KENTUCKY

• Kentucky's geology makes large portions of the state particularly vulnerable to groundwater pollution from leaking hog manure lagoons.
  
  
• Kentucky is experiencing a boom in chicken houses, but they escape water pollution regulation.

In Kentucky, the number of farms raising hogs has dropped dramatically over the past 20 years as factory-scale operations have replaced family-size farms. The number of hog farms plunged from 33,000 in 1976 to some 2,500 in 1997.¹ A trend toward larger hog operations, concentrated in a few pockets of the state, has led to big increases in overall hog production in some parts of Kentucky. Eleven counties have experienced a 25 percent jump in the number of hogs produced since 1982.²

Of Kentucky's approximately 2,500 hog operations in 1997, an estimated 50 operations had more than 2,000 hogs (an average of 5,850), and 70 operations had between 1,000 and 2,000 hogs.³

Kentucky's booming poultry industry is projected to expand dramatically in the next few years. Approximately 3.3 million birds are killed per week in Kentucky, raised in an estimated 1,100 broiler houses on an estimated 350 farms, according to projections for 1998. By the year 2000, the total number slaughtered will rise to an estimated 5.7 million birds killed per week in 2,100 broiler houses on an estimated 534 farms.⁴ Though nearby residents complain of intense odor problems and flies,⁵ the state's Economic Development Authority has provided significant tax incentives to two major food corporations to open poultry operations: Cagle-Keystone Foods and Hudson Foods (which has now been acquired by Tyson Foods, Inc.).⁶

Pollution Problems

Fifty percent of Kentucky is comprised of limestone, which is permeated with caves, sinkholes, and springs. In these limestone formations, known as karst, water runs underground through caves and aquifers and then emerges from springs into streams and lakes.⁷ Areas of karst geology are particularly sensitive to nutrient pollution and are ill-suited for siting hog waste lagoons or concentrated animal feeding operations.⁸ Unfortunately, Kentucky is now experiencing a proliferation of chicken houses and an increased concentration of swine operations in areas that are formed from karst, including areas close to Mammoth Cave National Park.⁹ Depositing animal waste in karst areas poses the following water pollution threats:

• Because underground water moves very rapidly and unpredictably, disease-causing bacteria from manure spread onto the ground have greater opportunity to enter groundwater and to contaminate nearby streams and lakes.¹⁰
  
  
• The rapid movement of animal waste into the groundwater limits the ability of soil and plants to take up nutrients, increasing the risk of nutrient pollution of groundwater and above-ground bodies of water.¹¹
  
  
• Karst geography is by definition unstable. Sinkholes can form in unexpected areas, in particular where ground excavation occurs and where there is a change in the groundwater flow rate, both of which occur frequently with feedlot construction. Examples of the risks involved with lagoon construction in karst regions are documented by Dr. Nicholas Crawford of Western Kentucky University's Department of Geography and Geology in an August 5, 1998 report. He has documented a 1984 sinkhole collapse under a hog waste lagoon in southwest Barren County, which poured 2.4 million gallons of hog waste into the karst aquifer in less than five hours. Another sinkhole collapse under a hog waste lagoon in Logan County on April 29, 1991, drained more than one million gallons of hog waste into the karst aquifer, according to Crawford. This lagoon had a synthetic liner, but the collapse occurred above the synthetic liner. Crawford also documented lagoon leakage from two lagoons in Logan County which contaminated a spring.¹²

Regulatory Climate

Poultry facilities are excluded from any water pollution regulation under the state's interpretation of the Clean Water Act because poultry litter is not considered an industrial source of pollution. Despite documentation of well-water contamination linked to nearby land application of litter, the state agency claims it has no authority to take enforcement action against poultry factories.¹³

A major failing of Kentucky's environmental regulatory system has been its use of "no discharge" permits to CAFOs. Given the lack of water quality monitoring requirements for CAFOs and other assurances, this requirement is difficult to enforce. Moreover, requirements for waste management plans are not enforceable.

Even for processing plants, the "no discharge" permit is offered. For example, Cagle-Keystone's new chicken processing plant in Clinton County has been issued a "no discharge" permit and will be allowed to spray-irrigate up to 1.43 million gallons a day of plant wastewater on a hay farm near Lake Cumberland. The permit has no water quality limits, and inadequate monitoring requirements.¹⁴

Until recently, the state's regulation of swine was very lax. However, in response to the prospect of additional hog facilities coming into Kentucky, the Governor imposed a three-month moratorium in 1997, which was followed first by emergency regulations and then by permanent regulations for new factory swine operations with over 1,000 swine units. Existing swine operations of this size and other animal types (with the exception of dry litter poultry operations) are still covered under the old CAFO rules. The new regulations include notice to citizens in the vicinity, setbacks, restrictions of the land application of waste, and some additional regulatory requirements.¹⁵ However, among other deficiencies, the setbacks are inadequate, the nutrient management requirements are based on nitrogen limits rather than phosphorus limits, allowing more pollution to occur, and operators are not required to obtain training to run a factory farm.¹⁶ The Farm Bureau attempted to repeal the regulations with legislation in the 1998 session,¹⁷ but that effort was defeated. The newest version of the regulations, which took permanent effect in November 1998, requires that the owner of a livestock operation's pigs (typically an absentee food corporation) join with the owner of the operation's land (typically a farmer under contract to the corporation) in applying for a CAFO permit.¹⁸ This means that well-endowed corporations will share some of the responsibility for complying with environmental requirements with their contract farmers, who have historically shouldered the costly burden of manure-handling alone. Unfortunately, the Farm Bureau was able to weaken this important requirement from the proposed version, which made the corporations and the farmers equally responsible.¹⁹

The Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet, the agency that issues permits under the Clean Water Act, currently permits 143 agricultural waste systems with 1,000 or more head of swine.²⁰ The Cabinet estimates that there are between 50 to100 swine facilities that are required by law to get a water pollution control permit as a CAFO but have not been issued one.²¹ The failure to regulate these CAFOs stems largely from weak agency enforcement and a lack of state funding for inspectors, according to environmentalists.

