This message, composed by Lon Crosby, does a much better job of pulling
together the core message of Waterkeepers than my summary of the Iowa City
CAFO Conference.  I forward it with permission.

Peggy Murdock

Nicolette Hahn's message at the CAFO Whistle Stop Tour was quite succinct -
but one had to listen in a "different way".

     1. All of the laws needed to protect the environment and individual
quality of life already exist at the federal level. The issue is
enforcement of regulations. One has the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act,
Rivers & Harbors Act and RICO statutes to work with. By law, state laws can
not be any less stringent than Federal law. From an environmental
perspective, this is not a state issue. This is a Federal issue since Iowa
law is substantially weaker than Federal law.

     2. Under the Clean Water Act, CAFO's (Confined Animal Feeding
Operations) must be regulated as point sources of pollution, byproducts
coming from those facilities must be regulated as solid waste (meaning that
land application of manure has the same requirements as sludge from a
sewage treatment plant) and that there is no such thing as an "agricultural
exemption". NPDES statutes apply to CAFO's.

     3. RICO statutes automatically pierce the "corporate veil" making
"responsible individuals" personally and criminally liable for
systematically evading the law.

     4. The environmental statutes (water & air) have "citizen action
bypass procedures" which allows citizens to seek legal redress for
regulatory infractions. These provisions were specifically included to
provide legal recourse for regulatory food dragging. In a successful suit,
the polluter pays legal expenses and civil penalties can be (and typically
are) levied. There are now law firms which will take CAFO suits on a
contingency basis.

To this point, suits have been filed under the Clean Water Act because it
is easier to collect the data. (Note: Iowa may be different because the
Clean Air Act regulates "plant" emissions and air quality at the property
line. Many CAFO's in Iowa are built close to roads. In addition, technology
advances will make it easier for citizens to collect "legal quality" air
quality data.) The first RICO suit has been filed and they believe it will
be successful.

     5. "Point sources" must collect environmental data to prove that they
are not polluting the environment. This data must be made available to the
public.

     6. Existing federal regulations provide a uniform nationwide set of
standards which is exactly what the animal industry has been requesting.

     7. This is not a "political" issue. The explicit incorporation of
CAFO's in the Clean Water Act was proposed by Bob Dole. He recognized that
CAFO's represented a potential major problem. (You also have to recognize
that many of the CAFO's that existed when the Clean Water Act was passed
were large beef feedlots in Kansas.)

Lon

Lon Crosby, Ph.D.
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515-826-4995