Harkin said he hoped to persuade the two federal agencies to bring smaller farms under the new regulatory umbrella. Environmentalists worried that the new permits would generally be granted as a matter of right, without local inspections, and without provisions for local communities to challenge the amount of pollution allowed. If you're talking about a facility of hundreds of thousands of animals and the potential for huge amounts of pollution, you'd want to get out and see it before the facility begins operations. In Maryland, where livestock waste has been linked by some scientists to outbreaks by the fish-killing microbe Pfiesteria piscicida, state regulators embraced the plan. This year, Maryland adopted the nation's strictest set of regulations on agricultural pollution in the hopes of starving pfiesteria, which last summer sickened people and killed fish on several Chesapeake Bay tributaries.
Scientists believe manure washing off farms is a major source of fuel for the microbe.
At a town meeting last week in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, several poultry growers complained they cannot afford the costs of a cleanup effort. They called on federal authorities to force the big companies to pay. According to several people with knowledge of internal agency discussions, the EPA tried but failed to insert language into the plan calling on the companies to provide funds for pollution programs, but the USDA resisted and won the argument. W. Michael McCabe, EPA regional administrator for the mid-Atlantic, has frequently expressed frustration with the big companies, asserting that they have failed to advance a credible means of limiting pollution. My great fear is this whole environmental problem is going to land on the backs of the growers.