Pew Commission urges restrictions on livestock numbers

An environmental group is calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use controls to enforce maximum daily limits on certain nutrients going into the Chesapeake Bay and to impose livestock and poultry density limits.

The Pew Environment Group – not to be confused with the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production but which includes personnel from that commission – in a July 27 report, “Big Chicken: Pollution and Industrial Poultry Production in America,” urged EPA to depopulate or limit livestock and poultry farms through Clean Water Act permits the facilities would be required to obtain.

The Pew report also calls on EPA to set standards for land-application of manure and urges states in the Chesapeake Bay to require large and medium-sized livestock and poultry facilities to obtain permits. But in a recent lawsuit filed by the National Pork Producers Council and won, a federal court rejected an EPA rule that sought to require CAFOs that “propose” to discharge to seek permits. The court ruled that only facilities that actually discharge must obtain permits. 

Source: NPPC