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By Ken Midkiff
The drafters of the federal Clean Air and Clean Water acts must have had a sixth sense that regulatory agencies would lack the chutzpah to enforce these laws.
And so Congress handed activists yet another hammer for the ol' toolbox - the right for citizens to file suit in order to compel compliance. Sierra Club activists are using it as part of their larger campaigns to fight the scourge of CAFOs - concentrated animal feeding operations.
After all, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice and their counterparts in the states refuse to enforce the law, somebody's got to play cop.
For instance, in northern Missouri, activists discovered they could expect no help from the federal government or the state of Missouri in dealing with foul odors and polluted waters emanating from pork behemoth Premium Standard Farms/ContiGroup. With the Club's support, they banded together as the Citizens Legal Environmental Enforcement Action Network.
CLEAN was formed by local farmers and long-time residents in and around the intrusive facilities. Rather than filing for punitive damages or civil awards, the group is simply asking the federal court to order the corporations to obey the law.
Michigan activists are also suing because of the state's inaction. In April, the Sierra Club's legal team sued River Ridge Farms, a large dairy and beef operation in Coopersville, which has repeatedly contaminated Grand River with manure, milking house wastes and other pollutants over a 15-year period. (Many of the Club's CAFO suits are being handled by the Club's in-house staff lawyers because of the high priority of the CAFO campaign in the Club.)
Then, in July, the Club added the director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to its suit; Club lawyers are seeking a court order directing the state to enforce all permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act. Only five of the nearly 100 CAFOs in Michigan have applied for water quality permits to date, according to DEQ records, and the state is refusing to process the permits.
In a follow-up grassroots action, the Club in August sent letters to 92 of Michigan's largest animal factories "strongly recommending" that they apply for water quality permits from the DEQ lest they run the risk of fines and enforcement action for violations of the Clean Water Act. The Mackinac Chapter and two other Michigan conservation organizations have also filed a petition with the U.S. EPA, asking that "primacy" - the delegation of federal authority for administering the Clean Water Act - be withdrawn from the state.
In Oklahoma, the Club has joined local residents in a lawsuit against multinational Seaboard Corporation, alleging that the company polluted streams and groundwater. The Club also sent 60-day notices of intent to sue to polluting operations in several other states, including Ohio and Missouri.
All of these suits are pending, but Club activists know from experience that litigation is not a quick fix. The typical response by a polluting industry is to call in its attorneys and delay, stall and deny for as many years as possible. It is apparently cheaper to pay to pollute and pay attorneys than to clean up a bad act. Nevertheless, citizen suits are proving to be a hard-hitting tool in the larger campaigns.
When the cop's not on the beat - when the state or feds fail to enforce the law - the Sierra Club is stepping in to the breach.
Photo captions:
Not Your Typical Scenic Vista: Barbara Thomas, with McLean County Citizens Against Factory Farms, speaks at a cemetery overlooking a chicken factory along the Tour de Stench. Her mother, Bernadine Edwards, listens in.
Chicken Little's Family Reunion?: Odds are that the chicken sold in your local grocery store comes from an animal factory like this one - or worse. Conditions are often even more crowded in hog operations. These facilities displace family farms and may pollute air and waterways - sometimes to a criminal degree.
Waste Not: Anne Woiwode, director of the Mackinac (Michigan) Chapter, stands on a bridge over the Grand River, which River Ridge Farms has being polluting for 15 years. The Club is taking the dairy and beef operation to court.
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