1
1 ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
2
3 In the Matter of: ) NO. R97-015
Livestock Waste )
4 Regulations, )
DeKalb, Illinois
35 Ill. Adm. Code 506, ) January 27, 1997
5
6
7 Hearing commenced at 9:05 a.m.
8
9 BEFORE:
10 ATTORNEY AUDREY LOZUK-LAWLESS,
Hearing Officer,
11 Illinois Pollution Control Board,
100 West Randolph Street, Suite 11-500,
12 Chicago, Illinois, 60601
13
14 ALSO PRESENT ON BEHALF OF THE IPCB:
15 Ronald C.
Flemal, Ph.D.
Claire Manning
16 Anand Rao
Cynthia
Ervin
17 Marie
Tipsord
Charles
Feinen
18
19
20 REPORTER:
21 Carrie L.
Vaske,
Certified Shorthand Reporter,
22
Ashton, Illinois
23
24
ITV
2
1 INDEX
2
3 Witness Page
4
5 Chester
Boruff . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6 Richard C.
Warrington . . . . . . . . . 27
7 Clinton C.
Mudgett . . . . . . . . . . . 33
8 John Marlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
9 Scott
Jeckel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
10 Jamie
Wilrett . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
11 Ellen
Hankes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
12 Randall Westgren . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
13 Christopher
Schroeder . . . . . . . . . 116
14 Ed Laurent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
15 John Sheaffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
16 David
Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
17
18
19 Prefiled Questions . . . . . . . . . . . 198
20
21
22
23 Certificate of Shorthand Reporter . . . 238
24
ITV
3
1 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Good morning and welcome.
2 My name is
Audrey Lozuk-Lawless and I'm the Hearing
3 Officer in this matter. Today present on behalf of
4 the Board is Chairman Claire Manning and Board
5 Member Dr. Ronald
Flemal. We also have several
6 attorneys here from the Board, Marie
Tipsord,
7 Mr. Chuck
Feinen, Ms. Cindy
Ervin, and from our
8 technical unit we have
Anand Rao, and excuse me, we
9 also have
Soni Hiten in the audience as well from
10 our technical unit.
11 Today's proceeding is entitled Livestock
12 Waste Regulations, 35 Illinois Administrative Code
13 506. Today is the second of five hearings which
14 are scheduled in this matter. The first hearing
15 was held on January 14th in Jacksonville,
16 Illinois. The next hearing will be held on
17 Wednesday in Galesburg, then on Friday in Mount
18 Vernon, and finally the last hearing which has been
19 rescheduled will be held in Champaign on Friday,
20 February 7th.
21 Today's proposal was submitted by the
22 Department of Agriculture. Today's hearing will be
23 following the Board's procedures on hearings and
24 any information which is relevant and not
ITV
4
1 repetitious will be allowed into the record. At
2 the last hearing in Jacksonville we heard testimony
3 of the Department of Agriculture, Department of
4 Public Health, Department of Natural Resources and
5 Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. There
6 were questions put forth to those Agencies as well
7 as some testimony from members of the public.
8 Today we will proceed with summaries from
9 each of those Departments on the proposal followed
10 by the testimony of eight persons who have filed
11 prefiled testimony in this matter. After each one
12 of those persons has testified, the audience and
13 members of the Agencies as well as the Board will
14 direct any questions they have to those persons.
15 After the testimony of the
prefiled
16 witnesses has been completed we will ask if there
17 is anyone else in the audience who wishes to put
18 forth any testimony on the record today. If you'd
19 like to testify, you will be sworn in by the court
20 reporter and subject to cross questioning. If you
21 would not like to be sworn in or subject to cross
22 questioning and still want to submit something on
23 the record, feel free to do so by filing a public
24 comment with the Board.
ITV
5
1 Your public comment must be accepted by
2 the Board or submitted to the Board, excuse me, by
3 February 14th, that would be Valentine's Day, at
4 which time the record will close. If you do choose
5 to file a public comment, please make sure you
6 indicate at the top of the comment that this is
7 Docket R 97-15.
8 Now I'd like to turn it over to Mr.
Flemal
9 if you have any opening remarks.
10 MR. FLEMAL: Yes, indeed I do. First of all I
11 want to welcome everybody both on behalf of the
12 Illinois Pollution Control Board and personally.
13 DeKalb happens to be my hometown and we're thrilled
14 to have you here in
DeKalb. I assure you it does
15 not always snow in
DeKalb, that there are times
16 when the weather is something other than snow.
17 Although some of the faces in the audience
18 are familiar, there's also a good many of you for
19 whom this would appear to be the first exposure
20 you've had to the Illinois Pollution Control
21 Board. I would like to take just a few moments to
22 explain a few things about the Board and about the
23 proceeding that we're engaged in at the moment.
24 The Illinois Pollution Control Board
ITV
6
1 consists of seven members. Chairman Manning and I
2 are two of those seven members. The other five are
3 off engaged in other Board business today. We are
4 charged with a variety of activities dealing with
5 the environment. We have a broad range of duties
6 that are in the quasi judicial board of review
7 area. We also as a second major arena of activity
8 are responsible for promulgation of the
9 environmental standards that apply in the State of
10 Illinois. It's in the second of the two activities
11 that we're engaged today.
12 I would note that over on the side table
13 we have some brochures in the blue folders that
14 you're welcome to have a look at which -- or take
15 if you wish, that describe the Board's activities
16 in the various arena and say -- says something as
17 well about the composition of the Illinois
18 Pollution Control Board.
19 In its
rulemaking responsibilities the
20 Board entertains anywhere from 20 to 30
rulemakings
21 in any given year. This is one of those
22 rulemakings. Some of the
rulemakings are more
23 elaborate than the
rulemaking we have before us
24 today, somewhat less elaborate. Most of those
ITV
7
1 rulemakings generate out of the Environmental
2 Protection Act. This
rulemaking of course today is
3 unusual in several regards, one of which is that we
4 are charged here under the Livestock Facilities
5 Management Act to carry out our
rulemaking
6 responsibilities.
7 Any
rulemaking that is done by an
8 administrative agency like ours is required to go
9 through a number of steps that are prescribed by
10 the Illinois Administrative Procedures Act. It
11 involves things like making sure that there's
12 proper notice, that the proposals are published in
13 the Illinois Register, that they are reviewed by a
14 committee of the general assembly and so on.
15 These various activities require and
16 consume a substantial bit of time and I would note
17 that one of the additional unusual aspects of the
18 rulemaking before us today is that it's a
19 relatively short time frame in which we have to
20 accomplish the various activities that are
21 prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act.
22 Accordingly, we have been required to keep to this
23 relatively short time frame and it's for this
24 reason that we are holding our hearings in this
ITV
8
1 relatively accelerated schedule and also are asking
2 that any additional public comments that be filed
3 be filed a relatively short time after we complete
4 the hearing portion of this record.
5 I would note that when the record is
6 completed in mid February the Board will sit down
7 and deliberate on the information that we've been
8 able to gather as a result of this hearing process
9 and the public comment period to follow. After
10 reviewing that record the Board will make one of
11 three decisions on how to proceed. One decision
12 may be to proceed with the rule exactly as
13 proposed. A second choice might be to proceed with
14 the proposal but in some amended form, amended it
15 to accommodate or accord with the comments that we
16 receive from you and the suggestions that we
17 receive from you. Or it's also possible that we
18 would not proceed at all finding that it would be
19 inappropriate to move forward on the rule.
20 Whatever the Board's decision is, that
21 decision will be in a written form in a written
22 opinion. Those of you that are on either the
23 notice or service list will receive that opinion
24 and accordingly be informed of the Board's decision
ITV
9
1 on the progress of this rule.
2 Just one last matter, let me introduce two
3 people that we have in the audience, two State
4 Representatives. Representative Dave
Wirsing is in
5 the back. Dave, would you stick up your hand and
6 let us see where you are. Dave represents the
7 local district, the 70th District including all of
8 DeKalb -- most of
DeKalb County and adjacent parts
9 of Ogle and Lee County.
10 And Representative Ron
Lawfer, Ron's over
11 here. Ron represents the 74th District which is in
12 the far northwest portion of the State including Jo
13 Daviess, Stephenson, some bits of Carroll, Ogle and
14 some Lee as well, Ron?
15 MR. LAWFER:
Whiteside.
16 MR. FLEMAL: We welcome both of you and are
17 pleased to have you with us.
18 MS. MANNING: I'd just like to welcome everyone
19 as well and we look forward to your testimony.
20 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: I apologize there is no
21 microphone available today. However, if you'd like
22 to ask a question, please just stand and in a
23 clear, strong voice so our court reporter can hear
24 you, if you could just state your name, any agency
ITV
10
1 that you may represent and then state your
2 question.
3 Also, Dr.
Flemal had mentioned the notice
4 list and service list. If you would like to be on
5 the notice list and are not currently on the notice
6 list, you can sign up at the table there or the
7 service list. Persons on the notice list will
8 receive copies of the hearing officer order as well
9 as the Board order. Persons on the service list
10 will receive both of those orders as well as any
11 prefiled testimony or any
prefiled questions.
12 So I'd like to begin today with Department
13 of Agriculture. If the court reporter could sign
14 (sic) them in, please.
15 MR. CHESTER BORUFF,
16 being first duly sworn, testified as
17 follows:
18 MR. BORUFF: Well, good morning. On behalf of
19 the Illinois Department of Agriculture we're
20 pleased to see the interest that everyone has shown
21 in coming out today to be at this hearing. In the
22 back of the room, can you hear me all right? Okay,
23 fine, thank you.
24 At today's hearing I will be offering a
ITV
11
1 summary of the written testimony which the Illinois
2 Department of Agriculture entered into evidence
3 with the Pollution Control Board at its hearing in
4 Jacksonville. At that time two other employees of
5 the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Scott Frank
6 and Warren
Goetsch to my left here, also presented
7 testimony relative to the proposed rules.
8 Mr. Frank and Mr.
Goetsch will not be providing a
9 summary today but will be available for questioning
10 as the hearing proceeds.
11 My name is
Chet Boruff and I'm employed by
12 the Illinois Department of Agriculture as Deputy
13 Director for the Division of Natural Resource and
14 Ag Industry Regulation, a position I've held since
15 entering the Department on July 8th, 1992. As
16 Deputy Director I am responsible for the program
17 areas of the Department dealing with animal health
18 and welfare, natural resource protection,
19 regulation of the feed, seed and grain industry and
20 the weights and measures program.
21 I was raised on a grain and livestock farm
22 in Rock Island County, Illinois. I received a
23 Bachelor's Degree in Agriculture from Iowa State
24 University, and prior to coming to the Department
ITV
12
1 of Agriculture I worked in agricultural finance,
2 real estate and agricultural supply sales as well
3 as operating a diversified grain and livestock
4 farm.
5 Illinois has long been recognized as one
6 of the leading livestock producing states in the
7 nation. Due to its access to abundant feed
8 supplies, strong markets and a well-developed
9 infrastructure, the Illinois livestock industry has
10 been a major contributor to the State's overall
11 economy. Livestock production accounts for a
12 sizable portion of the State's total gross income
13 and several types of livestock species are produced
14 in the State.
15 The livestock industry is undergoing major
16 changes in structure due to economic and marketing
17 forces which are not unique to Illinois. As a
18 result it has become common for many operations to
19 expand, specialize and invest in capital intensive
20 production units in recent years. The livestock
21 industry has been faced with challenges regarding
22 market structure, access to capital, a limited
23 supply of trained employees and increased
24 regulations. In many cases in Illinois as well as
ITV
13
1 in other states, traditional and long- established
2 livestock producers have chosen to leave the
3 industry rather than to address the challenges I
4 listed above.
5 In an effort to strengthen the industry
6 and to position Illinois to become a continuing
7 leader in livestock production, Governor Edgar
8 convened the livestock industry task force in July
9 of 1995. The task force, chaired by Becky
Doyle,
10 Director of Agriculture, includes representatives
11 of the major livestock commodities sectors as well
12 as representatives from the supporting industries
13 including processing, veterinary medicine,
14 livestock supplies and grain producers. The charge
15 given to the task force was to consider those
16 factors affecting the livestock industry in the
17 State of Illinois and to make recommendations to
18 Governor Edgar in the general assembly on ways that
19 Illinois can continue to foster a healthy livestock
20 economy.
21 The task force has addressed a wide range
22 of topics focusing on areas of economic
23 development, marketing, technology transfer and
24 environmental concerns regarding livestock
ITV
14
1 production. In recent years many livestock
2 operations in Illinois have expanded in an effort
3 to take advantage of efficiencies which may be
4 connected with these larger units. As the size of
5 the operations has grown so has the amount of waste
6 which is generated and must be ultimately disposed
7 of by the operator of these production units. Many
8 citizens have expressed concerns over the possible
9 negative impacts these large volumes of waste might
10 have on soil, water and air resources.
11 A working group of the task force dealt
12 with this issue and suggested possible legislation
13 to address it. The Illinois General Assembly used
14 this suggestion as a framework for the Livestock
15 Management Facilities Act which was signed into law
16 by Governor Edgar on May 21, 1996.
17 The Livestock Management Facilities Act is
18 intended to be preventative in nature since
19 Illinois currently has statutes in place to deal
20 with situations once pollution has occurred. The
21 Act sets in place regulations providing for the
22 proper siting, construction, operation and
23 management of livestock management facilities and
24 associated waste handling structures. It is the
ITV
15
1 intent of the Act to maintain an economically
2 viable livestock industry in the State of Illinois
3 while protecting the environment for the benefit of
4 both livestock producer and persons who live in the
5 vicinity of the livestock production facility.
6 Section 55 of the Livestock Management
7 Facilities Act established a livestock management
8 facility advisory committee made up of the
9 directors of the Department of Agriculture, Natural
10 Resources, Public Health and the Illinois
11 Environmental Protection Agency or their
12 designees. I was designated by Director
Doyle to
13 serve as a chair of the committee. The members of
14 the committee were charged to review, evaluate and
15 make recommendations to the Department of
16 Agriculture for rules necessary for the
17 implementation of the Act.
18 The Department was mandated by statute to
19 propose rules to the Illinois Pollution Control
20 Board for the implementation of the Act within six
21 months of the effective date of the Livestock
22 Management Facilities Act. Since the effective
23 date of the legislation was May 21, 1996, the
24 Department prepared its proposal for a filing date
ITV
16
1 of November 21, 1996. Section 55 of the Act also
2 required that the Board hold hearings on and adopt
3 rules for the implementation of the Act within six
4 months of the Department filing a proposed rule for
5 that purpose.
6 The committee met five times during the
7 summer and fall of 1996 to review, evaluate and
8 recommend amendments to various draft proposals
9 developed by the Department. The Departments and
10 Agency represented on the committee provided the
11 vast amount of professional knowledge and
12 experience on a broad spectrum of topics pertinent
13 to the subject matter of the Act. The Department
14 recognizes them for their efforts and appreciates
15 their recommendations and input throughout the rule
16 process.
17 The committee considered several sources
18 of information such as technical papers, published
19 design standards, pertinent information from other
20 states and information provided by industry and
21 private individuals as it made recommendations to
22 the Department regarding the rule proposal.
23 In the fall of 1996 as the advisory
24 committee was meeting to develop proposed rules for
ITV
17
1 the Livestock Management Facilities Act, concerns
2 were raised to the general assembly regarding the
3 absence of regulations since the permanent rules
4 had not yet been developed. As a result the
5 Department developed and proposed to the Board an
6 emergency rule pertaining to portions of the Act,
7 namely lagoon registration, livestock facilities
8 sitings, waste lagoon design criteria, waste
9 management plans and certified livestock manager
10 training and certification. The Board adopted
11 these emergency rules on October 31, 1996. These
12 rules are currently in place until such time as the
13 Board adopts the permanent rules.
14 I want to briefly summarize the rules
15 which we have proposed to the Pollution Control
16 Board. Subpart A sets forth the applicability,
17 severability, definitions and
incorporations by
18 reference for the rule proposal. This subpart
19 follows concepts developed and included in the
20 emergency rules adopted by the Board under Docket
21 R97-14. All but six terms defined within the
22 section have been taken directly from the Livestock
23 Management Facilities Act. Definitions proposed in
24 the rules will further clarify concepts necessary
ITV
18
1 for the enforcement of the regulations. An
2 important issue relative to the timing of the
3 application of the setback needs clarification and
4 the Department respectfully requests that the Board
5 consider a further clarification of this important
6 matter.
7 Subpart B of the proposal is organized
8 into eight major sections and outlines the approach
9 required of owners and operators of new or modified
10 livestock waste lagoons for the registration,
11 design and the structure, closure and operation --
12 or excuse me, and ownership transfers of such
13 facilities. The proposal closely follows the
14 emergency rules adopted by the Board. This subpart
15 takes into consideration site specific
16 investigation which is to be performed by the owner
17 prior to registration and construction.
18 Design criteria is based upon recognized
19 design parameters established by either the
20 American Society of Agricultural Engineers or the
21 United States Department of Agriculture Natural
22 Resource Conservation Service. This subpart
23 establishes criteria for construction of lagoon
24 berms, monitoring wells, liners, lagoon closure and
ITV
19
1 ownership transfers.
2 Subpart C deals with waste management
3 plans. The application of livestock waste to the
4 land is one of the oldest forms of recycling and
5 livestock waste has been used for generations to
6 supply nutrients for crop growth and development.
7 When properly applied, livestock waste can be a
8 valuable resource. However, improper application
9 may have a negative impact on surface and
10 groundwater as well as detrimental effects to the
11 soil.
12 Subpart C outlines the factors to be
13 considered by a livestock producer who must prepare
14 a waste management plan in accordance with the
15 Act. This subpart outlines what information will
16 be necessary to complete a waste management plan,
17 establishes criteria for crop nutrient values,
18 optimum crop yields, nitrogen availability and
19 proper disposal methods for livestock waste.
20 Subpart D provides details for the
21 establishment of a certified livestock management
22 program intended to enhance the management skills
23 of the livestock industry in critical areas such as
24 environmental awareness, safety concerns, odor
ITV
20
1 control techniques and technology and the
2 development of manure management plans. This
3 subpart includes proposed language dealing with
4 applicability and administrative details. With the
5 Pollution Control Board's concurrence the Illinois
6 Department of Agriculture intends to adopt further
7 rules and procedures pursuant to authorities within
8 the Illinois Administrative Procedures Act.
9 Subpart E of the proposed rules deals with
10 penalties associated with violations of three areas
11 of the Act namely, lagoon registration and
12 certification, certified livestock manager status
13 and waste management plans. This subpart is
14 primarily devoted to cease and desist orders listed
15 as penalties within the Act. This subpart also
16 proposes that a waste management plan that is
17 prepared as a result of a warning letter from the
18 Department or compliance agreement shall be subject
19 to review and approval by the Department regardless
20 of the size of the facility. Also proposed is a
21 statement indicating the penalties will not be
22 imposed for excessive nitrogen application for
23 unplanned cropping changes due to the weather or
24 unforeseeable circumstances.
ITV
21
1 Subpart F deals with financial
2 responsibilities and relates to Section 17 of the
3 Act. The intent of this section is to ensure that
4 in the event of a closure of a lagoon associated
5 with a livestock management facility the cost of
6 that closure shall be borne by the owner of the
7 lagoon versus a unit of local government. Section
8 17 of the Act outlines surety instruments which may
9 be used to ensure financial responsibility. With
10 the concurrence of the Illinois Pollution Control
11 Board the Department of Agriculture intends to
12 adopt rules and procedures in a separate
rulemaking
13 process pursuant the Illinois Administrative
14 Procedures Act.
15 Subpart G deals with setback distances
16 which are intended to protect air quality and to
17 control odors which result from livestock
18 production but may be offensive to neighbors of
19 individual operations. It is very likely that any
20 livestock operation regardless of size will
21 generate some level of odor by the very nature of
22 the operation. Many factors contribute to the
23 level of odor resulting from livestock production.
24 The intent of establishing setback distances is to
ITV
22
1 provide for solution effects which will lessen
2 odors coming from a livestock operation before they
3 reach surrounding persons or homes. With the
4 concurrence of the Pollution Control Board the
5 Department of Agriculture intends to promulgate
6 rules and procedures necessary to perform its
7 duties and responsibilities under Subpart G in
8 accordance with the Illinois Administrative
9 Procedures Act.
10 In summary, clearly the issues which we
11 face are complex, have far-reaching impacts and are
12 not easy to resolve. As discussions have been held
13 at several locations around the State over the last
14 year and a half it seems that two main themes have
15 emerged regarding livestock production in
16 Illinois. First is one of providing protection for
17 the environment and the natural resources of the
18 State. This concern is not unique to Illinois and
19 other states have dealt with the same issue in a
20 variety of ways. The rules which we have proposed
21 will serve to reinforce the preventative nature of
22 the Livestock Management Facilities Act as intended
23 by the Illinois General Assembly. The proposed
24 rules take into account the most current design
ITV
23
1 standards and criteria, scientific information and
2 production practices to ensure that the natural
3 resources of our State are protected.
4 Another theme has developed which relates
5 to the social and economic changes occurring within
6 the livestock industry. Much has been said about
7 protecting the family farm and restricting the size
8 of megafarms as they are being considered in
9 Illinois. The rules which we are proposing to the
10 Illinois Pollution Control Board do not address the
11 social and economic issues but rather provide for
12 the protection of our natural resources. However,
13 there are many producers and industry experts who
14 would warn that the increased cost of regulations
15 may actually lead to an acceleration of small to
16 midsized livestock operations leaving the
17 industry. As a result, the Illinois Department of
18 Agriculture recognizes that the rules to be adopted
19 need to be fair in their approach, economically
20 reasonable in their implementation and based upon
21 sound, scientific information.
22 That would conclude the summary that we
23 have for the Board today and also we would like to
24 enter into evidence two items which were --
ITV
24
1 actually three items discussed at the Jacksonville
2 hearing. First of all would be a motion that the
3 Board would accept the Illinois Agronomy Handbook
4 and the Livestock Waste Facilities Handbook as
5 published by the Midwest Plan Service as evidence
6 into the hearing process; also a sheet that would
7 allow for two revisions of Section 506 in the
8 proposal that we had given to you earlier. So if I
9 could enter these into evidence for you, and that
10 would conclude our testimony.
11 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Boruff. Let
12 the record reflect that the motion which has been
13 filed by the Department of Agriculture incorporates
14 into the record the Illinois Agronomy Handbook and
15 Livestock Waste Facilities Handbook which was
16 previously submitted in the record of the emergency
17 livestock waste
rulemaking which the Board has
18 already adopted and therefore we will accept this
19 as a motion but not enter it as an exhibit in
20 today's proceeding.
21 The errata sheet No. 1 submitted by the
22 Department of Agriculture will be admitted as
23 Exhibit No. 12 into the record in today's
24 proceedings.
ITV
25
1 MR. FLEMAL: Mr.
Boruff, could you just briefly
2 explain what that is in errata sheet No. 1 so that
3 the people in attendance might have some idea of
4 the subject matter.
5 MR. BORUFF: I'm going to have to ask for one
6 copy back. I think I gave you all of them.
7 As you review what we had submitted
8 into -- as an exhibit there, in the first one would
9 be in addition to Section 506.303(r) of the
10 proposed rules, and in that section it pertains to
11 the application of livestock waste over grassed
12 waterways as long as there's no erosion or loss or
13 the -- what's applied in manure is not being -- is
14 lost in that area.
15 What we have added there is the following
16 which is underlined, "The distance from applied
17 livestock waste to a
nonpotable well, an abandoned
18 or plugged well, a drainage well or an injection
19 well is greater than 100 feet." What that would do
20 is then make this line up with the code currently
21 in place as it regards setback distances from those
22 types of wells and would make the rules consistent
23 with that.
24 The second section is an addition to
ITV
26
1 Section 506.303(v) and reads as follows: "A
2 provision that livestock waste may not be applied
3 during a rainfall or to a saturated soil and that
4 conservative waste loading rates will be used in
5 the case of a high water table or shallow earth
6 cover to fractured bedrock. Caution should be
7 exercised in applying livestock wastes,
8 particularly on porous soils, so as not to cause
9 nitrate or bacteria contamination of
10 groundwaters." That was added just to make sure
11 that in those cases where you might have high
12 groundwater, maybe flooding situations or saturated
13 soils, that we would try to make sure the animal
14 waste did not get into the groundwater as a result
15 of those conditions.
16 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Boruff, and
17 as I mentioned earlier, the motion to incorporate
18 the other documents into the record, they are now
19 at the Board's office if anyone needs to see those
20 records.
21 MS. MANNING: And they have already been
22 incorporated, have they not, into our proceeding?
23 We have incorporated all the exhibits from our
24 emergency rule into our regular
rulemaking.
ITV
27
1 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: No, we haven't done that.
2 MS. MANNING: We haven't done that?
3 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: That's what this is
4 doing --
5 MS. MANNING: Okay.
6 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: -- for at least these two
7 handbooks. Thank you, Department of Agriculture.
8 The Illinois Environmental Protection
9 Agency, Mr. Rich
Warrington, would you like to give
10 your summary. If you could please swear in
11 Mr. Warrington.
12 RICHARD C. WARRINGTON,
13 being first duly sworn, testified as
14 follows:
15 MR. WARRINGTON: Good morning. My name is Rich
16 Warrington. I'm Associate Counsel for Regulatory
17 Matters for the Bureau of Water for the Illinois
18 EPA. On behalf of our director, Mary
Gade and Jim
19 Park, Chief of the Bureau of Water, I'd like to
20 welcome you here this morning and thank you for
21 your interest in regulatory proceeding.
22 I'll be giving a summary of the testimony
23 given by Jim Park at our Jacksonville hearing. If
24 you'd like a copy of his full
prefiled testimony,
ITV
28
1 we have copies available at the side table.
2 The Illinois EPA supports the adoption of
3 R97-15. The addition of operator certification and
4 the mandate for a livestock waste management plan
5 for the largest of these facilities is a positive
6 step in establishing consistent and responsible
7 operation of livestock waste handling facilities.
