Background

For years, agricultural operations have been among the greatest contributors to non-point water pollution. Agricultural runoff often contaminates both ground and surface water, compromising our nation’s drinking water. Pollution from agricultural operations can include fertilizers, pesticides, bacteria, nitrogen, phosporous, hormones, and antibiotics – just to name a few.

In the late 1990s, Delaware, Maine, and Maryland introduced and passed legislation requiring various agricultural operations to develop and implement nutrient management plans. The nutrient management laws require farmers, in conjunction with certified nutrient specialists, to develop plans unique to their operations. The plans need to include when and how nutrients are applied to their land. Additionally, the plans require details on manure storage and other site specific actions. Agricultural operations are required to comply with varying standards and laws. Delaware’s law requires that all agricultural operations with 8 animal units or more must have a nutrient management plan implemented by 2007. Delaware and Maine have both signaled early successes with their respective programs in their 2001 annual reports.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on December 15, 2002, that, after years of work and debate, new rules concerning Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) were finalized. The rules detail new requirements that CAFOs are subject to. States, which are authorized by the EPA to issue National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits, must rewrite laws and requirements to comply with the higher standards. Among the new standards is a provision mandating that large CAFOs develop nutrient management plans as a condition of their NPDES permit. Medium- and small-sized CAFOs are required to develop a plan if they are determined to be significant polluters by the permitting authority.

Almost immediately, environmentalists and other critics concluded the EPA rules were not strong enough, and farmers viewed them as just another way of overregulating their industry. The General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report on January 16, 2003, detailing why the new rules may not be as effective as is the EPA intends them to be. Among the GAO findings was a concern that states were not provided with enough guidance to develop and implement the new standards. In response to the weak federal rules, states now need to pass more stringent laws in order to protect their ground and surface water from agricultural operations.

Delaware, Maine, and Maryland have paved the way for states seeking to implement tougher standards. The sample legislation in this package is primarily based on the Delaware law, but incorporates elements of the Maine and Maryland laws. To view each state’s law, go to the following links:

• Delaware Nutrient Management
• Maine Nutrient Management Act
• Maryland Nutrient Management

For more information on how other states have dealt with CAFOs, see SERC’s State Activity Page on this topic.