OHIO

• Ohio does not issue Clean Water Act permits that are specific to concentrated livestock operations.
  
  
• Ohio has no local control over factory farm operations.
  
  
• Ohio's trade secrecy act permits factory farms to dump manure offsite without revealing the location.

Ohio is the number one egg-producing state in the country largely because the Buckeye Egg Farm, headquartered in Croton, Ohio, is one of the world's largest egg-laying producers.¹ Buckeye Egg, called Agri-General until last year, came to the state in the 1980s as Ohio's first large-scale poultry operation. In 1997 Buckeye had 4.6 million chickens in Croton. Buckeye has another 2.2 million chickens in northwestern Ohio near the town of LaRue and is proposing to expand to 3.3 million.²

Buckeye is owned by Anton Pohlmann, notorious in Europe for animal and worker abuse.³ Pohlmann was convicted for worker endangerment in Germany and is no longer allowed to operate in that country. Some of Pohlmann's workers in Germany were exposed to an illegal nicotine-based substance that is sprayed on to control chickens mites. A German court imposed a two million dollar fine on Pohlmann and held Pohlmann responsible for feeding chickens an illegal disinfectant, thereby allowing millions of contaminated eggs to reach consumers.⁴

In 1997 Ohio fined Buckeye Egg more than $113,000 for various permit violations: bringing chickens onto a factory farm site before the company had fully complied with the conditions of their permits, having an egg-breaking facility without a permit, constructing facilities according to different size specifications than the company's permits authorized and exceeding the number of chickens allowed by the permit.⁵ Considering the extent and nature of the offenses, the fine amounted to a slap on the wrist.

The violations have not hindered the company's expansion plans. Buckeye now has plans to raise a total of 30 million chickens at a time in Ohio.⁶

Pollution Problems

In the past thirty years Lake Erie has suffered environmental degradation from high phosphorus levels. In excess quantities, phosphorus, a nutrient found in manure and fertilizer, spurs algae and depletes oxygen in water, smothering fish. The state has managed to clean up the watershed mostly by building municipal wastewater plants to treat human sewage and by controlling phosphorus discharged by industrial polluters. However, the improvements in water quality and the considerable investment by taxpayers in municipal wastewater plants are threatened by the improperly regulated dumping of chicken manure and its over-application to fields.

"Chicken manure is good, but Buckeye proposed 14.1 tons of land-applied manure to the acre. No more than six tons is recommended. You couldn't even plow under 14 tons," said Janice Rish of S.A.V.E, an Ohio citizens' group.

The Sandusky River, which drains into Lake Erie and supplies 60 percent of the drinking water in Tiffin, Ohio, is threatened by pollution problems from animal feeding operations.⁷

Flies from Buckeye Egg have become a major nuisance, sparking citizen complaints. In September 1997, Rebecca Schnitzler, her husband Charles and two other neighbors filed a $25 million class action lawsuit against Buckeye Egg Farm of Mt. Victory. The lawsuit claimed Buckeye had used beetles to control the fly population at their egg farm.⁸ Residents near the northwestern Ohio farm had complained earlier of flies emanating from the farm, and the company responded by putting beetles into the manure to control the flies. The beetles did their job of reducing the fly larvae but have since infested outlying communities.⁹ Beetles can carry a host of diseases including salmonella and botulism. Now the company is saturating the manure with pesticides to kill the beetles.¹⁰ Increased fly activity around Buckeye's egg-laying facilities in northwestern Ohio remains a concern. The number of flies caught by the Ohio Department of Health's fly traps surged more than fivefold this spring at the health department's nearby Mount Victory-LaRue monitoring site -- to 29 flies per trap over a six week period compared with five flies per trap over the same period in 1997.¹¹

Regulatory Climate

If an animal factory with more than 1,000 animal units applies manure to the land -- as they all do -- the operation must file a livestock waste management plan with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA). However, the agency has few regulations governing these plans.¹² Unlike most other states, Ohio does not issue National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits that are specific to concentrated livestock operations. Instead, the state issues discharge permits for facilities that discharge pollutants into waterways.¹³ For example, some poultry facilities obtain Clean Water Act NPDES permits, but the permits are for specific industrial discharges such as discharging egg wash water into waterways from the egg washing process. In 1997, eleven out of the 103 concentrated animal feeding operations in Ohio (those with 1,000 animal units) had NPDES permits.¹⁴ The state also issues installation permits for livestock facilities of 1,000 animal units or more.¹⁵

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has "oversight" over facilities of less than 1,000 animal units, but this is a completely voluntary program where facilities are encouraged to have voluntary livestock waste management plans.¹⁶

However, the state's program for ensuring proper livestock waste management is severely compromised by the state's trade secrecy act which certain factory farms have utilized.¹⁷ For example, Buckeye Egg Farm requested that the state keep confidential the identity of area farmers to whom it has sold manure. Buckeye claimed that this information constitutes a "trade secret" under the state's trade secrecy law. The Ohio EPA granted Buckeye's request for confidentiality on the grounds that farmers purchasing manure are "customers" and customer lists are trade secrets.¹⁸

The effect of this law is to keep secret the circumstances surrounding a factory farm owner's dumping of manure as long as the dumping occurs offsite. Once the state grants such confidentiality, citizens cannot learn the names or locations of farms where manure is being sold for disposal. Citizens do not know if companies that receive manure have adequate acreage to dispose of the manure without causing pollution, such as contaminating well-water and nearby streams. They do not know if the land is acceptable for manure disposal due to slope, proximity to waterways or soil conditions. Most importantly, citizens cannot track what -- if anything -- the companies that dump manure are doing to prevent water pollution. This cuts citizens out of the enforcement process completely.

