Petitions involving Iowa Clean Water Authority

Petitions involving Iowa Clean Water Authority



2007 September -   Three environmental groups 
are asking the federal government to strip the Iowa Department of Natural 
Resources of its authority to issue factory farm operating permits to 
concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs, because they are allowing 
manure to enter Iowa rivers. 
Iowa has become the nation's top producer of both hogs and eggs, and more 
than 2,100 large CAFOs operate within the state. The state's livestock 
produce more than 50 million tons of waste each year. 
The groups' formal petition, filed Thursday, argues that the state 
agency's authority to issue National Pollutant Discharge Elimination 
System, NPDES, permits should be revoked by the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency, EPA, because, the groups claim, the state of Iowa 
continually allows the big factory farms to violate the Clean Water Act. 
The Clean Water Act allows citizens to petition EPA to withdraw the power 
of a state to issue Clean Water Act permits. 
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra 
Club, and the Washington, DC based Environmental Integrity Project say 
that after years of notice from citizens and the EPA, the Iowa Department 
of Natural Resources has issued no NPDES permits to confinement 
dischargers, and has issued permits to only a fraction of open feedlot 
dischargers, the groups claim in their petition. 
Since receiving Clean Water Act authority in 1978, the state agency has 
allowed CAFOs to illegally discharge millions of gallons of manure into 
hundreds of rivers and streams, killing millions of fish and contributing 
to widespread water quality impairments, the groups claim. 
Vern Tigges, a family farmer from Carroll, Iowa who is a member of Iowa 
Citizens for Community Improvement, said, "Our petition is based on the 
proposition that livestock production in Iowa is increasingly an 
industrial process, dominated by large facilities that confine thousands 
of poultry, swine, and dairy or beef cattle in animal feeding operations 
or CAFOs." 
"The largest of these operations in Iowa confine more than five million 
chickens, 24,000 swine, and 10,000 cattle on a single site," he said. 
"Operating permits for these huge factory farms must contain pollution 
controls, as well as monitoring and reporting requirements, to ensure that 
discharges do not harm water quality or have negative health consequences 
for our communities," said Tigges. 
Pam Mackey-Taylor, who chairs the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, said, 
"In our view, Iowa's current enforcement program does not adequately 
enforce the NPDES regulations because IDNR more often than not fails to 
act on permit and program violations; fails to seek adequate enforcement 
penalties or collect administrative fines when imposed; and fails to 
inspect and monitor CAFOs subject to Clean Water Act regulation." 
"We have formed this citizens' coalition with legitimate grave concerns 
about the health of our families and our environment to petition the U.S. 
EPA to initiate formal proceedings to end this abuse and withdraw this 
authority from IDNR," she said. 
Environmental Integrity Project Counsel and CAFO Expert Karla Raettig said 
the state agency "has failed to issue permits to the majority of CAFOs 
that require them, and has repeatedly issued NPDES permits that do not 
conform to federal requirements, including the public participation 
requirements. These defects have been brought to IDNR's attention but have 
not been fixed." 
"Because Iowa fails to demonstrate sufficient authority and willingness to 
carry out the NPDES program," she said, "the citizen groups are 
petitioning EPA to withdraw its approval of Iowa's NPDES delegation and to 
assume administration and enforcement of the program." 
While not commenting directly on the petition, the Iowa DNR says, "We find 
that Iowa has generally good quality surface waters and groundwaters. 
However, threats to the quality of both surface waters and groundwater 
exist, and small portions of the state's waters have serious pollution 
problems." 

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