DES MOINES – An annual report updating work the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has completed in the last year to improve oversight of livestock operations has been submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Work Plan Agreement between the DNR and EPA Region 7 was created as a means to strengthen DNR’s implementation of the federally authorized National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program as it relates to the regulation of livestock facilities.
“This first annual report to EPA represents a year of us ‘gearing up’ on our efforts to work with livestock facilities,” said Bill Ehm, administrator of the DNR’s Environmental Services Division.
Ehm said a major accomplishment during the first year of the work plan was hiring additional field staff and conducting training for the inspection of livestock facilities.
The DNR was able to complete an inventory that identified 6,617 total confinements, 1,457 open lots and 508 operations that were a combination of confinement and open lots.
During the first year of the work plan, the DNR was also able to perform 724 on-site inspections and 1,131 desk top assessments.
“The work we have done in the first year through training and doing the inventory sets the stage for us to be able to more efficiently and effectively conduct site visits in future years. The training work we have done ensures that we will have fair and consistent evaluations of facilities across the state,” said Ehm.
Under terms of the Work Plan Agreement, the DNR will be inspecting 20 percent of the large and medium sized livestock facilities each year. The inventory completed during the first year enables DNR to prioritize its inspection schedule based on operations that may be closest to surface water or have had previous violations.
“We want on-site visits to be valuable in terms of helping livestock producers identify ways they can improve their operations to avoid having environmental problems,” said Ehm.
The Work Plan Agreement between the DNR and EPA Region 7 was created as a means to strengthen DNR’s implementation of the federally authorized National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program. A petition for withdrawal of the NPDES program authorization was submitted to the EPA in 2007 by Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Integrity Project. As a result of the petition, EPA conducted a formal investigation of the petitioners’ allegations. The investigation found deficiencies in Iowa’s NPDES program for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The Work Plan was negotiated to address those deficiencies over a five-year period and covers seven specific objectives as described in this report, the first of five scheduled annual reports.
The work plan is available online at: http://www.iowadnr.gov/Environment/LandStewardship/AnimalFeedingOperations/EPADNRWorkplanMaterials.as
[poll random]
