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West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass said today that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent order to four Eastern Panhandle poultry farms to apply for water pollution permits is unnecessary, misguided and possibly outside EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act.
“The West Virginia Department of Agriculture (WVDA) in no way supports farms that recklessly pollute. However, that is not the case with these farmers, or the vast majority of farmers in the United States, who are conscientious stewards of the environment,” said state Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass. EPA is loosely using technicalities in the Clean Water Act – not evidence of pollution – to put these farms under a command and control regime. Simply having an arbitrary number of animals on a farm is no reason to have to get a NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit.”
Commissioner Douglass said lawsuits against recent EPA actions raise valid questions about the agency’s use of its authority and rejected claims those suits are simply profit-driven obstructionism. He also rejected EPA’s claims that it is simply trying to educate farmers about their responsibilities, saying the agency is attempting to soft-pedal what is in reality an oppressive power-grab.
“If they were really trying to help farmers, they would find specific instances of farm pollution and provide funding to implement best management practices (BMPs) that alleviate those problems, rather than hiring an army of permit writers and inspectors. Conscripting might be a better term, though, because they are expecting state personnel to take on a large share of this mandate, or face severe repercussions from the federal government,” said Commissioner Douglass. “The WVDA has continually expanded its programs to scientifically study water quality and assist farmers in protecting it.”
He noted that levels of nutrients associated with agriculture have been declining for decades thanks to farm-level practices such as no-till planting, cover crops, manure storage structures, stream fencing and soil testing. Meanwhile, urban sources of pollution have been skyrocketing due to unabated development – development that sometimes results in the loss of productive farmland.
Regardless, EPA has said the agricultural sector will be responsible for the largest share of future reductions because those are the most cost-effective means of reducing overall impact on the Chesapeake Bay, the focus of a major EPA water pollution initiative.
“Cost-effective for whom?” asked Commissioner Douglass. “Improvements to water treatment plants are shared equally by rate-payers and urban runoff measures are funded by the respective tax-payers, but when it comes to agriculture, the expenses fall on an individual business owner who is unable to pass on those costs to customers.”
Commissioner Douglass said the fundamental problem is the immense and growing number of people living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, most of them concentrated in urban areas directly surrounding the bay. Those towns and cities face crippling costs under EPA’s plan, too, he pointed out.
“The effort to protect the Chesapeake Bay is a noble one. The Bay is a national treasure,” Commissioner Douglass said. “But so are our independent farms and the families that operate them. They rely on fertile soil, and many of them drink the water they farm over. What better incentives are there to protect the environment? And what good is it for residents around the Bay to have enhanced recreational experiences, richer fisheries and increased property values if their food has to be shipped half way around the world from countries with lax safety standards and little-to-no conservation practices?”
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture protects plant, animal and human health through a variety of scientific, regulatory and consumer protection programs, as mandated by state law. The Commissioner of Agriculture is one of six statewide elected officials in West Virginia. For more information, visit www.wvagriculture.org.
“The Basis of All Wealth is Agriculture.”
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