Animal feeding operations (AFOs) are agricultural enterprises where animals are kept and raised in confined situations. AFOs congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures, fields, or on rangeland. There are approximately 450,000 AFOs in the United States. Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are a relatively small number of AFOs that are regulated by the EPA.
EPA promulgated revised regulations for CAFOs on February 12, 2003. The 2003 regulations expanded the number of operations covered by the CAFO regulations and included requirements to address the land application of manure from CAFOs. The rule became effective on April 14, 2003 and authorized NPDES states were required to modify their programs by February 2005 and develop state technical standards.
Revised regulations that address the Second Circuit court’s 2005 decision in Waterkeeper Alliance et al. v. EPA, 399 F.3d 486, were signed on October 31, 2008 and were published in the Federal Register on November 20, 2008. These regulations are effective on December 22, 2008. The 2008 final rule revises the 2003 regulations.
A complete history of EPA’s CAFO rulemaking activities is provided on the CAFO Rule History page at http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/afo/aforule.cfm. Anyway you cut it, CAFOs are huge sources of water pollution.
Manure and wastewater from AFOs have the potential to contribute pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus, organic matter, sediments, pathogens, heavy metals, hormones, antibiotics, and ammonia to the environment. Excess nutrients in water (i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus) can result in or contribute to low levels of dissolved oxygen (anoxia), eutrophication, and toxic algal blooms.
If not properly controlled and proeprly treated, runoff from CAFOs is harmful to human health and, in combination with other circumstances, have been associated with outbreaks of microbes such as Pfiesteria piscicida. Decomposing organic matter (i.e., animal waste) can reduce oxygen levels and cause fish kills. Pathogens, such as Cryptosporidium, have been linked to impairments in drinking water supplies and threats to human health. Pathogens in manure can also create a food safety concern if manure is applied directly to crops at inappropriate times. In addition, pathogens are responsible for some shellfish bed closures. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate, can contaminate drinking water supplies drawn from ground water.
For reasons that I will not go into yet, I predict that EPA’s revised CAFO Rule will be the next major Bush-era environmental regulation to be remanded back to EPA by a federal appellate court.
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