Environmental%20Issues%202012

Farm Bureau Policy Development Fact Sheet No. 2 — 2012 ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES MAKE UP OF WATER UTILITY COMMISSIONS & BOARDS Large water utilities and their corresponding boards are becoming more focused on source water protection issues in an effort to protect water quality. These efforts have expanded from looking at the waterbody itself, a lake for example, to encompassing the entire watershed. Watershed management plans developed by these utilities recommend controls or restrictions on activities within the watershed such as limiting the amount and type of development, increased restriction of nutrient applications, limiting access of cattle to creeks and streams, etc.

Utilities have no direct regulatory authority and must go through state agencies or county quorum courts to implement new regulations or ordinances on individuals outside of municipal corporate boundaries as well as on individuals outside their service areas who live in the water supply watershed boundaries. However, these individuals have no representation on these water utility boards/commissions. These ordinances are defacto regulation of farmers, ranchers and other rural land owners who work and live in the watershed but receive no services from these utilities.

Current policy supports the inclusion of agriculture representation on boards and commissions that regulate agriculture. These utilities and the make-up of their boards are governed by state statutes. Current state statues require these boards/commissions to be composed of utility customers or rate payers, not residents of the water supply’s watershed.

Related Policy: Pollution Control and Ecology (PC&E) Commission and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality 150, Water 152 1.

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Does Arkansas’ statutes need to be updated to require representation from the agriculture community on these commissions?

How should this representation be determined? Appointed from legislative districts?

STORMWATER POLLUTION PREVENTION PLANS FOR ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIONS In late 2010, Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6 performed its first round of animal feeding operation inspections in the Illinois River Watershed. They recently completed their second round of inspections and a third round is likely. EPA Region 6 indicated that they did not find any discharges or other major violations; however, they believe that some dry litter AFO’s could discharge from the production areas and future inspections will include soil and water samples from in and around the

production areas. One of the items on EPA’s inspection checklist was the presence of a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP).

The concept of including Best Management Practices (BMPs) for the production areas as a part of Arkansas’ existing Nutrient Management Plans has been discussed. These BMP’s could be considered the basis for and meet the requirements of a SWPPP and possibly preempt EPA’s efforts to require some farms to obtain a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit. Many of these BMPs would be simple and might include things growers are already doing such as litter stacking sheds and mortality composting or incineration. Additional BMPs might be: laying down large tarps in front of poultry house doors during clean out to ease clean-up of spilled litter, guttering poultry house eaves to divert rain water away from production areas, maintaining areas between houses as “grassed waterways”, and periodically collecting litter dust outside of ventilation fans, etc.

Related Policy: Pollution Control and Ecology (PC&E) Commission and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality 150, Water 152 1.

2.

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Are there benefits associated with obtaining a state issued SWPPP, i.e., maintain regulation of animal agriculture at the state level, add another layer of protection against nuisance lawsuits?

Could some of these measures be expanded to provide production benefits, i.e., rain water harvesting and treatment to supply drinking/cooling water?

Are there drawbacks associated with obtaining SWPP?

OTHER ISSUES  State Water Plan  Discovery Farms  CAFO air emissions  Lignite extraction

[If you need additional information on these or other environmental issues or if you desire assistance with your county policy development meeting contact Evan Teague, Environmental Specialist, at (501) 228-1335 or via email at evan.teague@arfb.com.]