A Pierce County group of concerned citizens and family farmers wants the county to hit the pause button on CAFO expansions in the county. But what is a CAFO and how is it regulated?
A CAFO, a …
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A Pierce County group of concerned citizens and family farmers wants the county to hit the pause button on CAFO expansions in the county. But what is a CAFO and how is it regulated?
A CAFO, a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, is an agricultural meat, dairy or egg facility where animals are raised in confinement. According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, instead of grazing or eating in pastures, fields or on range lands, animals are given food. Animals, feed, waste and production operations are housed on a small area of land.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines CAFOs as livestock operations where animals are confined for at least 45 days in a 12-month period and don’t have access to grass or other vegetation during the normal growing season. In Wisconsin, CAFOs have 1,000 animal units or more. Four CAFOs are permitted in Pierce County:
One animal unit equals 1,000 pounds of live weight animal. The average Holstein, according to Pierce County Land Conservation Department Director Rod Webb, weighs about 1,400 pounds, or 1.4 animal units.
Tyler Dix, a CAFO permit coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said the state regulates waste storage structures and manure application of CAFOs under the U.S. EPA Clean Water Act’s pollutant discharge permit program, called the Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES). The permits are designed to protect water quality by ensuring proper storage and manure handling from large-scale livestock operations, proper planning, nutrient management and structure/system construction. They do not, however, address odor, noise, traffic or other issues not related to water quality.
“The permit regulates how CAFOs store and apply manure to the land and process wastewater in order to protect water quality,” Dix said.
As part of his job, Dix helps develop language put into permits and participates in policy discussion. He also works to address controversial permit issues. His colleague, Jeff Jackson, is “boots on the ground field staff” in western Wisconsin, Dix said, working on permit issuance and reissuance. He also monitors permit compliance.
The Clean Water Act, signed into law on Oct. 18, 1972, established the basic structure for protecting water quality and regulating pollutant discharges into waters, Dix said.
“The EPA is focused on surface water quality,” Dix said. “Wisconsin is also focused on groundwater quality.”
Most WPDES permits are valid for five years with a goal of protecting water quality by reducing or preventing manure or process wastewater pollution from land applications (of manure) and production waste sites. While WPDES permits are required of all operations with 1,000 animal units or more, an operation with less than 1,000 may be required to have one if there is a discharge of pollutants to state waters or groundwater.
“An application for a permit has a five-year term if approved,” Dix said. “It will require the farm to hire a professional engineer to evaluate existing or design new facilities.”
Items addressed in the permit include manure storage, feed storage, waste transfer, raw materials storage, nutrient management planning (storing and applying waste), etc.
“There is a pretty rigorous review with nutrient management staff when applying for a permit,” Dix said. “It’s on an annual basis after that. They must update it and submit it to make sure they’re still following the requirements.”
Permits may be reviewed more frequently on a case-by-case basis if they have a tight land base or a lot of complaints, Dix said. Permit requirements are self-monitored and reported.
“There are 337 CAFOs in the state,” Dix said. “It’s not possible that we can be at every one all the time.”
CAFO operators are required to follow a monitoring and inspection program, he said. The program tells them when they need to check certain things and provides them a system to record their findings. For example, labeling every single facility at the farm that needs to be inspected is required. They must check water lines daily for leaks, storage facility levels weekly (and report if they surpass that level at any time), etc. Many other requirements are reported quarterly.
“Once every five years they (DNR) get out to the farm for the fourth-year reissuance inspection, at a bare minimum,” Dix said. “They’re usually out there much more often, on a case-by-case basis.
“Complaints are a big generator of inspections – we do get a lot of complaints. But the vast majority of permittees do it accurately and everything goes well. The enforcement process includes costly fines.”
Another example Dix gave for requirements are the “stringent rules” CAFOs must follow for production areas.
“They have to make sure that they meet surface and groundwater quality standards via the production area discharge limitations, which is essentially zero,” Dix said. “None can leave that area unless precipitation causes discharge (from overtopping).”
CAFOs are required to have 180 days of storage for liquid manure so they can avoid land application during winter.
“The highest runoff potential is during winter,” Dix said. “If we happened to get rain that caused overtopping (of the storage facility), they would technically be allowed to overtop as long as surface water quality is still met. A lot have extra storage and it doesn’t happen often.”
Other rules (among many) that must be followed when spreading manure are not applying within 100 feet to a conduit to groundwater or on fields near a surface water quality management area, private well or sinkhole, and creating buffers around navigable streams and wetlands.
Local government
When asked if local government has any say over regulating CAFOs, Dix said the Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection (DATCP) puts out baseline requirements for local regulation.
“They allow counties to adopt them and make them more stringent if they so choose,” Dix said. “Some county land conservation departments have more resources than others.”
According to the DATCP website, livestock facility siting laws give local government the ability to apply uniform regulations to livestock operations within standards of state law, which include:
The standards allow local governments to address differences in land use between livestock operations and adjacent landowners. The goal is to regulate land use by setting maximum structural setbacks, tracking odor control and limiting the exclusion of livestock facilities in agricultural zoning districts.
