Copyright The Associated Press
More than five years after first announcing stricter controls on industrial farm pollution in Michigan, state environmental regulators will finally start enforcing them. Regulations issued Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy require the state’s largest “confined animal feeding operations” — or CAFOs, facilities where cows, pigs and chickens are raised by the hundreds or thousands in confined conditions — to get more aggressive about keeping manure and urine out of Michigan’s water. Under the updated terms of EGLE’s general pollution discharge permit, covered facilities are prohibited from spreading manure on farm fields in January through most of March, when it could seep off frozen ground and into nearby waterways. Grassy buffers are required near rivers and creeks. And CAFOs are subject to new reporting requirements, among other changes. EGLE Director Phil Roos announced the permit decision Wednesday following years of legal battles with the Michigan Farm Bureau and other farming interests, which had opposed stronger pollution controls the department first unveiled in 2020. “It has been five-and-a-half years — a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” Roos said before the announcement. While Farm Bureau officials declined to comment, environmentalists declared a victory for public health and the environment. Michigan’s CAFO industry has expanded threefold since the turn of the millennium and now numbers some 290 large operations that generate more feces and urine than the state’s entire human population. “For the people who live in communities with a very heavy CAFO presence, it’s not abstract,” said Katie Garvey, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center, which has spent years pushing for stricter regulations. “It’s real. It’s in their water. It’s in their communities.” During the hearing at which Roos announced the permit decision, a Farm Bureau lawyer seemed to leave open the possibility of an appeal. “This has been a long five-and-a-half-year legal process, and we still might not be at the end,” said Andrew Kok, the group’s legal counsel. He added that farmers “have more interest than anyone in preserving the state’s ecosystem for the future.” Unlike traditional farms where livestock graze in pastures, CAFOs are industrial-scale operations that generate massive amounts of waste in small areas. They typically dispose of it by spreading or spraying it onto farm fields. In limited amounts, it’s a useful fertilizer. But operators often spray far more than plants can absorb, causing excrement to slough off the land and into waterways. Arguing EGLE had gone too far in its efforts to curb CAFO pollution, farm industry groups mounted an administrative appeal and a lawsuit when EGLE updated its CAFO regulations in 2020. The issue made it all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court, which sided with regulators last year. In a separate ruling, an administrative law judge ruled in January that EGLE has the right to issue the permit, with some modifications. On Wednesday, Roos accepted some of those modifications and rejected others, clearing EGLE to start enforcing the updated version of the 2020 permit. Garvey said her group is now turning its attention to making sure CAFO owners follow the new regulations. “We can’t sit back and say all right, we’re done,” Garvey said. “There’s still a lot that needs to be done in terms of implementation.” Lake Erie has become a well-known example of the consequences of agricultural pollution. Scientists and regulators have identified manure from CAFOs as a significant contributor to the toxic algae blooms that turn the lake green every summer. Michigan vowed in 2015 to reduce phosphorus loads into Lake Erie by 2025, but the state failed to meet that goal and has not set a new deadline to achieve it. ___
