FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CARE Takes Action To Ensure Clean Drinking Water for Washington Communities

Washington State Department of Ecology’s Water Pollution Permit for Industrial Dairies Fails to Protect Communities

Contacts:

Yakima Valley, WA – Animal waste from industrial dairies poses immense environmental and public health problems to Washington State communities. With each cow excreting roughly 120 pounds of manure a day, large dairy operations, known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (“CAFOs”), contaminate groundwater, pollute surface waters and threaten public health. Virtually every study of CAFOs in Washington has shown that dairies are releasing a staggering amount of animal waste, contaminating waterways and groundwater.

The Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (“CARE”) has a history of successfully cleaning up CAFOs in Washington through citizen enforcement of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”).[1]  However, the Washington Department of Ecology’s recent general discharge permit for CAFOs threatens to undermine the needed increased regulatory scrutiny that has resulted from CARE’s success.  As such, CARE is appealing the general discharge permit for industrial dairies in Washington State.  The six-day hearing is set to begin on April 30, 2007.

The general permit fails to protect the water quality of the state and jeopardizes citizens’ abilities to hold polluters accountable under the CWA.

“Once again CARE is having to force the state to protect the health of its citizens and defend our rural way of life. We are disappointed that they choose not to do the job that they are entrusted with,” says Helen Reddout, the Executive Director of CARE.

The Department of Ecology does not dispute that pollution from CAFOs threatens public health, yet their general permit fails to require that industrial dairy operators monitor the groundwater for contamination.

“Ecology’s failure to require groundwater monitoring for all large industrial dairies in the face of this public health threat is astonishing and irresponsible. It is akin to creating a policy of don’t look, don’t find,” said Charlie Tebbutt, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center who represents CARE.

BACKGROUND

The Impact of CAFO’s on Washington State communities

The Washington State Department of Ecology estimates that there are 161 Large CAFOs (greater than 1000 animal units) in Washington, of which 94 are comprised of dairy cows and 30 are other cattle operations.

The Department of Ecology acknowledges that process wastewater and manure generated by CAFO’s, if improperly managed will contaminate waters of the state with, among other pollutants, nitrates, an “acute contaminant” that can be toxic to fish and, if ingested in high levels, “can cause anemia and, if not treated, death to young infants,”  as well as other serious human pathogens.

Overwhelming evidence before he Department of Ecology during its development of the CAFO General Permit established that CAFOs present a substantial and continuing threat to state waters. Some of the pollutants from CAFOs that seep into waterways and groundwater include nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, as well as pathogens, such as E.Coli, cryptosporidium, salmonella, and giardia.

A recent study of the Lower Yakima Valley region reported significant impairment of ground water in the communities most heavily impacted by CAFOs, with approximately 21 percent of wells sampled in those communities found to exceed the maximum contaminant level (“MCL”) allowed in drinking water for nitrate.

In a 2003 study of groundwater around Sunnyside, Washington, up to 20 percent of wells were found to be contaminated with nitrates at a level exceeding the MCL standard, while a significant number of the same wells in the region tested positive for coliform bacteria.  The combination of nitrates and coliform directly implicates animal waste as a source of contamination.  All of this information was before Ecology during the Permit development process.

Washington State’s General Discharge Permit for CAFOs

CARE’s work on Washington State’s general CAFO discharge permit began with the goal of ensuring that the discharge permit complied with federal law and contained strict, enforceable environmental and human health standards applicable to all large CAFOs.

The Western Environmental Law Center (“WELC”), on behalf of CARE, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, and two individuals, submitted extensive comments on the Department of Ecology’s draft CAFO Permit in January, 2005.

WELC then submitted supplemental comments in March, 2005 in response to a recent 2^nd Circuit decision invalidating portions of the National CAFO Rule on which the Department of Department of Ecology relied for its draft CAFO permit.

Unfortunately, the Department of Ecology’s final permit, issued in June 2006, was inadequate to protect the citizens of Washington and failed to comply with federal laws.   Accordingly, CARE is challenging the general discharge permit at the Pollution Control Hearings Board.  The hearing is set for April 30, 2007.

The Legal Challenge:

CARE is challenging the Department of Ecology’s general discharge permit (“Permit”) on the following grounds:

(1) The Permit fails to protect groundwater, in direct violation of Washington law.  

Instead of requiring CAFOs to monitor their groundwater pollution directly, the Permit allows CAFOs to only test the near surface soil for contamination.  Soil testing is cheaper than groundwater monitoring, but it is not a reliable alternative to groundwater monitoring, nor is it adequate to detect groundwater contamination caused by leaks from the production area or waste lagoons. Requiring groundwater monitoring would be a major improvement for public safety and the environment.

(2) The Permit fails to ensure public access to critical information necessary for citizen enforcement of the Clean Water Act.

The Permit requires CAFOs to include their nutrient management plans (NMPs) in their pollution discharge permit application.  An adequate NMP is critical to the control of manure and other wastes as it governs the land application of these substances, as such it can function as enforceable effluent limitations.  However, the Permit does not make NMPs easily or readily available to the public, which makes it difficult for citizens to correct an NMP effluent violation.  Moreover, if a citizen requests a copy of the NMP, the CAFO can, under present Washington law, demand that the Department of Ecology keep certain aspects of the NMPs secret as "confidential business information."  Similarly, the Permit does not provide public access to the State’s facility inspection and discharge reports.  Without access to this information, citizens will not be able to effectively protect their communities from unlawful contamination of their waters.

Citizens will also have a hard time cleaning-up industrial dairies under the guidelines of this permit because when the Dept. of Ecology allows a CAFO to discharge contaminants into ground and surface waters under the general Permit a citizen’s only avenue for objection is that the general Permit is not applicable to that facility.  This restriction deprives citizens of the opportunity to object on more substantive grounds, such as the CAFO's NMP is inadequate to protect surface or groundwater.

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