The Sierra Club dealt another blow to the factory farming industry,
    with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Seaboard
    Corporation must report the ammonia gas pollution from its giant hog
    operation in western Oklahoma.  The court held that the entire
    25,000-head hog operation was a single "facility" and that Seaboard
    must report the combined emissions from all its waste pits and
    confinement buildings.  In an effort to avoid regulation, Seaboard
    had argued that each pit and building should be counted separately.
     The appellate court found Seaboard's arguments "unconvincing" and
    decided that reporting total emissions from the animal factory will
    help protect public health and the environment.    As a result of
    the 10th Circuit's ruling, large factory farms across the nation are
    responsible for reporting and dealing with toxic ammonia, which can
    cause respiratory problems for people forced to breathe the polluted
    air.  As staff attorney Barclay Rogers summed up, "This decision
    will force corporations to tell the public about the poisonous gases
    coming from these factory farms and to clean up their act."

    The court's decision can be located at
    http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/2004/10/03-6104.htm

    Barclay Rogers
    Associate Attorney
    Sierra Club Environmental Law Program
    85 Second Street, 2d Floor
    San Francisco, CA 94105-3441
    Phone: (415) 977-5646
    Fax: (415) 977-5793
    [log in to unmask]


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]