New rules for monitoring the state’s large-scale livestock confinements have cleared a legislative committee and will go into effect October 22nd.
The rules implement an agreement between the State of Iowa and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, so the state will continue to monitor how livestock operations in Iowa are complying with Clean Water standards. State officials have promised to inspect some eight-thousand operations once every five years. Iowa Department of Natural Resources attorney Randy Clark says they’ll have to pick up the pace to meet that goal.
Cherie Mortice, a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, says there have been 55 manure spills in the past year in Iowa and only 11 operators have been fined. The activists accused state officials of adopting tepid regulation of “factory farms,” that they say are polluting the state’s lakes and rivers with manure.
