What's That Smell?

Abstract

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week launched the first national study of air pollutants from dairy cow, swine, and poultry farms. For 2.5 years, researchers from eight universities will measure emissions of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and other gases from livestock farms in nine states across the country. EPA will then create a model to enable individual operations to check whether they need an agency permit. Environmentalists say the study is not comprehensive enough and may underestimate emissions. EPA has the authority to order farms to do their own monitoring, but it chose instead to study just 24 sites as part of a 2001 deal with industry. In exchange for not being regulated, more than 2600 operations with 14,000 farms agreed to contribute a total of $14.6 million for the study. “Without a better study, I'm not sure this will lead to anything but more lawsuits and delay,” says Karla Raettig of the Environmental Integrity Project in Washington, D.C. The D.C. Court of Appeals heard arguments this year on a case activists brought challenging EPA's voluntary approach. It's unclear how that case, which is pending, could affect the research.