Document ID: EPA-HQ-OW-2011-0188-0015
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2011-10-21T04:00Z

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-Income 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 Division
                                       
                                       

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-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 nearby 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.	Analysis 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 analysis to identify portions of the country where there are both large numbers of CAFOs as well as concentrations of minority and low-income populations.  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, including outreach to these communities, with the intent of informing these communities about the rulemaking and newly available information on CAFOs.   
      
	More specifically, the geo-spatial analysis 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.	Analysis 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 numbers 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 these datasets show numbers of livestock operations by size for the major animal sectors, these pre-formatted data 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 not otherwise available to the public upon request to USDA.
      
      One important caveat regarding the custom tabulation is that EPA based its analysis on an assumption that the resulting number of large livestock operations could be used as a proxy for CAFOs.  This assumption was necessary since the USDA Census of Agriculture does not distinguish between confined and unconfined livestock operations, meaning that any 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 days laid out in EPA's definition of an Animal Feeding Operation.  EPA believes this assumption to be valid since the Agency's field experience strongly suggests that most operations above the EPA size 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, by 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 by county, EPA elected to control for county size by using density of CAFOs rather than number of CAFOs.  To perform this normalization, EPA first added all the CAFOs in each animal sector for a county, and then computed 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 easy computation of CAFO densities 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 by particular animal sectors; for example, chicken operations are known to be the dominant sector for Arkansas and the Delmarva.

 Figure 1:  GIS data layer showing counties w/ highest density of large CAFOs

5.	Analysis of Regions with High Densities of Populations of Concern

	To develop an understanding of regions 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 unlikely to overlap with any counties with high densities of CAFOs.  Upon further examination, EPA determined that data on minority and low-income populations were heavily dominated by populations in urban census tracts.  To allow for 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 yielded 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 2:  GIS data layer showing rural census tracts with high densities of populations of concern

6.	Analysis of Mapping Showing Areas with High CAFO Densities and Populations of Concern

       As a final step in the analysis, 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 peninsula, in particular Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset, and Accomack counties
         2. The Minnesota-Iowa border area, in particular Martin, Watonwan, Blue Earth, Freeborn, Steele and Mower counties
         3. The Carolina lowlands, in particular Wayne, Lenoir, Duplin, Sampson, Bladen, 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 3:  GIS data layer showing overlaps of areas 
            with high densities of CAFOs and populations of concern