Issues: Water

TENNESSEE

• Tennessee has never exercised its Clean Water Act permitting authority over factory farms.
  
  
• Because of the lack of water pollution control permits, the public has had no opportunity to comment on individual operations before an animal factory begins operating.
  
  
• Land application of animal manure is essentially unregulated.

The state is beginning to see the influx of factory farms. According to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA), Tennessee is estimated to have a combined total of 23 hog, dairy, and beef CAFOs.¹ For operations between 301 and 1,000 animal units there are five slaughter cattle operations, 104 swine feedlots, and 99 dairy cattle farms.²

Pollution Problems

Much of Tennessee relies on surface water and groundwater found in limestone formations for its public and private water supplies.³ Some animal operations (primarily small or large dairies) are located on or near limestone formations, especially in middle and eastern Tennessee. The limestone is permeable and subject to cracks, seepage, and collapse. These connections between surface and groundwater can carry pollution underground very quickly. This results in several dangers:

• Lagoons built on karst -- a type of geology characterized by limestone openings to groundwater -- are likely to leak.
  
  
• Manure applied to the ground's surface or leaking from a lagoon may end up in the groundwater.
  
  
• In karst areas, wells near feedlots are at particular risk of bacterial contamination from the lagoons.

Generally, the state continues to suffer from overall water quality degradation. Approximately 25 percent of the state's stream miles are classified by the state as "impaired," meaning they are so polluted that they no longer support such designated uses as fishing, swimming and aquatic life. Animal operations are identified as one of the contributors to this water pollution.⁴ Pollution problems include excess bacteria and organic enrichment in many of the state's rivers and streams. The most recent assessment by the state identifies several streams and lakes as specifically polluted by feedlots and animal operations.⁵ These include Cypress Creek in Shelby County, Swan Creek in Lincoln County and Lick Creek in Hickman County.

Regulatory Climate

Tennessee is one of 42 states to which the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has delegated authority to issue Clean Water Act permits to all pollution sources. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), the state's environmental regulatory agency, is supposed to issue the permits, including permits to CAFOs. However, none of Tennessee's existing large-scale animal facilities have ever been permitted.⁶

Tennessee is currently in the process of drafting a Clean Water Act administrative strategy designed to create a permitting system for CAFOs. Two categories of permits have been proposed:

• Individual Clean Water Act permits (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System or NPDES), which would apply to large CAFOs -- those with 1,000 animal units or more. As with all individual Clean Water Act permits, citizens would be given public notice and the opportunity to comment before a permit is issued.⁷
  
  
• A general permit for smaller facilities and dry litter poultry operations. As with other Clean Water Act general permits, the permit would set no site-specific conditions for individual facilities. Coverage under the permit would be granted without notification to the surrounding community.⁸

The draft strategy would require feedlot operators to prepare a Nutrient Management Plan, which would be approved by the TDA, a non-regulatory agency.⁹ It is not clear whether these plans will be part of the permits and open to public review or kept on-site by the operators and separate from the regulatory program. Presently, land application of animal waste is essentially unregulated, but problems can be forwarded to the agencies for them to evaluate and try to correct.

The state is apparently reluctant to authorize a program perceived as so burdensome that it would be in conflict with its pro-farm Right to Farm legislation.¹⁰

Following public protests over the lack of citizen participation in the drafting of the strategy, the TDEC recently announced a series of public hearings to explain the strategy and to take comments on the proposed general permit for smaller operations.

In Tennessee, regulatory inspections of operations are nearly always complaint-driven. Under an interagency agreement, complaints are generally referred to the TDA which attempts to fix problems through assistance, such as technical help with designing manure handling, rather than regulation.¹¹ TDA has the option of returning the complaint to the TDEC for further action if pollution problems are not corrected. TDEC has no inspectors routinely assigned solely to feedlots, while TDA has eight people statewide to handle feedlot complaints along with other duties.¹²

Primary interviewee for this story:

Barry Sulkin
Tennessee Environmental Council
443 Pecan Valley Road
Nashville, TN 37218
Phone: 615-255-2079
Fax: 615-251-0111
e-mail: sullaz@edge.net

Notes

1. Memorandum from Mike Countess, Assistant Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Agriculture to Barry Sulkin, Tennessee Environmental Council, (April 17, 1998) with attached 2 page (draft) table of animal operations by size and county.

2. Memorandum from Mike Countess, Assistant Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Agriculture to Barry Sulkin, Tennessee Environmental Council, (April 17, 1998) with attached 2 page (draft) table of animal operations by size and county.

3. Tennessee Division of Water Pollution Control, "The Status of Water Quality in Tennessee -- 1996 305(b) Report," pp. 91-97.

4. Tennessee Division of Water Pollution Control, "The Status of Water Quality in Tennessee_1996 305(b) Report," pp. 54-59.

5. Tennessee Division of Water Pollution Control, "Draft 1998 303(d) List."

6. Personal communication between John McClurkan, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and Barry Sulkin, Tennessee Environmental Council (August 17, 1998).

7. Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation/Tennessee Department of Agriculture, "State of Tennessee Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations" (July 29, 1998).

8. Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation/Tennessee Department of Agriculture, "State of Tennessee Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations" (July 29, 1998).

9. Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation/Tennessee Department of Agriculture, "State of Tennessee Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations" (July 29, 1998).

10. Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation/Tennessee Department of Agriculture, "State of Tennessee Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations" (July 29, 1998).

11. "A Memorandum of Agreement Between the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Division of Water Pollution Control" (July 1995).

12. Personal communication between Jim Nance, Tennessee Department of Agriculture, and Barry Sulkin, Tennessee Environmental Council (September 4, 1998).