IATP Hog Report - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Section 4
additional systems in the stages of design, permitting, or construction.
Bion's clients include Murphy Farms, Continental Grain, and Smithfield
Foods.
The BionSoil conversion process is also touted as being able to control
odors. However, in December 1999, the Illinois Attorney General filed a
lawsuit against The Highlands, LLC, a 3,650-sow, farrow-to-wean hog
factory in Illinois, for alleged odor violations that occurred since the
Highlands opened in 1997. 64,65 Over 230 complaints of offensive odor
from the facility had been lodged. Co-defendants in the suit are Murphy
Family Farms, which owns the hogs and shares in the operation of the
factory, and Bion Technologies, Inc., which designed and shares in the
operation of the Highlands' waste handling system. The Attorney General
asked for an injunction to stop further violations of the law, for civil fines
of up to $50,000 for each violation and an additional fine of $10,000 for
each day the violations continued.
Some Strategies and Action Alternatives for Clean Air from
Animal Production
1. Call for and support the reclassification of animal factories as
manufacturing entities rather than as agricultural.
Rationale: Animal factories more nearly resemble manufacturing
than farming. A farming classification exempts animal factories
from some federal and state environmental regulations and
monitoring, to which they rightfully ought to be subject by virtue
of the toxic and environmentally damaging emissions created in
the normal course of their operations. The classification of hog
factories as farms rather than industrial facilities prevents
meaningful regulation. For example, the Illinois Supreme Court
ruled that all hog farms, regardless of size, are agricultural in
nature and may not be regulated by counties.
2. Call for a nationwide ban on liquefying animal manure as a way of
dealing with waste from animals raised for food. Ban all new
construction of liquefied manure storage systems and require
existing operations to phase in solid manure handling over the next
10 years.
Rationale: Leakage from liquid manure storages can be gradual
and, if failures occur, the discharges can be catastrophic. Waste
discharges from the largest hog factories (and other confined
animal feeding operations (CAFOs)) are currently permitted under
the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)
program by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Because
of loopholes in the regulations, inadequate permit conditions, and
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