| Spring has arrived in official Washington, bringing cherry blossoms, baseball and the politics of poop.
It comes in the form of a question raised by some Farm Belt lawmakers on Capitol Hill: Should manure be classified as a hazardous waste? |
| Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Missouri, says manure was never intended to be regulated under the nation's Superfund law, created by Congress to clean up toxic spills and dumps such as the notorious Love Canal. He's one of 85 co-sponsors of a bill that would exempt manure from the law. |
| "Unless Congress acts, farmers across America could face vast liabilities under environmental laws that were never intended or envisioned to be used against farm operations," said Skelton, who called farmers "some of the best environmentalists around." |
| Environmentalists say it would be a mistake for Congress to let polluters off the hook for cleanup costs. They note that large farms in the United States produce an estimated 500 million tons of manure each year, or roughly three times the amount of waste produced by humans. Unlike human waste, most livestock waste is not treated, and as the manure decomposes, it produces toxic gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. The operations can also pollute water with nitrogen and phosphorus and other materials. |
| "We don't think the consumers in the community should have to foot the cleanup costs," said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club's environmental quality program. |
| The House bill, introduced by Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, is a response to lawsuits filed by state and local authorities in which plaintiffs have used the Superfund law to try to force farm operations to clean up their act. Skelton expressed concern over a recent Texas case that was settled after nine dairies went out of business and both sides spent millions of dollars in court. |
| Kansas Republican Todd Tiahrt, another co-sponsor of the bill, said that allowing manure to be classified as a hazardous waste could result in more lawsuits, drive up costs for all farmers and drive more of them out of business. |
| "We use it for fertilizer," he said. "It smells bad, you know, and there are some problems. But if we start treating it like a hazardous waste, then a whole new set of laws kick into effect and it drives a whole bunch of costs that I think are unnecessary." |
| Unless Congress clarifies the law, all agricultural livestock and poultry producers could be regulated by the Superfund law, said Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond, who's backing a similar bill in the Senate. |