8 We endorse and encourage the training and
9 educational programs set forth in these rules as a
10 meaningful approach in making the agricultural
11 community aware of the responsibilities and
12 beneficial aspects of sound livestock waste
13 management.
14 This program when fully developed promises
15 to allow for the communication and the evaluation
16 of innovative technology as it affects the
17 development of the operator's waste management
18 plan. The expansion of setback limits as mandated
19 under the Livestock Management Facilities Act is
20 also a necessary step in addressing the potential
21 detrimental aspects of large livestock facilities.
22 We would like to make three separate
23 recommendations that would improve the proposal as
24 filed by the Department of Agriculture. The first
ITV
29
1 is that soil boring requirements are satisfactory
2 for the vast majority of the sites in Illinois as
3 prescribed under 35 Illinois Administrative Code
4 506.202(b). However, the Illinois Department of
5 Agriculture needs adequate flexibility to require
6 additional borings in the case of disturbed or
7 mined land that may have altered hydrology and soil
8 conditions or routes to groundwater via abandoned
9 mine shafts. In these circumstances a single
10 boring for a large 4- to 6-acre site would be
11 insufficient.
12 Secondly, that based on experiences in
13 Illinois and other states, the Illinois EPA
14 recommends two further criteria be specified in the
15 design standards of this subpart, both of which are
16 addressed in the reference documents submitted by
17 the Illinois Department of Agriculture with their
18 original proposal. These are a prohibition on the
19 use of outlet piping through the lagoon
berm.
20 Section 4.6.2 of the American Society of
21 Agricultural Engineers Standards Document states,
22 "An overflow device with a minimum capacity of 1.5
23 times the peak daily inflow may be installed at the
24 lagoon surface level only if the overflow is to be
ITV
30
1 contained in another lagoon cell or other treatment
2 facility. Outlet devices should be installed in a
3 way that allows effluent to be taken at a level 150
4 to 450 millimeters or six to eight inches below the
5 surface."
6 This language seems to suggest that a
7 subsurface outlet may be approved. The Illinois
8 EPA is aware of a recent example in North Carolina
9 where a lagoon slope failure was related to and
10 possibly directly caused by an outlet pipe design
11 of this type. The National Resource Conservation
12 Service recently changed the North Carolina
13 guidance document so that if any pipes are to be
14 placed through the embankment, the location and
15 method of installation shall be improved by the
16 designer of the embankment. The installation shall
17 be certified by the inspector.
18 It should be noted that this guidance
19 document, although designated as a National
20 Resource Conservation document, was developed
21 specifically for and applies only to North Carolina
22 at the present time. The Natural Resource
23 Conservation document included in the proposal does
24 not contain this guideline. The Illinois EPA
ITV
31
1 recommends in addition to R97-15 that either
2 prohibits the use of the
berm outlet piping through
3 a berm outlet piping unless the piping discharges
4 to another lagoon or require the Illinois
5 Department of Agriculture's specific approval as
6 called for in the North Carolina example.
7 And we would like to introduce as exhibits
8 to our testimony a copy of that North Carolina
9 specific Soil Conservation Service document and we
10 also have a report from North Carolina on the
11 design and the failure of that lagoon.
12 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Warrington.
13 Let the record reflect that the North Carolina
14 Ocean View Farms Waste Treatment Lagoon Engineering
15 report has been marked as Exhibit No. 13. That
16 report is dated July 19th, 1995. Let the record
17 also reflect that Mr.
Warrington has submitted
18 Exhibit No. 14, Natural Resources Conservation
19 Service Conservation Practice Standard Interim
20 Waste Storage Ponds No. Code 425 which is hereby
21 admitted into the record.
22 Mr.
Warrington, do you have something
23 else?
24 MR. WARRINGTON: Yes, the third recommendation
ITV
32
1 is a requirement for an emergency spillway. The
2 Natural Resources Conservation document very
3 clearly specifies under what conditions this is to
4 be present. Lagoons having a maximum design liquid
5 level of three feet or more above natural ground
6 shall be provided with an emergency spillway or an
7 overflow pipe to prevent over topping. Since this
8 is not addressed in the American Society of
9 Agricultural Engineers' document also included with
10 the original proposal, a potential point of
11 confusion exists that could be corrected by adding
12 a specific provision to R97-15 for the design to
13 include an emergency spillway.
14 And in conclusion, the Illinois EPA acting
15 in its role for the Livestock Management Facility
16 Act advisory committee has evaluated and made
17 representations on a wide variety of issues
18 presented on the subject of livestock waste
19 management in the course of our deliberations.
20 Those on this committee, the Department of Public
21 Health, the Department of Natural Resources, and in
22 particular, the Department of Agriculture, are to
23 be commended for their efforts at drafting a
24 well-reasoned set of proposed rules for the
ITV
33
1 Illinois PCB consideration. R97-15 represents a
2 strong step forward in the effective management and
3 prevention of pollution from large livestock
4 facilities in Illinois. We encourage the Illinois
5 PCB to adopt R97-15 and include our above-noted
6 additions. Thank you.
7 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Warrington.
8 Do you want to give us that -- do you want that to
9 be submitted into the record?
10 MR. WARRINGTON: Which?
11 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Did he give you something
12 else?
13 MR. WARRINGTON: No, that was the same you had.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: That was it, okay. Thank
15 you, Mr.
Warrington. Now we will proceed with the
16 summary from the Department of Public Health,
17 Mr. Clint
Mudgett. Would you please swear in
18 Mr. Mudgett.
19 CLINTON C. MUDGETT,
20 being first duly sworn, testified as
21 follows:
22 MR. MUDGETT: My name is Clint
Mudgett. I'm
23 with the Department of Public Health and I'd like
24 to report that the Department of Public Health
ITV
34
1 endorses the rules as proposed. We think they're
2 reasonable and yet adequate to the protection of
3 the environment and public health. We particularly
4 endorse the requirement of bacterial logical
5 monitoring and monitoring wells. We think that's
6 an important consideration.
7 We appreciate the opportunity to
8 participate on the advisory committee. We think it
9 was open, particularly commend the Department of
10 Agriculture for their ability and willingness to
11 accept our representation. I've provided copies of
12 my written testimony on the table over here and I
13 encourage you to take a look at them. Thank you.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Mudgett.
15 Then with the final Agency, the Department of
16 Natural Resources, Mr. John Marlin. If you would
17 please swear in Mr. Marlin.
18 JOHN MARLIN,
19 being first duly sworn, testified as
20 follows:
21 MR. MARLIN: Good morning. I am John Marlin
22 with the Department of Natural Resources. I
23 represent our Director Brent Manning on the
24 livestock management facilities advisory
ITV
35
1 committee. DNR generally supports the livestock
2 regulation proposal before us today. We realize
3 its scope is somewhat limited by the constraints of
4 the Livestock Management Facilities Act. We
5 propose a modification in the definition of
6 populated area to further clarify what a populated
7 area is. We believe that the definition should be
8 modified to make sure that lands managed for
9 conservation or recreation purposes are considered
10 populated areas as long as they meet the 50 person
11 per week requirement. Additionally, we believe
12 that the boundary line of such properties should be
13 used when measuring the appropriate setback
14 distances since we can think of no other measuring
15 point that won't lead to massive confusion.
16 We appreciate the efforts of all the
17 Agencies and parties involved in this proceeding,
18 and I would like to introduce two exhibits which
19 were requested at the last hearing. The first one
20 is an Analysis of the Economic Impact Programs
21 Administered by the Illinois Department of
22 Conservation dated March 1990. The second is
23 Estimated State and Federal Lands For Recreation
24 State by State Listings, a May 1990 report.
ITV
36
1 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Let the record reflect that
2 the Estimated State and Federal Lands For
3 Recreation State by State Listing has been marked
4 as Exhibit No. 15 and entered into the record. And
5 let the record reflect that the Analysis of
6 Economic Impact of Programs Administered by the
7 Illinois Department of Conservation has been marked
8 as Exhibit No. 16 and entered into the record.
9 Thank you, Mr. Marlin.
10 At this time what I'd like to do is
11 unfortunately we have to have a little bit of
12 changing here because we have several witnesses
13 represented by the law firm of Ross and
Hardies who
14 are now going to testify who have
prefiled
15 testimony, and what I'd like to have is have them
16 come to the front who will testify in the following
17 order: Ron
Warfield, Scott Jeckel, Jamie Wilrett,
18 Ellen
Hankes, Charles Nelson, Chris
Schroeder and
19 Randall Westgren. Thank you.
20 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Would the court reporter
21 please swear in all the witnesses.
22 (WHEREUPON all those were duly sworn.)
23 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr.
Harrington.
24 MR. HARRINGTON: I'll make a brief opening
ITV
37
1 statement. If anyone has trouble hearing me or
2 hearing any of the witnesses, please put up your
3 hand and we'll try to make sure that everyone is
4 able to hear.
5 We're pleased today to be present and be
6 able to present testimony on behalf of the Illinois
7 Pork Producers Association, Illinois Beef
8 Association and the Illinois Farm Bureau, in
9 substantial part in support of the regulations as
10 proposed and also in part to give background to
11 these regulations in terms of the impact upon the
12 agricultural community and the current status of
13 that community in Illinois. Our first witness is
14 Mr. Ron
Warfield.
15 MR. WARFIELD: Members of the Pollution Control
16 Board, thank you for the opportunity to address
17 this Board today. I'm Ron
Warfield, President of
18 Illinois Farm Bureau. Illinois Farm Bureau is a
19 general farm organization consisting of
20 approximately 95,000 voting member families that is
21 involved in receiving income from farm operations.
22 These voting members are of all sizes and types of
23 agriculture and consequently have a direct interest
24 in the livestock industry in Illinois. I
ITV
38
1 personally operate a grain and livestock farm in
2 Ford County near
Gibson City, Illinois, consisting
3 of 1850 acres. We also have had a confinement beef
4 operation with a capacity of 600 head.
5 To begin with, let me commend you, Madam
6 Chairman and Members of the Board, for the efforts
7 you put forth last year to implement the emergency
8 rules for the Livestock Management Facilities Act.
9 Those rules and the permanent rules now being
10 promulgated by you are the logical next step to
11 protecting Illinois natural resources and the
12 State's livestock industry. The Livestock
13 Management Facilities Act was a proactive approach
14 by the livestock industry, the Illinois Farm Bureau
15 and other commodity groups. Those combined efforts
16 and passage of the Act augment EPA's current title
17 35 regulations giving the Department of Agriculture
18 and Environmental Protection Agency new powers to
19 protect Illinois groundwater resources, one of the
20 major concerns outlined by the governor's livestock
21 industry task force.
22 The Illinois Farm Bureau believes that the
23 legislature acted responsibly to ensure that all
24 livestock facilities, both large and small, will be
ITV
39
1 operated in a responsible and accountable manner in
2 Illinois. As the Pollution Control Board sets
3 about the task of promulgating those permanent
4 rules which are the subject of these hearings, I
5 urge you to keep in mind the following points:
6 First, most livestock producers and farmers
7 continue to demonstrate that we are sound stewards
8 of the land and of our State's natural resources.
9 Farmers, our families and you breathe the same air,
10 drink the same water, eat the same food and share
11 the need for us to be both productive enough to
12 produce quality food economically and profitable
13 enough to stay in business. It is imperative that
14 we as farmers show responsibility to our community
15 and neighbors by running a safe and environmentally
16 responsible operation.
17 Look at the track record Illinois farmers
18 have built over the last 50 years. We spent
19 millions of dollars to build terraces and
20 waterways, purchase conservation tillage equipment
21 and educate ourselves on new and innovative farming
22 techniques. We intend to pass our farms on to our
23 sons and/or our daughters as have taken place for
24 generations in better conditions than when we
ITV
40
1 started farming.
2 Second, farming is also our livelihood and
3 we must maintain our right to be able to operate
4 our farms economically and expand our operations as
5 necessary all in a responsible manner. Regulations
6 must be reasonable and practical. Consumers demand
7 food products meeting somewhat rigid
8 specifications. Farmers are able to meet those
9 specifications but they can only do so within an
10 operating structure that will turn out the desired
11 final product efficiently. We understand that some
12 people feel the Act does not go far enough. On the
13 other hand, it must be remembered that for
14 producers both large and small it adds additional
15 costs and regulations that affect the industry's
16 ability to survive.
17 Third, the livestock industry is important
18 to Illinois and the regulations promulgated must
19 take into account that industry's economic
20 importance today and factors that will enable it to
21 be viable and thriving in the future. Livestock
22 accounts for about $2.1 billion or 25 percent of
23 the total annual farm cash receipts in Illinois.
24 Hogs account for more than half of that total, beef
ITV
41
1 about a third and dairy about one-sixth. The most
2 significant future growth in the Illinois livestock
3 industry will come from the increase in exports and
4 Illinois must be prepared for that growth and
5 participate in it.
6 According to Phil Sing (phonetic),
7 president of the US Meat Export Federation, the US
8 is the second largest meat producer in the world
9 and has focused most of its current production for
10 the US domestic market, a mature market. Growth
11 will now depend upon the export market. Mr. Sing
12 stated the United States has increased its exports
13 of beef, pork, lamb and veal more than 360 percent
14 since 1981.
15 That increase was from $74 million then to
16 3.41 million in 1994. He's gone on to say that
17 this country's balance of trade in beef has, in
18 fact, increased from a negative $863 million in
19 1981 to a positive $800 million in 1994. Similar
20 comparisons can be made for pork as well. The fact
21 is that Illinois livestock farmers produce in a
22 very competitive price sensitive consumer market
23 domestically and internationally. Our need to
24 compete in that marketplace cannot be ignored.
ITV
42
1 Fourth, the Board must promulgate rules
2 under sound scientific principles considering the
3 technology and research available to the industry,
4 not sheer emotion. The Act requires that the
5 regulations imposed be technically feasible.
6 Imposing rules or standards which are not
7 technically feasible puts livestock farmers out of
8 business and eliminates a sizable source of
9 economic activity for the Illinois economy.
10 For instance, in modern operations such as
11 the ones being regulated by the Livestock
12 Management Facilities Act, an Illinois EPA Title 35
13 regulations, livestock manure is collected and
14 applied as organic fertilizer enhancing crop
15 production. It is this organic fertilizer that
16 your actions last fall set standards for if it is
17 to be stored in a lagoon. The one item that is
18 often confused by the public is the volume of waste
19 being stored and used by farmers. Title 35 of
20 EPA's current regulations shows that a lactating
21 sow produces four gallons of waste per day. That
22 is a far cry from the volume of waste everyone has
23 been lead to believe is produced by hog confinement
24 units. Facts based on sound research must drive
ITV
43
1 regulatory decisions.
2 Fifth, it is important for our livestock
3 industry to have stable regulations from which
4 future economic decisions can be made by farmers.
5 The Act also requires that regulations and
6 standards be economically reasonable. If
7 overzealous regulation attempts to hold down growth
8 and thus prevent economies of scale, they will
9 ensure that small producers stay small. It will be
10 these small producers who will not be able to
11 expand their businesses and generate the necessary
12 returns and profits for the future. If they cannot
13 expand they will not be able to reach the scale
14 which makes expensive environmental equipment
15 cost-effective. Such an antigrowth strategy will
16 only fuel the growth of the
megaproducer who can
17 afford the high initial cost of investment and the
18 higher cost of production associated with many
19 rigid regulations. That will be a victory for the
20 very megasized operations the State has set out to
21 regulate through the Livestock Management
22 Facilities Act.
23 Beginning producers and small producers
24 can produce pork, beef, milk or other farm products
ITV
44
1 at a cost per unit that can compete with the
2 megaproducers as long as regulations are
3 economically reasonable. Otherwise only the
4 megafarms can survive. Clearly the task before the
5 Pollution Control Board is mammoth. It took almost
6 seven years to work out the details for EPA's Title
7 35 regulations when they were implemented in 1991
8 and they have served the State and the livestock
9 industry very well to date. Those rules and EPA's
10 enforcement of them enabled Illinois to maintain a
11 reasonably competitive livestock industry. That is
12 why we support the implementation of these
13 regulations as soon as possible.
14 As you review what course of action you
15 intend to take in the future, any action going
16 beyond the technologically feasible and
17 economically reasonable standards that the Act
18 requires would be an injustice to the livestock
19 industry and the people of Illinois, including the
20 individual farmer and the consumer who will pay
21 those additional costs associated with any new
22 regulations. Illinois livestock producers request
23 only the chance to produce in a competitive
24 value-added product in an environmentally
ITV
45
1 responsible manner which is what the legislation
2 was intended to accomplish. Thank you for your
3 time to testify and I'll be happy to answer any
4 questions in the time allowed.
5 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Warfield.
6 Are there any questions of Mr.
Warfield at this
7 time? Hearing no questions then, Mr.
Harrington,
8 we'll go on to your second witness.
9 MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you. Mr.
Warfield does
10 have to leave now so if there are questions we need
11 to make sure that they're answered. Hearing none,
12 thank you.
13 SCOTT JECKEL,
14 being previously duly sworn, testified as
15 follows:
16 MR. JECKEL: Hello, my name is Scott
Jeckel.
17 I'm a third generation pork producer from
Delavan
18 in Tazewell County. I'm a graduate of the
19 University of Illinois with a degree in
ag
20 economics. I am vice president and manager of
21 Jeckel Pork Farm, Inc. My father Russell
Jeckel
22 and his father John
Jeckel started in 1950 with
23 sixteen sows raising feeder pigs for sale.
24 Currently we are an 1800 sow
farrow to finish
ITV
46
1 operation. Our primary source of income comes from
2 pork production although we farm 960 acres of
3 ground. We employ ten full-time employees and six
4 to eight part-time.
5 Today I'd like to give you some of our
6 insight -- some insight into our perspective on the
7 management of livestock manure. I think you need
8 to start by not referring to the manure as
9 livestock waste. We look at the manure from our
10 facilities as a valuable commodity. All of our
11 manure is returned to the land that we farm or sold
12 to neighbors and applied on their ground. We have
13 taken ground that 40 years ago many people told my
14 father couldn't produce a good briar patch and
15 turned it into as productive a farm as there is in
16 Tazewell County.
17 We raise consistently high yielding corn
18 and soybeans on our farm only purchasing
19 supplemental nitrogen. All of our phosphorus and
20 potassium comes from the manure produced on our
21 farm. We have started selling some of the manure
22 the last four years to neighbors for two reasons.
23 We felt selling the manure would spread our land
24 base and give us more acres to apply on.
ITV
47
1 Furthermore we feel we can improve our
2 relationships with our neighbors by improving their
3 profitability and ours.
4 Management is the key to our program. We
5 apply the manure to fields with the lowest
6 phosphorus and potassium levels. The fields we
7 apply to are determined by using soil tests every
8 three years. The fertilizer value of the manure
9 varies greatly depending on what stage in the
10 production process the manure comes from. Manure
11 from the
farrowing and nursery stages has very low
12 fertilizer value due to the amount of water used to
13 wash and maintain these areas.
14 Manure from the grow finish buildings has
15 a great deal of value as fertilizer. We even find
16 that variables like the feeders and
waterers have a
17 tremendous effect on the fertilizer value of the
18 manure. There is a wide variation from farm to
19 farm and building to building depending on the
20 management processes. As we try to set forth
21 guidelines for handling these products, we need to
22 realize that there is no one-size-fits-all type of
23 equation for the management of the manure. Animal
24 species, ration digestibility, protein and fiber
ITV
48
1 content, even animal productivity, can also vary
2 the fertilizer value of manure. We need to set
3 forth guidelines that allow flexibility for the
4 variations we've just talked about.
5
Landownership by the producer should not
6 be a limiting factor. As I stated earlier, working
7 with neighboring producers can be profitable for
8 both the livestock producer and his grain producing
9 neighbors. We are trying to cover our costs to
10 apply the manure while supplying a form of organic
11 fertilizer for less cost than commercial
12 fertilizer. Records from our neighbors tell us
13 that our manure has boosted yields on their grounds
14 higher than they were when using even higher levels
15 of commercial fertilizer than we are currently
16 applying to their ground.
17 We must all face the fact that manure
18 applied improperly can have more odor than manure
19 applied properly. We inject all of our manure with
20 a vacuum tank when conditions allow. This is
21 probably the best way to utilize all of the value
22 of the manure. On the other hand, because some of
23 our facilities were designed 30 years ago we must
24 apply some of our manure during the winter when the
ITV
49
1 ground is frozen. The only way to apply during
2 these times is to broadcast on top of the ground.
3 We try to take into consideration conditions such
4 as wind strength, direction, short- and long-term
5 forecasts to help us decide where and when to
6 spread. By using common sense we have been able to
7 keep odor to a minimum while placing the manure
8 where it is needed.
9 Until technology to reduce odor is
10 available and affordable, we must use common sense
11 and the technology currently available to do the
12 best job possible. We need to support the training
13 of producers through the certified facilities
14 manager program rather than increasing the
15 penalties to producers for not following guidelines
16 that may or may -- that they may or may not know
17 about.
18 In conclusion, we as producers have a
19 valuable resource in livestock manure. We can and
20 must use it in an environmentally correct manner.
21 If we use the manure properly we can increase our
22 own profitability along with the profitability of
23 our grain producing neighbors. This can lead to
24 better relationships within our communities and
ITV
50
1 lead to better understanding of the goals and
2 aspirations of all of us involved in agriculture.
3 The economic impact of agriculture in the State of
4 Illinois is overwhelming and we must be careful not
5 to impede its growth. Thank you for allowing me to
6 share some of my views with you today.
7 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Jeckel. Do
8 we have any questions for Mr. Scott
Jeckel at this
9 time? No? Dr.
Flemal.
10 MR. FLEMAL: Thank you very much for that
11 testimony, Mr.
Jeckel. A couple of questions, you
12 note that your operation is an 1800 sow
farrow to
13 finish operation.
14 MR. JECKEL: Yes, sir.
15 MR. FLEMAL: Have you converted that to animal
16 units or would you know in animal units roughly
17 what that works out to?
18 MR. JECKEL: I've seen some of the sheets that
19 would convert that but off the top of my head I
20 don't recall, to be honest with you.
21 MR. FLEMAL: It would be a couple of thousand
22 though.
23 MR. JECKEL: I'd like to see that in front of
24 me. I've seen those sheets that can equate that
ITV
51
1 but I can't give you that.
2 MR. FLEMAL: Actually where I'm going is have
3 you had a look at the regulations to see if these
4 regulations were in place, what, if anything, would
5 be additionally required in your own personal
6 operation?
7 MR. JECKEL: Yes, I have.
8 MR. FLEMAL: Could you help us a bit by noting
9 what those things might be.
10 MR. JECKEL: I don't know that I've -- again,
11 it's been a little while since I've looked over
12 these. I was at a local meeting of the pork
13 producers last Thursday discussing the manure
14 management plan. In specific one of the problems
15 we do have with that is the quarter mile setback to
16 a few individual homes, not necessarily our farm,
17 but of neighboring farms. That's a bit of a
18 problem. This individual is trying to stay within
19 the rules set forth by the farm -- the FSA which
20 helps us -- or the soil conservation service which
21 helps us reduce runoff. He would like this applied
22 on top so that he does not have to till this
23 ground. He would like to no till beans to this
24 following manure application. Therefore he'd like
ITV
52
1 this put on in the manure. We're having some
2 trouble with -- we're not having trouble with the
3 local neighbors but if followed by the rule, it
4 would be difficult to put this on and allow him to
5 remain in the program for the Farm Service Agency.
6 MR. FLEMAL: Your feeling on the whole,
7 however, is that these are regulations that you can
8 live with, they work for you?
9 MR. JECKEL: I think there are a few
10 specifics. I would like to sit back and run
11 through them and say hey, here's what I see as a
12 possible problem. Before I say that, I don't think
13 there's -- I don't think you've hit anything
14 outlandish. I think there are a few specific
15 things that may push some individual producers.
16 I'll just tell you, we sit within a
17 quarter mile of a town of 2,000. Our first goal
18 always is public relations. If you don't use
19 common sense, you're going to be in trouble. For
20 some reason we've done this for -- my dad's been
21 raising hogs for 47 years. To my knowledge we've
22 had a few people that say, gee, that's not the most
23 attractive smell in the world, but we've -- through
24 common sense we've been able to get through. We
ITV
53
1 try to do things for our neighbors that allow them
2 to understand what we're doing. I think by being
3 good neighbors and using common sense you can do
4 some of these same things.
5 MR. FLEMAL: Do you use a lagoon as your
6 primary storage or storage at all?
7 MR. JECKEL: We do have two lagoons on
8 premises, one on the farm near town which was built
9 four years ago, is strictly emergency. We do not
10 use it as a regular basis but there are those
11 winters when you cannot get on the grounds due to
12 the weather conditions. We will use it in
13 emergency then. Another farm has one. Primarily
14 we try to have deep pitted buildings where the
15 manure is stored beneath the pigs and then
16 transferred to the land where it's applied.
17 MR. FLEMAL: I notice also that you do inject a
18 fair portion of your field application.
19 MR. JECKEL: Yes.
20 MR. FLEMAL: At some time in the past it had
21 been suggested that the Board look at as part of
22 its Title 35 regulations a requirement that would
23 require injection at least in certain
24 circumstances. Somewhat experienced with
ITV
54
1 injection, is that the sort of thing that is
2 suitable for regulatory requirement?
3 MR. JECKEL: It is for nine months of the year
4 or the months of the year when it is fit to inject
5 when it's not frozen. There are those times in the
6 year when you really have no choice. Again, as I
7 say, some of our facilities were designed 30 years
8 ago with what technology was available then. Those
9 pits do not have the capacity to go a year or six
10 months. Some of that has to be spread on top of
11 the ground during the months when it's frozen. At
12 that point in time you cannot inject.
13 There's fairly good technology out there
14 for the rest of the year so long as it's dry enough
15 that you can inject it with very minimal odor. I
16 inject within 50 feet of some of these homes and I
17 have not had a problem doing that, but again,
18 that's only available for those periods of time
19 during the year when it's not frozen and it's dry
20 enough.
