The Manchester Enterprise
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Farm Bureau backs Senate bills
By Daniel Lai, Editor
PUBLISHED: May 31, 2007
The Michigan Farm Bureau is gunning for a four-bill package being considered in the Michigan Senate that would imposestricter penalties on farms convicted of breaking environmental laws.
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"These laws wouldn't penalize farms that have a good record," Washtenaw County Farm Bureau chairman Jerry Huehl, said. "The biggest problems we are seeing involve farmers who are coming over here from other areas and starting up these concentrated animal feeding operations."
According to Huehl, farms considered CAFOs include those with at least 700 mature dairy cows, 1,000 head of beef cattle or approximately 2,500 hogs.
"If these bills pass in the Senate and their counterparts pass in the House, anyone who is in violation will be penalized," he said.
According to the proposed legislation, CAFOs that are convicted of violating state water quality laws would be subject to increased regulatory oversight and would not be re-issued their existing operating permit nor issued a new permit to operate a CAFO at another site unless it met certain criteria.
"A convicted CAFO would be required to come into compliance with the law and court orders," the legislation states. "In addition, the CAFO would be prohibited from expanding for three years and would be restricted from applying manure to farm fields that are already high in phosphorus."
If passed, under Senate Bills 501-504, CAFOs would also be subject to annual water quality monitoring and soil sampling requirements.
"This legislation addresses many of the environmental community's concerns over the regulatory oversight of CAFOs and CAFO expansion, but does so in a way that targets convicted violators without casting a black cloud over the rest of agriculture. This is an important balance," MFB president Wayne Wood said in a written statement. "The Michigan Farm Bureau fully supports enforcement actions by the Department of Environmental Quality against convicted agricultural polluters. This legislation enables the DEQ to do its job without unnecessarily penalizing farms with clean slates and good track records ofenvironmental protection," he said.
Huehl said there are no large CAFOs near the Manchester area that he knows of.
"The closest one is near Hudson," he said. "I'd just as rather see more smaller farms than more CAFOs, but that probably won't change anytime in the near future."
The legislative package also contains provisions to support proactive environmental protection, including defining the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program in statestatute. According to Huehl, MAEAP, which helps farmers identify and reduce or eliminate environmental risks ontheir farm, is a voluntary program for Michigan farmers. Huehl said by defining MAEAP in state statute, the legislature would make the program more appealing to farmers and would be an incentive for morefarmers to complete the program.
"This would benefit the state as a whole," he said. "Completing MAEAP often requires a farmer to meet environmental standards that exceed those federally mandated and MAEAP applies to farms of all sizes and all commodities."
Huehl said the bills put a definitive law in place that would help regulate the farming community.
"Farmers want to follow the law, but with the changing regulations all the time, they feel like they are chasing a moving target."
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