The Environmental Protection Agency regulations apply to large poultry growers, as well as to big hog and cattle farms. But smaller poultry farms make up the bulk of Georgia's $2.5 billion-a-year broiler-chicken industry.
The rules also do not extend to large processing companies that contract with farmers to fatten chicks for slaughter. Environmentalists and some states want processors to share responsibility for runoff contaminated by poultry manure.
``To ignore the impact that hundreds of small and medium poultry farms can have on our rivers and lakes is irresponsible,'' said Justine Thompson, executive director of the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization that focuses on environmental issues.
Processors have long opposed federal or state regulation of their operations, arguing that the farmers they deal with are independent contractors responsible for the manure on their land. The processors also say that extending regulation and the resulting liability to them could lead to many more big, company-owned farms, which would displace small family farms.
The new regulations require large broiler-chicken farms those raising 125,000 at a time to obtain government permits. The National Chicken Council estimates 13 percent of chicken farms nationwide will be affected. The average farm raises about 63,800 broilers.
Regulated farmers will be required to develop nutrient management plans to avoid saturating their land with nutrients like phosphorus. The EPA estimates the new rules will reduce the amount of phosphorus released into the environment by 56 million pounds.
A recent University of Georgia analysis of 234,000 soil samples from all types of farmland across the state from 1999-2002 showed excessive phosphorus on a significant portion of farmland in 13 of the state's 159 counties. Ten are North Georgia counties heavily involved in poultry farming.
Eight years earlier, only four North Georgia counties registered too much phosphorus on a significant portion of farmland.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/12/186497