21 MS. MANNING: In light of that, I appreciate
22 your comments and your testimony as well,
23 Mr. Jeckel. The statement that you made until we
24 have technology to reduce odor which is available
ITV
55
1 and affordable we must use common sense, and I
2 think you said and the technology currently
3 available to do the best job possible. What
4 specifically do you consider that current
5 technology to be? Is it the injection that you're
6 talking about or is there something else as well?
7 MR. JECKEL: If treated improperly waste
8 smells, okay, or livestock manure smells. If I go
9 spread it in your backyard you're going to have a
10 problem with that. To my knowledge there's nothing
11 that's easily affordable or found in the open
12 marketplace to reduce odor or to turn it into what
13 the swimming pool out here in the courtyard of this
14 hotel smells like. We'd like to have that. I
15 don't think it's available. If that comes
16 available and it's affordable, hey, we should try
17 to do that.
18 I don't -- the injection is a technology
19 that's available. It is -- it's certainly
20 worthwhile. It's improving all the time. There
21 are newer injection systems coming out every year
22 that are coming closer to allowing you to stay in
23 the government program to reduce runoff from these
24 fields, runoff of dirt. These sorts of things are
ITV
56
1 improving but they've not reached a stage where
2 everyone can use them on a regular basis and have
3 them work like we'd like to.
4 MS. MANNING: So when you say we must use the
5 current technology available to do the best job
6 possible, you're really talking about injection on
7 your operation.
8 MR. JECKEL: On our operation, that's correct.
9 To my knowledge now, maybe there's someone else
10 here. I do not know of any technology that you can
11 mix a liquid potion into your manure pits and the
12 smell disappears. I don't think that's available.
13 MS. MANNING: I was just wondering what other
14 technology beyond injection you might have used.
15 MR. JECKEL: Common sense. If it's blowing out
16 of the south and you are the south side of town,
17 you don't spread it. If you're on the north side
18 of town and it's coming out of the south, that's
19 the perfect time to do it. That's technology in a
20 sense.
21 MS. MANNING: Management techniques too in
22 terms of the operation.
23 MR. JECKEL: Management techniques are critical
24 and common sense. Don't do things to -- if your
ITV
57
1 local town has a festival, don't do it the week
2 before. I mean, those sorts of things are
3 important.
4 MS. MANNING: Thank you. Mr.
Harrington.
5 MR. HARRINGTON: I'd like to ask one clarifying
6 question. With the no till farming techniques that
7 are being developed today, is it always possible to
8 use the injection?
9 MR. JECKEL: No, I don't think that's a fair
10 statement. There are some that are coming awful
11 close but I don't think that's the case. It's next
12 to impossible to remain in the government program
13 and inject livestock manure on ground at this
14 time.
15 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Jeckel. Are
16 there any further questions for Mr.
Jeckel? Okay.
17 Seeing none then, Mr.
Harrington, would you call
18 your next witness.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you. Next witness,
20 Jamie
Wilrett.
21 JAMIE WILRETT,
22 being previously duly sworn, testified as
23 follows:
24 MR. WILRETT: Thank you for the opportunity to
ITV
58
1 provide this testimony today. My name is Jamie
2 Wilrett. I'm a beef producer from Malta, Illinois,
3 member of Governor Edgar's livestock industry task
4 force and vice chairman of the Illinois Beef
5 Association
Checkoff Division. My family operates
6 a farming and cattle feeding operation that has
7 been in our family at its present location since my
8 ancestors located in Malta Township in 1852. On my
9 office wall I have receipts dating back 105 years
10 for cattle sold by my father, grandfather, great-
11 grandfather and my great
greatgrandfather.
12 Currently our operation is a partnership between
13 me, my father and my father's cousin.
14 At one time five separate
Wilrett families
15 in one generation were making a living in
16 agriculture. Today only two in the current
17 generation make a living and support families
18 through raising cattle and crops in northeastern
19 Illinois. We have been through the best and the
20 worst of times. We currently operate an 1850-acre
21 farm and have an 1800-head feedlot that raises beef
22 cattle for slaughter. Our feedlot is a confined
23 feeding operation that houses animals on slatted
24 floor buildings with concrete manure storage pits
ITV
59
1 underneath. We utilize the manure as a source of
2 fertilizer and have applied this to our cropland on
3 a rotational basis since we began confined feeding
4 in 1966. We have injected manure into our soil
5 since technology was developed to do this in the
6 early 1970s and have never had a complaint filed
7 against us.
8 I graduated in 1982 from the University of
9 Illinois with a degree in agricultural economics
10 and returned home to work on our farming
11 operation. I became a partner in 1986. Over the
12 years in order to provide enough income for my
13 parents and later my family, our business had to
14 expand our income producing capacity. This
15 expansion required new facility construction.
16 The cattle feeding industry has gone
17 through a period of significant consolidation over
18 the past 30 years. Gone are the days when most
19 farms had livestock of some kind on them as
20 evidenced by the vacant feedlots and abandoned
21 barns throughout rural Illinois. Economies of
22 scale, efficiencies provided by different climates,
23 adoption of new technology all lead the cattle
24 feeding industry out of the corn belt and into the
ITV
60
1 high plains.
2 Today the largest 390 feedlots market 73
3 percent of all fed cattle sold and they have an
4 average capacity of 24,000 head. None of these
5 yards are located east of the Mississippi. Of over
6 26 million head of fed cattle marketed in the US in
7 1995, 460,000 head were marketed in Illinois by
8 5800 cattle feeding operations. In the nine years
9 from 1986 to 1995, cattle feeding operations in
10 Illinois have declined 37 percent. This is a tough
11 business that operates on very thin margins and
12 requires prudent management to survive.
13 Competition is stiff. I compete with the large
14 western feedlots for the same inputs, feeder cattle
15 and feed stuffs on a national basis and sell my
16 finished product to the same packers as the largest
17 390 operations.
18 I became active in the beef industry
19 association through your county affiliate in 1982.
20 I have kept up that involvement and have been
21 active in the Illinois Beef Association since
22 1989. I have served on a national level as well
23 since 1992. Through my involvement in the IBA I
24 was nominated for consideration and was later
ITV
61
1 appointed by Governor Edgar to the livestock
2 industry task force in May of 1995 to study the
3 livestock industry, its impact on the State of
4 Illinois and to make recommendations to the
5 administration regarding the industry.
6 The task force was comprised of 19 people
7 associated with the livestock industry in
8 Illinois. We had producers, packers, advisors,
9 farm managers and citizens concerned of livestock
10 expansion. We divided into working groups to study
11 different areas of concern. I selected the social
12 and environmental subcommittee to work on. Our
13 mission was to look at future expansion in the
14 livestock sector and the concerns and challenges
15 faced in satisfying both the public and the
16 livestock industry. The committee invited
17 representatives from concerned citizens and the
18 industry to involve as much input as possible from
19 everyone involved with this issue.
20 We met at a very aggressive pace in early
21 1996. The subcommittee tried to define the issues
22 and then bring in as much background information
23 and resources as we could. The Illinois Department
24 of Agriculture assisted us in providing experts
ITV
62
1 from the Illinois EPA, University of Illinois
2 Cooperative Extension Engineers and other resources
3 as needed. We looked at what other states had done
4 with regard to this issue. It became evident early
5 on that there were two very distinct camps that
6 differed in their views of the issues and the
7 solutions. At every juncture the subcommittee
8 tried to come to a consensus. After many meetings
9 a document was crafted that was the basis for a
10 report given to the whole task force. The report
11 was passed by the task force and was used in
12 drafting -- in the drafting of legislation of what
13 is now the Livestock Management Facilities Act.
14 As a member of the social and
15 environmental subcommittee of the task force, I
16 assisted in the development of the Livestock
17 Management Facilities Act, the basis of which is
18 our report to the Governor. Contained in the
19 report and in the Act as passed by the general
20 assembly and signed into law by the Governor is
21 this statement of policy, "Therefore it is the
22 policy of the State of Illinois to maintain an
23 economically viable livestock industry in the State
24 of Illinois while protecting the environment for
ITV
63
1 the benefit of both the livestock producer and
2 persons who live in the vicinity of a livestock
3 production facility."
4 It is critical that the State of Illinois
5 maintains a balance between the livestock community
6 and the environment. I believe that the Livestock
7 Management Facilities Act has accomplished these
8 objectives. The Act was established -- the Act has
9 established important proactive steps to ensure
10 that any new facilities will be built to stringent
11 environmental standards and that existing
12 facilities will be managed by trained personnel in
13 compliance with environmentally sound management
14 plans. At the same time it allows family farmers
15 like myself to expand our operations so that we can
16 compete more effectively in the livestock market.
17 The rules proposed to implement the Act
18 impose many significant requirements that livestock
19 producers must comply with. The cost of compliance
20 will be significant as producers adapt to
21 technological and economic changes in agriculture.
22 While I support the Act I remain highly concerned
23 that the cost of compliance with the Act and the
24 rules will become a burden too large for family
ITV
64
1 farmers like me. One of the foremost concerns
2 shared by all members of the task force is that
3 excessive regulatory costs will create a business
4 climate where only well-funded corporate entities
5 would have the financial, legal and human resources
6 to respond to both market opportunities and
7 regulatory mandates.
8 It is for this reason that I encourage you
9 to scrutinize the proposed rules carefully and
10 adopt what makes sense and is realistically
11 feasible for family producers who must remain
12 competitive in the marketplace. Our livestock
13 management laws and rules must provide the same
14 opportunity to every family farm to bring family
15 members into their business as my parents were able
16 to do and I hope to do. Let's be sure it remains
17 financially feasible to do so.
18 As I mentioned earlier, agriculture is a
19 very competitive business. We are commodity
20 producers whose prices are set in the open
21 marketplace. We cannot pass on higher costs for
22 environmental regulations in the products that we
23 sell. We must manage our risks and take what the
24 market gives us. To remain profitable we must
ITV
65
1 manage our costs of production aggressively and
2 integrate new technologies that lower our costs and
3 increase our profits. However, you can rest
4 assured that I am not interested in exchanging
5 quick profit for environmental quality. My family
6 has lived on our farm for 144 years. I live on the
7 same farm where we raise our cattle and I live in
8 the same house where my grandparents once lived. I
9 have our wells tested and our drinking water
10 continues to come from the same well. No one is
11 more concerned about the environmental integrity of
12 our facility than I am.
13 I see a bright future for livestock
14 producers. As the world population grows and
15 economies strengthen in Asia, Mexico and other
16 regions of the world, the demand for beef increases
17 daily. US choice beef is the standard for quality
18 beef. I have planned my business to adapt new
19 technologies like ultrasound carcass evaluation to
20 enable me to produce the superior product in great
21 demand today. I plan to stay in this business for
22 the long haul for my children to have the
23 opportunity to be a part of the business if they
24 desire to do so.
ITV
66
1 Through the Livestock Management
2 Facilities Act we have established adequate
3 regulation of the industry. The rules that are
4 adopted should support the Act and its legislative
5 intent. The Illinois Beef Association is the
6 spokesperson for all segments of the Illinois Beef
7 Cattle Industry including cattle breeders,
8 producers and feeders. The IBA represents 27,000
9 beef producers through 60 county,
multicounty and
10 breed affiliate organizations and is an affiliate
11 of the National Cattleman's Beef Association.
12 Thank you for the opportunity to provide this
13 testimony today.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you.
15 MR. HARRINGTON: I have a couple of additional
16 questions if I could ask the witness at this time.
17 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Certainly, Mr.
Harrington.
18 MR. HARRINGTON: Mr.
Wilrett, are you familiar
19 with any situation where the Department of Natural
20 Resources has acquired land in farming areas?
21 MR. WILRETT: Yes, I am.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: Could you describe one such
23 situation.
24 MR. WILRETT: The one situation that I am very
ITV
67
1 familiar with is an operation that we have been
2 running since 1979 in Jo
Daviess County as a farm
3 and cattle feeding facility that we owned at one
4 time, since then ran for an investor and leased the
5 feed yard ourselves and currently the DNR purchased
6 that property in November of 1990 -- last November
7 1996.
8 MR. HARRINGTON: Will you continue to operate
9 at that site?
10 MR. WILRETT: We have a one-year lease. I have
11 an oral commitment for one year on that facility is
12 what I have at this point.
13 MR. HARRINGTON: Do you have any adjoining
14 property that you do own?
15 MR. WILRETT: Yes, I do. I own property
16 adjacent to that.
17 MR. HARRINGTON: Would you expect that property
18 to be the subject of further limitations if the
19 Department of Agriculture develops the land they
20 purchased as a park or nature preserve?
21 MR. WILRETT: Yes, I would suspect that and
22 depending on the rules that are promulgated here
23 through the Pollution Control Board as to how I
24 would be able to operate that property in the
ITV
68
1 future.
2 MR. HARRINGTON: How far is the furthest border
3 of that property from the land purchased by the
4 Department of Natural Resources?
5 MR. WILRETT: I'm adjacent to it. It sits
6 right beside it so just over the fence.
7 MR. HARRINGTON: Approximately how many acres
8 do you own there?
9 MR. WILRETT: I've got about 90 acres on that
10 property.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: Do you have any present plans
12 to develop it for animal feeding?
13 MR. WILRETT: Presently I do not.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you. I have no further
15 questions.
16 MS. MANNING: Do you have any livestock waste
17 lagoons on that facility?
18 MR. JECKEL: No, I do not.
19 MS. MANNING: Do you have any livestock lagoons
20 at all on your facilities?
21 MR. WILRETT: No, we don't use those. We are
22 strictly concrete storage pits underneath.
23 MR. FLEMAL: I would assume that you have no
24 plans as well in the future to use lagoons.
ITV
69
1 MR. WILRETT: No, I do not.
2 MR. FLEMAL: Given your 1800-head feedlot, I
3 assume then that the way these rules would impact
4 you were they to be put in place is require you to
5 do the livestock, the management plan and have that
6 on file in your facility -- at your facility and
7 also require certification of somebody in the
8 family, I presume, perhaps yourself, as an
9 operator.
10 MR. WILRETT: Correct.
11 MR. FLEMAL: Is that your understanding of how
12 these --
13 MR. WILRETT: Yes, that's my understanding.
14 MR. FLEMAL: -- rules would affect you? Have
15 you looked over what's required or is proposed to
16 be required as part of the management plan to see
17 whether it includes items that are accomplishable
18 by you or --
19 MR. WILRETT: Yes, I have. I looked at the
20 emergency rules that you promulgated last year,
21 took a close look at those.
22 MR. FLEMAL: So fishing for your reaction, is
23 it sufficiency or adequacy or inadequacy that you
24 see in that list of requirements?
ITV
70
1 MR. WILRETT: My perception on these and the
2 adequacy is similar to what you heard from Scott in
3 that what we're now trying to legislate is common
4 sense that good producers have been using for the
5 past -- since farming animal agriculture has been
6 taking place. It will require more record keeping
7 on my part. It will require more filings,
8 documentation, making sure that my -- the people
9 that are operating the equipment, they're
10 documenting things properly. It will ensure a
11 business plan, a manure management plan that is in
12 writing and very detailed so it will -- it's
13 another thing that will take more time in my
14 operation, I'll have to spend more time in the
15 office keeping track of.
16 MR. FLEMAL: Is there anything in the
17 requirement that would cause you to operate it a
18 different way than you do now as opposed to simply
19 keeping different records or more records?
20 MR. WILRETT: From an operating standpoint,
21 manure management, basically no. But depending on
22 how the application rate is determined, if the
23 manure application rate continues to be determined
24 as based on nitrogen which is what my operation has
ITV
71
1 been utilizing, then we will be able -- we will
2 continue to operate as we had in the past, rotating
3 our manure and utilizing it to the most efficient
4 use possible which makes economic sense.
5 MR. FLEMAL: One of the particular pleas that
6 you make is that whatever happens in this
7 rulemaking, it doesn't work to the detriment of the
8 family farmer, you yourself being an outstanding
9 example of that family farmer. We've heard this
10 same plea from other quarters as well, but it
11 appears that there's always a difficulty in
12 defining what that family farmer means. If we were
13 to decide that there is a different set of rules
14 that applied to a family farmer as opposed to some
15 other entity, corporate farmer has been used as the
16 alternative, how do we make the distinction between
17 the two of you? What stands one apart from the
18 other?
19 MR. WILRETT: You ask an interesting question
20 that everyone that's looked at this issue from both
21 ends of the country to try and define. The US
22 Department of Agriculture can't define it and they
23 have passed some of that thought process on back to
24 the states to try and define for the equipped
ITV
72
1 portion of the 1995 farm bill. Family operations
2 can have many different forms of ownership, sole
3 proprietors, there's corporations. There's
4 families that have formed corporations for whether
5 it's tax reasons or estate planning reasons.
6 Sizewise you can -- you know, there are family
7 operations that are quite large, and what is quite
8 large? By some -- I have heard animal units as low
9 as 500 being proposed as anything over that would
10 be quite large.
11 In the cattle industry you wouldn't even
12 be able to have one full-time person and be an
13 economical unit, so you know, you're a
mega at a
14 half a person. You know, that's hard to swallow,
15 so it's a very tough issue to answer and very hard
16 to put it down on paper. Everyone has a thought in
17 their mind, you know, mom and pop and the kids and
18 the pitch fork and that's not the case.
19 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are there any other
20 questions of Mr.
Wilrett of anyone in the
21 audience? Thank you. Seeing none, thank you,
22 Mr. Wilrett.
23 Mr.
Harrington, would you like to call
24 your next witness?
ITV
73
1 MR. HARRINGTON: Next witness is Mrs. Ellen
2 Hankes.
3 ELLEN HANKES,
4 being previously duly sworn, testified as
5 follows:
6 MS. HANKES: Thank you. I'll share a bit of
7 information about our family and farm before I
8 begin with the testimony. I live on the family
9 farm in which I grew up. My husband and I returned
10 to that farm over 20 years ago after completing our
11 education at the University of Illinois. I have a
12 bachelor's and master's degree from that university
13 and my husband also has several degrees from there
14 as well. We are a family farm operation. We don't
15 happen to be incorporated. My duties on that farm
16 are varied and sometimes vary with the day, but my
17 primary responsibilities are in the financial
18 management area.
19 My name is Ellen
Hankes, a pork producer
20 from Fairbury, Illinois and also president of the
21 Illinois Pork Producers Association. I will be
22 making comments concerning my views as a member,
23 and more importantly, as president of the Illinois
24 Pork Producers Association, 6,000 members.
ITV
74
1 As a pork producer our family farm
2 operation has been in business for over 50 years.
3 Our current operation utilizes what is called
4 multiple site production. On our home farm we
5 farrow or raise from birth to market --
premarket
6 age, 900 sows. Most of the pigs are finished out
7 or raised until the pigs reach market weight at
8 another farm site. It is our desire to continue
9 this business as a viable way of making a living.
10 I served as a member of the livestock industry task
11 force subcommittee on environment matters until
12 elected president of the Illinois Pork Producers
13 Associates and before that participated on Senator
14 Donahue's task force on large swine production
15 facilities.
16 The livestock facilities -- the Livestock
17 Management Facilities Act was initiated by persons
18 who served on the environmental subcommittee after
19 numerous hours of testimony, review of current
20 Illinois regulatory requirements and other states'
21 regulations. The Act was adopted by the livestock
22 industry task force committee in February 1996.
23 The Illinois Pork Producers Association is
24 taking and has always taken a proactive leadership
ITV
75
1 role in managing and protecting natural resources.
2 The following are examples of our commitment to
3 protecting the natural resources and working to
4 solve the industry's problems. Recognizing the
5 changing structure of the pork production industry
6 from pasture to confinement and the potential for a
7 different type of impact on natural resources, the
8 association participated in the seven-year
9 development of agriculture-related pollution
10 regulations known as Title 35 in the 1980s. It is
11 our belief that the adequacy of Title 35
12 regulations and the Illinois Environmental
13 Protection Agency's enforcement of those
14 regulations since their adoption in 1991 are the
15 reasons why Illinois has not experienced the
16 magnitude of environmental problems associated with
17 livestock production that other states have
18 experienced.
19 Recognizing the changing needs of the
20 swine industry as it evolves, the association is
21 currently involved in implementing the industry's
22 voluntary national and environmental program, the
23 environmental assurance program, to enhance swine
24 management skills which help protect our natural
ITV
76
1 resources. This program has been recognized by the
2 US Department of Agriculture and the US
3 Environmental Protection Agency as a program that
4 will dramatically address management skills in the
5 area of environmental matters. A copy of the award
6 and a one-page bulletin on the environmental
7 assurance program have been included with
8 testimony.
9 Nationally pork producers invested one and
10 a half million dollars in environmental research
11 and education. These projects have evaluated
12 current management practices related to air
13 quality, nutrient management and groundwater
14 protection. Additionally pork producers
15 organizations are investing in research in new
16 technologies such as ozone, manure injection,
17 constructed wetlands and nutrition's effects on
18 manure.
19 Speaking as president of the Illinois Pork
20 Producers Association I represent some 6,000 of its
21 members. These production units vary in size from
22 less than 100 animal unit facilities to those
23 production facilities exceeding 7,000 animal
24 units. The major portion of the production
ITV
77
1 operations are family owned, each trying to make a
2 living in the ever changing agriculture economy.
3 Most, if not all, of the members and their families
4 live on farms that contain these facilities. Many
5 of these family owned production facilities are
6 incorporated for economic purposes.
7 Cheryl
DeViest (phonetic) and David A.
8 Lind (phonetic) in a document published by the
9 University of Illinois in August 1996 titled
10 Challenges Influencing Expansion in the Hog
11 Industry offer the following: Quote, Structural
12 changes continue in the hog industry. Small and
13 midsized producers are struggling to survive and
14 adopt to the industrialization and the integration
15 of hog production. During 1995 the number of US
16 hog operations dropped to 182,700, decreasing by 12
17 percent from the 1994 level.
18 As more producers drop out of the industry
19 the largest production units continue to grow.
20 Units greater than 2,000 head comprise 37 percent
21 of the number of operations but account for 43
22 percent of the hog inventory in 1995. The next
23 decade will, in my opinion, because of ever
24 increasing regulation of the industry and more
ITV
78
1 widely market price fluctuations in the last
2 decade, enhance the pressure and cause small family
3 farms to give up and quit hog production.
4 One reason the wide market fluctuation
5 will take place is because of the current Federal
6 Agriculture Improvement Reform Act. This new farm
7 law eliminates all crop production controls. Grain
8 farmers will be producing profits where profits are
9 available. Last year the price of corn, a major
10 input in swine feed rations, soared to $5.50 per
11 bushel. The price per hundred rate for swine in
12 the last two years varied from a low of $28 to a
13 high of $60 per hundred weight.
14 According to Chris Hurt (phonetic) one of
15 the authors of Positioning Your Pork Operation to
16 the 21st Century, 1995
Purdue University
17 publication, used $2.26 per bushel for the corn for
18 the last decade in making his projection concerning
19 size of swine production facilities and their
20 ability to remain financially solvent and use new
21 production technology. This document analyzes
22 different size operations by the number of sows.
23 New technology and major efficiencies are in most
24 cases not viable until you reach a 1200 sow
farrow
ITV
79
1 to finish stand alone or hog production only swine
2 operation. Hog operations smaller than 1200 sows
3 that have integrated other businesses such as grain
4 farming or have some other source of outside income
5 may be viable.
6 In a nutshell, operations must be allowed
7 to grow; therefore, it is impossible to set a fixed
8 figure for animal units. Chris Hurt made an
9 analysis of different size production facilities.
10 Quote, to capitalize a 1200 sow
farrow to finish
11 unit you would need $3,817,939 for land and
12 buildings and $2,562,267 production capital, closed
13 quote. Again, $2.26 bushel corn was used for these
14 calculations along with other feed components at
15 comparable prices. The break even production cost
16 today is in excess of $47 per hundred weight for
17 this size operation.
18 The 1200-sow
farrow to finish unit is the
19 smallest size that can utilize capital, new
20 production technology and provide sensitive
21 management. Economically it is questionable if a
22 1200-sow unit can survive. The current recommended
23 size is a minimum of 2400 sows
farrow to finish.
24 Chris Hurt summarizes changes occurring in
ITV
80
1 the industry as follows: Quote, many current
2 producers have high costs, utilize data technology,
3 have small diversified farms which retard their
4 ability to gain managerial intensity and are
5 nearing retirement age without sufficient sizes of
6 operation for someone else to come in to acquire
7 and operate. They will likely be replaced by
8 larger, more specialized and more managerially
9 intense operations. If economic advantages of
10 improved coordination of production and processing
11 are evident, the Midwest Illinois industry will be
12 forced to find ways to reduce variability, to
13 improve marketing for producers. In other words it
14 will have to move away from a traditional commodity
15 orientation toward a consumer and cost-driven pork
16 system, end quote.
17 To quote Chris Hurt, quote, changes make
18 people anxious. The realization of participants
19 from the farmer to those in the input and marketing
20 sectors is that their specialized physical and
21 human resources will become worthless if they can
22 not be a part of the new pork industry. The
23 question extends beyond those directly in their --
24 involved in their industry. How do production
ITV
81
1 practices and higher concentrations affect water
2 and air quality? Will the farmer lose the
3 traditional independent status? Some implications
4 seem evident at this time. Others will depend on
5 the decisions made by industry participants and
6 public policy holders, end quote.
7 Since the promulgation of the livestock
8 waste regulations is in your hands, we are
9 depending on your decision for our economic
10 survival. With all of the economic challenges that
11 we face, we must ensure that the rules that you are
12 considering do not impose additional economic
13 hardships. Do not misunderstand us. The Illinois
14 Pork Producers want rules that are protective of
15 the environment.
16 As I mentioned before, most members draw
17 their drinking water from wells located on their
18 farms. However, any rule that restricts growth and
19 places unreasonable economic burdens in return for
20 negligible environmental protection must be
21 rejected. Although we believe that some changes to
22 the proposed regulations which will be presented to
23 the Board in testimony at a later date are needed
24 to implement the Livestock Management Facilities
ITV
82
1 Act, in general the proposed regulations seem to
2 strike the correct balance between economic and
3 environmental concerns.
