EPA is currently accepting public comment on the National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives to be undertaken by EPA over the coming four-year period. That is why are taking this opportunity to urge the agency to include Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to their proposals.
CAFOs are one of the most widespread sources of pollution in the country. They are a major threat to clean water and must be treated that way.
CAFOs produce livestock in geographically concentrated confinement facilities that generate enormous volumes of animal manure and other wastes and employ outdated waste systems that are well documented to create air, water, and land pollution.
Due to continued CAFO industry expansion, widespread unaddressed pollution, and high numbers facilities operating without Clean Water Act permits required by law, CAFOs remained as one of EPA’s National Enforcement Initiatives until it was abruptly removed in 2018 through an internal agency memo that provided no justification for the action
EPA has identified CAFOs as a national priority since as far back as 1998. Inadequate manure management was the reason then, but those problems have only expanded since that time. Furthermore, it is irrefutable that the harms associated with widespread, uncontrolled CAFO pollution are disproportionately harming overburdened and vulnerable communities.
EPA must reestablish the control of surface water and groundwater pollution from animal waste at CAFOs as a National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative for 2024-2027.
