EPA agrees to regulate factory farm emissions & effluents
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:
WASHINGTON, D.C.–Thirty-eight years after Congress told
agribusiness to clean up their act, an estimated 20,000 factory
farms may at last have to account for what they do with 500 million
tons per year of cattle, pig, and poultry effluent.
Settling a lawsuit brought in 2009 by the Natural Resources
Defense Council, Sierra Club, and the Waterkeeper Alliance, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 1, 2010 agreed to
identify and investigate manure discharges by factory farms.
If the EPA honors the settlement, the outcome could be the
biggest economic blow to the meat industry yet, following three
years of losses attributed to rising feed and fuel costs.