The effectiveness of local controls is generally untested, because they are all relatively new. However, several counties have attempted to implement local controls on animal waste facilities.²²

Primary interviewee for this chapter:

Hank Graddy
Sierra Club-Kentucky
W.H. Graddy & Associates
P.O. Box 4307
Midway, KY 40347
Phone: 606-846-4905
Fax: 606-846-4914
e-mail: hgraddy@aol.com

Notes

1. Community Farm Alliance, "Hogs in Kentucky." Frankfort Kentucky (September 23, 1997), numbers agreed to by Mike Ovesen, Kentucky Pork Producers Assn. at September 26, 1997 meeting of the Kentucky Agriculture Water Quality Authority, Livestock Committee meeting, Frankfort, Kentucky.

2. Regulatory Impact Analysis prepared by Kentucky Division of Water, 401 Kentucky Administrative Regulations 5:009 (August 6, 1998).

3. Community Farm Alliance, "Hogs in Kentucky," Frankfort Kentucky (September 23, 1997), numbers agreed to by Mike Ovesen, Kentucky Pork Producers Assn. at September 26, 1997 meeting of the Kentucky Agriculture Water Quality Authority, Livestock Committee meeting, Frankfort, Kentucky.

4. Dr. A. J. Pescatore comments to the Kentucky Agriculture Water Quality Authority, Livestock Committee, Elizabethtown, Kentucky (October 15, 1997).

5. Democracy Resource Center, et al., Tyson Fact Sheet, Lexington, Kentucky, quoting statement by Leesa Webster, Sebree, Kentucky, who lives near 16 chicken houses, the closest one 600 feet from her home, and statement by Norma Caine, Onton, Kentucky, who lives within site of 24 chicken houses, the closest one 278 feet from her back door. Caine has experienced odor problems, dust problems, flies and other pests.

6. Community Farm Alliance (CFA) letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (July 21, 1997); CFA News, "Corporate Agriculture in Kentucky and an Economic Development Strategy Gone Wrong," Frankfort, Kentucky (July 1997).

7. Nicholas Crawford, Ph.D., "Leakage and Sinkhole Collapses Under Hog Waste Lagoons in Kentucky" (August 5, 1998), p. 10.

8. Nicholas Crawford, Ph.D., "Leakage and Sinkhole Collapses Under Hog Waste Lagoons in Kentucky" (August 5, 1998), p. 10.

9. Nicholas Crawford, Ph.D., "Leakage and Sinkhole Collapses Under Hog Waste Lagoons in Kentucky" (August 5, 1998), p. 1; U.S. Department of Agriculture, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, City of Albany, Cagle Water Expansion Project map, figure 14, p. 81.

10. Cooley testimony (July 13, 1998), pp. 131-135 and Ewers testimony (July 15, 1998), pp. 21-23, Sierra Club et al. v. NREPC, et al., KY NREPC File DOW-23778-043.

11. Cooley testimony (July 13, 1998), pp. 131-135 and Ewers testimony (July 15, 1998), pp. 21-23, Sierra Club et al. v. NREPC, et al., KY NREPC File DOW-23778-043.

12. Nicholas Crawford, Ph.D., "Leakage and Sinkhole Collapses Under Hog Waste Lagoons in Kentucky" (August 5, 1998).

13. Personal communication between Hank Graddy, Kentucky Sierra Club, and Jack Wilson, Director, Kentucky Division of Water concerning Gary Hale's fecal coliform test results, Frankfort, Kentucky (May 6, 1998).

14. Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet, "No Discharge Permit Issued to Cagle," Keystone Foods (September 15, 1997).

15. 401 Kentucky Administrative Regulations 5:009, Section 4.

16. 401 Kentucky Administrative Regulations 5:009, Section 5 and Section 9; Letter from Kentucky Resources Council to Jack Wilson, Kentucky Division of Water (June 21, 1998); Letter from Sierra Club to Jack Wilson, Kentucky Division of Water (June 21, 1998).

17. "House Bill Would Weaken Some Rules for Hog Farms," Courier Journal (February 26, 1998).

18. 401 Kentucky Administrative Regulations 5:009, Section 1(5).

19. "Sprague Says Liability Provision in Swine Regulations Should Be Amended," Greenburg Record-Herald (October 21, 1998).

20. Regulatory Impact Analysis prepared by Kentucky Division of Water, 401 Kentucky Administrative Regulations 5:009 (August 6, 1998).

21. Comments of Peter Goodman, Kentucky Division of Water, to the Kentucky Agricultural Water Authority, Frankfort, Kentucky (November 20, 1997).

22. Re: Webster County setback requirements; "Webster Fiscal Court Enacts Poultry Rules," The Messenger (August 19, 1997); Allen County moratorium, personal communication between Hank Graddy, Kentucky Sierra Club and Bettye Glover, Friends of the Drakes Creek and Red River (September 9, 1998).