollution from feedlots is now a major pollution problem, polluting one-quarter of rivers and streams impaired by agriculture; and
WHEREAS, catastrophic spills from large feedlots have polluted the rivers and streams of states that include North Carolina, Iowa, Minnesota, pothole regions of North and South Dakota, and Missouri, killing hundreds of thousands of fish; and
WHEREAS, nitrates, pathogens and salts from animal manure have contaminated groundwater in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin, from sources that include feedlot storage lagoons and over application of manure nutrients onto cropland; and
WHEREAS, the human health impacts of drinking or swimming in water or consuming shellfish contaminated by livestock waste include methemoglobinemia from nitrite nitrogen (a potentially fatal condition for infants), diseases from exposure to microorganisms such as crypto sporidium, giardia and pathogenic bacteria; and
WHEREAS, the mismanagement of animal waste systems, as experienced in many states, has resulted in the pollution of receiving streams; and
WHEREAS, the size threshold for permitting requirements are out of date and do not reflect current agricultural practices. Today many confined animal feedlots may fall below the threshold requiring a permit but still pose potential water pollution problems; and
WHEREAS, enforcement against permitted facilities which pollute is lacking in nearly every state and most commonly complaint-driven;
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in its Annual Meeting assembled April 3-6, 1997 in Tucson, Arizona urges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement better the existing Clean Water Act program by strengthening its oversight of delegated water programs, strengthening its own administration in non-delegated states, and vigorously enforcing the Clean Water Act by leveling fines against large or chronic violators; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Congress is urged to strengthen the Clean Water Act to ensure:
- that permitting, including public notice and comment, be required for all animal waste treatment systems of sufficient size to have significant potential environmental and ecological impacts,
- that permits require the design, operation and maintenance of waste treatment systems appropriate to the quantity and quality of waste generated,
- that siting, construction, and monitoring of systems protect wetlands, surface and ground water,
- that the citizen suit provisions of the Clean Water Act be available to citizens to enforce siting, construction, monitoring, and other feedlot permit standards, and
- that closure of systems is properly executed and financially assured.