4 The future for swine production can be
5 financially rewarding if prudent, justified,
6 technical and economically feasible decisions are
7 made. The research is implemented to help solve
8 problems and some changes are made to proposed
9 regulations to implement the Livestock Management
10 Facilities Act to make the requirements compatible
11 with current industry practices. The recommended
12 changes will be presented to the Board in testimony
13 at a later date. Thank you for consideration of my
14 comments.
15 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Miss
Hankes.
16 Mr. Harrington, I was wondering, do you have a copy
17 of the one-page bulletin of the environmental
18 assurance programs which you referred to?
19 MR. HARRINGTON: Yes, we'll provide that at
20 this time.
21 MS. MANNING: Could you also provide the Chris
22 Hurt publication, the University of
Purdue
23 publications?
24 MR. HARRINGTON: Yes, we'll provide both of
ITV
83
1 those.
2 MS. HANKES: I also would like to enter an
3 additional document, the Measured Effects of
4 Feedlots on Residential Property Values in
5 Minnesota, a Report to the Legislature.
6 MR. HARRINGTON: Excuse me, is that the Major
7 Impacts?
8 MS. HANKES: Measured Effects.
9 MR. HARRINGTON: Measured Effects, thank you.
10 With respect to the document you just tendered to
11 the Board, are you familiar with the contents of
12 that document?
13 MS. HANKES: I have read it, yes.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: Could you very briefly tell us
15 what its conclusions were as you understand them.
16 MS. HANKES: The study was sponsored by the
17 University of Minnesota and at the request of the
18 Missouri (sic) State Legislature. The project
19 looked at property values, i.e., sales of real
20 estate within I believe a two-mile area of feedlots
21 in two counties in Minnesota. Several hundred
22 property exchanges were studied, and while the
23 authors thought that property values would be
24 neglibly (sic) impacted what they found to their
ITV
84
1 surprise was that the closer the proximity to
2 feedlots in Minnesota, the higher the property
3 value as experienced by that sale of property.
4 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Miss
Hankes.
5 Let the record reflect that the Measured Effects of
6 Feedlots on Residential Property Values of
7 Minnesota, a Report to the Legislature, has been
8 entered as Exhibit No. 17. Are there any questions
9 of Miss
Hankes from anyone in the audience? Any
10 questions from the Board? Dr.
Flemal?
11 MR. FLEMAL: You use the reference of a
12 1200-sow
farrow to finish unit as kind of a
13 standard operation. What would that be in terms of
14 an animal unit, the kind of unit that is involved
15 in this proposed rule?
16 MS. HANKES: I think it would be fair to say
17 that that would fall between the 1,000 -- it would
18 fall over 1,000 animal units. I don't have that
19 number specifically.
20 MR. FLEMAL: And certainly under the 7,000.
21 MS. HANKES: Yes.
22 MR. FLEMAL: So it would fall in that window
23 where a management plan is required, operator
24 certification is required.
ITV
85
1 MS. HANKES: Yes.
2 MR. FLEMAL: And if there was to be a lagoon
3 used as the storage unit, that lagoon would also be
4 involved in the regulation. That's your
5 understanding?
6 MS. HANKES: That's my understanding.
7 MR. FLEMAL: Have you reviewed those aspects of
8 the proposed rule to have some understanding of how
9 if this rule were to be implemented it would
10 actually affect operations, say, like your own?
11 MS. HANKES: Yes. Certainly the manure
12 management plan is not required at our level with
13 900 sows. We are
farrowing those sows on that
14 site. They are finished at another site. However,
15 I think it's in -- and I've been telling producers
16 this, that it is in their best interest to work
17 towards that plan, we would do that. We would
18 participate in the education program in the
19 certified manager training, and I would expect that
20 both my husband and I and probably several others
21 there at the farm would participate in that. We
22 have always supported educational programs as most
23 producers have.
24 MR. FLEMAL: Your own operation then is below a
ITV
86
1 couple of these cutoffs as opposed to the 1200 unit
2 that you were talking about as a standard unit.
3 MS. HANKES: It is smaller than that 1200-sow
4 standard unit. It would be above the 300-animal
5 unit threshold for the certified manager training
6 and below the 1,000 animal unit for the required
7 manure management plan.
8 MR. FLEMAL: I see. A question I suppose as
9 much for Mr.
Harrington as it is for you, we will
10 be hearing in the future some suggested amendments
11 to the proposed rule that --
12 MR. HARRINGTON: As we go through the hearing
13 we're refining those suggestions and presenting
14 them to the Board. Perhaps just to clarify
15 something, Mrs.
Hankes, does your facility have a
16 lagoon at this time?
17 MS. HANKES: We do have a lagoon. Several
18 years ago as part of our process, and it seems like
19 we're always in some sort of an update process, we
20 did install a lagoon to better manage odor and
21 nutrients. Because we are a family farm and have
22 been in the business of raising livestock for a
23 number of years, we were concerned about utilizing
24 the nutrients in the very best way on land near the
ITV
87
1 facility, the farm on which I live and where the
2 hogs are located. And so as part of the technology
3 that was available at the time, we remodeled some
4 of our buildings to utilize the flush water from
5 the lagoons. We installed a two-stage lagoon where
6 the sows are settled and the remaining effluent
7 goes into the lagoon, and then that sort of process
8 enabled us to transport to use the liquids and the
9 solids in a more specific manner to address
10 nutrient needs on other fields that were further
11 away that we could no longer haul with the smaller
12 equipment.
13 MR. FLEMAL: The membership of the Illinois
14 Pork Producers certainly I expect contains -- will
15 consist of people who would be clearly recognized
16 as family farmers on one hand and this other entity
17 that stands out here as the corporate farm on the
18 other hand. Can you as president identify who
19 belongs in either of these categories or likewise
20 do you have the difficulty that Mr.
Wilrett
21 expressed in making the distinction sometimes?
22 MS. HANKES: Our organization is a grass roots
23 membership organization. At this time membership
24 is only held by those who join county or a
ITV
88
1 multicounty organization and that's where
2 membership originates, and so the producers who
3 choose to be involved with local organizations are
4 the ones whose membership then is involved with the
5 Illinois Pork Producers.
6 As far as an average member or profile on
7 that member, we really have no specific member, but
8 I think it's fair to say that educational
9 components have been very strong from county all
10 the way up to state, to national and so on learning
11 to do a better job of what we do as producers.
12 MS. MANNING: Mrs.
Hankes, thank you for your
13 testimony. I had some questions regarding the
14 possibility of federal funding. I've been reading
15 some articles in our Springfield Journal Register
16 about a program called EQIP, E-Q-I-P, which I
17 believe the Illinois Pork Producers and the pork
18 producers nationally are involved in
in terms of it
19 looks as if maybe turning some federal dollars into
20 Illinois dollars for environmental technology and
21 environmental benefit on the family farm and on the
22 farms.
23 I'm not sure what I know about that
24 program at all and I would like if you could to
ITV
89
1 enlighten me in terms of the possibility of
2 availability for federal dollars for environmental
3 technology in these areas.
4 MS. HANKES: I wish I could tell you more than
5 maybe I'm able to today because the process is
6 still being defined at the county level. I know
7 locally in my county we had several meetings set
8 the last couple of weeks and then due to the
9 weather they had be canceled and rescheduled to
10 look at what is available through the EQUIP
11 program. As I understand it the program is to
12 assist with some cost-sharing techniques that could
13 be applied on farms to better manage natural
14 resources through livestock production facilities.
15 What remains to be seen is who is eligible for
16 this -- these cost-sharing funds, and part of that
17 controversy is where that number should be set, is
18 also bound up with arguments similar to what this
19 Board has discussed.
20 MS. MANNING: So there are arguments regarding
21 lagoon technology and things like that through the
22 EQUIP program as well?
23 MS. HANKES: EQUIP is not only dealing with the
24 lagoons but other ways of assisting with the
ITV
90
1 process. Constructed wetlands is one --
2 MS. MANNING: Stream runoff -- dealing with
3 stream runoff as well?
4 MS. HANKES: Structure that can be applied or
5 processes that can be applied on the farm.
6 MS. MANNING: Okay. Is there a position that
7 the Illinois Pork Producers has taken in this
8 debate or you know, trying to seek certain kinds of
9 dollars for technology for your producers?
10 MS. HANKES: Historically the Illinois Pork
11 Producers has not seen federal dollars available
12 for on-farm use in livestock facilities so this is
13 somewhat new to us, very new to us. We have not
14 taken -- well, the position that we are I guess
15 currently exploring is that size limit, you know,
16 where do we think that should be; and frankly, we
17 think that protection of natural resources is
18 important for all sizes of operators, and so if a
19 limit is set above which an operator is denied
20 matching funds, then it seems that perhaps we're
21 saying it's not important or for whatever reason
22 that that sort of entity shouldn't be involved with
23 that, but we feel like protection of natural
24 resources is important so we would like to see the
ITV
91
1 window as large as possible for producers to
2 receive cost-sharing funds.
3 MS. MANNING: Is this program a US Department
4 of Agriculture program or a US EPA? It's a US
5 Department of Agriculture.
6 MS. HANKES: USDA. As I understand, Secretary
7 Glickman asked the states to set the limits, the
8 parameters of it rather than doing it on a federal.
9 MS. MANNING: Thank you.
10 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Any further questions of
11 Miss Hankes?
12 MR. HARRINGTON: May I just ask a couple of
13 clarifying questions for the record? You mentioned
14 that your farm is below the 1200-sow
farrow to
15 finish level that you said was economic. Can you
16 explain the nature of your operation that makes it
17 economic.
18 MS. HANKES: Sure. What I referred to in my
19 testimony for the 1200-sow
farrow to finish is a
20 stand-alone unit, an enterprise in which no
21 additional businesses would be accounted for. Many
22 of our members of the Illinois Pork Producers are
23 not unlike our own particular family farm operation
24 in that we have a combination of crops. We raise
ITV
92
1 corn and soybeans and then we also have a livestock
2 operation.
3 For many of us we market that grain, that
4 corn and soybeans through our livestock, whether it
5 be for hogs or whatever, and it's part of a whole
6 systems approach. And again, the utilization of
7 those nutrients from the manure is part of that
8 total system that we employ.
9 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you. What we'd like
10 to do now is take a ten-minute break.
11 (A recess was taken at 10:57 a.m. and
12 proceedings resumed at 11:15 a.m.)
13 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Let's go back on the
14 record. Mr.
Harrington, you wanted to submit these
15 two exhibits?
16 MR. HARRINGTON: Yes, I did.
17 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Then let the record reflect
18 that the US EPA Liquid Assets of Summertime
19 Perspective on the Importance of Clean Water to the
20 Nation's Economy has been marked as Exhibit No. 18,
21 and Positioning Your Pork Operation for the 21st
22 Century, a 1995
Purdue Co-op Extension Service
23 Report has been marked and entered into the record
24 as Exhibit No. 19.
ITV
93
1 All right then, Mr.
Harrington, would you
2 like to call your next witness?
3 MR. HARRINGTON: Yes, my next witness is
4 Mr. Charles R. Nelson. Mr. Nelson.
5 MR. NELSON: Good morning. I want to thank you
6 for the opportunity to address the Board today.
7 I'm Charles R. Nelson, a nutritionist for
DeKalb
8 Feeds, Incorporated in
DeKalb, Illinois. I'm a
9 graduate of Iowa State University, a member of
10 ARPAS, the American Registry of Professional Animal
11 Scientists, a member of the American Feed Industry
12 Nutrition Council and I have over 40 years'
13 experience in the livestock and feed industry.
14 DeKalb Feeds is a major supplier of feed
15 supplements in Illinois.
16 My testimony here today is to present data
17 to establish the economic returns of feedlot beef
18 industry in Illinois, and to my knowledge
DeKalb
19 Feeds has the largest data of economic records of
20 cattle feeding in Illinois. I helped establish
21 this database over 25 years ago and have continued
22 to expand it with the help of my associates at
23 DeKalb Feeds. We currently have economic records
24 on over a million head of cattle. This data was
ITV
94
1 generated from numbers that we obtained from our
2 customers'
closeouts. We have worked hard at
3 trying to make our clients better business people
4 by encouraging them and assisting them in making
5 these economic
closeouts.
6 We publish this data every year and
7 present it at our annual Beef Day. I have enclosed
8 two pages from our 1996 report, Page 5 and Page
9 21. Page 5 shows the average profit over the last
10 25 years has been $23.32 per head. Page 21 shows a
11 work sheet of overhead costs in producing beef.
12 These are the costs that are over and above the
13 cost of feed.
14 Feed costs were priced at actual cost.
15 High moisture corn was stored in silos, was priced
16 at the time of harvest as was the silage. This
17 might give some additional benefit to the feeder
18 because we priced it on a dry matter basis rather
19 than with a typical elevator discount if marketed
20 through normal channels. This could be 5 to $10
21 per animal or 10 to 26 cents per bushel extra
22 return.
23 Long-term beef production has been
24 profitable, but as you can see, the profits are not
ITV
95
1 high. For example, 500 head per year marketed at
2 $25 per head would generate $12,500 return. The
3 beef industry is important to Illinois as total
4 cash receipts are in the area of $700 million. I
5 feel it is important in working out the details of
6 Title 37 regulations that the regulations are
7 economically sound and reasonable so as to not
8 cause undue hardship to the industry as it would
9 reduce the economic returns that have not been at a
10 high level. Most producers' goal is to produce a
11 quality product and to be considerate of
12 environmental issues. Thank you for this
13 opportunity to testify.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr. Nelson.
15 MR. NELSON: I would have a report here if
16 you'd like a complete copy. I did submit two pages
17 but if you want a copy of the complete report, you
18 can have that for your records.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: Mark that for the record.
20 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Yes. I'd also like to note
21 for the record that Mr. Nelson testified that this
22 could be in his testimony I think you said 10 to 26
23 cents. I don't know if our court reporter heard --
24 MR. NELSON: It could be 10 to 20 cents per
ITV
96
1 bushel extra return.
2 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you. Then for the
3 record we will mark as Exhibit No. 20 the
DeKalb
4 Feeds, Incorporated 26th Annual Beef Day February
5 1996 report. And let the record reflect that the
6 two pages which recited in Mr. Nelson's testimony
7 are those two pages which are included in the
8 report, Page 5 and Page 21. Are there any
9 questions for Mr. Nelson from anyone in the room?
10 Dr. Flemal, do you have any questions of -- thank
11 you, Mr. Nelson.
12 Mr.
Harrington, you may call your next
13 witness.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: I'm going to at this time call
15 two witnesses who will be making essentially a
16 joint presentation, and that is
Randall Westgren
17 and R. Christopher
Schroeder, and there are slides
18 being shown. Copies of the slides were attached to
19 the prefiled testimony that was sent to the service
20 list and served on the Board.
21 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Then if you'd like to enter
22 in the
prefiled testimony or just those slides, we
23 could enter those as an exhibit.
24 MR. HARRINGTON: I would suggest we enter the
ITV
97
1 prefiled testimony and the slides together as an
2 exhibit.
3 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Do you have another copy of
4 that?
5 MR. HARRINGTON: Yes, we'll produce it right
6 now. The copy I'm about to hand you has a few
7 corrections from the
prefiled testimony updates.
8 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Okay, thank you. Let the
9 record reflect that the testimony which is now
10 being filed by
Randall Westgren and Christopher
11 Schroeder would be marked as Exhibit No. 21 which
12 includes their testimony as well as the slides
13 which we are about to see today. Thank you.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: Gentlemen.
15 RANDALL WESTGREN,
16 being previously duly sworn, testified as
17 follows:
18 MR. WESTGREN: Thank you to the Board. My name
19 is Randall Westgren. I'm Associate Professor of
20 Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the
21 University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign. I am
22 joined by Christopher
Schroeder, a partner in the
23 firm Agricultural Education and Consulting, AEC, of
24 Savoy, Illinois. We are presenting this testimony
ITV
98
1 based upon our analysis of proposed rules for the
2 livestock waste regulations. AEC was commissioned
3 by a consortium of Agricultural Producers
4 Association to undertake an economic analysis of
5 the proposed rules. I was subcontracted by AEC to
6 participate in this study; therefore, my comments
7 reflect my views and those of Agricultural
8 Education and Consulting, not the University of
9 Illinois.
10 I received a Ph.D. in agricultural
11 economics from
Purdue University and have held
12 faculty positions in this field since 1978.
13 Christopher
Schroeder received a master of science
14 degree in agricultural economics from the
15 University of Illinois and has been a consultant in
16 ag business management and finance for 12 years.
17 Neither of us hold ownership interest in livestock
18 production operations in the State.
19 We will proceed with some premises on
20 which our analysis is based. Our analysis will be
21 based upon two documents appended to this
22 narrative. Appendix one is a series of slides
23 which we will present in a few moments to the Board
24 in the order which they appear in the appendix. We
ITV
99
1 will make comments about the slides and answer
2 questions subsequently that you may wish to raise.
3 Appendix two is a document that shows the
4 initial costs and the annual operating costs
5 associated with five scenarios of operations under
6 the proposed rules. These scenarios represent
7 archetype cases of different sized operations
8 located in different areas of environmental
9 sensitivity as defined in the proposed rules. We
10 will present the detail of this spreadsheet to the
11 Board as required including the underlying
12 assumptions and logic of the analysis.
13 Our analysis is concerned with boundaries
14 and costs. The proposed rules for livestock waste
15 management have two types of boundaries imbedded in
16 them, the size of the operation and the depth of
17 aquifer material below proposed lagoon sites. As
18 one crosses the boundary between an operation of
19 less than 300 animal units to an operation of 300
20 animal units or more, the proposed rules change the
21 requirements of the operator. Likewise when the
22 scale of an operation crosses the boundary between
23 less than 1,000 animal units and 1,000 animal units
24 and above, the operator has different
ITV
100
1 requirements.
2 The proposed rules have two physical
3 boundaries associated with the siting of a
4 livestock waste lagoon above aquifer material. If
5 the required soil boring shows no aquifer material
6 within 50 feet of the floor of the proposed lagoon
7 this is deemed to be the least sensitive category
8 of siting. Between the boundaries of 50 feet and
9 20 feet below the line floor of a proposed lagoon
10 if one finds aquifer material, then the design
11 requirements are different reflecting a more
12 environmentally sensitive site. If aquifer
13 material is found in the boring sample at a depth
14 less than the 20-foot boundary, then design and
15 operation specifications reflect that this is the
16 most sensitive type of site under the regulations.
17 The physical boundaries associated with
18 environmental sensitivity as measured by depth to
19 aquifer material are important to our analysis as
20 they are trigger points for additional construction
21 and/or operating costs of a new lagoon regardless
22 of the scale of the animal operation. Our analysis
23 takes these boundaries as given and we make no
24 effort to estimate costs associated with changing
ITV
101
1 these fiscal boundaries in the rules. Good
2 management practices in the livestock industry
3 require sound management of livestock waste and we
4 will examine only the costs associated with
5 crossing these boundaries under the proposed
6 rules.
7 The boundaries associated with the sale of
8 operations under the proposed rules are perhaps
9 more critical to the economic analysis. Over the
10 course of the history of a given livestock
11 operation the depth to aquifer material is fixed
12 and does not represent a decision variable to the
13 operator. By contrast, the boundaries set at 300
14 and 1,000 animal units may come into play as a
15 family farm seeks to expand as a normal business
16 decision perhaps to accommodate the addition of a
17 new generation of owner-operators among the sons
18 and daughters of the current owners and perhaps as
19 a response to new market opportunities.
20 To the extent that the permanent rules set
21 these boundaries, they may affect the normal growth
22 trajectories of existing farming operations in the
23 State. Our analysis takes as given the proposed
24 scale boundaries and our scenarios will show the
ITV
102
1 extent to which the economics of compliance with
2 the proposed rules are sensitive to these
3 boundaries. As the exhibits in Appendix one show,
4 we approach this economic analysis of livestock
5 waste management rules by identifying two types of
6 costs, the economic costs associated with capital
7 investments and annual operations and the cost of
8 risk associated with compliance.
9 The economic costs are well understood and
10 one is able to estimate within a range what will
11 the cost of, say, a synthetic liner for a lagoon
12 be. However, the uncertainties surrounding
13 enforcement, construction delays associated with
14 compliance, inspections and the cost of showing
15 evidence of financial responsibility are less well
16 specified. What of the possibility of
reregulation
17 in the future, including retroactive coverage of
18 existing waste management facilities. This type of
19 uncertainty is even less tangible in 1997.
20 Nonetheless, these costs of uncertainty are vitally
21 important to a complete analysis of the economic
22 impact of this and other regulations.
23 We will begin our presentation of our
24 analysis contained in Appendix one. We thank you
ITV
103
1 in advance for the opportunity to appear before you
2 and we will be glad to answer questions at the
3 end.
4 You have heard in previous testimony the
5 importance to the State of livestock agriculture,
6 including the industry economics for pork
7 production. You have heard that there have been
8 demand growth projections now and into the future
9 which represent an opportunity for existing and new
10 animal agriculture operations in the State. You
11 have heard about the job impact of this industry in
12 the State of Illinois and how they related to other
13 industries, including feed, processing and the
14 related services associated with bringing livestock
15 commodities to the consumer's table. Likewise you
16 have heard some testimony about the economics of
17 farm size, that there are several drivers in the
18 economics of animal production which affects the
19 size and scale of operations now and into the
20 future.
21 Health of the herds associated with these
22 animal operations is an important factor in leading
23 us to larger, more specialized operations. As was
24 mentioned earlier, multiple site production in the
ITV
104
1 pork industry is an example of a technology to
2 improve the health status of the herds and bring a
3 better product to the consumer.
4 Labor: Labor is difficult to find in
5 animal agriculture in an industrialized state and
6 finding technologies which make good use, economic
7 use of labor may lead to larger scale operations.
8 New technology, including new improved genetic
9 lines for animal agriculture, are important drivers
10 in the development of the scale of operations in
11 the State.
12 Finally, market access. We need to spread
13 the high fixed costs associated with many of these
14 drivers of economics over a large volume of output
15 because as was mentioned earlier, margins are tight
16 in these businesses and therefore some scale of
17 operation is necessary to make them economically
18 viable.
19 We identify two costs to the producer.
20 The first type of costs are the compliance costs
21 which include initial planning, additional
22 construction and construction costs, ongoing
23 operating costs and closure assurance under the
24 proposed regulations. We will look at each of
ITV
105
1 these in turn.
2 There are also what we call risk costs.
3 Consider the farm that is thinking about pouring
4 concrete in the spring of 1997 to take advantage of
5 increased market demand for livestock. We are
6 facing an untested legal environment, uncertainty
7 of enforcement interpretation and possible future
8 reregulation of the industry.
9 Let us turn to the initial planning
10 costs. Under the rules there are costs associated
11 with registration of new lagoons, costs associated
12 by -- pardon me, with site planning by a licensed,
13 professional engineer; soil boring and profile
14 analysis which may be certified by a certified
15 geologist or a licensed, professional engineer;
16 base line water testing of monitor wells; the
17 preparation of a waste management plan which may
18 take many hours of a producer's time or many
19 dollars from a producer to hire someone to do it
20 and to establish certified livestock manager
21 status. Many of these things depend upon the
22 boundaries of the particular operation that we are
23 considering.
24 Additional construction costs associated
ITV
106
1 with these regulations which may not exist
2 otherwise include the cost of siting, installing
3 and otherwise using monitoring wells for water
4 quality, testing and certification, particularly
5 for liners of lagoons and additional facility
6 capacity. As an example of this, the additions
7 proposed by Mr.
Warrington of EPA fall under this
8 category, for example, emergency spillways and
9 engineering waste pipes so they do not pierce the
10 lagoon
berms.
11 After the construction costs there are
12 operating costs which are required under the
13 regulations. These include water testing, the
14 maintenance of a waste management plan, maintenance
15 of certified livestock manager status and manure
16 nutrient testing as part of the livestock waste
17 management plan.
18 The final type of compliance cost we wish
19 to raise today is closure assurance. We have
20 investigated and found that insurance companies are
21 reluctant to provide any information at this time
22 about the costs for obtaining insurance instruments
23 to show financial capacity to pay for the closure
24 of lagoons. And the cost to turn a lagoon site
ITV
107
1 back to its original state is a substantial source
2 of uncertainty in the planning and execution of a
3 new livestock waste management facility.
4 We have identified five scenarios to
5 examine the economic costs associated with
6 complying with proposed regulations, go through
7 these briefly. The details for these is in
8 Appendix two.
9 Scenario one is an existing operation with
10 less than 300 animal units in place. The aquifer
11 is at a shallow depth below the existing lagoon on
12 this facility. Scenario two is again an existing
13 operation with less than 300 animal units but as a
14 normal course of business is expanding to greater
15 than 300 but less than 1,000 animal units. The
16 aquifer depth below the floor of the lagoon is
17 deep, that is, it is below the 50-foot boundary.
18 Scenario three is exactly the same, an
19 existing operation with less than 300 animal units
20 looking to expand to greater than 300 but less than
21 1,000 animal units but the aquifer depth is in the
22 shallow category, that is, less than 20 feet below
23 the floor of lagoon site.
24 Scenario four is an existing operation
ITV
108
1 with greater than 300 animal units and wishes to
2 expand to greater than 1,000 animal units and again
3 in the most sensitive of sites with a shallow
4 aquifer of material below the proposed lagoon
5 site.
6 And the final scenario is a new operation
7 of a scale greater than 1,000 animal units but less
8 than 7,000 animal units sited in the medium
9 sensitivity category where aquifer material is
10 between 20 and 50 feet below the floor of the
11 proposed lagoon.
12 This chart shows our analysis of the
13 different titles in the proposed regulations where
14 lagoon regulation -- sorry, lagoon registration,
15 the requirement of having licensed, professional
16 engineer certification for construction, the filing
17 of a waste management plan and the need to have a
18 certified livestock manager as part of the facility
19 are required for different sized units which are
20 measured down the left-hand column of the chart.
