The Wichita Eagle
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Sierra Club says hog farm regulators need to do better Nevertheless, the environmental watchdog group gives Kansas environmental regulators an overall "B" grade.

August 25, 2000

Kansas environmental regulators have made a good faith effort to regulate large hog operations, but have done little to lessen odors and air pollution or to investigate the risk of disease transmission from wastewater spraying, the Kansas Sierra Club said in a new study.

The report also said it found no difference between the western and central regions of the state in the risks from lagoon seepage and spreading of wastewater. Central Kansas is home to the environmentally sensitive Equus Beds aquifer.

The findings, prepared by the environmental consulting firm Spectrum Technologies in Kansas City, were made public Wednesday in news conferences in Dodge City and Wichita. The Sierra Club put up more than $12,500 for the five-year study, and the consulting firm donated its time.

Charles Benjamin, lawyer for the Sierra Club, said the study was done in anticipation of hearings over hog regulation.

"Seaboard has been building really very large facilities out there without any meaningful regulation of odor and air pollution," said Craig Volland, president of Spectrum. "There has been no on-site monitoring for air pollution or odor, and there have been no health studies, to my knowledge."

Volland said he would give state environmental regulators a grade of "B" on their hog facility regulation. He said that Clyde Graeber, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, had taken a personal interest in the issue and done some good things.

The Legislature tightened regulations governing swine feeding facilities in 1998 by toughening standards for lagoon seepage, among other rules. It also required financial guarantees and closure plans for large facilities. KDHE has since tightened its administrative review and is currently revising Kansas livestock waste rules. The new draft rules are expected to be issued for public comment by early fall.

"Odor is really the driving force behind citizen opposition to hog farms," Volland said.

One of the long-standing arguments for building large hog feeding facilities in western Kansas has been that the region -- with its deeper aquifers and clay soils -- is at less risk of groundwater contamination than the Equus Beds in central Kansas, where groundwater is closer to the surface.

The only difference between western Kansas and central Kansas is how long it will take the contamination from hog wastes to reach the water -- probably a decade or so in western Kansas, Volland said.

Volland also said his study found that one-third of the hog facilities built since 1994 were installed over sandy soils.

"The U.S. Geological Survey sank two monitoring wells underneath irrigated fields near Garden City and found high levels of nitrates at a depth of 167 feet -- and this to me proves or establishes that there is nothing magical as far as deep groundwater and contamination is concerned," he said. "It just takes longer."

Gary Reckrodt, spokesman for Seaboard, said Tuesday that the Sierra Club study was too technical for him to immediately make a statement. But he said that new state regulations already increased setbacks of hog facilities from roads.

"When it comes to the Sierra Club, I don't think they would ever be satisfied with issues regarding odors," he said.

He also said he had never heard of any study suggesting disease transmission from the spraying of wastewater from hog facilities over crop fields.

"That is something the Sierra Club has come up with on their own," Reckrodt said. "I don't believe that is a valid concern at all. I don't believe there is a possibility of something like that happening."

Volland acknowledged no health studies have linked disease to wastewater spraying but said environmental regulators should undertake one.

Researchers have only recently begun to assess the potential for health effects on neighbors of large hog feeding facilities, according to the Sierra Club study.

The most extensive work so far comes from the University of North Carolina, which found elevated levels of certain respiratory and gastrointestinal problems and mucous membrane irritation among residents who lived within 2 miles of a 6,000-head hog feeding facility. These symptoms were similar to those found among hog farm workers.