ALABAMA

• The vast amounts of chicken manure applied as fertilizer in Alabama's biggest poultry-growing counties pose a contamination threat to groundwater and potentially to drinking water.
  
  
• Citizens have no opportunity to voice concerns about the environmental impact of new animal factories under Alabama's draft permit system now being considered.

For the past 20 years, Alabama has been faced with the problems of a growing poultry industry, including the potential contamination of the state's water from chicken manure applied too generously to farmland. Now other types of factory feedlots are moving into the state. According to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM), Alabama has approximately 220 swine facilities, 248 dairies, about 3,445 broiler chicken facilities and 33,000 beef cattle farms.¹ ADEM does not know how many of these facilities have 1,000 animal units or more.²

Pollution Problems

Alabama is one of the leading poultry-producing states in the nation. The state's poultry production is geographically concentrated in the Sand Mountain region of northern Alabama, resulting in a large quantity of poultry litter spread in a few places.³ In 1991, Alabama's agriculture statistics noted that nearly half of the broiler chickens were concentrated in four counties -- Cullman, Blount, Dekalb and Marshall.⁴ A study of poultry litter applied to land in these counties showed that the nutrient nitrogen had been applied in excess of plant needs and had seeped underground to a depth at or near the bedrock, indicating the potential for groundwater contamination at levels that might exceed the safe drinking water standard.⁵ In 1994, two million tons of poultry litter were produced annually and applied to crop land and pasture land as a fertilizer.⁶

Regulatory Climate

The only permit that operators of large feedlots are required to obtain is a general construction permit written by ADEM. There is no other permit required to construct and begin operating a factory farm.⁷ Citizens have no opportunity to comment other than on the general construction permit, which has no relevance to the facility's waste management.

Inspections only occur in response to a complaint or when other information about water pollution problems from a facility is available.⁸

Alabama has circulated draft regulations to create a Clean Water Act permitting system for feedlots including poultry operations.⁹ Under the proposal, however, large feedlots would merely be required to register with ADEM. They would not be required to apply for stricter individual permits under the Clean Water Act, which establish terms based on the conditions of the individual farm site and which allow the public to comment on the granting of the permit to a specific operation.¹⁰

The proposal calls for zero-discharge (see Glossary) except during a major storm event and requires the feedlot to have a waste management plan approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.¹¹

Under the proposed regulations, weaning operations raising piglets need not even register. The new regulations would require neither periodic inspections of large feedlots nor groundwater monitoring. In addition, the proposal's public notice and siting requirements are inadequate.¹²

Primary interviewees for this chapter:

Kirsten Bryant
Alabama Environmental Council
2717 7th Avenue South, Suite 207
Birmingham, AL 35233
Phone: 205-322-3126
Fax: 205-324-3784
e-mail: watchdog@alenvironmentalcouncil.org

Carla Lee
Alabama Chapter, Sierra Club
2 Country Road, 406
Town Creek, AL 35672
Phone: 256-685-9416
e-mail: lee.farm@worldnet.att.net

Notes

1. "Roundup of Rules," The Birmingham News (July 11, 1998).

2. Remarks by Richard Hulcher, Chief, Permits/Compliance Unit, Alabama Department of Environmental Management, CAFO Workshop Meeting, Montgomery, Alabama (February 25, 1998).

3. W.L. Kingery, et al., "Impact of Long_Term Land Application of Broiler Litter on Environmentally Related Soil Properties," Journal of Environmental Quality (1994), Vol. 23, pp. 139-147.

4. W.L. Kingery, et al., "Impact of Long_Term Land Application of Broiler Litter on Environmentally Related Soil Properties," Journal of Environmental Quality (1994), Vol. 23, p. 139.

5. W.L. Kingery, et al., "Impact of Long_Term Land Application of Broiler Litter on Environmentally Related Soil Properties," Journal of Environmental Quality (1994), Vol. 23, p. 146.

6. B.M. Hall, C.W. Wood, et al., "Nutrient Losses in Runoff from Land-Applied Broiler Litter," Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, Auburn University, Alabama, Vol. 41, No. 2.

7. Alabama Department of Environment Management, AFO Regulatory and CAFO Permitting Program History, Fact Sheet (January 25, 1998).

8. Alabama Department of Environment Management, AFO Regulatory and CAFO Permitting Program History, Fact Sheet (January 25, 1998).

9. Draft Regulations: AFO/CAFO NPDES Chapter 335-6-17 of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management's Rules and Regulations.

10. Southern Environmental Law Center, "Comments on Draft Regulations: AFO/CAFO NPDES Chapter 335-6-17" (August 21, 1998).

11. Draft Regulations: AFO/CAFO NPDES Chapter 335-6-17 of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management's Rules and Regulations.

12. Southern Environmental Law Center, "Comments on Draft Regulations: AFO/CAFO NPDES Chapter 335-6-17" (August 21, 1998).