PENNSYLVANIA

• The state's existing program to control manure pollution is voluntary for most operations in the state and allows practices that contribute to water pollution.
  
  
• Agriculture, the second leading source of pollution to Pennsylvania's rivers and streams, is also contributing to the degradation of the Chesapeake Bay's famed shellfish and fish stocks through Pennsylvania's tributaries.

Poultry, pork and dairy production have been a part of Pennsylvania's economy for many years. Recently, the governor has laid out the welcome mat for very large hog facilities and the number of hogs in the state is growing.¹

Pennsylvania has agreed with other states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reduce the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Susquehanna River (which is the largest tributary to the Chesapeake Bay) by 40 percent by the year 2000.² Efforts to meet this goal could be impeded by the nutrient pollution from new factory farms locating in the watershed.

Agriculture is the second leading source of impairment to Pennsylvania's rivers and streams. Siltation and nutrient pollution are the primary agricultural pollutants.³ Pennsylvania is only now developing a permitting process for factory farms in compliance with the Clean Water Act. The existing nutrient management program designed to control manure pollution (itself less than one year old) is voluntary for most operations in the state.⁴

Pollution Problems

In some parts of Pennsylvania, citizens are worried about pollution from nitrates and the contamination of their drinking water supply.⁵ High levels of nitrates in drinking water have been associated with "blue-baby" syndrome in infants, which impairs the baby's bloodstream's ability to carry oxygen. (Nitrate contaminated well water has also been associated with a recent cluster of miscarriages among women in Indiana. See Indiana chapter.)

Pennsylvania's Lancaster County -- known for its dairy, pork and poultry production⁶ -- has problems with water contamination from nitrates due, in part, to pollution from large and small farms.⁷ Lancaster's Conestoga River has the highest concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus of any Susquehanna tributary monitored by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.⁸

Many of Pennsylvania's surface waters, including Chesapeake Bay tributaries, are also contaminated with nitrates and other animal-related pollutants.⁹ The lower Susquehanna watershed, for example, suffers from high levels of nitrogen enrichment.¹⁰

A glut of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus is the leading cause of environmental degradation in the Chesapeake Bay, primarily because it fuels the runaway growth of algae. When algae decomposes, it consumes oxygen, depleting the bay water's oxygen supply, a crucial element for survival of the Chesapeake's famed shellfish and fish stocks.

According to Lamonte Garber of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, runoff from mismanagement of manure-spreading equipment and manure storage on existing farms has also resulted in a number of fish kills in Pennsylvania streams.¹¹ One such incident in Cumberland County, near the state capitol of Harrisburg, was reported this spring in the Carlisle, PA newspaper, The Sentinel:

About 5,000 gallons of liquid pig manure released into the ground at a South Middleton Township farm nearly put a dent in the opening of trout fishing season. Farmer Jonathan Rudolph ... released the manure after a heavy manure spreader twice bogged down in soft ground. Much of the manure found its way into an unnamed tributary of Yellow Breeches Creek, designated a Pennsylvania Scenic River [and a nationally known trout stream]. "The water was tar black -- it looked like oil you drain out of your car," South Middleton Township road crew employee Ron Uhler says.... Department of Environmental Protection officials say just about all the minnows, suckers and catfish living in the tributary were killed, but Yellow Breeches appears to have been spared [thanks to the quick response of township officials].... A strong smell of pig manure left little doubt about what was in the creek.¹²

Regulatory Climate

At the present time, Pennsylvania's main regulatory program for livestock operations is the state's Nutrient Management Act. The act was passed in 1993, but implementing regulations did not become effective until October 1997.¹³ Unfortunately, the program is largely voluntary and only operators with high densities of animals (pounds of livestock per acre of land) are actually required to participate. Operators who are required or who elect to participate in the program must prepare and implement nutrient management plans.¹⁴

However, under state regulations, these plans allow questionable management practices including the winter spreading of manure. Winter manure spreading can lead to pollution of rivers when snow melts, causing runoff. In addition, when manure is spread on frozen ground, nutrients cannot be absorbed into the soil and are more likely to leach into bodies of water. Another weakness of the regulations is that they limit the spreading of manure based on its nitrogen content, rather than its content of longer-lived phosphorus or harmful heavy metals. Soil tests to evaluate compliance are required only once every six years. Additionally, if an owner sends the manure off-site to another parcel of land, that parcel is not required to be covered by a nutrient management plan.¹⁵

Until recently, under state water quality laws, Pennsylvania had consistently exempted manure storage facilities and land application of manure from any permitting requirements so long as the operations were in accordance with the antiquated and inadequate state manure management manual.¹⁶

The state is now in the process of developing a permit program for feedlots under the Clean Water Act and the state's Clean Streams Law. In June 1998, the draft permit program was published for public comment. It proposed that new or expanding CAFOs would be required to obtain so-called water quality management permits (for waste management facilities) as well as state-issued Clean Water Act permits (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System or NPDES permits). Nutrient management plans would also be required. Details regarding the final program, including relevant permit conditions, remain to be seen.¹⁷ This permitting program will not address air quality problems, since it is limited to water quality protection.¹⁸

