Friends of Rural New York

EPA has failed to set adequate CAFO standards
From Auburn Citizen

Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:04 AM EST

In response to the proposed hog factory farm in Montezuma, past news
articles have quoted the farm owner, Richard Snyder, as stating that he

intends to “follow the rules” and regulations of running a
large-scale
factory farm. Although his intentions seem sincere, there is a major
flaw with the regulations themselves. Did you know that although the
Clean Water Act requires large livestock operations to obtain permits
for more than 30 years, noncompliance has been widespread? In 2001, the

EPA estimated that at least 13,000 concentrated animal feeding
operations CAFOs — were required to have Clean Water Act permits, but

the EPA had issued just 2,520 permits. Some states with the highest
numbers of CAFO#s have issued the fewest permits under the Clean Water
Act. How many CAFO#s are operating without permits because of this lack

of oversight?

As reported by the Environmental Integrity Project, the EPA enforcement

against CAFO#s is almost non-existent. The EPA has not taken a position

on regulations, legislative efforts to protect the environment, welfare

or public health. Because the EPA has failed to set strong standards
for
CAFO regulation, state laws vary. Because of the lack of oversight from

the EPA, and non-existent regulations for CAFO#s, the factory farms
have
been allowed to build and expand with no thought to the environment or
public health. The industry cannot have it both ways. If the CAFO
industry cannot manage or control its pollution, then there needs to be

a moratorium on the expansion or building of new CAFO#s until they can.

When Mr. Snyder states he’s going to “follow the rules”, the
public and
our elected officials needs to realize there are no rules.

Nicole Ward

Montezuma

COMMENT:
Would someone account for the vast amounts of money already donated to CAFOs?
Would anyone at the POST STANDARD investigate and report on how CAFO operators have spent the grants from both state and federal governments and why after all the taxpayer money expended these guys still pollute?
Does the editor know that every time we taxpayers donate more money to CAFO operators they use that money to expand operations and thereby pollute even more.
Why is it the folks at the PS can do a superb job of investigating economic development subsidies but they leave industrial agriculture alone?
NO- THEY DO NOT NEED MORE SUBSIDIES_ BY THE VERY DEFINITION OF CAFO (CONCENTRATED ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATION) MANURE IS USED AS A WASTE PRODUCT. THE CAFO IS A FAILED MODEL, STUPID!

Sustainable Farms: State can do more to help small operations with environment
Posted by Post-Standard Editorial Board December 06, 2007 5:00AM
Categories: Editorial
When you herd cows together, you can count on at least two things: lots of methane and lots of manure. Bring together 3,000 cows in a major dairy operation, the Sierra Club says, and you’ll get four times as much “excreta” as is produced by the entire city of Syracuse.

Animal farms are known as CAFOs—Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Although New York state has among the nation’s most stringent regulations in the nation, the farms remain a pollution threat to their surroundings. Two years ago, a massive manure spill at the Marks Dairy Farm in rural Lewis County befouled a 20-mile stretch of the Black River. Neighbors of the 4,000-cow Willet Dairy in Cayuga County have spent five years pursuing a pollution lawsuit. A proposal to bring a 2,000-pig farm to Montezuma has area residents up in arms.

Would New York be better off with no such farms? It’s not just an academic question: Between 1997 and 2002, the state lost 127,000 acres of farmland—an average of 70 acres per day. As farm advocates point out, all too often a farmer’s last “crop” is houses. In 2003 alone, the state lost 1,000 small farms, many of them replaced with housing developments. Last year, depressed prices for milk helped put 500 more dairy farmers out of business.

Most of New York’s dairy farms are family-owned, with relatively small herd sizes. Over the last decade, all 147 of the largest animal farms signed on to the state permitting system and invested in responsible environmental practices. The 464 medium-size farms—with 200 to 700 cows—also are regulated by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. But when profit margins shrink, they struggle with the cost of complying with pollution-prevention rules.

The state Farm Bureau is pressing for more government involvement to help the small and medium-sized farms stay in business as responsible environmental stewards. Instead of focusing mainly on enforcement, they urge the DEC to work with the experts in the Department of Agriculture and Markets and its Soil and Water Conservation Districts, who in turn will work with farmers to improve and maintain their conservation practices without driving them to insolvency.

This will cost money. Already, the DEC under Gov. Eliot Spitzer has increased inspections, added inspectors and sponsored “road show” information seminars for farmers. It also doubled the animal farm compliance budget from $6 million to $12 million.

The Farm Bureau is asking for a major boost in funding—up to $30 million—to provide more technical assistance to help farmers comply with the environmental rules. That money would not come from average taxpayers, but from the state Environmental Protection Fund, which is funded through the real estate transfer tax.

There are many pressing demands on the fund. But with a kitty of some $300 million, surely a bit more can be allocated to protecting New York’s air, land and water—and keeping family farmers in business.

We wonder if this grant has anything to do with a friend of the Fessendens being on Eliot Spitzer’s Farm Advisory Board? Or perhaps there was some influence from a Fessenden brother who is a loan officer with Farm Credit of Western NY? This is just another of many subsidies that The Fessenden Dairy keeps receiving. We seem to recall at least a $200,000 and a $25,000 welfare payment just recently.
Do you wonder where your tax dollar is going? Here is part of the answer!

Here is the article:

Local dairy secures grant for lagoons

By Kathleen Barran / The Citizen

Money for methane gas - that’s what the Fessenden Dairy in King Ferry will get for being the first to install two of 200 manure lagoon covers in the country.

Thanks to a $1 million U.S. Department of Agriculture emission-reduction grant for New York dairies and North Carolina hog farms, the Fessenden Dairy will qualify for carbon credits.

The Environmental Credit Corporation has already installed one of two lagoon covers designed to cover a two-cell lagoon at the dairy to capture and flare methane emitted by manure. The green covers, which look like large pool covers, will convert methane to carbon dioxide and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy’s 1,100 cows, equal to the GHG produced in one year by 693 cars.

“I believe this lagoon cover will have a positive impact in improving the situation with greenhouse gases and in controlling the lagoon volumes,” dairy owner Tim Fessenden said.

He said that last year his farm had to handle 25 percent more of the waste product because of the increase in volume caused by rain. Now the cover will control odors and keep rainfall out, reducing volume.

The covers effectively improve air quality by reducing ammonia emissions, particulates and volatile organic compounds.

Fessenden said this technology is new to agriculture, although municipalities have already covered their waste storage.

Any carbon credits coming from his farm will go to cover the cost of the covers initially, which he said was definitely in triple digits. He estimated it would take about 10 years before his farm would actually receive any carbon credits directly.

Emissions reductions are registered as carbon credits. Each ton of greenhouse gas reduction receives a monetary value that can be sold to bring income to the farmers.

Fessenden said that it took about 15 months for his dairy farm to be included in those receiving a portion of the total grant.

Fessenden Dairy was chosen based on its herd size (1,100), lagoon dimensions (170 feet by 350 feet and 170 feet by 50 feet, holding about 5 million gallons between the two), and its location in upstate New York.

“There is only a handful of companies registered with the Chicago Climate Exchange,” Fessenden said. “The speculation is that down the road it will be way bigger.”

The ECC, a leading supplier of environmental credits to global financial markets, creates carbon credits for sale into rapidly growing emissions trading markets in the United States and Europe.

It markets carbon credits through the CCX as well as directly to power companies, industrial greenhouse gas emitters, and to state and privately managed funds specializing in carbon credits.

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or