Tom:


The answers to your questions are:


1. CAFOs are designated as point sources, and as such, they cannot discharge pollutants to waters of the United States without an NPDES permit. What the 5th Circuit court said was that the way the Clean Water Act is written, a point source is not required to obtain a permit, but if it discharges without a permit, it is subject to penalties. For normal industries and municipal wastewater facilities, they plan to discharge and the discharges are daily. So they have an incentive to get a permit instead of paying substantial daily fines. CAFOs, on the other hand, do not discharge on a regular basis, so they make the calculation that it is better not to have a permit and just pay the penalty if there does happen to be a discharge and they get caught. So your observation is on the right track. As I said in my comments, the real solution is for Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to effectively address pollution from CAFOs.


2. Neither. It is certainly not an oversight. I believe EPA is getting political pressure to back off.


3. My work is pro bono. The national Sierra Club certainly won't contribute and the Chapter has no money.


Wally Taylor



-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Mathews <[log in to unmask]>
To: IOWA-TOPICS <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sun, Dec 18, 2011 6:07 pm
Subject: Re: Comments on EPA CAFO rule


Wally, 
 
Some questions:
 
1. Is the rationale for the court ruling that the Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits are not required for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) the fact that pollutant emissions from a CAFO into waterways are not expected to occur routinely, as they would from, say, a sewage treatment plant, but only occasionally--and then only by accident? What other rationale could there be? (Not a rhetorical question; if you know of alternative reasoning the court could be following, I would be fascinated to hear it.)
 
2. Maybe the need to ask is a sign of my naivete, but is the omission of so many categories of required information in the proposed rule an oversight on the part of the EPA, or the result blatant pro-industry bias?
 
3. Are you doing this excellent work pro-bono, as I suspect you are? If so thank you. If not, it's worth every penny the Chapter can pay you. 
 
Tom
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