A press release from Congressman Don Manzullo:
Manzullo: EPA Plan to Classify Livestock Manure as Hazardous Waste Would Harm Illinois Farmers
Rep. cosponsors bill to stop implementation of job-killing regulation
[WASHINGTON] – Congressman Don Manzullo (R-Egan) today said a proposed EPA rule to classify livestock manure as hazardous waste would heap new, costly regulations on Illinois farmers, making them less competitive and opening them to huge lawsuits.
Manzullo, who raised beef cattle on his Ogle County farm for 30 years, is cosponsoring the Superfund Common Sense Act (HR 2997) to prevent the EPA from adding livestock manure to the list of substances regulated by the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or Superfund Law).
CERCLA was enacted by Congress in 1980 in response to the Love Canal environmental disaster as a way to ensure responsible parties pay for hazardous waste cleanup sites.
Prior to running for Congress, Manzullo was an attorney who represented farmers in their run-ins with the EPA and other agencies.
Manzullo pointed out that the EPA already has strict procedures in place for regulating waste from large agricultural operations to protect streams and underground wells from run-off.
In fact, Manzullo worked with the Illinois EPA, U.S. EPA, and Illinois Dept. of Agriculture this past year to clarify existing waste run-off regulations for northwest Illinois farmers, who were receiving conflicting information from the state and federal EPA on their responsibilities under the run-off regulations.
Don Manzullo
“It’s ridiculous to think our family farms are as dangerous as toxic waste sites, and it’s outrageous to regulate them the same way,” Manzullo said.
“The EPA already stringently regulates waste runoff from livestock operations and there is absolutely no need to tighten the regulatory screws any further.
“Classifying livestock manure as hazardous waste under CERCLA would open our family farms up to huge legal liabilities and make them less productive and competitive.
“This is the last thing we should be doing when we are trying to help put Americans back to work.”
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The free shooting range at Wooly's
This reminds me of the conversation we had with a homeschooling livestock rancher’s wife at Wooley’s Mammoth Family Fun (a bar, restaurant, game site) across the road from the well-worth-seeing Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota.
Seeing my son on the free (!) Varmint Town shooting range, the former short line coal train engineer, who met her future husband in a bar, came over to ask if were the family who had paid to hunt prairie dogs on their land.
We weren’t, but got into a conversation that led to her husband’s belief that the Federal government wanted to tag each steer not to track mad cow disease, but to enable the taxation of the greenhouse gas that cows emit.
As ridiculous as it sounds, livestock manure is no trivial matter, especially at the huge farms.
Where’s the picture of Hermilda the Cow statue in Harvard for this manure article. Incidentally the Milk capital of the world has not been Harvard for many decades. In fact, there are very few dairy operations left in McHenry County.
I am not sure if existing regulation safeguards us against livestock manure abuses, or if the proposed regulation is over burdensome.
The huge concentrated farms which produce huge concentrations of manure are definitely a source of concern. If they are being properly regulated, I haven’t the faintest clue. There have been environmental spills of the stuff.
Such farms pack animals like sardines into small areas. If you are skeptical, I challenge you to roll around in the manure for even a few hours and left me know what side affects you have. A little manure is fertilizer, too much kills trees, fish, and just about anything.
Wisconsin has huge dairy barns that house lots and lots of cows.
Huge farms are all over the US now. Your food increasingly comes from these huge farms. Some huge farms are even family owned, so just because the word family is used doesn’t mean it’s a small Norman Rockwell operation.
EPA calls the huge farms CAFOs – Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. The practice is also known as factory farming or industrial farming.
I wonder if Manzullo receives campaign contributions from huge farms.
So I am neither for or against the proposed legislation, because I don’t have enough info. But the topic is a source of concern.
This smells like a bad idea from Manzullo.
How much does he get from Tyson, et al?
Farming has drastically changed.
Starline in Harvard invented and sold all sorts of equipment to small farmers. Starline is no longer, there’s an art gallery in the old factory building.
One item they sold was a manure spreader. To spread the manure in the fields. It could be a rather messy contraption and many farmers got manure over themselves and their equipment.
But that was manure from a smaller operation, and some of those still exist today.
Now you also have huge barns in Wisconsin and elsewhere that contain lots and lots of cows. On some farms, they can still spread the manure in fields. Sometimes that is not available or practical. Such large dairy operations may not even have a field. They may specialize in just dairy. There is a limit as to the amount of manure you can spread on a field, and they may produce more manure than the field is capable of handling.
The manure may be stored onsite in holding ponds or lagoons. Or shipped off site. But there is not a waste water treatment plant, the same as there is with human waste.
Also consider the underground aquifers, and ground level rivers, streams, creeks, and the tributaries that go to lakes and oceans. The run off could cause problems.
So you don’t want over-regulation, but you don’t want under-regulation either.
Another day, another imbecillic idea from Illinois most corrupt congressman. To be fair though, Manzero has been spewing his personal bullshit for years now, no wonder he wants cow manure poisoning our environment.