To: Denise C. Coleman

Program Analyst, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

ATTN: AFO

P.O. Box 2890,

Washington, DC 20013-2890

Dear Ms. Coleman:

We appreciate the opportunity to make comment on the Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations. Those comments are as follows:

Percentages of Assessment

• The states have been induced to assess water quality for the purpose of obtaining federal grant money. Furthermore the states have been encouraged and allowed to use existing data and evaluations that are not scientifically defensible. State assessments are therefore rendered useless in determining the actual quality of the water. EPA has not only manufactured this situation but has used these assessments to characterize the nation's water quality most negatively and unfairly. Therefore, EPA/USDA should consider, as the #1 funding priority, the collection, by states and tribes, of current, reliable, scientific, and unbiased water quality data. The money spent to do this will be saved many times over by eliminating unnecessary and misplaced permitting programs.

The water quality data on which the percentages of impairment come from is inadequate. The 1990, 1992, and 1994 National Water Quality Inventories have been acknowledged by the agency to be scientifically flawed in assessment methodology. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the National Water Quality Inventory data was so severely flawed that it could not be used to summarize water conditions and trends. The National Water Quality Inventories are based on these inadequacies:

• Stream morphology is not taken into consideration.
• The data used is often badly out-of-date, counted more than once, and based solely on a visual evaluation instead of scientific monitoring.
• Water is often chosen for assessment simply because of suspected problems due to location of the waterbody.
• There is no baseline, unbiased, random sample control-group data taken on a national level.

Jurisdiction Non Point Source

• The CLEAN WATER ACT (CWA) clearly gives jurisdiction of non-point source pollution (NPS) to the states and tribes. The CWA clearly does not give this jurisdiction to the EPA/USDA. Therefore, animal feeding operations that create no point source discharge should not be considered, under any circumstances, as subject to National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
• The AFO strategy is unlawful in seeking to treat precipitation runoff as a discharge. "End of pipe" effluents from CAFOs was the only Congressionally targeted operations to be subjected to NPDES permitting in the legislative history of the CWA.
• The legislative history further indicates no intention to regulate CAFOs that only discharge in the event of chronic or catastrophic storm events.
• Precipitation runoff is obviously not a point source discharge. Any claim to the contrary, by EPA/USDA, will generate the waste of huge sums of public and private money in litigation. This is money that can better be spent to protect water quality through voluntary programs. Therefore, once again, voluntary programs dealing with non-point source pollution should be fully funded and allowed time to become effective.

Animal Units

• EPA seems to be planning to expand the definition of CAFOs from 1000 animal units (AUs) down to 300 AUs that would be required to obtain NPDES general permits. The Clean Water Act does not define CAFO or AFO. EPA had defined these terms through regulations. Congressional intent did not include non-point sources as CAFOs.

Definition of CAFOs

• There is no need to permit a facility, as a point source discharger, that is constructed and maintained so that it discharges only in the event of a 25-year, 24-hour or larger storm event. EPA/USDA should not seek to remove the 25-year, 24-hour storm event exemption from CAFO regulations.
• The AFO STRATEGY states in section 4.3 that the agricultural stormwater discharge exemption will exempt the majority of AFOs from permitting but only if disposal of animal wastes occurs with a properly prepared CNMP. Land applied animal wastes are not point source pollution in any event and should not be subject to NPDES permitting.
• AFOs of less than 1000 AU should not be subject to CAFO permitting based on a finding by the permitting agency. Operators of AFOs should not be subjected to such "Gestapo" tactics.
• AFOs located in so-called "impaired watersheds" should not be subject to CAFO permitting. "Impaired watershed" designations are not based on sound scientific data at this time and in no case convict an individual operator of contributing to a pollution problem.

Capacity

• Capacity will need to be built at both the Federal and States levels, requiring great amounts of funding to implement this strategy. The task that is being laid upon the states to permit not only operations above 1000 animal units but possibly operations that have only 300 AUs and those located in an "impaired" labeled watershed, is too much to ask, of the states and of taxpayers. The bureaucracy that will be involved in even attempting to accomplish this will in itself bog the process down.

Impaired Watersheds

• The states' Unified Watershed Assessments are tied to future funding for non-point sources. Some states have reportedly loaded up their assessments with many listed watersheds, in order to increase their funding from EPA. The connection between the AFO strategy and the UWA can cause undue and unjustified regulation on the animal feeding operations due to the greediness of states. Some assessments have been largely based on 303(d) reports and some cases, any one can get a stream on the 303(d) list without supporting data.

Phosphorus Standard

• The phosphorus standard has not been scientifically defined yet. Land application of phosphorus should be guided by the soil holding capacity for phosphorus. Research should be funded to study the soil holding capacity for phosphorus.

Miscellaneous

• Some of the public hearings should have been held in rural communities where the people being subjected to additional regulations live and operate. Very few animal feeding operations exist in downtown Tulsa or Fort Worth.
• In regards non-point source pollution, EPA/USDA has cited repeatedly that voluntary programs have been ineffective due to lack of participation. In fact, federal cost-share and other voluntary programs have been seriously underfunded throughout the history of the CWA. Furthermore, most of the funds have been devoted repeatedly to the same watersheds, many of which are more affected by point source dischargers than non-point source discharges. Therefore, before imposing new permitting programs, voluntary programs dealing with non-point source pollution should be fully funded and allowed time to become effective.
• The voluntary programs and best management practices (bmp) that have been developed and are now in place can be fully funded and implemented at much less cost than the proposed STATEGY for AFOs. Therefore, once again, voluntary programs dealing with non-point source pollution should be fully funded and allowed time to become effective.
• The AFO STRATEGY and all of its assurances are meaningless in light of the fact that the voluntary programs have never been fully funded and EPA can not assure future funding. If these voluntary programs were adequately funded, non-point source pollution associated with AFOs would be eliminated rendering NPDES permitting less than useless.
• This document states "In terms of production, the total number of animal units (AUs) in the U.S. increased by about 4.5 million (approximately three percent) between 1987 and 1992. During this same period, however, the number of AFOs decreased, indicating a consolidation within the industry overall and greater production from fewer, larger AFOs⁵" Your words say between 1987 and 1992, but both of your charts are for 1978 to 1992. That's an eleven (11) year difference for that growth of 3 percent, instead of 5 years, that would be 14 years.
• This document states "Of the rivers and streams surveyed (53 percent of all perennial stream miles) 36% were partially or fully impaired and another 8% were threatened; Of the surveyed lakes (40 percent of all lake acres) 39% were partially or fully impaired and another 10% were threatened; and Of the estuaries surveyed by coastal states (72 percent of all estuarine waters) 38% were impaired and another 4 % were threatened; Of the Great Lakes shore miles surveyed (94 percent of all shore miles) 97% were impaired and another 1 % were threatened." This document is supposedly to address pollution concerns from animal feeding operations. To throw in stats concerning total national pollution leads the reader to believe that you are indicating all of this comes from animal agriculture. It is unfair and misleading to quote these figures in this document.
• This document states "States report that agriculture is the most widespread source of pollution in the nation's surveyed rivers. In the 22 States that categorized impacts from specific types of agriculture, animal operations impact about 35,000 river miles of those miles assessed." How many miles were assessed and how did the states indicate this?

Sincerely,

Doanld and Judi Barrett

Barrett Farms