In this chapter we give you legislative language based on our DNR lawsuit. Please use this language in a grassroots campaign to try to convince sitting legislators to adopt and introduce this language, and/or, to elect legislators who would be in favor of this language. This language, if adopted, will help protect the health of Iowans who live, work, and study in proximity to hog confinements.
The language would propose that all excreta and its constituent parts be retained in the confinement building between disposal events. This is currently the case in Iowa law for the water pollution avenue for excreta (the State’s name for manure), but is not the case for the air pollution avenue.
The proposed language would be about regulating excreta that escapes confinements through the air avenue. The State says they regulate the water avenue (this is pretty weak), but they say the air avenue can’t be regulated; this was the reason our DNR lawsuit was dismissed. The air avenue is the more dangerous pollution avenue. If it is read correctly, the State’s definition of excreta ends up saying that everything in a hog confinement except the pigs is excreta; we explain this in the DNR lawsuit document. That means that all of the lethal and toxic gasses, particulates, and antibiotic-resistant organisms that are constituent parts of the excreta as it collects and breaks down and leaves the confinement through the air avenue are excreta, too.
In the water avenue, the state says that all excreta must be retained in the confinement between disposal events. The disposal event would be the pumping out and land applying the excreta every six months to a year. This is why the State is able to call these hog confinements “no discharge buildings” and therefore say they don’t need NDPES permits (national permits which have limits on the discharged pollution).
There is no regulation of excreta and its constituent parts coming through the air avenue. The State says that their separation distances, normally some 2000 feet more or less, protect the public’s health. This is demonstrably false which our studies and our powerpoint show. The hog confinement air avenue pollution which consists of the constituent parts of excreta that include gasses, particulates, and antibiotic-resistant organisms, can travel up to hundreds of miles.
Our proposed legislative language: “All hog confinement excreta and its constituent parts must be retained in the confinement between disposal events. No excreta, or its constituent parts, may leave the hog confinement either through the water pollution avenue, or the air pollution avenue, between disposal events.”
Again, please use this language to help in a grassroots campaign to convince sitting legislators to adopt and introduce this air avenue language, and/or, to elect legislators who would be in favor of this language. This language, if adopted, will help protect the health of Iowans who live, work, and study in proximity to hog confinements.