EPA WATCH Control strategy proposed for animal feeding lots EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have unveiled a draft strategy to control pollution from animal farms that for the first time will address nutrient pollution from land application of manure. Representatives of the beef, hog, and poultry industries expressed concern over the plan's impacts on small producers, while environmentalists called for a moratorium on new and expanded animal feedlots. The Draft Unified National Strategy for Animal Feeding Operations (Federal Register, 1998, 63(182), 50,192), announced in September, is one of the key steps in President Clinton's Clean Water Action Plan. The strategy "addresses the consolidation and increase in numbers of large operations over the last 20 years," said Mike Cook, director of EPA's Office of Waste Water Management. Manure lagoon spills and runoff from animal feeding operations (AFOs) are blamed for causing contamination of drinking water toxic algal blooms and fish kills EPA and USDA officials said The draft strategy proposes that all 450,000 AFOs develop and implement comprehensive nutrient management plans by 2008. For the first time, the plans will specify how, when, and in what quantity waste can be applied to farm fields. The plans will be voluntary for all but the 15,000 to 20,000 largest operations with more than 1000 animal units, which equal 1000 beef cattle, 2500 hogs, or 100,000 chickens. This means that roughly 95% of the producers would be volunteer participants according to the draft plan. EPA would draft new guidance for state regulators so that the largest operations will implement nutrient management plans as part of their water pollution permits by 2003. Smaller farms could be brought into watershed general permits in areas
where water quality standards aren't being met. A general permit covers several facilities that share a specific geographic area. EPA officials have pledged to revise guidelines for effluent limitations for wastewater from feedlots, such as source lagoons and other storage areas at poultry and swine facilities by December 2001, and at beef and dairy facilities by December 2002. But smaller producers may not be able to afford the new plans and record keeping outlined by the strategy, said John Pemberton, associate director of environmental issues for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. He questioned whether EPA and USDA's review program, which has issued only 2000 permits to date, has the budget and staffing to implement the strategy. Ken Midkiff, director of the Missouri Sierra Club, said that his organization hopes the strategy will provide a level playing field to "prevent corporate farms from pollution shopping for states that don't regulate animal waste." But he blasted the permitting schedule and effluent guidelines as being "too little, too late." Meanwhile, two other environmental groups, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council have joined the Sierra Club and called on federal agencies to place a moratorium on new and expanding operations The agencies will accept public comment on the draft strategy until mid-January.
Ecosystem research strategy takes proactive approach EPA has targeted ecosystem risk assessment and risk management as one of its "highest priority research areas for investment over the next ten years," according to the ecological research strategy released by the agency's Office of Research and Development in September. In studying key environmental
0013-936X/98/0932-535A$15.00/0 © 1998 American Chemical Society
EPA will give high priority to assessing the ecological risks imposed on complex natural environments.
risks, EPA plans to follow a more integrated approach than the piecemeal assessments conducted in the past. The significance of this change in strategy is that it will allow the agency to look ahead and make projections rather than merely react to problems, said Virginia Dale, a researcher in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Environmental Sciences Division who helped peer review EPA's report. The report lists acid rain, tropospheric ozone, mercury pollution, ultraviolet B radiation, nitrogen pollution, global climate change, contaminated sediments, stormwater flow, toxic algal blooms, ecological criteria, and total maximum daily loading to water bodies as the agency's primary focal points. Included in EPA's approach are ecosystem monitoring; biological, chemical, and physical process and modeling research; risk assessment; and risk management and restoration. "You don't always know what works because ecosystems are so complicated," Dale said. "So you manage them as experiments, collecting data to make sure management is appropriate to the questions you're addressing. Monitoring allows
DEC. 1, 1998/ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS " 5 3 5 A
you to make management changes when necessary." She likened EPA's research plans to the purchasing of an insurance policy. "We have to actively manage systems and make decisions, so we're buying insurance through the actions we take." She added that in effect, EPA is outlining what insurance options are available. The geographical regions where EPA will focus its research efforts include the Mid-Atlantic, Pacific Northwest, South Florida, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, ecological research areas near laboratories, and index sites, as well as national study sites.
