Issues: Water

MINNESOTA

• Large-scale hog feedlots are emitting hydrogen sulfide -- a gas that produces flu-like symptoms in humans -- at levels vastly exceeding state air quality standards. (Minnesota is the first state to measure hydrogen sulfide gas at farm operations.)
  
  
• The state's implementation of Clean Water Act permit requirements for animal factories has been lax. Only 3.5 percent of the state's 700 factory-sized farms have been issued the federal Clean Water Act permit required by law.

The state has classified 34 percent of the river miles and 30 percent of the lake acres within four major river basins in Minnesota as "impaired," or polluted, by feedlots.¹ This classification means that the pollution levels have put these waters off-limits all or some of the time for state-designated uses, including swimming and consumption of fish from these waters.

Animal factories in the state have grown exponentially since 1990 as the number of Minnesota's family farms has continued to dwindle. In 1990, Minnesota issued 11 new permits to animal feeding operations with over 1,000 animal units. In 1996, the number of new permits issued to factory farms surged to 152.² Meanwhile, the percentage of livestock marketed from farms with less than 300 animal units has plummeted from 85 percent to 40 percent and is expected to drop to 25 percent within two to three years.³

Pollution Problems

Air Pollution

Air pollution emissions from feedlots are a tremendous problem in Minnesota. The state has had strict standards for over 20 years limiting the emissions of the toxic gas hydrogen sulfide.⁴ But until 1997, feedlots were not tested for compliance with those standards. Following the construction of 17 new large-scale hog feedlots in Renville County in 1993 and 1994, Renville County citizens began experiencing flu-like health problems, including headaches, nausea and vomiting -- all symptoms associated with hydrogen sulfide gas. In a 1995 phone-in survey, 58 Renville County families who lived within a five-mile radius of factory hog farms reported health problems of this nature.⁵

Recently, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) confirmed through a testing program that half of the CAFOs tested were exceeding state standards for hydrogen sulfide, some by up to 50 times.⁶ Violations occur on a frequent basis, with one operation exceeding the half-hour standard 32 times over 19 days.⁷

The monitoring results for hydrogen sulfide are just the tip of the iceberg. The state has recently completed a model showing animal feedlots to be the largest source of nitrogen emissions to air in the state -- exceeding emissions from electric utilities and mobile sources such as cars and trucks.⁸ Despite this tremendous impact, only one factory feedlot has a permit that requires monitoring of ammonia. Ammonia, a product of manure, is a form of nitrogen that can volatilize from the manure pit into the atmosphere.

Water Pollution

In 1997 a lagoon pump malfunctioned and dumped 100,000 gallons of liquefied hog manure into Beaver Creek, killing 690,000 fish.⁹ This spill was the worst experienced by the state thus far, but not the only one. Unfortunately, the MPCA does not keep a central record of spills and other feedlot-caused pollution incidents.

Groundwater Pollution

The MPCA requires only 12 among the hundreds of AFOs that use earthen basins for their manure storage to conduct groundwater monitoring. Several of these show mild to moderately elevated nitrate levels, but since little or no baseline monitoring was required, it is impossible to prove the source of the contamination.¹⁰ Nitrates are a compound containing nitrogen found in manure and fertilizer. Very high concentrations of nitrates in drinking water can cause "blue-baby syndrome" in infants, an inability to carry oxygen in the blood. Nitrate-contaminated drinking water has also been associated with miscarriages. (See Indiana story.)

