WASTE MANAGEMENT
PIH-35
pork industry handbook
COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE • PURDUE UNIVERSITY • WEST LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
Legal Guidelines for Swine Waste Management
Authors
Donald R. Levi, Texas A & M University
Stephen F. Matthews, University of Missouri
Reviewers
Paul Smart, Lawrence, Kansas
Virgil Rosendale, Augusta, Illinois
Current legal guidelines for swine waste management are the result of a balancing process in which society sought an “acceptably clean'' environment. Any society must balance the benefits and costs of polluting activities. Neither a heavily polluted nor a clean and unspoiled environment is the “optimum” result. Where there is pollution, producers are imposing costs on others by making them live amid air, water, solid waste and noise pollution. In a pollution-controlled environment, producers' costs of pollution abatement are eventually transferred to consumers in the form of higher prices.

All citizens and groups have the basic responsibility to communicate their ideas on pollution problems to the legislatures, courts, and executive agencies. Pork producers are no exception.

Some producers take the attitude that pollution caused by them or their firm is so small it really does not matter. Most of the time it is less costly for them to pollute than to install pollution control facilities. Consequently, they pollute.

Clearly, the pollution of one producer may adversely affect many. In particular, those downstream or downwind usually suffer the consequences. Given that the pollution of one producer may potentially affect many others, a situation may exist where the social costs of pollution exceed the private benefits gained from the polluting activity.

In recognition of this fact, state and federal agencies have been established to regulate pollution. But this public regulation is also accompanied by private regulation of pollution. Private pollution regulation occurs when one individual sues another individual on the theory that the second individual's use of his property is a nuisance.
Public Regulation of Pollution
Public pollution regulation exists at both state and federal levels. At the federal level the major enforcement responsibility lies in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA is a good example of “new federalism.” Under this concept, EPA sets minimal pollution tolerance levels which the states must enforce; otherwise, the federal government will regulate pollution for the states. Of course, individual states may develop more stringent regulations than the federal minimums.

Each state has developed its own framework for policing and abating pollution. Most have created two separate agencies, one responsible for air and the other for water pollution. Each agency establishes minimal tolerance levels for specific pollutants. Producers exceeding these tolerance levels are guilty of polluting.

These state agencies generally have at least two different remedies to assist them in policing pollution. They may seek an injunction against the polluter. Some also have the authority to clean up the pollution and then charge the cleanup costs to the polluter via a special tax bill, although the injunction is the legal remedy most often sought. In addition, fines of $100 or more per day also may be imposed if pollution continues after agency notification to cease.

Complying with EPA Regulations
The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended by Public Law 92-500, enacted October 1972, prohibits any discharge of pollutants into a waterway from a point source unless authorized by a permit from the appropriate regulatory agency. Confined livestock feeding is defined as a point source in this federal law. Thus, EPA was faced
Cooperative Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics, State of Indiana, Purdue University and U. S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating. H. G. Diesslin, Director, West Lafayette, Ind. Issued in furtherance of the Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914. It is the policy of the Cooperative Extension Service of Purdue University that all persons shall have equal opportunity and access to its programs and facilities without regard to race, religion, color, sex or national origin.