## National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)

Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Reporting Rule

Analysis under Executive Order 12898 : Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low

- Incom e Populations

October 3, 2011

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Office of Water Office of Wastewater Permits Water Permits Division Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds Assessment and Watershed Protection Division1

**National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Reporting Rule**  **Analysis under Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions to Addres**  **s Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low**   ** Income Populations**
1. Overview of Executive Order 12898 Executive Order 12898 establishes federal executive policy on environmental justice (59 FR 7629 (Feb. 16, 1994) . Its main provision directs federal agencies, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, to make environmental justice (EJ) part of their mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of their programs, policies and activities on minority populations and low

income populations in the United States. 2. Environmental Justice Impacts from the Proposed Rule EPA has determined that the information collected by this rule would benefit minority and low

- income populations by providing easier access to information on nearb y CAFOs with potential effects on neighboring communities. In addition, the Agency anticipates that the information to be collected under the rulemaking will aid these communities by supporting consideration of environmental justice concerns as the Agency moves forward with future implementation of the NPDES CAFO program. 3. Analy sis of Geographic Regions for Focused Rulemaking Outreach to EJ Communities As part of EPA’s continued effort to meet its obligations under E.O. 12898, the Agency conducted an anal ys is to identify portions of the country

where there are both large numbers of CAFOs as well as concentrations of minority and low

- income p opulations. These regions include parts of the Carolina lowlands, central California , the Delmarva Peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay , and the border area between Minnesota and Iowa . The Agency plans to conduct outreach as part of the rulemaking process, in cluding outreach to these communities, with the intent of informing these communities about the rulemaking and newly available information on CAFOs

. More specificall y, the geo

- spatial anal ys is that the Agency conducted for the rulemaking combined data from USDA on large livestock operations with data from the U.S. Census on minority and low

- income populations to develop maps that highlighted geographic regions that have both many

CAFOs and high densities of populations of concern. 4. An aly sis of Regions with High CAFO Densities To identify

regions in the U.S. that have high densities of CAFOs, EPA requested a custom tabulation from USDA of 2007 Census of Agriculture data on farms with high numbers2

of animals. USDA has available on its Census website an on - line application for members of the public to generate datasets on U.S. farms using Census of Agriculture data. Although the se datasets show numbers of livestock operations b y size for the major animal sectors , these pre

formatted dat a are stratified by size bands that do not match exactly with EPA’s NPDES CAFO thresholds for large operations. To address this discrepancy , EPA requested USDA to perform a custom tabulation that re

- aggregated the Census data to match the size thresholds for large livestock farms specifically as laid out in NPDES regulations. This custom tabulation on numbers of farms did not contain any instances where USDA was barred from disclosing data due to confidentiality , nor did this tabulation contain any data n ot otherwise available to the public upon request to USDA. One important caveat regarding the custom tabulation is that EPA based its anal ys is on an assumption that the resulting number of large livestock operations could be used as a prox y for CAFOs. Th is assumption was necessary since the USD A Census of Agriculture does not distinguish between confined and unconfined livestock operations , meaning that an y totals also include farms that are not CAFOs. These operations, although they are large farms, are not CAFOs because they

are either pasture or range - based operations or they do not confine animals for the number of day s laid out in EPA's definition of an Animal Feeding Operation. EPA believes this assumption to be valid since the Agency ’s field experience strongl y suggests that most operations above the EPA s ize threshold for large CAFOs would meet the definition of an AFO. The one exception to this assumption would be the beef sector , where operations can have a comparatively

large number of on

- farm animals and still be range

- based. EPA addressed this issue, however, b y using the Census category of “cattle on feed” rather than the more generic classification of “beef cows” to determine numbers of large beef CAFOs. To map the resulting dataset showing CAFOs b y county, EPA elected to control for county size by us ing density

of C AFOs rather than number of CAFOs . To perform this normalization, EPA first added all the CAFOs in each animal sector for a county , and then c omputed the county- level density of CAFOs by

dividing the total number of CAFOs in a county by the size of the county . This was made possible by importing the dataset into the ArcGIS mapping application, which allowed for eas y computation of CAFO densitie s based on county shapefiles. The resulting map , displayed in Figure 1, shows counties in the U.S. that have the highest densities of CAFOs. This map reveals clustering of large livestock farms in certain geographic areas, such as northwest Arkansas and the central mid

- west. In general, this clustering tends to be driven b y particular animal sectors ; for example, chicken operations are known to be the dominant sector for Arkansas and the Delmarva.3

5. Analy sis of Regions with High Densities of Populations of Concern To develop an understanding of r egions in the U.S. that have high densities of minority and low

- income populations where environmental justice concerns from CAFOs might be a consideration, EPA performed a comparable mapping of U.S. Census statistics on census tracts with minority

populations and populations reporting income below the poverty level as defined by the Census. When EPA first examined the resulting mapped census tracts showing populations of potential concern, it determined that the mapped areas were unlikel y to overlap with any counties with high densities of CAFOs. Upon further examination, EPA determined that data on minority and low

- income populations were heavil y dominated by populations in urban census tracts. To allow fo r a more targeted focus on rural populations, EPA re

- indexed the Census data for minority and low

- income populations to exclude urban census tracts, and then re

- mapped the resulting data. This mapping exercise yi elded the map displayed in Figure 2 showing rural census tracts in the U.S. that have the highest densities of minority and low

- income populations. Figure 1: GIS data layer showing counties w/ highest density of large CAFOs4

6. Analy sis of Mapping Showing Areas with High CAFO Densit ies and Populations of Concern As a final step in the analy sis, EPA then overlaid the maps of CAFO densities with the maps of high densities of potentially impacted populations. This new map then revealed geographic regions in the U.S. where the Agency needs to target its rulemaking outreach to address potential environmental justice concerns based on the fact that these rural areas have both large numbers of CAFOs and large numbers of minority and low

- income populations. This map, as shown in Figure 3, reveals that EPA should concentrate its outreach for the new 308 rulemaking to communities in four key regions of the U.S.: 1. The Delmarva peninsu la, in particular Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset, and Accomack counties 2. The Minnesota

- Io wa border area, in particular Martin, Watonwan, Blue Earth, Freeborn, Steele and Mower counties 3. The Carolina lowlands, in particular Way ne, Lenoir, Duplin, Sampson, Bla den, Robeson, Dillon, Scotland, Richmond, and Anson counties 4. The California central valley , in particular San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Kings, and Tulare counties. EPA looks forward to working with these communities as the rulemaking is finalized. Figure 2: GIS data layer showing rural census tracts with high densities of populations of concern5 Figure 3: GIS data layer showing overlaps of areas with high densities of CAFOs and populations of concern