They don't have to carefully calculate and apply the right amount of manure to crops. They don't have to store their chicken manure under sheds that keep rain from washing the waste into streams. Under the 1972 Clean Water Act, signed into law by President Nixon, most businesses that pollute rivers and streams must get permits that limit that pollution. Traditionally, farmers are exempt from this requirement. Because it doesn't come out of a pipe, it's hard to trace.
Government officials steer clear of trying to regulate it.
Larger farms that produce lots of pollution, though, can be regulated. Federal law allows DEP to require a poultry farm to get a permit if it contains a certain number of birds within a certain amount of space. DEP has never tried to use either method to require a poultry farm to get a permit, agency officials say. McCoy left DEP in May 1997. One of his major clients is Hester Industries, a poultry processing company with a plant in Moorefield.