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Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Environment - Ohio agriucultural waste, dumped in Indiana
Supplementing this series of ILB posts, the most recent from Sept. 10, 2010, headed "One of the state of Ohio's solutions -- transporting future manure to farm fields outside the watershed, including fields in Indiana -- has alarmed some Hoosiers in East Central Indiana," WTHR13's Bob Segall had a long investigative story last evening, headed "Dumped in Indiana." Here is the lede:
Agricultural waste has caused environmental devastation to Ohio's largest inland lake. To help prevent further damage, Ohio is shipping hundreds of millions of pounds of poultry manure to Indiana. Some Hoosiers say the massive piles of manure piling up near their homes are toxic - and state officials say there's nothing they can do about it.More from the story:
[Ohio's] state officials say the algae crisis was a direct result of manure runoff that drained into the shallow lake from area farm fields. To curb the problem – and hopefully save the lake – state officials developed a detailed action plan to improve water quality at Grand Lake St Marys. The plan calls for Ohio to "promote manure hauling" away from the lake's watershed, and it includes using federal funds from the Environmental Quality Incentive Program to help Ohio farmers transport their manure to Indiana. Ohio's plan is already underway.Importing manure or trouble?
13 Investigates observed truck after truck filled with manure heading across the state line into Indiana. Some of it is liquid manure from cows and pigs. But most of the manure being trucked and dumped in Indiana is from chickens and turkeys in Mercer and Darke counties. Located along the Ohio-Indiana border, those two counties alone are home to dozens of commercial farms licensed to raise more than 22 million birds. * * *
IDEM admits it does not respond to most complaints involving poultry manure, and WTHR discovered why.
Indiana's manure rules do not apply to manure coming from other states. While Indiana manure is regulated, Ohio manure crossing the border to Hoosier farm fields is not.
"We just don't have the authority to regulate or require [farmers] to do certain things with those piles at this point," explained Bruce Palin, IDEM's assistant commissioner of land quality. "It's really how the rules and statute was structured." IDEM officials say they are not aware of any cases in which runoff from a pile of poultry manure contaminated a waterway or caused illness in Indiana.
Those who live near Indiana farms where out-of-state manure sits unregulated for months with no runoff protection say they are frustrated the state cannot do more.
"It makes absolutely no sense," said Sha. "Who cares what state it's from? We need to protect our water."
Palin says he understands the concern.
"It's frustrating for us, too," he said. "It's odd. Currently the material coming from out-of-state is being treated less stringently than what's generated in the state. I don't think we should be saying ‘if it's coming from a farm in Indiana they gotta do this, but coming from out-of-state they don't.'"
What should Hoosiers do about it?
"All I can say at this point is ‘be patient,'" said Palin, whose agency regulates more than 300 Indiana poultry farms licensed to raise 51 million chickens and turkeys. "We're working on it."
IDEM and the Office of the Indiana State Chemist are now developing new rules that would apply to manure on all large Indiana farms – including manure imported from other states. Palin believes the new rules will be developed and implemented by the end of 2011.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 16, 2010 10:20 AM
Posted to Environment