21 And the second half, the right half of the chart
22 shows the aquifer depth so we have the two types of
23 boundaries which I alluded to earlier. And you can
24 see on the right-hand side where the five scenarios
ITV
109
1 fall in these different size by aquifer categories
2 and where they would require or have optional
3 action by the operator on the proposed
4 regulations.
5 We'll go into detail of this later as
6 necessary. Right now I'd like to show you a
7 summary of what the costs associated with these
8 scenarios would be. Using costs obtained from
9 commercial sources for meeting the requirements of
10 each of the scenarios we identified a low and high
11 estimate of the costs of compliance. For Scenario
12 one, the existing farm with less than 300 units,
13 the estimated cost of compliance ranged from 250 to
14 $350. For Scenario two the estimated costs go from
15 $1,650 to $3,820 in a range reflecting the
16 requirements for siting and hiring licensed,
17 professional engineers.
18 This differs from Scenario three which is
19 the case where the aquifer depth is shallow and the
20 operation seeks to go from being less than 300
21 animal units to greater than 300 animal unit.
22 Scenario three's estimated costs range from $9,575
23 to $19,245 for compliance.
24 Scenario four is an existing operation
ITV
110
1 that begins at greater than 300 animal units and
2 wishes to expand to greater than 1,000 animal units
3 over a shallow aquifer material depth. This
4 scenario has the highest cost of the five scenarios
5 we proposed with a low estimate of $10,705 and a
6 high estimate of $23,445.
7 And Scenario five which represents a new
8 facility coming in with greater than 1,000 animal
9 units, less than 7,000 animal units, and the medium
10 level of environmental sensitivity shows estimated
11 costs between $5,980 and $13,770. Thus we have
12 proposed for five archetypal scenarios of existing
13 and new operations according to the boundaries
14 specified in the proposed regulations, these ranges
15 of cost compliance.
16 Next I'd like to turn to the risk costs
17 associated with this. Many of the costs of
18 uncertainty in meeting the requirements of the
19 proposed regulations are more difficult to measure
20 but are very real. The increased investment risk
21 associated with new regulations come from many
22 factors, not the least of which is uncertainty of
23 how the rules will be interpreted and enforced.
24 Given the quantity of investments in place in swine
ITV
111
1 production, we need to consider the risks
2 associated with having those -- that investment in
3 place.
4 In the proposed rules and the discussions
5 surrounding them, there is mention of such things
6 as closure, cease and desist orders. Effectively
7 this means for a livestock operation the
8 depopulation and
repopulation of the livestock in
9 that operation. This is compounded by the fact
10 that many such operations will be tied economically
11 to other operations in the State.
12 For example, if we have multiple site hog
13 production we will have some farms that are tied to
14 others by receiving the baby pigs and finishing
15 them out. If one of the operations is forced to
16 close, what happens to the stream of animals which
17 are supposed to be going normally from one site to
18 another and what of contracts for marketing hogs at
19 the end of production if the contract is in place
20 and the livestock operation is forced to close.
21 This would obviously be a great source of
22 uncertainty for the operators and eventually for
23 the bankers.
24 Some of the interpretation rules that need
ITV
112
1 to be discussed will be such things as how will
2 water sample results be reconciled with the source
3 of contamination. That is, if a monitoring well
4 shows evidence of livestock waste, how will that be
5 reconciled that the near lagoon is, in fact, the
6 real source?
7 For questions regarding setbacks and odor
8 problems, how will this be quantified? What
9 happens if a waste management plan is faulty and
10 what happens if the producer follows due diligence
11 and lagoon conforms to regulations and yet a
12 monitoring well indicates contamination? Currently
13 livestock production facilities have low market
14 value relative to their investment costs. This is
15 nothing new. It's been going on in animal
16 agriculture for 50 years. New rules could take the
17 value of an existing operation and make it
18 essentially worthless, if not a liability. This is
19 obviously another source of concern for bankers
20 lending in the agricultural field.
21 One of the risks associated with the
22 proposed regulations and the discussions
23 surrounding them is finding a suitable location.
24 Given setbacks proposed, the number of suitable
ITV
113
1 locations for livestock facilities will decline.
2 Simple supply and demand economics tells us that a
3 reduction in the supply of land will lead to an
4 increase in the cost of land for that production
5 and in the cost of production for the product.
6 And what of the distance between
7 facilities, particularly for multiple site
8 production. As available sites are taken away, the
9 distance between facilities will increase the cost
10 to move animals between units and from the
11 finishing units to the processor. Ellen
Hankes
12 alluded to a report done by David
Lind and Cheryl
13 DeViest which looked at the problems and costs
14 associated with expanding livestock facilities.
15 The No. 1 source of stress in the period 1990 to
16 1995 was the uncertain construction time and delays
17 associated with putting a new facility in place.
18 Many producers are involved with
19 coordinated production processes now. The
20 additional testing and design costs associated with
21 new rules and regulations will be another layer of
22 uncertainty in the planning of new construction.
23 Uncertainties with the results of tests and the
24 certification of liners and the like and the
ITV
114
1 implication of that to the construction
2 requirements are a source of uncertainty, a source
3 of risk. And what of the uncertainties associated
4 with the redesign or reconstruction of facilities
5 as a result of inspection?
6 Finally there are those risk costs
7 associated with being locked into a current
8 operation. Setback requirements may provide some
9 protection to existing operations but many of those
10 operations will likely have to close eventually
11 because they will either need to remodel or expand
12 to remain viable. That is, the boundaries chosen
13 for the size of farms represents the size of farms
14 in the boundaries in 1997. In the future as
15 economic forces require operating units to get
16 larger or as family farms grow to bring in the next
17 generation of producers, will those requirements
18 under the new regulations prohibit or inhibit these
19 activities? And we believe that family farms,
20 however defined, will be the most impacted here.
21 This ends our presentation on Appendix
22 one. I would suggest that we could leave any
23 questions on Appendix two for the Board.
24 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are you saying that you
ITV
115
1 want to have questions now and then go through
2 Appendix two, is that what you're saying?
3 MR. WESTGREN: Particularly in response to
4 questions it might be easier to do it that way.
5 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Certainly. Are there any
6 questions from anyone in the audience? Any
7 questions? Chairman Manning?
8 MS. MANNING: One of the goals of the Livestock
9 Management Facilities Act was set forward by
Chet
10 Boruff this morning on the Department of
11 Agriculture when he explained and summarized the
12 proposal was that the legislature was trying to
13 find and our rules are trying to find an
14 economically feasible way of allowing the industry
15 to grow with still being environmentally
16 responsible, and noticeably I think absent from the
17 figures, and maybe you can comment on this, maybe
18 give me some figures, is what the cost of actual
19 pollution is then, you know, especially I think
20 when we're talking about lagoons and shallow
21 aquifers. I mean, there's a cost of polluting the
22 environment. There would be a cost to the producer
23 of polluting the environment, and I think those
24 figures have to be counterbalanced against the cost
ITV
116
1 of the figures of the risk of building and that
2 sort of thing. And I was wondering if you had any
3 comments on how those figures would counteract your
4 figures.
5 MR. WESTGREN: One of the important questions
6 in that is in fact the question of incidence. It's
7 difficult to measure the total sum of compliance
8 costs for the whole industry given the different
9 size operations and the like and measure it against
10 the value of protecting the environment without
11 understanding or without having a number about the
12 incidence of pollution that would exist absent the
13 regulations. Since we did not have those numbers
14 we did not include that in our analysis.
15 CHRISTOPHER SCHROEDER,
16 being previously duly sworn, testified as
17 follows:
18 MR. SCHROEDER: If I could make a follow-up
19 comment on that, I think what we found in looking
20 at the numbers is that we wrote the numbers into
21 the compliance and then the risk costs, that it
22 appeared that the compliance costs were reasonable
23 given, you know, the protection that they were
24 going to provide, so I think, you know, the
ITV
117
1 response back is that yeah, it's a burdensome cost
2 that's being put on the producer but it's an
3 important thing that it's covering. And if it's
4 adequately doing that, then it's not an
5 unreasonable cost and that the companies will work
6 around that, notwithstanding the comments that
7 Randy made about the smaller operations that could
8 be impacted more because they don't have the
9 economy's scale to do that.
10 Where the economics really fell apart and
11 got us scratching our heads trying to figure out,
12 holy cow, what is the true economic impact, that
13 was these risk costs because those are the kind of
14 costs that could just explode in huge magnitude,
15 and those were the costs that we saw as moving to
16 the nonviable category in terms of being
17 economically viable because if we don't get clear
18 definition on those things and some of those things
19 get out of hand, then we've got some real
20 problems.
21 MR. FLEMAL: Do you or Mr.
Harrington generally
22 with your panel have some suggestions as to how
23 these risk costs might be minimized? Are we going
24 down that path here eventually?
ITV
118
1 MR. HARRINGTON: We have not prepared any
2 separate testimony on risk costs in general. I
3 think we would be commenting on certain specific
4 concerns.
5 MR. FLEMAL: Which in some combination might go
6 towards reducing the risk costs or reducing the
7 risk and the cost associated with risk?
8 MR. HARRINGTON: That's our copilot. It's not
9 presubmitted testimony on that. We are waiting to
10 see how the -- all the testimony falls and clearly
11 the Department's response to questions.
12 MR. FLEMAL: Thanks.
13 MR. RAO: I have a few questions for
14 Dr. Westgren. First of all, your analysis, does it
15 assume that, you know, right now there's no
16 regulatory requirements that apply to these
17 facilities?
18 MR. WESTGREN: The analysis looks only at the
19 marginal costs associated with the implementation
20 of the proposed regulations.
21 MR. RAO: So you know, there are already
22 certain rules that apply to these facilities, so
23 would it be more realistic to look at the
24 incremental costs or do you think this is the
ITV
119
1 incremental cost that you are presenting in your
2 report?
3 MR. WESTGREN: Thank you for asking for
4 clarification. These are the incremental costs.
5 MR. RAO: Okay, yeah, I didn't find it in your
6 testimony where you said there were incremental
7 costs so I wanted to find out.
8 MR. FLEMAL: And the incremental costs of
9 potential adoption of these proposed rules as
10 opposed to the larger Livestock Facilities
11 Management Act requirements.
12 MR. WESTGREN: That's correct. What we looked
13 at was when a specific requirement is put in place,
14 for example, of having certification by a licensed,
15 professional engineer for these steps --
16 MR. FLEMAL: But if I might interrupt, that's a
17 requirement that flows from the statute, not from
18 the regulations before us. If we did or did not
19 adopt these regulations, it would have no affect on
20 the issue of these livestock managers, certified
21 managers. Is that not correct?
22 MR. HARRINGTON: May I clarify? There's two
23 requirements. There's requirement for the
24 certified livestock manager which I believe is in
ITV
120
1 the Act.
2 MR. FLEMAL: Yes.
3 MR. HARRINGTON: I believe the requirement for
4 the registered professional engineer to approve the
5 plans under certain circumstances and supervise the
6 work is not in the Act and that's an incremental
7 cost of the regulations.
8 MR. FLEMAL: When we're talking about the
9 certification, we're talking about the
10 certification of the engineer or the geologist as
11 opposed to the certification of the livestock
12 operator himself.
13 MR. WESTGREN: That is correct. That's the way
14 it was used in the --
15 MR. RAO: I have one more clarification
16 question. The way in which you came about with the
17 boundaries for your analysis, the first one is you
18 had it cut out for 300 animal units. Can you
19 explain how you came up with a boundary, you know,
20 with relation to the proposed rule.
21 MR. WESTGREN: We took it from the text of the
22 proposed rules.
23 MR. RAO: Because I was trying to find the
24 proposal where it talks about this 300-animal unit
ITV
121
1 and I cannot find it, so I was curious, you know,
2 what were the bases of that. I guess I'd like to
3 know, you know, emergency rules we had the
4 300-animal unit cut off.
5 MS. MANNING: I think that's the confusion. On
6 our emergency rules we had a 300-animal unit cutoff
7 for design standards. My understanding is that is
8 not part of the Department's proposal. There is
9 not a 300-animal unit cutoff for design standards.
10 Is that correct?
11 MR. BORUFF: That is correct.
12 MR. WESTGREN: If I may, is it not true that
13 the proposed rules still use 300-animal units for
14 questions of livestock -- certification of
15 livestock waste handling?
16 MS. MANNING: That is correct. That is
17 correct.
18 MR. WESTGREN: That is the reason we use those
19 boundaries, not because they have to deal with
20 depth aquifer. We did make the point that those
21 physical boundaries were independent of scale but
22 we used the 300 and the 1,000 units because they
23 affected other parts of compliance with the Act and
24 the proposed regulations. For example, the
ITV
122
1 Livestock Waste Management Plan is tied to a
2 boundary of 1,000 animal units.
3 MS. MANNING: Right, and those are statutory.
4 My understanding is those particular cutoffs mirror
5 specifically the statutory requirements of the
6 Livestock Management Facilities Act.
7 MR. RAO: But those facilities still have to
8 comply with the lagoon design standards and other
9 requirements; right?
10 MR. WESTGREN: That is correct.
11 MR. RAO: And that's accounted for in your
12 analysis?
13 MR. WESTGREN: Yes, it is.
14 MR. RAO: I had a question about the estimated
15 costs in Appendix two on Page 3. You listed the
16 costs for testing which includes boring and
17 evaluation --
18 MR. WESTGREN: Yes.
19 MR. RAO: -- as 1100 at the low end and $3,000
20 at the high end. Is this the -- does it include
21 the actual cost of boring itself or is it just the
22 consulting fee from the licensed, professional
23 engineer?
24 MR. SCHROEDER: It is the borings and the
ITV
123
1 analysis, and the assumption there was it was -- we
2 get wide ranges on the costs because you go to the
3 engineer and ask them about borings, they say, we
4 need to see the site. We want to know how deep
5 we're going. And I said, help me out, let's get
6 some ranges. So that was both the boring as well
7 as the analysis of those. Actually there was --
8 that assumed we had higher estimates but they were
9 only in very deep areas that we kind of threw those
10 outliers out but that does assume both the boring
11 and the analysis.
12 MR. RAO: Because the Board was presented with
13 cost information at our
rulemakings where the
14 estimates were much higher than what you have
15 presented here.
16 MR. SCHROEDER: And we've heard higher
17 estimates but they were for pretty extreme depths
18 in our conversations that we had with the various
19 engineers.
20 MR. RAO: And did your analysis take into
21 account the cost of constructing a liner?
22 MR. SCHROEDER: No. Getting back to the idea
23 of the incremental analysis, if somebody's going to
24 go out and put in a lagoon, the producers that we
ITV
124
1 talked to who had been putting lagoons in, I mean,
2 they were pretty much going by the rules in terms
3 of putting proper liners in. Here we're looking at
4 if you go from a -- the point where I say I'm going
5 to put a lagoon in and I'm going to line the
6 property according to the various publications
7 which have been referenced earlier, what's the cost
8 of me just doing that versus me having to go
9 through and have it certified and the borings and
10 those types of things, so it was purely incremental
11 because, I mean, you'd have 100,000 or $150,000
12 base construction costs to start with and then this
13 is on top of that.
14 MR. RAO: Okay, thanks.
15 MR. FLEMAL: As regard your scenarios, one
16 through five, which of those would involve the
17 addition of a lagoon where one crosses the boundary
18 in terms of the analysis you've produced?
19 MR. SCHROEDER: Well, the assumption is that
20 they all have lagoons.
21 MR. FLEMAL: They have existing lagoons and
22 they --
23 MR. SCHROEDER: Let's start with No. 1, for
24 example. I mean, they're less than 300-animal
ITV
125
1 units and they have a lagoon. They have one on.
2 On the ones where they're expanding, they either --
3 they could be building a new lagoon as a part of
4 the expansion or they could already have one on and
5 be adding one, so it's -- in all cases we're
6 talking about operations who are adding lagoons
7 on.
8 MR. FLEMAL: The assumption in each case is
9 that the storage is via lagoon and the lagoon has
10 to change either in terms of expansion or a whole
11 new lagoon and the costs flow from that change in
12 lagoon status.
13 MR. SCHROEDER: Right.
14 MR. WESTGREN: Save Scenario one. That's sort
15 of the baseline small case.
16 MR. FLEMAL: Would you anticipate that
17 operations which are experiencing these changes
18 would in fact require modifications in their
19 lagoons or in fact would have those lagoons to
20 begin with in all cases?
21 MR. WESTGREN: It's difficult to say. We have
22 talked with people who have proposed that under the
23 requirements of the new rules and regulations for
24 the engineering of the lagoons. The price of the
ITV
126
1 lagoons is being driven up to a point where deep
2 pits are now economically substitutable in many
3 cases and there has been some speculation that the
4 regulations may actually drive farms from choosing
5 the lagoons to pits. We do not include it in
6 here. We thought that we would go with the lagoons
7 because the proposed regulations were very specific
8 about them and we were interested in the costs
9 associated with as they relate out.
10 MS. MANNING: I had a question about your -- I
11 was interested in your levels of investment, your
12 risk costs on your 150 sow. For a traditional
13 farrow to finish operation you have listed $490,919
14 and for approximately another 15,000 it becomes
15 state of the art, and I was wondering if you could
16 explain to me for a basic understanding on the
17 record, what do you buy with that 15,000 that turns
18 you from a traditional
farrow to finish operation
19 to a state-of-the-art
farrow to finish operation in
20 terms of your statistics?
21 MR. WESTGREN: Yes, that is -- those numbers
22 were based on going from a traditional type of herd
23 to one which would have advanced genetics and would
24 be using at the level it was capable of, some of
ITV
127
1 the production techniques available such as
2 split-six feeding which allows the animals to be
3 separated, male and female, and have diets specific
4 for the two. That's relatively limited to that
5 size of operation so I would say that the main
6 advantage there or the main addition to it would be
7 in having confinement operation higher quality
8 genetics.
9 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Any further questions
10 regarding Appendix one at least?
11 MR. RAO: I have one more clarification. Going
12 back to Appendix two to your estimated costs, for
13 the cost of monitoring wells, does that represent
14 the costs for three monitoring wells required by
15 the rules?
16 MR. WESTGREN: Yes, yes, it is based on the
17 three monitoring wells required. Thank you.
18 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Okay, gentlemen, if you'd
19 like to continue.
20 MR. FEINEN: I have one more. In this risk
21 cost or risk to investment cost that you have here,
22 you stated that that's based on the regulations as
23 they're proposed. Is there a way to show the risks
24 to investment or risk costs based off just what the
ITV
128
1 statute would require versus what the regulations?
2 MR. WESTGREN: If I understand correctly,
3 you're asking if as the regulation exists can one
4 infer from that the costs of the risks associated
5 with --
6 MR. FEINEN: I guess what I'm asking is like
7 you mentioned the licensed, professional engineer
8 certification might be something that's new in the
9 regulations that's not in the statutes. What I'd
10 like to know is what are the pure statutory risk
11 costs without looking at the regulations? If you
12 went through the statute, looked at all the
13 requirements, is there a way to develop the risk
14 costs solely associated with that then there to be
15 a comparison between what the extra regulatory
16 requirements would add versus what the statute has
17 already added?
18 MR. WESTGREN: There could be. We've not done
19 that because we believe that on one hand if you
20 began just with the regulatory side there are many
21 things which are less certain than they are under
22 the proposed regulations and therefore some of the
23 uncertainties that are engendered in the regular --
24 in the bill are clarified and officiated in the
ITV
129
1 regulations. Vice versa, as the rules are written
2 to conform to the legislation, you may increase the
3 uncertainties associated with investment decisions,
4 and so we did not do that and we did not have
5 enough data on this to make a competent analysis
6 for you at this time.
7 MR. FEINEN: But you do recognize the fact that
8 the statute has some risk costs built in and what
9 you're saying is that the regulations may add or
10 subtract from that risk cost depending on how
11 they're drafted.
12 MR. WESTGREN: Indeed. That's our analysis.
13 MS. FEINEN: Thank you.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Okay, gentlemen, if you'd
15 like to go on with Appendix two.
16 MR. WESTGREN: In the documents that you have
17 labeled Appendix two, The Economic Impact of
18 Livestock Management Facilities Act Rules on
19 Different Types of Production Operations, we again
20 list the assumptions by which we identified the
21 costs. We talked about the compliance costs being
22 associated with registration of existing lagoons,
23 registration of new lagoons, certification of plans
24 and actual construction by a licensed, professional
ITV
130
1 engineer, preparation and submission of waste
2 management plans to DOA, establishment and
3 maintenance with certified livestock manager
4 status.
5 In addition, compliance will require that
6 the owner-operator make additional capital
7 investment and ongoing operating costs in order to
8 comply with the plan established. The extent of
9 these costs would depend upon the overall size of
10 the operation and/or expansion and the depth of
11 aquifer production site. We repeat the visual that
12 we had up under Appendix one which was our mental
13 map, if you will, of how the various categories of
14 requirements ranging from lagoon registration
15 through the certified livestock manager status and
16 the requirements for construction according to the
17 physical boundaries of the aquifer depth are
18 related and we highlighted the five scenarios on
19 that.
20 The next page shows a summary of the
21 scenario descriptions. Again, that was given to
22 you in the slide presentation of Appendix one, and
23 the cost estimate summary below which you have not
24 yet seen is consonant with the summary table which
ITV
131
1 we put up in Appendix one where the scenarios are
2 split into their first year costs, which would
3 include both first year operating as well as the
4 capital costs associated with the different
5 scenarios, and subsequent year costs for those
6 where there are ongoing cost requirements such as
7 the quarterly testing of the monitoring wells and
8 so on.
9 The third page of Appendix two shows
10 notations that we didn't use in the estimated costs
11 of compliance. Again, if we had the case where
12 there was an existing operation that was expanding,
13 we presumed there was an existing lagoon and that
14 the expansions required the implementation of
15 another one, a new one.
16 You will see in our cost analysis that we
17 did put economic value on owner-operator time for
18 the registration of new lagoons for submitting and
19 preparation of waste management plans and for the
20 establishment of certified livestock manager
21 status. We thought it was important to recognize,
22 as was pointed out in earlier testimony this
23 morning, that these activities are in addition to
24 the ongoing business activities in these farming
ITV
132
1 operations and reflect the fact that the operator
2 time is not a free good. And I'd be glad to
3 respond, as would Mr.
Schroeder, to any questions
4 about the construction of these.
5 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are there any questions?
6 MR. FLEMAL: The owner-operator time that's
7 associated with submitting the waste management
8 plan shows a low of 1,000 and a high of 400 in the
9 chart, I believe. Is that intended to be that
10 way?
11 MR. WESTGREN: Yes, sir. It includes fees for
12 consultants. We felt that the lowest priced
13 alternative was the operator did it his self or
14 herself and would cost $1,000 in their own time but
15 if they hired a consultant at $3,600 they would
16 still be required to put $400 worth of time of
17 their own in. These numbers were based on
18 discussions we had with people who prepare these
19 and pricing it against a door prize that was
20 offered at a producer's association for a turnkey
21 livestock waste management plan.
22 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are there any questions
23 from anyone in the audience of this gentleman?
24 MS. MANNING: I have another question on
ITV
133
1 Appendix one if I might go back to Appendix one.
2 Your section on compliance costs on Page 4, the
3 closure assurance costs particularly, you make the
4 statement that insurance companies are reluctant to
5 provide any information there. I'd like you to
6 expand on that if you could. Why is it that you
7 think that's true?
8 MR. WESTGREN: They are -- they live in a world
9 of uncertainty and pricing the products that they
10 give in their analysis of what uncertainties
11 exist. This is such a new area that the insurance
12 companies that we asked were unprepared to make a
13 quote. My suspicion is that they will not be able
14 to make a quote until all of the rules are in place
15 and then only if there is a market for that risk
16 management tool given the price that they must
17 charge to do it, and at this point in the
18 development of the rules none of the organizations
19 with which we spoke were capable or willing to
20 tender a quote in this environment.
21 MS. MANNING: You make a second conclusion in
22 that same area and that is the cost could turn a
23 lagoon site back to its original state is also an
24 area of uncertainty. Why is that?
ITV
134
1 MR. WESTGREN: Again, this was the result of
2 talking with people and trying to find out what
3 does it cost to undo a lagoon, and it was very
4 difficult to get even a range that was
recordable.
5 One suggestion was that it cost just as much to
6 take it out of production as it did to put it in,
7 so you've essentially doubled the cost of the
8 lagoon if you have to show financial responsibility
9 for taking that out of production at a later date.
10 We could not find costs that we felt were
11 sufficiently tangible to do better than what we
12 heard from talking to people. The other question
13 was to what state does the lagoon which is taken
14 out of production have to be restored. No one
15 knew.
16 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are there any further
17 questions of Mr.
Westgren or Mr. Schroeder?
18 MR. HARRINGTON: I have a couple of I think
19 clarification questions.
20 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr.
Harrington.
21 MR. HARRINGTON: In your testimony you used the
22 word lagoon. Could you explain what you mean by
23 lagoon as you used it in your testimony.
24 MR. SCHROEDER: Sure. I believe consistent
ITV
135
1 with what's been discussed in the rules we're
2 talking about -- maybe it's easier to talk about
3 what we're not talking about. We're not talking
4 about pits under buildings. We're not talking
5 about the holding ponds but facilities that are put
6 in place for the long-term storage and continual
7 storage of livestock waste over time.
8 MR. HARRINGTON: Where some process of
9 anaerobic digestion occurs?
10 MR. SCHROEDER: Yes.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: And if you had included these
12 other units within as broad a definition of
13 lagoons, would that have driven the cost up
14 substantially?
15 MR. SCHROEDER: If you would -- yeah, if you'd
16 redefine lagoons to include pits and all other
17 kinds of holding ponds and anything like that, then
18 yes, the cost would have increased substantially by
19 the number of those types of facilities that are
20 all over. I mean, because now we go from having to
21 bore below a lagoon site to having to bore below
22 every pit or every facility out there, so yeah, it
23 would substantially increase that.
24 MR. HARRINGTON: Did you make any estimate of
ITV
136
1 the economic impact of the setback requirements of
2 the rules? In essence, the loss of use of certain
3 property for animal feeding operations.