Congress approves four new policy directors The resignation of Fred Hansen, EPA's deputy administrator, and Lynn Goldman, head of the Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances top the list of personnel changes EPA has undergone in recent months. In addition to the departure of these two officials, the Senate approved the appointment of four assistant administrators, who are to serve as office directors, just hours before it adjourned in October. The departures of Hansen and Goldman leave open two important policy positions that remain unfilled. No replacements have been named for Goldman, who will leave at the end of this month and did not specify what her new plans are. Hansen left the agency in October to head Tri-Met, Portland Oregon's regional public transportation authority. EPA Administrator Carol Browner appointed chief of staff, Peter D. Robertson, to fill in for Hansen as acting deputy administrator. Prior to his current position, Robertson served as deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. The new appointments sailed smoothly through the Senate committee hearing process but were held up on the Senate floor because of opposition from Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who put a hold on the confirmation of J. Charles "Chuck" Fox, tapped to head the water office, and the other four appointments, until the Senate held a hearing on the appointment of Robert Perciasepe. Browner shifted Per-
ciasepe from his job as assistant administrator of the Office of Water to head the Office of Air and Radiation in a move EPA officials believed would prevent a congressional hearing on the agency's air programs. Inhofe had blocked the votes on the appointments, arguing that the Clinton administration should not have appointed Perciasepe to the air office spot without first seeking Senate approval. Also on hold were the appointments of Norine Noonan to be assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development, Romulo Diaz Jr., to be assistant administrator for the Office of Administration and Resources Management, and Niki Tinsley to be the EPA Inspector General. Finally, J. Charles "Chuck" Fox was confirmed as assistant administrator for the Office of Water. Since 1997, Fox has been head of the Office of Reinvention, which has launched programs such as the Common Sense Initiative and Project XL to streamline regulations and improve environmental protection at less cost. Fox testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that his top priorities will include using sound science to develop new drinking water standards, water quality standards for nutrients and biological water quality criteria Noonan, a cell biologist, is currently vice president for research and dean of the graduate school at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. From 1987 to 1992, she worked at the Office of Management and Budget as chief of the Science and Space Programs Branch.
PCB-laden sediment cleanup plans set for Mass. sites Large-scale dredging of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB))contaminated sediments will proceed at two Massachusetts sites with long histories of contamination—New Bedford Harbor near Buzzards Bay, and the Housatonic River at Pittsfield, according to EPA officials. General Electric (GE) is involved with both sites, and some EPA scientists suggest that the projects point toward a solution for handling the company's responsibilities relating to PCB contamination of the Hudson
5 3 6 A • DEC. 1, 1998 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
River in New York. But representatives from GE and EPA Region II, which has jurisdiction over the Hudson, said the plans will have little impact on the Hudson. In what is to be one of the largest cleanup operations in the United States, several companies will provide $70 million of the $120 million allocated for the 10-year cleanup plan at the New Bedford Harbor Superfund site, which includes the Achushnet River. The site was listed on the National Priorities List in 1983. The New Bedford plan calls for the dredging and on-shore containment of some one-half million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediments from 170 acres of the harbor. The sediment will be interred in four bunkers, known as confined disposal facilities, that will be built on the shoreline. At the Housatonic River, which is not a Superfund site, GE has agreed to pay $200 million in damages and cleanup costs resulting from PCB contamination at its Pittsfield transformer plant. The agreement ends a long-running dispute between the company and EPA over the severity of contamination and how to remediate the site {ES&T, June e, 1198, p. 257A). Under an agreement, in principle, reached in September with EPA and the Department of Justice, GE will remove contaminated sediments from a half-mile stretch of the Housatonic River close to the plant and pay for most of the costs for additional cleaning downstream. GE has also agreed to pay $15 million in natural resource damages to federal trustees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and state agencies to conduct a number of projects to improve wildlife habitat A 1990 remediation plan which involved incineration to clean the sediments at New Bedford Harbor was shelved in 1995 following intense local opposition. Local environmental groups said they support the new plans.
NAS finds low cancer risk from radon in water The human cancer risk from radon in drinking water is much less than
