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EPARulemakingEPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulation and Effluent Limitation Guidelines and Standards for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)

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Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filings
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Activity

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed 4 comments on this docket between Aug 30, 2006 and Aug 26, 2008. 93 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 6686d ago.

What Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed (5)

Aug 26, 2008· Comment submitted by Melanie Shepherdson, Staff Attorney, Water and Oceans Program, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)· EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037-0916

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May 18, 2008· Comment submitted by Jon Devine and Melanie Shepherdson, Attorneys, Clean Water Project, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)· EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037-0915

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Apr 10, 2008· Comment submitted by Jeffrey Odefey, Waterkeeper Alliance, and Melanie Shepherdson, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)· EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037-0890

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Apr 9, 2008· Comment submitted by Waterkeeper Alliance (WA) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)· EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037-0880

April 7, 2008 U.S. Enivironmental Protection Agency EPA Docket Center, Water Docket EPA West, Room 3334 1301 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20460 Via email: ow-docket@epa.gov (Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037) Re: Comments On the Revised National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking; Docket Number EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037 These comments are submitted by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance in response to the "Revised National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit Regulation for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations; Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("Supplemental Notice"). The Natural Resources Defense Council ("NRDC") is a national, non-profit organization dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 1.3 million members and online activists residing in all fifty states. NRDC maintains offices in New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Monica, CA, and Beijing, China. Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. is a non-profit organization representing the interests of 177 member watershed groups. Each of these groups and their members have as an express mission the preservation and protection of local water bodies for aesthetic, recreational, and other purposes. NRDC and Waterkeeper Alliance are concerned about the impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations ("CAFOs") on public health and the environment and have been active in efforts to reduce polluted runoff, control point source discharges, and promote sustainable agriculture. INTRODUCTION The Supplemental Notice is rife with inadequacies, inconsistencies, and incomprehensible language, creating an opaque document that is overly vague in execution. The level of ambiguity causes readers to make certain assumptions regarding the purpose of the Supplemental Notice and EPA's interpretations, and at times misinterpretations, of the decision in Waterkeeper Alliance v. EPA, 399 F.3d 486 (2d Cir. 2005). First, the Supplemental Notice is completely absent of any environmental protection provisions: the Agency has lost sight of the forest for the trees due to an inordinate focus on creating an administrative process rather than an effective and practical environmental protection program. Second, the Supplemental Notice establishes a new rubric of voluntary certification that completely undermines any existing motive or incentive to apply for a permit. The facilities that do see fit to obtain coverage under a CAFO permit are expected to navigate an increasingly overcomplicated scheme allowing self- determination of compliance with the Clean Water Act ("CWA") without any citizen or agency oversight. Third, the Supplemental Notice creates hollow regulations that provide no additional environmental protections, and work to the detriment of the public as well as state permitting agencies. The phrase "nutrient management plan" (NMP) as used in the Supplemental Notice misconstrues the way the tool is developed and used in practice at CAFOs and farms across the United States. Instead, EPA has convoluted the definition of an NMP with the unintended result of asking permitted CAFOs to create two separate NMPs: one to use in practice at the facility and one to satisfy the requirements of this rule. Fourth, the Supplemental Notice does little to provide transparency to the permitting and NMP process. The "terms of the NMP" as presented in the Supplemental Notice will not provide permitting agencies or the public with the information that is critical to review the NMP, and therefore the permit, in any kind of meaningful way. DETAILED COMMENTS At the outset, we would like to reemphasize some of the points we made in our comment letter on the 2006 proposed rule revisions. If EPA were to follow the suggestions given…

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Aug 30, 2006· Comment submitted by Melanie Shepherdson, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)· EPA-HQ-OW-2005-0037-0597

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Abstract

Contact: Rebecca Roose, OW/OWM/ Rural Branch, 202-564-0758, Mail Code:4203M

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Co-filers (93)

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