4 MR. SCHROEDER: No, we did not.
5 MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you.
6 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Harrington.
7 Therefore at this point I think it would be a good
8 time to break for lunch and when we return we will
9 finish with the testimony of the two remaining
10 persons who have
prefiled testimony, John
Sheaffer
11 and Ed
Laurent and then we will go on to any
12 questions that anyone has of any of the Agencies as
13 well as the
prefiled questions directed to the
14 Department of Agriculture, so let's break for an
15 hour, so come back at 20 minutes after.
16 (A recess was taken at 12:18 p.m. and
17 proceedings resumed at 1:32 p.m.)
18 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: If we could go back on the
19 record. We will now proceed with the testimony of
20 Ed Laurent followed by John
Sheaffer. Would you
21 please swear in the witnesses.
22 (WHEREUPON all those were duly sworn.)
23 ED LAURENT,
24 being first duly sworn, testified as
ITV
137
1 follows:
2 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr.
Laurent, you can
3 begin.
4 MR. LAURENT: Thank you. First of all I'd like
5 to thank the Illinois Pollution Control Board for
6 allowing me to be here today and I also would like
7 to thank the various State regulatory Agencies or
8 the affiliated State Agencies that are here and
9 also I'd like to thank those of you who are present
10 here for my testimony, for being here.
11 I'd like to stick right to the topic of
12 odor control since it sounds like weather's a
13 factor for us being present here for a long
14 duration. Back in 1995 a gentleman named Tom
15 Munson (phonetic) who was an employee for
Jetpro
16 (phonetic) out of Ashland, Kansas --
Jetpro's a
17 manufacturer of evaporative
driers and they work
18 extensively throughout the world in treating and
19 drying grain wastes, animal process waste, food
20 waste, basically anything to do that requires
21 drying. If they haven't done it, they have
22 knowledge of it.
23 Well, during 1995 as most of you know,
24 North Carolina experienced some spills from
ITV
138
1 lagoons, and when you work in the wastewater
2 industry which I do every day for a living, problem
3 solving issues regarding waste and water, you tend
4 to get immune to circumstances that others give
5 priority to. And based upon a request of
6 Mr. Munson I took it upon myself to investigate
7 ways of dealing with this problem from what I felt
8 were practical viewpoints.
9 To give just a slight background about
10 myself, I'm from a rural community in Illinois
11 which I'm proud to say, a town called St. Anne,
12 Illinois, about 55 miles due south of Chicago. And
13 having been from that rural environment, even
14 though I was raised in general contracting and
15 construction, in that arena, all my relatives were
16 farmers. And it gave me the opportunity from the
17 time of my youth to the present time to be involved
18 in farm operation decisions. So in that regard
19 those of you present in the audience who are
20 confronted with the issues of this management
21 livestock facility situation as you may have it
22 presented to you, I'd like to think what I'm about
23 to tell you is going to offer you a benefit and not
24 a detriment by using the technology that's been
ITV
139
1 developed.
2 Upon Mr.
Munson talking to me I spent
3 three weeks in my laboratory. I own an
4 environmental chemical company and we specialize in
5 the manufacture of synthetic and natural
6 chemistries which we own many patents on and we do
7 direct hands-on application throughout the world.
8 In doing so, I was able to come across with two
9 chemistries, one of which is presented here, to do
10 what I call phase separation. In the environmental
11 world of acronyms that are used specifically for
12 the industry, many people would call that
13 flocculation, but basically it comes down to a
14 separation of the solids from the liquid phase in a
15 particular waste.
16 Primarily when we work with most types of
17 industries we do so for one particular reason and
18 that's to help them meet their discharge permit
19 that's established by the State and the federal
20 government in which -- and they vary. It varies
21 according to industry. Each town gives a specific
22 industries specific discharge permit. Well, taking
23 this into consideration and taking what I feel is a
24 very, very important economic issue to agriculture
ITV
140
1 and to our country as a whole, I felt that I had a
2 personal obligation to seek an answer to this
3 problem.
4 Is there a selfish interest? Well, I
5 think we all have a selfish interest because we're
6 all here speaking about not only issues but we're
7 talking about money, and money is an issue that is
8 either when you're showing someone profit, they're
9 you're best -- I'm your best friend. If I show you
10 an expense, I soon become not so much of a friend.
11 What I'm going to present to you I think will offer
12 a way according to the Management Facilities
13 Livestock Act that's being presented to hopefully
14 allow
megapork productions or small operations to
15 work in harmony with those who are doing the
16 regulations. My goal is to help agriculture,
17 especially pork and cattle processors and those who
18 are doing the actual raising of those animals to
19 stay in existence, and I think it can be done.
20 The reason I say that is that in a report
21 that I did submit previously to the Illinois
22 Pollution Control Board and a videotape which I
23 have available and it was submitted to the Illinois
24 Pollution Control Board, the same tape was
ITV
141
1 submitted to the Illinois Pork Producers, Illinois
2 Department of Agriculture, I don't believe I gave
3 one to the Illinois Department of Public Health so
4 there's some Agencies that I did not get a tape out
5 to. And let's see, Illinois EPA also has a copy of
6 this tape and also the documentation which I
7 presented, and copies are available to anyone who
8 would want one.
9 Within my report basically what I have
10 done is I've been able to flocculate hog waste.
11 This is a very difficult thing to do but outside of
12 gravity separation I have accomplished it. Can
13 anyone do it? Well, maybe, but I don't know of
14 anyone else who has and I do have a provisional
15 patent filed with the federal government on this.
16 And you say, well,
gosh, that's great, what have
17 you accomplished. Well, let me get to the point.
18 Using science when you look at discharge,
19 which I'm sure many people present here today are
20 aware of, by having to meet certain criteria, an
21 NPDES permit, which correct me if I'm wrong stands
22 for National Pollution Discharge Elimination System
23 requirement for safety of protecting the
24 environment. Well, we based our tests, all our
ITV
142
1 testing on this and we use independent labs because
2 of the very type of testimony I'm giving here
3 today. We do this in other states and for other
4 reasons but basically we tried to address the
5 issues of what we thought were important to control
6 to hopefully provide a higher degree of technology
7 that is hopefully usable in the industry.
8 So we tried to address what causes odor.
9 What are the substances in hog waste that cause
10 odor? I haven't heard anyone here speak about it
11 today. If you're going to deal with a substance,
12 you have to know its composition. So we look at
13 the composition as we do always when we are
14 addressed to look at finding an answer.
15 Now, we don't need to know the exact diets
16 of each pig. We realize that there are many feed
17 formulators out there and the diets will vary, but
18 how do we develop a product that will allow for
19 waste to be treated for the phase separations? Our
20 feeling on this is that if we could control the
21 formation of gases which are generated when hog
22 waste decays or any waste decays, you stop the
23 formation of gases, you help eliminate odor. That
24 was our main objective in our testing.
ITV
143
1 So upon doing a
dewatering belt press
2 test, which is a mechanical operation, those of you
3 who aren't familiar with a
dewatering belt press,
4 if your grandmother had a ringer washer, think of a
5 long sheet going into it and being squeezed and the
6 water squeezed out of it after we conduct
7 flocculation which is a phrase separation. The
8 water's breaking through a porous belt as it's
9 being squeezed. You have a water phase and then
10 you have a solid phase, so our objective quite
11 simply is one we felt was quite practical, phase
12 separate the waste. When you phase separate the
13 waste, you end up with a reduced solid in the
14 liquid phase that can either be discharged to a
15 lagoon or it can be discharged for what we're used
16 to, to a stream. Those stream requirements of
17 course are governed by each state and the federal
18 government, similar to other industries.
19 So taking that in mind, we tried --
20 without really optimizing, we did our initial test
21 at a hog farm in Hamilton, Michigan and the belt
22 press -- we used a belt press that's manufactured
23 by a firm -- I'm not trying to do a sales pitch but
24 I'll mention a few names, Frontier Technologies
ITV
144
1 makes a
dewatering belt press. They're in
Allegan,
2 Michigan, 20 miles away. They were willing to
3 participate in this study.
4 Well, taking the
flocculent that I had
5 developed we basically phase separated the waste
6 and ran the press for about 15 minutes before our
7 unit froze up. We did it in this type of weather.
8 And basically the filtrate was then taken to a
9 certified lab,
Carlabs (phonetic) in Kalamazoo,
10 Michigan. That report's on record with them.
11 Anyone that wants an independent copy can get it.
12 And we showed significant reductions.
13 The things we were looking for, ammonia
14 nitrates, nitrites, total nitrogen reductions,
15 sulfate, sulfide, total suspended solids. We were
16 able to achieve a total suspended solids recovery
17 from the filtrate phase of 98.3 percent. It's
18 almost impossible to get a hundred percent when
19 you're doing this with even municipal or even the
20 highest tech grade industrial wastewater
21 treatment. So we were very proud of this but we
22 didn't try to optimize. This was based off a 20
23 minute run that we did one time and we haven't done
24 anymore work since.
ITV
145
1 Total sulfites, sulfite of H2S we reduced
2 to 81.8 percent. We feel the main causes of odor
3 are a silent gas that's deadly, H2S, ammonia and
4 your sulfur compounds. When they interact if
5 they're left to decompose in a lagoon, what do you
6 get? You get increase of -- naturally you're
7 going to get increase in gases from the decay that
8 are going to bubble up to the surface and if
9 they're stirred, the more you stir them, the more
10 they smell.
11 Are they obnoxious? Well, everyone seems
12 to think they are. I know some people actually
13 like the smell but to each their own, but what
14 we're saying is, okay, if it's being viewed as an
15 obnoxious odor, what have we done? Well, basically
16 we've knocked enough solids out of there that we
17 feel No. 1, you have reduced solids that are going
18 to fill your lagoon. No. 2, I think it creates a
19 lot of options for you.
20 Do you have to get rid of your lagoons?
21 Not necessarily. My thinking on it was hold them
22 for your flush water, recycle that water, closed
23 loop system, that's an option. Field irrigate with
24 less solids in it, that's another option. Hold
ITV
146
1 your lagoons, let the solids settle out, check it,
2 discharge it to a stream if you have the parameters
3 met that are going to be required of it, another
4 option.
5 Now, what we're saying is other than
6 looking at setbacks of a quarter mile, half a mile,
7 one mile, we're addressing what we feel is the most
8 important issue and that's removal of the solids
9 that generate the gases that cause the odor. We
10 feel it's very straightforward. It's not a simple
11 thing to accomplish but I think the chemistry that
12 we've developed will allow it to. From what we've
13 seen, we've tested fresh pig waste some of which I
14 obtained from
DeKalb Genetics right here in
DeKalb
15 for our experiment. Any other material we've
16 obtained either from other farms in Illinois that
17 is aged.
18 The major difference, the major
19 requirement that we see is the dosage of the
20 products that's required to do the phase separation
21 is basically the same. The only difference we've
22 seen is the formation of the gases which creates
23 the odor. I'm not saying we're going to eliminate
24 the odor. To eliminate -- to say you're going to
ITV
147
1 completely eliminate the odor I don't think is a
2 true statement. What our objective was to find a
3 way to basically allow a golf course to exist next
4 to a megapork operation and I think we can do it.
5 While all of you have sat in this room
6 with me today I've had a bag of waste in my
7 briefcase and I didn't hear any complaints.
8 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Let the record reflect
9 Mr. Laurent is holding a bag full of -- you can say
10 it.
11 MR. LAURENT: This is actually
dewatered pig
12 waste which is 30 days old. This sample was made
13 on 11/20/95 so it's over a year old.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: In a
Gladlock Bag.
15 MS. MANNING: Zipped
Gladlock Bag.
16 MR. LAURENT: Well, I don't want to be unkind.
17 I mean, but it does have a little odor to it but
18 it's not unreasonable odor. Now, you say let's go
19 on to the solid phase because this is the phase I
20 really would like to talk to you about and I think
21 it's a phase that will give small or large
22 producers an opportunity to make one thing.
23 Besides meeting the discharge I want to talk to
24 you -- I'm a capitalist, I can't refuse it. I want
ITV
148
1 to talk to you about the money of this stuff.
2 Just solid hog waste is gold, folks. I
3 don't know if you've investigated but there's a lot
4 of data. Dr. Don Day who I've had intimate
5 discussions with, I don't know how many of you know
6 him, 20 years ago at the University of Illinois,
7 he's done extensive work on this.
Purdue
8 University, Michigan State, NC State, I mean, these
9 universities have done a lot of work. There's a
10 lot of private industries who have done their own
11 homework on this. And what really is exciting, not
12 to get off, deviate from the subject, but there's a
13 shortage of animal feed in the world. We get
14 involved in this in our company on a daily basis.
15 I'm seeing material that was being
16 discarded as waste now pulling in 20 to 25 cents a
17 pound. That really isn't much. It's from another
18 industry but it's not much different than what
19 we're talking about, the protein value and other
20 values that are available. So we look at
21 by-product use as supplemental feed, fertilizer,
22 fuel. Well, granted we talked about -- I heard
23 some gentlemen who are farmers here talk about the
24 injection. That's not an uncommon practice. Most
ITV
149
1 everybody knows about knife injection. But you got
2 to be practical about it as well. You're not going
3 to knife inject very efficiently in this type of
4 weather on a farm when the ground's frozen. Most
5 of the people who are regulatory, they don't want
6 to hear about surface runoff into a stream.
7 You're kind of defeating your purpose. So
8 what are you going to do? Are you going to stop
9 production for six months in your northern
10 climate? No, you don't want to do that. I'm sure
11 you don't. What we offer is by going through a
12 dryer after develop press. By using drying
13 technology, which is readily available, there are
14 numerous forms which I'd be glad to discuss
15 separately with you if you're interested in this
16 concept, but you can dry this and you can store
17 it. Many states won't even give you a permit
18 unless you have -- you can present to them how
19 you're going to deal with your solids. You can't
20 leave it in liquid form. You got to get it 90
21 percent dry without degradation to occur to prevent
22 odors.
23 Now, what I've done in my product, I have
24 a masking agent in here and I think this may be the
ITV
150
1 key to specifically hog. I know some beef people
2 are here too and I don't see the beef problem as
3 much of a problem due to the complexity of hog
4 waste. But specifically talking about hog, masking
5 agents can be put into certain types of
6 chemistries, which this is. This is a demotion
7 polymer. I've tested 1500 different combinations
8 that I formulated. Two work to flocculate, phase
9 separate solids from liquids, and it's readily
10 available. I sell it to other industries.
11 Is it expensive? Well, any time you got
12 to buy something, yes, it's expensive. Is it
13 affordable? Well, the only way I feel it's going
14 to be affordable is if the industry is going to
15 look at the by-product value of what you have. I
16 would say on a dry ton basis, and don't hold me to
17 it because I don't have any numbers sharpened, but
18 I think this can be done between the flocculation
19 phase and equipment phase, and I think you're
20 looking at 100, $150 a ton. And I think it's a
21 wide gap, but I'm going to leave it at that.
22 What can you get for it though? I know of
23 a facility in Alabama who's paying 600 to $650 a
24 ton for dried waste and I know some third-world
ITV
151
1 markets that are developing who are looking for
2 fertilizers to enhance their soils. I think
3 there's an excellent export opportunity. If not
4 only domestic use, export potential for this
5 valuable material, and I'd be glad to talk to you
6 about it and if you're interested, assist you with
7 it.
8 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Laurent.
9 MR. LAURENT: In saying that, the other
10 benefits, if I may to -- just to go on
on the
11 liquid phase, you know, you look at the expense of
12 monitoring wells. I'm not saying that you have to
13 replace what has been stated, your lagoons. Can
14 you replace them or close them down completely?
15 Possibly. I think the idea of a -- of what you've
16 done is commendable. I like the idea of using
17 you're lagoons as a storage facility for your slat
18 washing to make your system as closed loop as
19 possible with continual regeneration and recovery
20 of your solids. Should you have monitoring wells?
21 Well, even I have to do quality control and I like
22 the thought of having our environment protected.
23 Murphy's Law is out there, things can happen.
24 We're all concerned about our aquifers and our
ITV
152
1 water systems. No one likes to have to spend the
2 money to do it, but sometimes you have to.
3 I would be glad to speak to anyone who's
4 interested in this. I think what I've presented
5 offers a way to look at lagoon use and the risk
6 reduction of what you're confronted with in a
7 different light, and I hope that it will be taken
8 seriously and reviewed as such by the Illinois
9 Pollution Control Board. Thank you.
10 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you. Do you have
11 another copy of your
prefiled testimony, a clean
12 copy? And then I can enter that as an exhibit.
13 MR. LAURENT: Yes, yes.
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Because I know you deviated
15 from your
prefiled testimony just so that we have
16 everything back.
17 MR. LAURENT: Well, just to talk on that, I do
18 mention that there's -- for the removal of the
19 ammonia, you can aerate it, and to treat H2S, you
20 can treat that. Is it feasibly necessary? That's
21 an option. That's an option that each organization
22 will have to make.
23 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Okay, thank you.
24 MR. LAURENT: Did you -- I didn't present a
ITV
153
1 copy of this tape. It shows drying technology.
2 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: You submitted it to the
3 Board already.
4 MR. LAURENT: That was this one. That was
5 mine. This one shows actual evaporative drying.
6 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Would you like to submit it
7 as an exhibit?
8 MR. LAURENT: Well, I think it would be
9 important for you to look at.
10 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: That's fine. Let the
11 record reflect that Mr.
Laurent's testimony from
12 Water and Oil Technologies will be marked as
13 Exhibit No. 22 and the videotape he has submitted
14 which is entitled
Jetpro -- Jetpro Company,
15 Incorporated will be marked as Exhibit No. 23 into
16 the record. Are there any questions from the
17 audience of Mr.
Laurent? Mr. Harrington?
18 MR. HARRINGTON: I was a little confused about
19 your testimony on the costs of this technology. Do
20 you have any idea what the capital costs would be
21 for a facility, say, 1200 sow?
22 MR. LAURENT: I can't answer that and I'm going
23 to tell you why I can't answer it. There are
24 various types of dryer technologies out there.
ITV
154
1 Obviously I can't deviate from one or two
2 chemistries that work. The costs will vary and I
3 would like to work with you on this really in more
4 detail which I have some basic costs I came up with
5 over a year ago. I have not touched this issue and
6 in fact I was a little reluctant to even give
7 testimony here today and I'm going to tell you why
8 is that I don't like getting caught in a cross fire
9 of attitudes that aren't complimentary. It's a
10 touchy issue. I'm not here to act like I'm Jesus
11 Christ hanging on the cross.
12 My objective is to become the best friend
13 to agriculture. It's an optional way that I think
14 is viable to help substance, to help environmental
15 regulations be met and production to be increased.
16 That's our objective. I would say that taking into
17 the discussions I had -- to try to answer your
18 question, the $135 a ton is taking into account my
19 chemical costs, the
Jetpro dryer costs. There are
20 many other dryers out. There's a lot of other ways
21 to do it. It depends whether you're in a climate
22 like we're in or if you're in Mexico. If you're in
23 Mexico you don't need a dryer at all. You can use
24 the evaporative dryer beds, very cheap to use. So
ITV
155
1 it depends on what part of the country you're in.
2 MR. HARRINGTON: Well, in Illinois obviously.
3 MR. LAURENT: In Illinois? Your costs in
4 Southern Illinois would be cheaper than Northern
5 Illinois. If you're in
DeKalb it's going to be
6 cheaper than Carbondale just because of the
7 environmental climate you're in but you have other
8 topography situations you deal with in Carbondale
9 than what you have up here.
10 MR. HARRINGTON: But does your cost include --
11 you're going to need a settling basin, a reactive
12 basin where the waste is going to react with your
13 polymer and settle out.
14 MR. LAURENT: What I would foresee then is
15 what -- all you need's a tool shed to store it in.
16 Once you put it over a belt press, you can have a
17 truck backed up to that belt press.
18 MR. HARRINGTON: Excuse me, maybe I misstated.
19 The first step in the process, if you have a liquid
20 flow coming out of a hog barn --
21 MR. LAURENT: It's flocculated.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: You need a chamber in which to
23 flocculate it.
24 MR. LAURENT: No, you can do it continuous.
ITV
156
1 You can have a pit. In your pit you can have a
2 pump sucking that up and put an in-line static
3 mixer and this chemical can be added by a line in a
4 pump, a little LMI pump about this big, and you set
5 the dose for that chemical to be added to your flow
6 rate, okay? Whether it's -- let's say you have
7 50,000 gallons a day or two million gallons a day
8 and how much time do you want to treat it? It's
9 going to set the stage for your pumps and how much
10 chemical you use accordingly. So it can be a small
11 volume you can batch treat or you can continuous
12 treat around the clock.
13 MR. HARRINGTON: Does it go from the addition
14 of the polymer directly to the --
15 MR. LAURENT: Belt press or centrifuge? A
16 mechanical separator?
17 MR. HARRINGTON: Mechanical separator.
18 MR. LAURENT: Yes, sir.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: From there it goes to the
20 belt?
21 MR. LAURENT: Your solids. Your solids are on
22 the belt. The material is flocculated. It's going
23 to a phrase separation. I think if I could show
24 you that tape it would be great because it shows
ITV
157
1 it, demonstrates it. It shows it coming down a
2 free drain area onto the squeeze mechanism of the
3 belts and there's a doctor blade. There's a sharp
4 blade that skims the solids right off and it can go
5 into a truck. Am I making myself clear or not?
6 It's a mechanism that does the separation off a
7 belt so you can take these solids and you can run a
8 moisture analysis with a little oven.
9 MR. HARRINGTON: Let's take the solids for a
10 minute, and the question is what is the value of
11 those solids for fertilizer? Do you have any
12 analysis on them?
13 MR. LAURENT: There aren't a lot of -- there's
14 a lot of value to it. If you look at my report, if
15 you start off with the control versus that which we
16 recovered, you'll see there's lot of phosphorus and
17 nitrogen that's maintained in that material in the
18 total suspended solids that we're catching. Out of
19 that hundred percent that we started off with,
20 we're capturing 98.3 percent in this particular
21 test as solids that are going to be available as
22 by-product.
23 Now, if you want to use it for fertilizer
24 or if you want to look at the nutrients such as the
ITV
158
1 proteins, fatty acids, carbohydrates, minerals and
2 vitamins present, you can remove those out of there
3 as well or you can phrase separate that. It's to
4 what degree you want to take that material and use
5 it. It can be done. The technology's there to do
6 this.
7 MR. HARRINGTON: What is the value, fertilizer
8 value of this material compared to the material
9 produced by the waste lagoon, anaerobic waste
10 lagoon?
11 MR. LAURENT: Well, I'd have to say because
12 you're going through decomposition in a 30 day or
13 older lagoon, No. 1, you're going through a stage
14 of decomposition of the organic matter so when you
15 go through -- so that means -- decay means it has
16 less value even if you recover it as a liquid,
17 okay? Plus you have the odors in the environment.
18 When you stir it up to apply it, you're generating
19 your odors. If you are to take the liquid out of a
20 lagoon after we phase separate and compare it to
21 nontreated waste, you're going to notice a
22 significance. Even without adding a masking agent
23 you're going to notice a significant difference in
24 the odor control.
ITV
159
1 And I'd like to share with you just one
2 study. The last study I did was in February of
3 last year down in Central Illinois. I did a phase
4 separation, okay, for a sow operation and I wanted
5 to pass an odor test so I asked the people who were
6 there with me working, both male and female, to dip
7 their hands in the filtrate, which they did, and
8 then I drove them to the most expensive restaurant
9 in the area I could find, okay? We went to that
10 restaurant, sat down, and with the presence of nice
11 waiters and waitresses, they came up and started to
12 wait on us. And I then asked them, do you smell
13 anything obnoxious? Is there something in here
14 that smells like an upset toilet, backed up toilet,
15 whatever? And they said no. It passed the test.
16 Like I say, I'm not saying I'm going to
17 eliminate a hundred percent of the odor, but when
18 you can go into a classy restaurant and not have
19 someone kick you out after working on hogs, I think
20 that's quite an accomplishment.
21 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Anything else,
22 Mr. Harrington?
23 MR. HARRINGTON: No.
24 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are there any further
ITV
160
1 questions for Mr.
Laurent? Any questions from the
2 Board?
3 MS. MANNING: Do either of the Agencies have
4 questions?
5 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Laurent,
6 very much. Next turn to the last person to speak
7 and file testimony --
8 MR. LAURENT: Do you want these as evidence?
9 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: I don't think it's
10 necessary. Does anyone --
11 MS. MANNING: You'll have to keep them in your
12 office.
13 MR. LAURENT: This one smells like cherry.
14 It's cherry flavored. If any of you would like to
15 look at it before I leave, I'd be glad to show it
16 to you. No takers, all right.
17 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Then we'll proceed with
18 Dr. Sheaffer. Oh, I'm sorry.
19 MR. LAURENT: Do you want this sample?
20 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: I don't think we need that
21 either. Does anyone from the Board want that dried
22 manure? Okay. Thank you, though, anyway.
23 Dr. Sheaffer?
24 JOHN SHEAFFER,
ITV
161
1 being previously duly sworn, testified as
2 follows:
3 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, good afternoon and thank
4 you for the opportunity to meet with you, and what
5 I would like to suggest is a different approach to
6 dealing with hog waste, and this is an extension of
7 work we've done in Illinois in taking municipal
8 waste. And a good comparison in municipal waste,
9 we're going to have maybe 200 milligrams per liter
10 of BOD, material that's going to decompose and
11 deplete our water oxygen, and where in a hog
12 operation we may have 1500, 1600 milligrams per
13 liter of BOD. So you might say there really isn't
14 much of a comparison, but what I want to introduce
15 is a technology which adds time, plus air and
16 achieves a stabilized odor-free waste facility.
