This past Friday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final rule that exempts reporting air releases of livestock waste from farms and feedlots. It is critical that people realize that this does not change anything regarding the release of other waste materials into the soil or water.
Public comments, especially from state and local authorities across the nation, ultimately prompted EPA to make this decision. Local and state regulators made it very clear in their comments that they had no intention of responding to these naturally occuring gaseous releases.
Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture, Terry Peach, joined state and national farm groups praising the EPA decision.
“This was a common sense rule and we are pleased with EPA’s decision,” he said. “Our environmental regulatory efforts can remain directed toward protecting our natural resources from things that pose realistic potential threat of harm.”
The final rule is not yet in the Federal Register but EPA provided an unofficial copy of the document here.