OEPA also has the authority to require air pollution control permits for factory farms,¹⁹ but has never required them.²⁰ If the state required air pollution permits, odors, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and particulates could be regulated without changing existing law.

OEPA's responses to violations are slow. In one case, it took the state a year to impose a $113,000 fine on a factory farm for a violation.²¹

Citizen Involvement

OEPA is not required to hold public hearings on permit applications for factory farms but it has the discretion to do so "if there is substantial public interest" as determined by the director. OEPA held public hearings this spring on Buckeye's permit applications to open several new egg-laying and chicken-raising facilities northwest of Columbus and to expand its LaRue facility from some two million chickens to 3.3 million chickens. The hearings gave local officials, citizens and health agencies the opportunity to raise serious concerns that the facilities would lead to water pollution, air pollution, odors and flies. But in April, the Agency approved an expansion to 6.3 million chickens at Buckeye's Croton egg-laying facility northeast of Columbus with no public hearing. The approval surprised the public and the local political subdivision because it was not adequately disclosed to residents.²²

Local Control

Counties have no authority to regulate feedlots. Factory farms are considered agricultural entities, and agriculture has a broad exemption from local, county and township zoning in Ohio.²³

Primary interviewees for this chapter:

Jack Shaner
Ohio Environmental Council
1207 Grandview Avenue, Suite 201
Columbus, OH 43212
Phone: 614-487-7506
Fax: 614-487-7510
e-mail: jack@greenlink.org

Rick Sahli
Concerned Citizens of Central Ohio
1882 West Fifth Avenue
Columbus, OH 43212
Phone: 614-481-8692

Becky Kibler
Concerned Citizens of Central Ohio
9581 Harding Highway West
LaRue, OH 43332
Phone: 740-499-2117
Fax: 740-383-5014
e-mail: rowe@kenton.com

Notes

1. 1997 Guinness Book of World Records.

2. Denis Grant, "Hearing set for Tuesday on egg farm application," The Courier (April 13, 1998); Donna Glen, "Critics Oppose Egg Farm Growth," The Columbus Dispatch (February 17, 1998); Paul Souhrada, "Families in Middle of Larger Agricultural Issues," Urbana Daily Citizen (August 2, 1998).

3. "Owner of Egg Farms Being Held in Germany," The Star (February 3, 1996).

4. "Pohlmann Convicted in Germany, Chicken Baron Found Guilty on Three Counts," Daily Chief Union (June 12, 1996).

5. "OEPA Fines Agri-General $113,000 for Infraction," Daily Chief-Union (September 15, 1997).

6. Paul Souhrada, "Families in Middle of Larger Agricultural issues," Urbana Daily Citizen (August 2, 1998).

7. Denise Grant, "Hearing Set for Tuesday on Egg Farm Application," The Courier (April 13, 1998).

8. Frank Hinchey, "Proposed Deal Could End Beetle Mania," Columbus Dispatch (September 17, 1998).

9. Stephan Huba, "Mount Pleasant Church Members Battle Infestation, Lord, oh, the Flies," The Lima News (June 23, 1996); Dan Robinson, "Farm Animals Suffer from Flies, Health Department Blames LaRue Egg Farms," Kenton Times (June 21, 1996); Frank Hinchey, "Bugged Residents Sue Over Beetles," The Columbus Dispatch (October 2, 1997).

10. Stephan Huba, "Mount Pleasant Church Members Battle Infestation, Lord, oh, the Flies," The Lima News (June 23, 1996); Dan Robinson, "Farm Animals Suffer from Flies, Health Department Blames LaRue Egg Farms," Kenton Times (June 21, 1996); Frank Hinchey, "Bugged Residents Sue Over Beetles," The Columbus Dispatch (October 2, 1997).

11. Associated Press, "Health Officials: Fly Problem Getting Worse Near Egg Farm," Columbus Dispatch (August 8, 1998).

12. Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 3745.

13. Personal communication between Robbin Marks and Gene Chaiken, Branch Chief, NPDES program, EPA Region 5 (November 5, 1998).

14. Larry M. Antosh, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Division of Surface Water, Nonpoint Source/Clean Lakes Unit, "Animal Waste P71_Environmental Protection Study Report (September 18, 1997).

15. Personal communication between Robbin Marks and Gene Chaiken, Branch Chief, NPDES program, EPA Region 5 (November 5, 1998).

16. Ohio Revised Code Section 1511.02 et seq.

17. Ohio Revised Code Section 1333.61 (D).

18. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, "Public Comment Responsiveness Summary for Buckeye Egg #2 -- Marseilles, Ohio Facility." The comment period closed on September 8, 1998.

19. Ohio Revised Code Section 3704.01(B).

20. Brian Williams, "Egg Farm's Permit Scrambled," The Columbus Dispatch (November 14, 1998).

21. Donna Glenn, "Critics Oppose Egg Farm Growth," The Columbus Dispatch (February 17, 1998); "Agri-General, EPA Reach Settlement," Daily Chief Union (September, 5 1997).

22. Mike Lafferty and Brian Williams, "Expansion Plans Jolt Neighbors," "Egg Farm, EPA Didn't Notify Residents," Columbus Dispatch, April, 17, 1998. Legal notice ran in Newark Advocate, which is not read in the area.

23. Ohio Revised Code, Sections 303.21 and 519.21.