17 Now, those of you who live in Chicago area
18 probably have gone by Hamilton Lakes, the big 4
19 million square foot office space on 274 acres, but
20 it's probably never dawned on you that every gallon
21 of waste ever produced in those buildings and in
22 the hotels was processed and recycled on their
23 lawn. There's no discharge. It's in its 17th
24 year. There's no sludge. The Mayor of
Itasca has
ITV
162
1 been there in that 17 years, said there's never
2 been an odor. But that's a municipal waste. At
3 times it gets up to 400 BOD but never anything
4 approaching what hog waste strength is.
5 Well, about two years ago a person came to
6 me from Iowa at an egg breaking plant. Now, an egg
7 breaking plant has a BOD of 4,000, so it's a much
8 stronger waste than what you'd find in a municipal
9 waste stream. And they said could we apply or
10 asked, could we apply this long treatment heavy
11 aerated process to our egg breaking plant. Well,
12 we did a lot of work, a lot of thinking, and we
13 concluded that in fact we could and we did so. And
14 if you went to it, if you went to the town, they
15 were trying to shutdown the operation. Year,
16 almost two years ago, they had a picnic on the
17 shores of the waste processing facility.
18 Well, then the question was, hey, if you
19 did it with an egg breaking plant could you do it
20 with a pig operation and we're in the process of
21 doing that right now. It has not been done but the
22 engineering has been done and the economics have
23 been done, and obviously we're thinking we've got a
24 controlled situation and to a degree we control
ITV
163
1 it. But the odor from a pig operation has got to
2 be generated in three areas. One is a production
3 area. A second one is, and I'm assuming a lagoon,
4 and all the pig operations I've seen have an
5 anaerobic lagoon. And then thirdly they have a
6 place to apply the somewhat stabilized waste which
7 generates odors also, the application area.
8 So we wanted to work with those three
9 sources of odor and combine it into a system that
10 would handle the waste, not as something to get rid
11 of but as a raw material or resource from which we
12 could get some value. In other words, we looked at
13 waste as a resource, as a raw material. Now, as I
14 listened to the testimony today I thought I could
15 wrap it up with three approaches. One was
16 isolation, how big a distance between what smells
17 and where we'll allow people to be. A second one
18 was engineering standards. If we built a lagoon,
19 it won't fail. We talked about spillways, et
20 cetera, but engineering standards to make sure that
21 a containment facility does, in fact, contain. And
22 a third thing I heard about was common sense, and
23 whenever I hear that, I think one of the best
24 definitions of common sense is it isn't common,
ITV
164
1 No. 1, and No. 2, it generally falls secondary to
2 economic sense. So I can be common some of the
3 time but not all the time.
4 So here's the approach we've taken and I
5 want to just outline it very quickly and then let
6 you know that we did a detailed economic evaluation
7 of it because we're going to have to put the
8 facility in. We need to know what it's going to
9 cost, how much energy it's going to take to operate
10 and what kind of benefits can we get. So let's
11 start with a production area and I like to liken a
12 production area to a water closet. And if you
13 don't flush your toilet but once a day or once a
14 week, it probably will be somewhat of a nuisance in
15 your house. We flush the toilet very often.
16 And so in the system we've designed we're
17 going to flush the area under the production floor
18 eight times a day. And if you take the top amount
19 of water we're adding, it's 400 minutes out of 1440
20 minutes in a day so it's going to be flushed eight
21 times a day. And when we do that, obviously we
22 reduce the ammonia level in the production area,
23 and I believe many of us know that an increase in
24 the ammonia level decreases the response of the
ITV
165
1 pigs and also increases the incidence of
2 respiratory disease. So we're working with the
3 idea we're going to flush this facility quite
4 frequently.
5 And you're going to say, well, where are
6 you going to get all that water, but we'll have to
7 wait until we get through it and then you'll see
8 there's a lot of recycling. So we're going to
9 flush into deep aerated treatment cells. Now,
10 working with a standard formula Illinois uses to
11 reduce BOD and applying them to our pig waste, we
12 found out that if we have two cells with 42 days of
13 residence time, you know, 21 days, and each cell,
14 we can get our BOD down to where it is no problem
15 when we're going out to a field. In other words,
16 people say if your BOD is 60 you'll get odors.
17 We're going to be down in the 30s so we've got 42
18 days of aerated treatment.
19 Now, we've taken a different approach from
20 the previous speaker. In our deep aerated
21 treatment cells we have the bottom 5 feet, which is
22 anaerobic, and our compressed air comes in at 5
23 feet above the floor. So we have created an
24 anaerobic
digester at the base of our treatment
ITV
166
1 cell, and so our organic material that comes in is
2 going to breakdown, in the absence of air and
3 roughly at a temperature near your body temperature
4 is going to breakdown into CH4, methane, carbon
5 dioxide. We'll have nitrogen gas given off. We'll
6 form some sulfides and in fact will create some
7 water.
8 Now, all of these gases are soluble in the
9 water, so rather than try to recover solids, our
10 effort is to convert to solids, to gases which are
11 soluble in the water. And after our 42 days of
12 aeration, and I will add and this will knock you
13 off your seat, we're adding 2500 cubic feet of air
14 per pound of BOD. And you're going to say, man,
15 what an energy bill that's going to be, and that's
16 all part of our analysis. Why do we use 2500?
17 Hey, the ten State standards is 1500 and we know
18 you can always find a sewage treatment plant that
19 will have an odor some time. Maybe it's a couple
20 days a month or maybe it's a couple hours or
21 whatever, but we all know that on occasion the most
22 modern sewage treatment plant has an odor.
23 And so what we've sought to do, and we
24 probably over killed and we're hoping to work on
ITV
167
1 some research with Illinois Institute of Technology
2 on -- see, we've gone from 1500 to 2500 cubic feet
3 of air per pound of BOD. Now, would 2100 do it? I
4 don't know. I just know 2500 eliminates the odors,
5 and obviously we need to optimize this but we work
6 with the 2500. So we're adding lots of air. We're
7 breaking solids down to gases. Those which don't
8 breakdown we provided space to store them for at
9 least 20 years. So sludge handling or solid
10 handling takes place once maybe every 20 years.
11 Okay, we've stabilized our waste stream.
12 We've made it into a liquid and now we can apply it
13 through modern irrigation strategy, not trying to
14 inject it into frozen soil, not trying to ship it
15 overseas and so forth, but simply put in a center
16 pivot standard irrigation facility and apply this
17 uniformly over a growing crop over the growing
18 season. Well, in a particular facility that we
19 worked with we said the growing season is going to
20 be 31 days because it's -- it happens not to be in
21 Illinois. It's a little more severe climate. In
22 Illinois we could irrigate for 35 weeks.
23 But if you take 35 weeks, seven passes of
24 the center pivot boom over a piece of land in a
ITV
168
1 week, you realize that you have 35 times seven
2 times what you're putting down, some nitrogen.
3 Obviously if you're putting 250 pounds of nitrogen
4 down, the most nitrogen that would ever be
5 available for leaching would be essentially a pound
6 an acre because each time you go you put down a
7 pound versus injecting it into the soil and putting
8 it all down maybe in one application.
9 Obviously you can't do this when you don't
10 have a growing crop so we build a winter storage
11 reservoir to hold reclaimed water so it can be then
12 used as a resource. And obviously this reservoir
13 fills up over the winter. It has to be emptied
14 over the summer. So you need to add storage to any
15 system in order to apply your reclaimed waste
16 stream or your
unreclaimed waste stream so it could
17 fit with the climate conditions and the plant
18 conditions because we know it's tough to put it
19 down on frozen ground. We also know it's tough to
20 put it down when it's raining. And if you look at
21 the climate records, there's about 70 days a year
22 in Illinois when rain occurs so you need to be able
23 to work with that.
24 So if you look at the system -- and I
ITV
169
1 should have added we first go through a
commonator
2 (phonetic) or a macerator to reduce our waste to as
3 fine a particle as we can. We then go through 42
4 days of heavy aerated treatment. We then go into
5 winter storage and then we apply it onto a growing
6 crop consistent with the crop and climate
7 conditions. Now, the issue then becomes, hey, if
8 you're going to do all that, can you afford it? In
9 other words, is it going to be cost-effective?
10 Well, we've taken an operation that's
11 going to be built in another state and it's a
12 megahog operation. We took the costs of our
13 facilities, 42 days of aerated treatment, 150 days
14 of winter storage, center pivot rigs, the
15 commonator, the monitoring wells, the blowers and
16 the motors we need to generate the 2500 cubic feet
17 of air and put it on an annualized cost at 7 1/2
18 percent interest and then the cost of operating,
19 the electric and the -- we put in a reserve fund to
20 renew it 2 percent of the cost of the machinery and
21 you add a capital cost plus the OMN and divide it
22 by the number of pigs you're going to produce a
23 year. Our cost per pig was under a dollar a pig.
24 Now, you might say we can't afford a
ITV
170
1 dollar a pig, but if in fact the research on the
2 reduction of ammonia on the pig growth -- and I've
3 seen some studies that said if you had 50 parts per
4 million in the aerial environment, it reduced the
5 pig growth by 12 percent. I'm not talking about 12
6 percent. All I'm saying is if we handle our waste
7 in this manner and we get a bonus of two pounds,
8 hey, it's no cost. And when you look at it, we've
9 greatly mitigated the odor that comes from the
10 buildings and you're going to get a benefit of less
11 ventilation where you're blowing the nap and the
12 ammonia and so forth out to make the condition in
13 the production floor better, that can be
14 mitigated. And we're flushing so we're going to
15 reduce the odors from the production area, not
16 eliminate them.
17 But we will eliminate the odors from the
18 treatment cells, and I'm saying eliminate because
19 the waste comes in at the bottom and there's 20
20 feet of aerated water above that anaerobic
21 digester, and you know what the little water trap
22 does in your kitchen sink. Two inches of water
23 keeps your kitchen from spelling like a sewer.
24 Well, 20 feet of aerated water is a big buffer and
ITV
171
1 we're not handling sludge. And then the third
2 source of odor is when we spread our waste. But
3 remember, we've totally stabilized it. It's going
4 out and there will be no odor there. We have the
5 opportunity to regulate it in accordance with
6 weather and climate conditions.
7 And what we're suggesting, why not try to
8 take the waste and deal with them in a positive
9 manner and in a cost-effective manner rather than
10 try to locate them where nobody will smell them
11 because that's impossible.
12 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Dr.
Sheaffer.
13 Do you have another copy of your
prefiled
14 testimony?
15 MR. SHEAFFER: Right, there's a couple here.
16 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Good, then I can go ahead
17 and enter that as an exhibit. Are there any
18 questions for Dr.
Sheaffer from anyone in the
19 audience? Mr.
Harrington?
20 MR. HARRINGTON: Is there a size at which your
21 system becomes economical or below which it is not
22 economical?
23 MR. SHEAFFER: What we have done is just work
24 on one system we were asked to work on, and that's
ITV
172
1 a big one. We know that's economical. I would
2 think with a modest amount of effort one could get
3 down to where the economics would not be
4 favorable. But in the large operation, as I said,
5 the cost before we start taking benefits is less
6 than a dollar a hog.
7 MR. HARRINGTON: How large of an operation was
8 that?
9 MR. SHEAFFER: They were going to margin 67,000
10 hogs a year.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: In terms of the operation of
12 the treatment lagoons, you're aerating from 5
13 feet --
14 MR. SHEAFFER: 5 feet below and then 20 feet of
15 aerated water above it.
16 MR. HARRINGTON: Does the aeration itself strip
17 any of the gases from the water?
18 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, if you wanted to deal
19 with -- let's take nitrogen which is something that
20 everybody is concerned about and we have pretty
21 good data on that. We're going to lose 14 percent
22 of our nitrogen in all forms in Cell 1. We'll lose
23 14 percent in Cell 2 and then we lose about 49
24 percent in our winter storage. And I'm talking
ITV
173
1 about nitrogen in all forms. I know how we can
2 talk about TKN and pneumonia and nitrite and
3 nitrate, but if you're going in a continuous
4 system, we just deal with nitrogen in all forms of
5 elemental
nitrogens.
6 MR. HARRINGTON: You're not aerating in the
7 winter storage?
8 MR. SHEAFFER: We do a little bit just so that
9 it doesn't stratify.
10 MR. HARRINGTON: Does the aeration strip any
11 other gases from the liquid?
12 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, there have been a number
13 of studies of that, particularly on municipal
14 wastewater and there has not been any evidence to
15 suggest that there is some kind of an unusual gas
16 coming off, at least none identified to date.
17 MR. HARRINGTON: Does it strip any bacteria or
18 viruses from the water?
19 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, as you know, most
20 bacteria, viruses, pathogens, their home is in
21 anaerobic conditions and there's much research that
22 shows 30 days of aerobic environment. You get
23 essentially a 99.99 percent die off of pathogens.
24 In fact, many people say 30 days in an aerobic pond
ITV
174
1 is as good a
disinfection system as you can get.
2 MR. HARRINGTON: Did you calculate a capital
3 cost per pig?
4 MR. SHEAFFER: We didn't do it that way. We
5 just took our total costs, put it on 7 1/2 percent
6 financing and considered two scenarios, one 20
7 years for a debt retirement and the other ten years
8 for debt retirement, so we did not think of
9 breaking it down so much capital for pig, which
10 I've seen people doing here. We took it more as a
11 project cost. You had to invest this much money,
12 this is what it would cost you a year and then we
13 added to our cost of energy. And incidentally we
14 used 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Now, I know from a
15 project we're doing in Virginia, if we can have
16 access to both electric and natural gas, we can
17 reduce that cost to 3 cents a kilowatt hour and in
18 fact have worked out a project to do that.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: What is the impact of your
20 system on other nutrients?
21 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, you know, phosphorus is
22 going to be generally dissolved in water and the
23 nitrates are going to tend to be dissolved,
24 especially if we don't build up a
biomass, which as
ITV
175
1 I said, we're avoiding the buildup of a
biomass.
2 Potassium's going to go out. These are going to be
3 going out roughly as a 10-10-10 fertilizer. We
4 lose much more nitrogen in our treatment process
5 than phosphorus or potassium.
6 MR. HARRINGTON: Do you consider spring weather
7 conditions, spring and early summer weather
8 conditions in Illinois and limitations on using
9 irrigation during that time on farmlands?
10 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, sure. We've got about 50
11 irrigation systems working in Illinois right now,
12 and one of the problems you have to face when
13 you're going to use the irrigation is either you're
14 going to put more water down than you would need to
15 to make a crop in order to get enough nutrients to
16 produce the crop or you're going to put just the
17 amount of water you need for supplemental
18 irrigation and then you're going to have to add
19 fertilizer. Now, obviously the fields we would
20 use, we work with the infiltration rate of the soil
21 and we never use more than 10 percent of the
22 infiltration rate.
23 And with our storage, hey, if you had a
24 wet week where it rained every day and let's say in
ITV
176
1 early May, then we wouldn't apply any. Well, we're
2 talking about applications. We're talking about
3 average, but we take into that average the
4 rainfall. In other words, that could eliminate
5 irrigation the first two weeks of May. But maybe
6 in August it's really hot and dry and we instead of
7 seven turns on our center pivot which would result
8 in about 50 hours of irrigation, we may do nine or
9 ten or eleven in order to try to keep the soil
10 moisture at 90 percent field capacity in order to
11 increase, maximize our crop yield.
12 MR. HARRINGTON: You mentioned 50 irrigation
13 systems. Are any of those on hog farms in
14 Illinois?
15 MR. SHEAFFER: No, I said there's no
16 application of this on a hog farm but there will be
17 shortly.
18 MR. HARRINGTON: What are these systems on?
19 MR. SHEAFFER: Municipal waste.
20 MR. HARRINGTON: What are they irrigating?
21 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, they irrigate anything
22 from Jack Nicholas' golf course in North
Barrington
23 to Greg Norman's golf course in Long Grove to
24 Hamilton Lakes, a corporate grounds outside of one
ITV
177
1 of the luxury hotels in the state to where we're
2 growing corn to where we're growing prairie plants
3 to get seed to sell. In other words, there's a
4 whole range of crops that have been growing.
5 MR. HARRINGTON: Did I understand you to say
6 that it is the improvement in the nitrogen ammonia
7 conditions and the confinement buildings that makes
8 this system economic?
9 MR. SHEAFFER: No, I haven't taken it. I just
10 said whatever benefit you want to assign to that,
11 you can reduce that dollar. It's under a dollar a
12 pig but you can reduce that by whatever benefit you
13 want to assign to it. In other words, if you say,
14 hey, if we get a better reduction in ammonia levels
15 without blowing so much air, hey, I'll take a
16 little credit for that. Whatever you choose to do
17 on that. I'm just working with some people at the
18 University of Illinois. They've suggested that
19 there would be a benefit associated with that. I
20 have not tried to measure it. It would be in
21 somebody else's field to put a measurement on it.
22 But hey, if you put two pounds a pig, one pound a
23 pig, that's a pretty substantial benefit. I have
24 not chosen to do that.
ITV
178
1 MR. HARRINGTON: Are you irrigating with some
2 of this material anywhere within a quarter mile of
3 a nonfarm residence?
4 MR. SHEAFFER: We irrigate right up to million
5 dollar houses and that's why I suggested the places
6 you might look at. You might look at Jack
7 Nicholas' golf course and see a $3 million house
8 and the irrigation comes right up to the -- pretty
9 much the patio and maybe they know, maybe they
10 don't know, but that was their sewage a little
11 while ago. You can do that.
12 I'd say the point is we're going to
13 stabilize the waste. We're going to use it as a
14 resource, and if we as a society are going to
15 recycle, it's got to be done without a nuisance.
16 If there's a nuisance associated with recycling, in
17 my opinion it's going to be a struggle forever.
18 And all I wanted to do was find out what investment
19 you would have to make to eliminate the problem.
20 Hey, I thought maybe it would cost too much. I can
21 tell you what it costs. You might say, hey, if it
22 costs a penny a pig, it's too much. Well, then it
23 isn't feasible. I'm just saying it's under a
24 dollar a pig to do this.
ITV
179
1 MR. HARRINGTON: When you irrigate within a
2 quarter a mile of residences, do you incorporate
3 this into the soil or do you spray irrigate?
4 MR. SHEAFFER: We spray.
5 MR. HARRINGTON: Do you think that's a
6 reasonable way to apply it?
7 MR. SHEAFFER: I think that's the most
8 economical way to apply it and if, in fact, I have
9 something that doesn't have an odor, it's the way
10 to do it.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: Have you done bacteriological
12 testing on this?
13 MR. SHEAFFER: Yes.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: What was the results?
15 MR. SHEAFFER: We have zero fecal
coliforms per
16 hundred ML in our irrigation water, and you know,
17 in many places they allow 200 in the ocean to go
18 swimming in it. I think Lake Michigan is 20, so in
19 fact we just had a medical doctor go through the
20 second cell, and I said, hey, well, that means it's
21 full body contact recreation, but I'm not going to
22 advocate we want to swim in it. But see, if you
23 want to ask on these parameters, then you've got to
24 get the answer, and the reason for it is you've got
ITV
180
1 a long aerated treatment process, probably longer
2 than you would have thought was possible.
3 And you might say, well, if you're going
4 to balance, cut and fill and you're going to
5 build -- you know, we've got a waste stream of --
6 and I forgot to mention this, the 200,000 gallons a
7 day, we take reclaimed water and use it as
8 flushing, so we're flushing back. I guess I didn't
9 mention but you see the chart on the diagram. But
10 we're trying to recycle. We're trying to make --
11 not trying, we can make a hog operation a really
12 good neighbor. And see, you're the one who has to
13 tell me. See, you know more about that than I do.
14 Could you stand the cost of, you know, 79 cents a
15 pig to be precise, and is there a benefit from
16 reducing the ammonia level on the respiratory
17 disease, on the weight gain?
18 Hey, maybe we can work together and say
19 this is the thing to do. Is it patented? No. So
20 all I'm saying is we took a process and applied it
21 and I'm confident it will work just the way I
22 said. And when you talk about economics, hey,
23 there's a million dollar errors and emissions
24 policy that goes along with it, so I mean, you
ITV
181
1 don't want to be wrong.
2 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Harrington.
3 Mr. Taylor.
4 MR. TAYLOR I have one question. A. G. Taylor
5 with the Agency. You mentioned that you lose 14
6 percent in the first and second stage of the
7 process.
8 MR. SHEAFFER: The two cells. 14 in Cell 1, 14
9 percent.
10 MR. TAYLOR: And I recall 40 some percent.
11 MR. SHEAFFER: 49 in the winter storage.
12 MR. TAYLOR: In what form is that nitrogen
13 lost?
14 MR. SHEAFFER: It primarily is N2.
15 MR. TAYLOR: In all three stages?
16 MR. SHEAFFER: Yes. And in fact, we have
17 struggled with how can we keep more in because
18 there are some places where people really want the
19 nitrogen, but I can't figure out how to keep it.
20 We just begin to lose it. Do you have an idea on
21 how to keep it in? Over in Thailand they want to
22 know and I don't know how to keep it in.
23 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Do you have any follow-up
24 questions, Mr. Taylor?
ITV
182
1 MR. TAYLOR: No.
2 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Are there any other
3 questions in the audience?
4 MS. MANNING: The facility you talked about
5 designing in Michigan was a new facility,
6 completely new facility?
7 MR. SHEAFFER: It's not in Michigan.
8 MS. MANNING: I'm sorry. But at any rate, the
9 facility you were talking about, the engineering's
10 been done, the economics have been done. Is the
11 facility a brand-new facility?
12 MR. SHEAFFER: That's correct.
13 MS. MANNING: Are the economics different for a
14 preexisting facility, applying your process already
15 in a preexisting facility?
16 MR. SHEAFFER: If it's dispersed, obviously
17 it's hard to get it all together, and I haven't
18 really looked at it, but you know, it's something
19 that obviously needs to be looked at and we were
20 hoping -- I think there's a facility near your
21 hometown, St. Anne's, that has had some problems,
22 odors and so forth, and I thought, well, that's
23 close. Some of the work we're hoping to get under
24 way with Illinois Institute of Technology, that
ITV
183
1 hey, we could look to see what would be involved in
2 retrofitting that. But we have not looked and it's
3 something I would like to do but we haven't had the
4 occasion to do it.
5 MS. MANNING: Thank you.
6 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr.
Laurent?
7 MR. LAURENT: One question that all of us in
8 private industry are always seeking is, you know, a
9 lot of times a lot of this work we do we fund our
10 own pocket, our own time, and I'm sure that I speak
11 for most people who are out there wanting to help.
12 If there is funding available which you had
13 discussion with --
Hankes I believe mentioned
14 there's a certain EQIP program. If we could
15 participate in that, it would help. We're not out
16 there just to be capitalists to make money. We
17 want to solve the problem.
18 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Do you have a question for
19 Dr. Sheaffer?
20 MR. LAURENT: Yes, I'd be interested to talking
21 to you after the meeting.
22 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Okay, thank you. Are there
23 any other questions?
24 MR. RAO: I have a question for Dr.
Sheaffer.
ITV
184
1 You mentioned about flood storage out of the
2 treatment unit that you have, you have like a
3 20-year storage incorporated in it, so will it be
4 in the treatment cell or is it a separate --
5 MR. SHEAFFER: No, it's going to be at the base
6 of the treatment cell, so let's imagine we're
7 sitting in Cell 1 and the waste comes in at floor
8 level, and I should add this is lined, and at
9 Illinois, we're building it according with Illinois
10 EPA standards, the ten state standards so that our
11 exfiltration will be one times ten to the minus
12 seven centimeters per second. In other words,
13 we're not saying, hey, hopefully it will seep into
14 the ground and it will go away. We're treating it
15 as a resource so we're containing it either with a
16 two foot compacted clay liner or a membrane liner.
17 So the waste comes in at floor level. The
18 air comes in at 5 feet and it's compressed air so
19 the air is coming in at essentially your body
20 temperature. And what we've created is a
21 mesophilic digester that's 5 feet in height. And
22 then the air through the static tube aerators comes
23 above that and we add 20 feet of aerated water
24 above it. So as the organic material comes in,
ITV
185
1 some of it's hard to break down, some of it breaks
2 down very quickly, but we have space to store for
3 at least 20 years those things which would be
4 inorganic or the things that even though they are
5 organic it takes a long time for them to break
6 down. So we have space air, and at the end of 20
7 years, let's say our calculation we've been too
8 conservative on municipal things, but let's say
9 it's about 4 feet thick now so we say we ought to
10 get it out. Your question is how do we get it
11 out?
12 MR. RAO: Yes.
13 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, we don't take the system
14 out of operation. We bring in a floating dredge
15 and they are -- you can rent them. People use them
16 to dredge mud out from around artifacts and we
17 vacuum the bottom and we have to relocate it some
18 place and that's something that it's not a totally
19 closed system. We have to take that material and
20 relocate it and it's primarily inorganic or very
21 difficult to break down, you know, cellulose and so
22 forth, and we could relocate that. It's not an
23 agricultural resource. We may put it in the
berm
24 on the outside but we have to do something with
ITV
186
1 it.
2 But it's a once in a 20-year occurrence
3 and you might say, well, that's going to stink.
4 Well, we're going to add lime to it because we got
5 to keep the pH at 11 while we're doing this and
6 that will eliminate any odor-causing bacteria.
7 MR. RAO: And also the costs, if you were
8 talking about aerating the cells, are they
9 comparable to aeration that's done in municipal
10 wastewater treatment plants like an activated
11 sludge or aeration basin?
12 MR. SHEAFFER: Well, that would use 1500 cubic
13 feet of air per pound of BOD. I told you we're
14 providing 2500 because we know activated sludge
15 plants on occasion have odors and we're trying to
16 take the approach that we want this to be a good
17 neighbor.
18 MR. RAO: Would it be possible for you to
19 provide the Board with much more detailed costs
20 analysis than what you're giving us right now?
21 MR. SHEAFFER: It would be possible, whether we
22 would do it or not. I have it right here but I
23 think the client with whom we're working would have
24 to say to us first of all, hey, you can give the
ITV
187
1 Board the costs, and I personally would like to
2 because I would like -- no, but I would like to see
3 people look at it and make those judgments, hey,
4 this is too costly, we can only handle 5 cents a
5 pig or 10 cents a pig or whatever. And yes, well,
6 there will be less ammonia and this and that but
7 we've already overcome it with our fans and they're
8 only costing us 2 cents a pig to blow the area,
9 whatever.