Since CAFOs have received no permits and the state's Clean Streams Law has not been applied to CAFOs, up until now, there has been little programmatic effort in Pennsylvania to monitor or enforce state or federal clean water laws with respect to concentrated animal operations. Any enforcement efforts in the past have been purely complaint driven.¹⁹

Citizen Involvement

Although permitting requirements are rapidly evolving, opportunities for citizen involvement with respect to the siting, design, construction and operation of factory farms have been extremely limited in Pennsylvania. Up until January 1998, facilities and manure-spreading activities had not been subject to permitting requirements, thus limiting opportunities for citizen comment on such operations. In addition, nutrient management plans prepared under the Nutrient Management Act have generally not been subject to public comment prior to approval.

Typically, citizens could only comment on the construction aspect of a facility, not whether a facility should be allowed to operate. However in certain cases such as when construction/stormwater activities were proposed in high-quality watersheds (those designated as environmentally sensitive), limited citizen input has been allowed.²⁰ The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's new permitting strategy will likely include a much broader public participation process.²¹

Local Control

Recently many townships have taken an active interest in directly regulating CAFOs to protect their citizens and communities. So far, Codorus Township in York County has ordinances in place, and Wayne Township in Mifflin County and Swatara Township in Lebanon County are in the process of drawing up their ordinances. A township's ordinances, however, cannot be more stringent than state nutrient management regulations. Agriculture is often additionally protected from nuisance ordinances, such as those limiting odors, by state "right to farm" laws.²² Townships may retain some zoning authority over agriculture operations, including CAFOs, but many rural townships have not enacted zoning ordinances of any kind.²³

Primary interviewee for this chapter:

Lamonte Garber
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
The Old Water Works Building
614 North Front Street, Suite G
Harrisburg, PA 17101
717-234-5550
717-234-9632 (fax)

Notes

1. "Japanese are Big on Pigs from Pennsylvania," The Philadelphia Inquirer (December 5, 1997), p. C.1.

2. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, "Pennsylvania's Chesapeake Bay Nutrient Reduction Strategy, Bureau of Land and Water Conservation and Bureau of Water Quality Management" (1996), p. 1.

3. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, "1998 Water Quality Assessment 305(b) Report," Bureau of Watershed Conservation (1998), p. 30.

4. Pennsylvania State University, "Pennsylvania's Nutrient Management Act: Who Will Be Affected?" Agronomy Facts 54 (1997).

5. "Experts Warn of High Nitrate Levels in Private Wells Here," Intelligencer Journal (April 1989), p. B-1.

6. Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, "Statistical Summary" (1997), pp. 18-26.

7. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Loads and Yields of Nutrients and Suspended Sediment Transported in the Susquehanna River Basin, 1985-1989" (1991), p. 142-143.

8. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Loads and Yields of Nutrients and Suspended Sediment Transported in the Susquehanna River Basin, 1985-1989 (1991), p. 142-143.

9. U.S. Geological Survey, "Synthesis of Nutrient and Sediment Data for Watersheds Within the Chesapeake Bay Drainage Basin" (1995), p. 19-24.

10 U.S. Geological Survey, "Synthesis of Nutrient and Sediment Data for Watersheds Within the Chesapeake Bay Drainage Basin" (1995), pp. 19-24.

11. Lamonte Garber, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, personal correspondence (August 31, 1998).

12. Dave Blymire, "Manure Pollutes Creek, Playground," The Sentinel, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (April 15, 1998).

13. Pennsylvania State University, "Nutrient Management Legislation in Pennsylvania: A Summary of the Final Regulations" (1997).

14. Pennsylvania State University, "Nutrient Management Legislation in Pennsylvania: A Summary of the Final Regulations" (1997).

15. Pennsylvania State University, "Nutrient Management Legislation in Pennsylvania: A Summary of the Final Regulations" (1997).

16. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, "Improving Water Quality Through Effective Implementation of Pennsylvania's Manure Management Regulations" (1989), p. 7.

17. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, "Proposed Strategy for Meeting Federal Requirements for Controlling the Water Quality Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations" (July 1998).

18. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, "Proposed Strategy for Meeting Federal Requirements for Controlling the Water Quality Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations" (July 1998).

19. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, "Improving Water Quality Through Effective Implementation of Pennsylvania's Manure Management Regulations" (1989), p. 7.

20. Personal communication between Rebecca Knuffke and Lamonte Garber, Chesapeake Bay Foundation (August 31, 1998).

21. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Proposed Strategy for Meeting Federal Requirements for Controlling the Water Quality Impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (July 1998).

22. Pennsylvania State University, "Nutrient Management Legislation in Pennsylvania: A Summary of the Final Regulations" (1997).

23. Earl Mummaw, Address to the Pennsylvania Planners Association (January 16, 1998).