Groups sue EPA over animal confinement air pollution

Evidence is mounting that large animal-confinement operations are polluting the air and hurting public health, according to two lawsuits filed Wednesday that could have broad ramifications for Iowa, the nation's largest pork producer.

A coalition of eight groups seeks to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air emissions from large pig, cattle, dairy and other livestock facilities.

The environmental and animal-welfare coalition is asking a federal judge to "compel the Environmental Protection Agency to finally act to address unchecked toxic air pollution from factory farms, a large and growing industry that's almost entirely escaped pollution regulations for decades," said Tarah Heinzen, an attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, a group leading the legal challenge.

The coalition includes the Sierra Club, Humane Society of the United States, and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.

But Iowa pork producers and a Iowa State University professor say there is no evidence that large animal confinements pose a hazard.

In Iowa, the livestock industry, led by pig, poultry and cattle production, generated $14 billion in cash receipts in 2013, federal farm data shows.

Heinzen said the EPA estimates the country has 20,000 livestock operations. Large dairy and swine operations emit 100,000 pounds of hydrogen sulfide annually, contributing to acid rain and regional haze, Heinzen's group says.

"These facilities emit a large number of air pollutants, such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, fine particles and greenhouse gases, sometimes at levels that threaten nearby rural residents, factory farm workers and the animals themselves," she said.

Each of the facilities "can contain thousands or even millions of animals, along with vast quantities of waste. To give you a sense of scale, factory farms produce more than 500 million tons of manure every year in the U.S.," more than three times the amount of waste humans produce, she said.

Residents "who breathe ammonia suffer eye irritations and a variety of respiratory symptoms," Heinzen said. "Ammonia also reacts with other chemicals in the air and contributes to the formation of small particles that lodge deep in the lungs that cause heart attacks and premature death.

"Studies have shown that air near factory farms sometimes exceed acceptable ... ammonia exposure levels," she said.

But Daniel Andersen, an Iowa State University professor, said research is inconclusive about the confinements' public-health impact.

Large animal-confinement operations use complex ventilation systems to prevent animals and workers from exposure to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, said Andersen, an associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering professor.

"By the time that air would make it to a neighbor, concentrations are very, very low. They're at levels we would naturally encounter in our daily lives," he said. "People have tried to study it, but it's been difficult to find a link."

Rosie Partridge disagrees. She said she's often forced inside her home in the fall, her hair and clothes reeking from the smell of neighboring pig-confinement operations.

Worse, she and her husband, D.G., struggle with headaches, nausea and breathing problems, the result, she says, of exposure to ammonia and hydrogen sulfide that comes from confinement operations housing 10,000 pigs within a mile of her rural Sac County home.

She said the couple, both in their 70s, sometimes has to leave for days at a time while manure is applied to fields.

"The smell is horrid," she said.

Heinzen said the federal government has done too little to protect residents from air pollution emanating from large animal-confinement facilities.

"The federal Clean Air Act mandates the EPA protect public health and the environment from air pollution, but the EPA has failed to live up to its promise in rural communities," she said. "In fact, the EPA has failed to use its Clean Air Act authority to address factory farm emissions for 45 years."

The lawsuits the groups filed Wednesday in Washington, D.C., federal court are designed to force the EPA to act on petitions the Humane Society filed in 2009 and the Environmental Integrity Project filed in 2011 on animal-confinement emissions.

The Humane Society's petition asks that the EPA determine that large animal confinements are a source of pollution and set performance standards. The Environmental Integrity Project asks the EPA to set health-based standards for ammonia.

The groups' lawsuits Wednesday ask a federal court to push the EPA to take action within 90 days.

An EPA spokeswoman said Wednesday the agency would review the litigation. The EPA says agriculture contributes 10 percent of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, while the energy needed to warm and cool homes, run businesses, and fuel for transportation accounts for 70 percent of harmful gases.

Ron Birkenholz, a spokesman for the Iowa Pork Producers Association, said he disagrees with the coalition's charge that confinement facilities degrade the health of workers or nearby residents.

"We believe the barns are safe, or we wouldn't continue building them," he said.

The association, Birkenholz said, is funding research at universities such as Iowa State to improve operations, including odor reduction.

Andersen said manure is injected into farmland to reduce the smell and help prevent it from moving into waterways. And even though millions of tons are generated annually, it's a fraction of the fertilizer that's needed to raise crops in Iowa and elsewhere in the nation, he said.

Birkenholz said: "We're working to be a good neighbor in rural Iowa. Yes, at times, there may be odor. But the activists think it's a constant problem, but that's just not the case."