Posted on 11/02/2013 1:28:31 PM PDT by artichokegrower
Threatened with huge fines and possible imprisonment, West Virginia poultry producer Lois Alt decided to stand up to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in court. In a case with implications for livestock producers in California and nationwide, Alt tried to sort out whether stormwater discharges from her farm actually require a federal permit. Her case won support from the West Virginia and American Farm Bureaus, which intervened in the court case on her behalf.
Last week, Alt won an important decision when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ruled against EPA, saying that ordinary stormwater from Alt's farmyard is exempt from National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit requirements.
Alt filed suit against EPA in June 2012, after the agency threatened her with $37,500 in fines each time stormwater came into contact with dust, feathers or small amounts of manure on the ground outside of her poultry houses as a result of normal farm operations. EPA also threatened separate fines of $37,500 each day if Alt failed to apply for an NPDES permit for such stormwater discharges.
"This lawsuit was about EPA's tactic of threatening farmers with enormous fines in order to make them get permits that are not required by law," American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman said. "Lois Alt was proud of her farm and her environmental stewardship, and she stood her ground. We're proud to have supported her effort."
Alt operates an eight-house chicken farm with a ventilation system and a covered litter storage shed, a compost shed and feed storage bins.
(Excerpt) Read more at agalert.com ...
Breathing has finally been made illegal. We’re all criminals now. We exude plant food and it turns out to be agin the law.
The answer is to infiltrate the EPA with conservative republicans.
So the lesson for MikeInc. and any small farm operation is to set up Procedures and Training for when any gov’t official arrives. All staff needs to know who in supervision/management is immediately called and the location where the gov’t official is to wait until that person arrives.
Not to worry the EPA has lots of our money to spend appealing this decision to a higher court.
“The answer is to infiltrate the EPA with conservative republicans.”
One of the many failures of George W. Bush was not reshaping the bureaucracy. Democrat Presidents do not make this mistake. Whenever they are in power they do their best to insert ideologues in positions of authority in every agency.
In I believe Seattle, you can be arrested for catching rainwater in a bucket.
Fining folks for “Acts of God” which were one of the few areas normally exempted (shovel your walk and someone slips and it’s on you:::leave it Au-natural after God dumped snow on it and you are in the clear).
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