Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

Just curious but in your area how quick is the EPA to jump on a farmer/rancher for having run-off of manure versus an industry w/ waste or chemicals? Same thing for a housing development versus agriculture? I know as farmers we need to fence off our cattle from streams, put up pads or dikes to prevent fertilizer, chemicals or fuel from spilling & leaking. But I see these factories, industries & other places & wonder if they are under the same restrictions? Especially all these new houses & developments going up.
Do you feel it's fair? what are you seeing your area? I know w/ the largest dairy being opened in our county, they are under terrible scrutiny. Same thing for people that spread manure onto fields. Any thoughts? I'm sure knabe has a whole train of thought on this one!

Red

Now your right in the middle of my line of business.

Honestly, farmers/ranchers don't have anywhere near the amount of regulation for waste discharges that industries and municipalities (including residential housing developments).  Examples of specific requirements:

ANY kind of construction activitity that disturbs more than 1 acre of land is required to get a "storm water permit" and prepare a document called a storm water pollution prevention plan.  The documentation costs several thousand dollars not to mention the cost of actual erosion prevention measures (this requirement is what generates all of those hay bales and silt fences on roadway and housing projects).

Business can't just discharge their sewage to the City's sewage treatment plant.  They have to meet "pretreatment' requirements that often requires an in-house wastewater treatment plant.  Any kind of business that makes food products (i.e. one of our clients makes tortillas), uses chemicals like solvents, etc) spends a lot of money on these issues.  Cities also charge much hire fees for sewage treatement for businesses.

Air permitting requirements and emission controls are extremely expensive for many kinds of businesses.

Believe it or not, agriculture is still largely a "sacred cow" (no pun intended) and isn't subjected to near the amount of regulation that every other industry in the U.S. is.

You would be amazed at the amount of money the U.S. Army is forced to spend on environmental issues.  They get in trouble for greasy spots in their parking lots because of storm water runoff issues.

the waste water stream of our building here at work is monitored 24/7 for pH and temp and is sampled monthly for tests.  when anyone buys property in the silicon valley, they have to perform a bunch of test drillings on the soil and test for solvents from the chip making business over the years.  the reason they do this is because the owner is liable for any plumes, and obvioulsy sources.  basically, this costs about 35-40K to perform.  but at a savings of millions of dollars for cleaning up the site if it has stuff, is a problem.  when romic, a waste treatment plant for chemicals, went out of business, the new owner did not purchase 3 properties just for this reason.  there are currently massive lawsuits right now over this.  same with moffett field, as well as hanger one which probably has more asbestos per square foot than any site in america.  not sure if its the high density barb type or the low one.  the low one is not considered near the hazard as the high density type, if at all in real terms.

just for grins, one should read the MSDS sheets for table salt and sugar

Synonyms: alpha-D-glucopyranosyl-beta-D-fructofuranoside;
sugarCAUTION! MAY FORM COMBUSTIBLE DUST CONCENTRATIONS IN AIR. NUISANCE DUST. HIGH CONCENTRATIONS MAY IRRITATE EYES AND RESPIRATORY TRACT.

obviously the dust has caused problems in the past with explosions, same with grain dust.

chambero, i think you mentioned you live in texas.  isn't it still pretty easy to make ponds on one's property?

also pretty intersting, the largest employer in the county is food processor.  the county is trying to impose pretreatment onto the company and the company wants help or it has to leave, taking with it, those jobs.  this would basically kill everything ag field related other than packer type lettuce.

it's a big problem.

i haven't seen too many studies about what is tolerable as oppossed to measurable and what the solutions are and what technology is being developed to take advantage here.  seems like a great opportunity.

I have a storm water permit for my sawmill that states, " A piece of wood larger than 1" in diameter shall not leave the property and enter into the local water system."  Think about it a 1" piece of wood.  We have terraces, netting and a run off pond to maintain our pollution, or sawdust and chips.  The air permit was a nightmare in itself, it states airborne particles are not to leave our property.  This includes dust from the ground created by rolling equipment, trucks, wheel loaders and my personal vehicle.  My response was the school bus creates more dust on the county roads than our equipment.  Their response was, yes but they are not regulated.  We even have to worry about a neighbor who "might" have a child with allergies that moves within 500 ft of our closest emission point.  I hate dealing with this nonsense in order to make a living.

They want me to fence off 200 feet around any ditch that may have surface water run down it to a tributary of a larger creek. However, everytime we get a big rain a town of 10,000 just to the north of me has an "overflow" from it's sewage treatment plant into the same creek. Let's see - an occassional cow pie close to a ditch in my pasture or raw sewage from 10,000 people. Who is really abusing the water shed?

Fortunately we own 90% of the land around our mill, and our closest emission point to neighboring property is 1500 ft.  The yard dust is what aggravates me, we are required to water if the good Lord does not do it for us.  Red tape and hoops, both go well with a circus.

They started on big cities like Fort Worth back in the mid 90s and are working their way down to smaller ones.  It takes years to fix because you basically have to redo a whole sewer system or create large overflow ponds and pipe networks.  Nobody has the money to deal with this kind of stuff quickly.

My only point is that they don't just pick on farmers and ranchers.