EPA gives Iowa last chance to inspect livestock

Val Vetter calls our attention to an article with the above title in the December 30 issue of the Des Moines Register. The gist: The federal Environmental Protection Agency has just finished negotiating a work plan with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which is supposed to enforce the federal Clean Water Act in Iowa, giving it five years to inspect Iowa's eight thousand livestock facilities. Formerly, the DNR claimed that such facilities didn't need federal permits to discharge pollution into Iowa waterways, so that there was no need to monitor them for compliance. The EPA instructed them otherwise in a sharply critical report issued last July 12.