Regulatory Climate

An estimated 45,000 AFOs¹¹ (farms under 1,000 animal units) meet Minnesota's 20-year-old permitting thresholds of 50-plus animal units (or 10 animal units in shoreland).¹² Only 18,000 have applied for and received the required Certificate of Compliance.¹³ This Certificate is really a one-time approval based on a desk review of application materials. Unlike a permit, it never needs renewing, and is described by an Assistant Attorney General as "completely unenforceable."¹⁴

All facilities with 1,000 or more animal units are required by 1998 legislation to obtain federal Clean Water Act permits. To date, only 24 of the 700 feedlots with 1,000-plus animal units in the state have been issued the required federal Clean Water Act permit. The MPCA instead issued the rest a temporary construction permit, which later was converted into a Certificate.¹⁵ This action has deprived rural citizens of the right to a 30-day public comment period, the right to request a contested case hearing on the permit, and the right to enforce the law themselves through a citizen's suit if water quality violations occur once the facility is operating.

Pending new rules will change the permitting system to fold the four types of permits into two, Clean Water Act permits for operations with more than 1,000 animal units and state permits for facilities with fewer than 1,000 animal units. Additionally, all the permits will include setbacks and manure management requirements.¹⁶

There are no routine inspections of facilities, apparently because the MPCA does not have the funds to maintain oversight of so many operations. Inspections are partially funded through fees collected for Clean Water Act permits, and 24 permits do not generate much revenue.¹⁷ According to Kristin Sigford of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the MPCA is seriously understaffed with only one full-time enforcement caseworker and six part-time field inspectors. Violations at problem sites often take years to resolve or are never addressed at all. Others are simply unknown. Because the last statewide inventory of feedlots is 20 years old the MPCA doesn't even know where many feedlots are, much less whether the operations are creating environmental problems. The state does know this: the last study done on the subject disclosed that 95 percent of the thousands of AFOs on shorelands discharged animal waste into waterways during even minor storm events.¹⁸

Local Control

Minnesota allows local governments within the state to regulate feedlots within their jurisdictions, as long as regulations developed are not preempted by or in conflict with state statutes and rules. State law explicitly allows local ordinances to be more stringent than those of the state.¹⁹ Many local governments have chosen to exercise this option, though many others have not.

Primary interviewees for this chapter:

Julie Jansen
Environmental Friends of Minnesota
74548 350 Street
Olivia, MN 56277
Phone: 320-523-1106
Fax: 320-523-1762

Kristin Sigford
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
26 East Exchange Street, Suite 206
St. Paul, MN 55101-2264
Phone: 651-223-5969
Fax: 651-223-5967
e-mail: mcea@mtn.org

Notes

1. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Non-Point Source Survey of Local Water Resource Managers (1993). Reported in Minnesota 305(b) Report to Congress (1994).

2. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, AgWaste Database (January 1997).

3. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Feedlot Programs Statistics, Graph Number 8, "Feedlot Size: Where Are the Animals?" (Spring 1988).

4. Minnesota Rules, Chapter 7009.0080.

5. Julie Jansen, Friends of Minnesota, Environmental phone-in survey of Renville County citizens (August 1995).

6. Chris Ison, "State Air Tests Find High Levels of Toxic Gas Near 5 Feedlots," Minneapolis Star-Tribune (April 26, 1998).

7. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Continuous Sulpher Monitor in Norfolk Township, ValAdCO Facility.

8. Gregory Pratt, Nitrogen Emissions to the Air From Sources in Minnesota, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (April 1998).

9. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Press Release, Renville County, "State Agency Cooperates on Prosecution for Beaver Creek Contamination" (February 20, 1998).

10. Permit file search conducted jointly by Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, conducted Fall 1997.

11. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Feedlot Rule Revision (November 1995).

12. Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 115.

13. Personal communication between David Nelson, Supervisor, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Feedlot Unit, and Kris Sigford, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (January 1997).

14. Personal communication between Richard Cool, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, and Kris Sigford, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (May 6, 1998).

15. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, AgWaste Database (November 1997).

16. Draft Administrative Rule, revising Minnesota Rules, Chapter 7020.

17. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, AgWaste Database (October 19, 1997).

18. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Division of Water Quality, Planning Section, Feedlots, Package I (May 1979), pp. 10, 17.

19. Minnesota Statutes (general police power, does not single out feedlots).