10 MR. RAO: I'm not asking for you to provide us
11 the information that you provide to your client,
12 but in general terms, how much it would cost.
13 MR. SHEAFFER: We can do that.
14 MR. RAO: Something that would give us a better
15 idea.
16 MR. SHEAFFER: Right, and if you listened I
17 told you a lot of things. We used ten year, 7 1/2
18 percent interest -- at 20 years, 7 1/2 percent. I
19 told you we assumed -- and our biggest cost was
20 buying electricity or energy. I told you we're
21 using 5 cents a kilowatt hour and I told you we're
22 putting in 2500 cubic feet of air per pound of BOD,
23 so I pretty much told you. You can start working
24 and have them all there.
ITV
188
1 The system, when we balance, cut and fill
2 we needed to move 105 cubic yards of earth --
3 105,000, you got to put the right on there, but
4 105,000 cubic yards of earth for the 200,000
5 gallons a day allows us to build the containers for
6 42 days of aerated treatment and 150 days of winter
7 storage.
8 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Dr.
Sheaffer.
9 MR. RAO: Thanks.
10 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Any further questions from
11 the Board? Seeing no further questions, I'd like
12 to note for the record that Dr.
Sheaffer's
13 testimony, Large Scale Confined Animal Facilities,
14 Waste Streams and Resources has been marked as
15 Exhibit No. 24. Thank you, gentlemen, and we can
16 take a five-minute break, have these gentlemen sit
17 back down and then we'll have the Department of
18 Agriculture, if you could please come forward and
19 we'll go on with
prefiled questions which are
20 directed to the Department of Agriculture. Thank
21 you.
22 (A recess was taken at 2:44 p.m. and
23 proceedings resumed at 2:56 p.m.)
24 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Back on the record. First
ITV
189
1 I'd like to ask if anyone has any questions for the
2 Department of Agriculture at this time. Yes, if
3 you could just state your name for the record.
4 MR. THOMPSON: My name's Dave
Thompson. I'm an
5 egg farmer from near Pearl City, Illinois. I'd
6 like to know how you arrived -- how the animal
7 units were arrived for chickens, how you arrived at
8 the animal units for chickens for the
9 recommendation.
10 MR. BORUFF: The chart that we used values
11 regarding animal units is one that was preexisting
12 that was used in Title 35 of the Environmental
13 Protection Act, and also then upon research we
14 found it to be consistent with the approaches used
15 by, like, Midwest Plant Service or others in the
16 design criteria phase of it and so it was our
17 opinion that those numbers were pretty universal by
18 nature, and that's why we -- rather than reinvent
19 the wheel, that's why we chose to use those in the
20 State here.
21 MR. THOMPSON: You did not make any allowance
22 for young chickens, for pullets, birds that were
23 not of egg-laying age. You did for young hogs.
24 There's a difference in animal units for hogs but
ITV
190
1 there's not for chickens, and for instance, when we
2 get a chick a day old and we keep that chick and it
3 grows until approximately 16 to 17 weeks of age,
4 it's going to eat about 11 pounds of feed during
5 that time and during that 16 to 17 weeks. A mature
6 chicken is going to eat about 25 to 26 pounds of
7 feed, so you can see it's much less than half, so
8 I'm wondering why there was not an allowance made
9 for a lesser amount of animal units for young
10 chickens when you did that for hogs. And you know,
11 why didn't you do that for chickens too?
12 MR. BORUFF: Kind of gets back, as I said a
13 minute ago, but also as that refers to the whole
14 genesis of this, of the Livestock Management
15 Facilities Act because when the Act was being
16 developed and it was decided to use the animal unit
17 criteria, they looked at what was preexisting and
18 then that's what they carried through. And it's
19 actually in Section 10-10 of the Act itself where
20 it defines animal units and gives those values.
21 And I can only assume that probably since the swine
22 industry was so commonplace to the State and it
23 would be applicable to so many farms, that's why
24 those two measurements were given.
ITV
191
1 I can understand in your situation where
2 your industry in the chicken industry is a little
3 bit unique and maybe it would be to your benefit to
4 have a further breakdown. It was just that's the
5 way it was written in the statute, that it didn't
6 give that smaller breakdown or that breakdown for
7 smaller chickens in your case.
8 MR. THOMPSON: Yeah, I understand that. The
9 Illinois Poultry Industry Council was not contacted
10 for any input on this until after the regulations
11 or most of the testimony had already been given and
12 so I'm wondering is there a possibility that the
13 Department of
Ag can recommend a lower -- a lesser
14 figure in animal units for pullets. Is it too late
15 to do that?
16 MR. BORUFF: I doubt that it's too late to
17 consider that and I guess I'd refer to maybe the
18 Board over here. The animal units are laid out by
19 statute, but if it's possible to redefine that, I
20 don't know. Let me ask you this though, if -- is
21 there research somewhere that exists that would
22 give us some pretty good indication what those
23 values should be?
24 MR. THOMPSON: Well, you can go by what a bird
ITV
192
1 eats and you've got manuals that provide -- you
2 know, we can provide you and show you what a bird
3 is supposed to eat over so many weeks, and yeah,
4 it's documented. So if a bird is going to eat --
5 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Excuse me. I'd like to
6 swear you in because right now you're giving
7 testimony as opposed to asking a question. Would
8 you mind?
9 MR. THOMPSON: That's fine.
10 DAVID THOMPSON,
11 being first duly sworn, testified as
12 follows:
13 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: I'm sorry, go ahead.
14 MR. THOMPSON: So there are manuals put out,
15 like DeKalb Ag, DeKalb Poultry puts out a manual
16 and tells you how much your bird is supposed to eat
17 each week and how much they're supposed to eat over
18 the 17 weeks or the 16 weeks that you grow them and
19 the numbers are -- that we achieve are very, very
20 close to those numbers. So if you would need
21 documentation, I'm sure that we could easily
22 provide that to you.
23 MR. FLEMAL: I think it would be very useful if
24 we did have that on the record, and I understand
ITV
193
1 perhaps you can join us at Galesburg. It would be
2 possible to enter anything you might have at that
3 early stage in the record or as you're aware, we
4 receive public comments on this proceeding through
5 the middle of February, February 14th is our
6 close-off date. I would note, however, that as
7 Mr. Boruff has indicated, this definition is
8 statutory. There's going to be some question as to
9 whether the Board would have authority to modify
10 this definition as part of this rulemaking. We
11 have to entertain the possibility that maybe the
12 way this has to be considered is to look at an
13 actual statutory change.
14 Mr.
Lawfer is sitting right behind you.
15 There's a man who has insight into that process,
16 and having a word with him might be worthwhile.
17 This is not the first time that we've encountered
18 questions as to whether this table is appropriate
19 for all of the various kinds of potential
20 livestock, and you may have identified one of the
21 spots where there is a gap in the table and in the
22 definition.
23 MS. MANNING: If I might interject as well, the
24 statute identifies, it says a laying hen or a
ITV
194
1 broiler. If you want -- we have no definition,
2 however, of what a laying hen or a broiler is and
3 if you wanted to provide, you know, one like that,
4 I mean, there's a possibility that we can interpret
5 the regulation, but certainly we can't go beyond
6 whatever it is that the legislature has declared to
7 be the animal unit conversion for that
8 particular -- for a hen.
9 We had the same question, interestingly.
10 Our first public comment that was filed in this
11 proceeding was filed by the horse industry by
12 Walker
Standardbred which is a horse facility near
13 me in Sherman, Illinois, and their concern was the
14 number for the horses because it's two times for
15 the horses and they didn't think that conversion
16 table really for the horses was appropriate
17 either. And our response probably is the same,
18 that's the statutory requirement is that it has to
19 be multiplied by two, the conversion to have a
20 horse.
21 My understanding of the genesis of all of
22 this is not only did it come from our original
23 Title 35 regulations but my understanding is it
24 ultimately derived from federal regulations that
ITV
195
1 were created way back even before our Title 35
2 regulations, so there were federal requirements
3 that were written into State regulations. Now they
4 have been adopted into State law and we're dealing
5 with them the second time around for the State
6 regulatory context so they're pretty much imbedded
7 in the process.
8 If you want to give us information to
9 allow us to read it in a context consistent with
10 that, we'd be more than happy to receive any of
11 that, but I should let you know that people do have
12 some concerns that are being raised as to the other
13 industries that weren't necessarily the focus, you
14 know, of the Livestock Management Facilities task
15 force, and the horses is the other example on
16 that.
17 MR. THOMPSON: I guess I'm pointing out you did
18 not make an allowance for young, immature chickens,
19 for pullets, and there is quite a difference in the
20 amount of feed that the bird consumes so therefore
21 there would be quite a difference in the amount of
22 manure that would be expelled too.
23 MS. MANNING: I think that was the key for the
24 original conversion table too in terms of the
ITV
196
1 weight of the animal and the amount of waste. I
2 may be wrong about that. In terms of the federal
3 regulations, Ron, do you have information on that,
4 how the unit was ultimately --
5 MR. FLEMAL: I'd look to Mr. Taylor here or
6 perhaps the Department of Agriculture to quote them
7 in this.
8 MS. MANNING: A. G., did you want to say
9 something on the record?
10 MR. TAYLOR: We got some information that we'd
11 like to review.
12 MS. MANNING: That would be good if you could
13 enlighten us. That might help us with the whole
14 public comment we have with the horse industry and
15 a couple of the comments we had as well, if you
16 could help us with the genesis of those numbers.
17 Thank you.
18 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr. Marlin?
19 MR. MARLIN: John Marlin, I'm already sworn at
20 both hearings. Some states seem to use the live
21 weight of the animals as opposed to animal units in
22 the grades. I think Iowa is one of them.
23 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr. Marlin.
24 Mr. Boruff, would you like to introduce your
ITV
197
1 witnesses and then the court reporter can swear
2 them in.
3 MR. BORUFF: Yes. First of all I'd like to
4 introduce Mr. Warren
Goetsch and he's the Chief of
5 the Bureau of Environmental Programs for the
6 Department of Agriculture, and Scott Frank who
7 supervised the aviary program and has been working
8 closely with this -- the adoption of these rules
9 and the law in the Department of Agriculture as
10 well. Both of them gave extensive testimony at
11 Jacksonville but not yet today.
12 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you.
13 (WHEREUPON all those were duly sworn.)
14 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, gentleman. Are
15 there any further questions of anyone in the
16 audience before we get to the
prefiled questions of
17 the Department of Agriculture directed to the
18 Department of Agriculture? No?
19 All right, then Mr.
Harrington, if you'd
20 like to proceed with your
prefiled questions.
21 MR. HARRINGTON: I'll try speaking from here.
22 If the people have a problem hearing me, send up a
23 signal or something and I'll move to a more
24 convenient location.
ITV
198
1 I've talked to the Department of
2 Agricultural witnesses and we are going to go
3 through the questions generally in order as they
4 were filed, and if we can find a way to speed the
5 process up as we go along, we both agreed to do
6 so.
7 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you.
8 MR. HARRINGTON: Is it your opinion and that of
9 the Department that the proposed regulations when
10 read together with the existing Board regulations
11 will ensure the protection of public health and the
12 environment?
13 MR. BORUFF: And I'm going to take a shot at
14 that answer. Before we do, I was just going to
15 also go along with what Mr.
Harrington said, is
16 that we appreciate the opportunity to have looked
17 at these questions in advance. As a Department
18 we've got some key points that we would like to
19 cover in the answers. As such, we're going to be
20 reading the responses and then also Mr.
Goetsch and
21 Mr. Frank, depending on if that question pertains
22 to part of their testimony, will be answering some
23 as well. However, Mr.
Harrington, if we don't
24 cover things adequately, please feel free to ask us
ITV
199
1 for follow-up or whatever.
2 But yes, it is our Department's opinion
3 that the proposed regulations take into account the
4 best science and technical information available to
5 us today, and based upon today's knowledge, our
6 Department does feel that these regulations will
7 provide a favorable economic climate for livestock
8 production in the State of Illinois while also
9 providing a good, sound level of environmental
10 protection.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: Is it your opinion that the
12 proposed regulations in connection with the Board's
13 existing regulations will minimize the possibility
14 of a public nuisance interfering with neighboring
15 landowners, provide adequate remedy should one
16 occur?
17 MR. BORUFF: It is our Department's opinion
18 that the proposed regulations will minimize the
19 possibility of a public nuisance; however, the
20 intent of the Livestock Management Facilities Act
21 is to prevent problems before they occur, and as
22 such they provide little or no remedies should a
23 nuisance occur. Provisions for providing remedies
24 are found in other state statutes.
ITV
200
1 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping to Question 4, is it
2 the position of the Department and its witnesses
3 that the design standards set forth in the proposed
4 regulations in reference to technical material are
5 sufficient with respect to the subject thereof, the
6 design, to protect the public health and
7 environment with an adequate margin of safety?
8 MR. BORUFF: We have a high level of confidence
9 that facilities which are designed and constructed
10 according to these criteria should not pose a
11 threat to public health or to the environment.
12 It's our position that the design standards and the
13 reference technical material which we have
14 presented take into account the best and the most
15 current information available regarding property
16 design and construction of these types of
17 facilities.
18 MR. HARRINGTON: With respect to groundwater
19 protection, is it your position and that of the
20 Department that the facilities built according to
21 proposed standards will be adequate to protect
22 groundwater from
contaminations from the lagoon?
23 MR. BORUFF: It is the position of the Illinois
24 Department of Agriculture that facilities built
ITV
201
1 according to our proposed standards will protect
2 groundwater resources from contamination. The
3 standards which we have proposed provide a
4 differential approach to managing the risk based
5 upon hydrologic and geologic criteria. As such, we
6 feel that these proposed standards offer a fair
7 balance between protecting the environment while at
8 the same time being economically reasonable for
9 producers.
10 MR. HARRINGTON: In the case of facilities
11 which are allowed to be constructed without
12 membrane liners, would you please explain the
13 mechanisms by which these lagoons will be prevented
14 from contaminating the groundwater.
15 MR. BORUFF: Lagoons will be allowed to be
16 constructed without membrane liners only in those
17 situations where the depth to groundwater is over
18 50 feet from the proposed lagoon bottom, and as
19 such, the possibility of leaching is extremely
20 minimal. Also, based upon the soil borings which
21 would be performed prior to construction, the
22 absence of any aquifer material within that profile
23 would support the notion that in situ soils are
24 adequate to compact and seal the bottom of the
ITV
202
1 lagoon.
2 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping to Question 8, do you
3 have any additional references to support that
4 position?
5 MR. BORUFF: Engineering standards adopted by
6 the American Society of Agricultural Engineers as
7 well as other professional organizations support my
8 comments regarding clay and also what we would
9 refer to as
bentonite technology as well.
10 MR. HARRINGTON: Is the same technology
11 recognized for wastewater treatment facilities
12 operated by municipalities and industries?
13 MR. BORUFF: To your knowledge the technology
14 which we are proposing is also used for wastewater
15 treatment facilities operated by municipalities and
16 by industries.
17 MR. HARRINGTON: Does the use of the engineered
18 membrane liners where required by the proposed
19 regulations protect groundwater and the
20 circumstances where it is required?
21 MR. BORUFF: Engineered membrane liners
22 commonly referred to as -- commonly manufactured,
23 excuse me, from vinyl-based materials, have been
24 used extensively in municipal and industrial
ITV
203
1 facilities and if properly designed and installed
2 will provide a high level of protection to
3 groundwater resources.
4 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping to Question 13, are
5 you aware of any instances in Illinois or elsewhere
6 of lagoons failing to protect groundwater when
7 built to the proposed standards?
8 MR. BORUFF: Prior to the Livestock Management
9 Facilities Act and its associated rules, there were
10 no regulations in the State of Illinois pertaining
11 to the siting and construction of animal waste
12 lagoons. As such, I'm unable to comment on how
13 existing lagoons in the State have been
14 constructed. However, the design standards
15 outlined in these proposed regulations are based
16 upon the best available construction techniques and
17 recommendations as referenced by the American
18 Society of
Ag Engineers. To our knowledge lagoons
19 which have been constructed according to these
20 criteria have protected groundwater resources as
21 designed.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: Are you aware of whether
23 lagoons built to these standards have been in use
24 in Illinois or other states?
ITV
204
1 MR. BORUFF: In many instances the information
2 available from both the American Society of
Ag
3 Engineers and the Natural Resource Conservation
4 Service guidelines have been used in formulating
5 the design and construction of lagoons for many
6 years, but there is no way of being able to
7 accurately state to what extent these designs have
8 been followed in the construction of existing
9 lagoons here in Illinois or other states as well.
10 MR. HARRINGTON: Are you aware of regulations
11 in other states concerning the design of waste
12 lagoons?
13 MR. BORUFF: We are aware of other states'
14 efforts in providing groundwater protection through
15 the implementation of design standards for animal
16 waste lagoons and the requirements of waste
17 management plans. Design standards and waste
18 management plan requirements which we have
19 referenced take into account the most current
20 technology and the best information available and
21 other states have taken this same approach as
22 well.
23 MR. HARRINGTON: Are the proposed regulations
24 referring to lagoon design in Illinois as stringent
ITV
205
1 as those in other states regarding the design of
2 the lagoon?
3 MR. BORUFF: It's difficult to form a judgment
4 of what may or may not be as stringent as it
5 pertains to both design standards for lagoons and
6 for waste management plans. However, it is safe to
7 say that the standards which we are proposing are
8 very similar to the standards adopted by other
9 states when they've addressed this issue, keeping
10 in mind that other states may have design needs
11 based upon their specific soil types, topography
12 and weather conditions.
13 MR. HARRINGTON: Moving to 19, will a lagoon
14 which is properly built and properly operated
15 according to the standards set forth in the
16 proposal be a source of significant odor problems
17 in your opinion?
18 MR. BORUFF: A livestock waste lagoon properly
19 built and operated according to the standards set
20 forth in this proposal should not be a significant
21 source of odor. However, terms such as significant
22 are subjective and difficult to address as certain
23 individuals may have varying interpretations of
24 what may be significant or not.
ITV
206
1 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping 20 and 21, to your
2 knowledge have lagoons constructed largely in
3 compliance with these standards been the source of
4 significant odor problems beyond the setback zones
5 called for in the proposed regulations?
6 MR. BORUFF: The Illinois Environmental
7 Protection Agency has been responsible for dealing
8 with complaints regarding odors from livestock
9 lagoons. As a result, our Department does not have
10 past regulatory statistics in this issue. However,
11 based upon the information which we have received
12 from a variety of sources, it would appear to our
13 Department that lagoons have not been any more of a
14 source of odors when properly managed and situated,
15 taking into account the setback zones called for on
16 this proposal.
17 MR. HARRINGTON: Would the animal feeding
18 operations themselves be a likely source of
19 significant odor problems if properly carried out?
20 MR. BORUFF: Animal feeding operations need not
21 be a source of odor if properly managed.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: Why is that?
23 MR. BORUFF: The way in which animal wastes are
24 hauled and applied to the land have a great deal to
ITV
207
1 do with whether or not odor occurs. In the case of
2 operations making use of confinement buildings,
3 odors may be concentrated, especially near exhaust
4 fans. The intent of the proposed regulations is to
5 provide for adequate setback zones which will
6 dilute the odor coming from operations which might
7 offend surrounding neighbors.
8 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping 25, will you expect
9 that a properly operated facility built according
10 to these standards would actually produce less odor
11 than a pasture, open-feed facility that is not
12 equipped to properly operate a waste lagoon?
13 MR. BORUFF: There are many variables which can
14 affect the output of odor from an operation.
15 However, it should be noted that pasture or open
16 feeding facilities that are poorly managed can, in
17 fact, be a source of odor. By the same token,
18 confinement operations that are well managed may
19 have a minimal amount of odor as well.
20 MR. HARRINGTON: What would be the principal
21 source of the odor, if any, from a concentrated
22 animal feeding operation built in compliance with
23 the proposed rules?
24 MR. BORUFF: A concentrated feeding operation
ITV
208
1 built in compliance with these proposed rules, as
2 would be the case with any livestock operation, may
3 have several sources of potential odor. One source
4 might be from the buildings themselves, especially
5 ventilation equipment, another might be the manure
6 storage pits located under the confinement
7 buildings. If a lagoon system is in use it could
8 be a potential source of odor, and finally, the
9 application of animal waste to
ag land could be a
10 source of odor during and after application.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: Would not the improper
12 application of manure to the fields be the most
13 significant odor problem?
14 MR. BORUFF: I believe it would be difficult to
15 quantify what might be the principal source of odor
16 from a concentrated feeding operation. If all
17 phases of the operation and sources that I've
18 outlined are properly managed, there would be a
19 minimal odor from any of them. However,
20 mismanagement with any of the sources could lead to
21 major or significant odor problems.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: Under the proposed regulations
23 could you briefly describe what steps are taken to
24 minimize the potential for the improper application
ITV
209
1 of manure in the fields.
2 MR. BORUFF: The proposed regulations include
3 specific requirements for the development and
4 implementation of livestock waste plans. Included
5 in those requirements are provisions relative to
6 the application of manure, including setback
7 distances.
8 MR. HARRINGTON: And to follow up, would the
9 compliance with the plans called for in the
10 regulations minimize the potential impact of odor
11 from the manure operations?
12 MR. BORUFF: We believe that they would.
13 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping to 31, are you aware
14 of any of the concerns expressed by some citizens
15 that there may be significant airborne pathogens
16 from livestock waste lagoons?
17 MR. BORUFF: Yes, the Department is aware that
18 some folks have raised those concerns.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: Does the Department have a
20 position on the likelihood of this problem
21 occurring?
22 MR. BORUFF: The Department is not aware of any
23 scientific basis for this concern and we do not
24 have a position on this issue.
ITV
210
1 MR. HARRINGTON: Is it the Department's opinion
2 that the setbacks and proposed regulations are
3 adequate to protect the neighboring property owners
4 from unreasonable interference with the use of
5 their homes and other places of common assembly?
6 MR. BORUFF: It's the Department's position
7 that the general assembly by including the
8 increases to the setback distances contained in the
9 existing regulations intended these increases to
10 protect neighboring properties from unreasonable
11 interference with the use of their homes or other
12 places of common assembly. The Department has no
13 reason to believe that the use of these setbacks
14 will not result in this intended purpose.
15 MR. HARRINGTON: Has the Department considered
16 the testimony of the DNR witnesses concerning the
17 setbacks and the suggestion that setbacks run from
18 the property line and not from structures or areas
19 within the property?
20 MR. BORUFF: The issue of setback distance
21 application in terms of IDNR held and managed
22 property was discussed during meetings of the
23 Livestock Management Facilities Act advisory
24 committee. The Department considered those
ITV
211
1 discussions during the crafting of the rule
2 proposal but felt that the measurement of the
3 setback distance from the property line would be an
4 unreasonable intrusion into the rights of adjacent
5 property owners and these measurements exceeded the
6 intent of the original legislation.
7 MR. HARRINGTON: Going to Part 2 of the
8 question --
9 MS. MANNING: Before you go on to this,
10 Mr. Harrington, I have a follow-up question. I
11 want to take us back to the question of odor and
12 management practices and that sort of thing, and I
13 understand your testimony, Mr.
Boruff, that good
14 management practices should really dissipate a lot
15 of the odor concerns. That's true in terms of the
16 rule proposal, the management practices in terms of
17 application, those kinds of issues, but what in the
18 rule might dissipate odor by using proper
19 management at the lagoon itself? Odor is
20 generated, I think one of the witnesses said at the
21 production level while it sits in it, first;
22 secondly, while it sits in the lagoon; and thirdly,
23 in its application.
24 In that second part there while it sits in
ITV
212
1 the lagoon, is there anything in the rule proposal
2 that mitigates I guess the odor at that stage?
3 MR. BORUFF: It seems that one of the keys to
4 dissipating or at least decreasing the amount of
5 odor that may come from a lagoon is having the
6 proper dilution effect within the lagoon, and when
7 the legislation itself was being drawn together, we
8 were very conscious of not ever wanting to put
9 together a situation where it would encourage the
10 undersizing of a lagoon. If anything we would like
11 to encourage
oversizing the lagoons as much as
12 possible, here again to get that maximum dilution
13 effect. So that's one of the things that was taken
14 into consideration.
15 In the proposed rules here, one of the
16 things that we talk about is that there be a
17 certain amount of what's known as
precharging where
18 water would be placed in the lagoon prior to any
19 manure being placed into the lagoon in service.
20 Here again the reasoning being to get a very proper
21 dilution effect which would thereby decrease
22 odors. Also the proposed rules that we have before
23 you speak to the amount of freeborn or also when
24 pumping should occur and when it should stop. The
ITV
213
1 intent here once again is to keep the proper
2 dilution, and so experts have told us that that
3 seems to be the key to decreasing odors is making
4 sure you have enough water and dilution within the
5 lagoon at any one time.
6 MS. MANNING: Thank you. Mr.
Harrington?
7 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: One more, Marie
Tipsord.
8 MS. TIPSORD: I have a question regarding that
9 last question Mr.
Harrington asked. Your response
10 on the DNR witness' discussion of setbacks said
11 that you feel that it would -- after taking in the
12 discussions of the advisory committee you feel it
13 would be unreasonable intrusion and exceeds the
14 intent of the legislation. I was wondering if you
15 have any specific legislative debates or anything
16 like that which you base that on or is that just
17 based on your general feel of the legislation and a
18 general reading of the legislation?
19 MR. BORUFF: On both. During the discussion
20 when the bill was being formulated at the
21 legislative level the discussion at that time was
22 held talking about places of common assembly, being
23 things like museums or campgrounds or those types
24 of things, but throughout the discussion, you know,
ITV
214
1 no one at that point in time was talking about the
2 boundaries as they're outlined now, so that was
3 both in the discussions that were held and kind of
4 working through this process is the basis for our
5 answer.
6 MS. TIPSORD: Was any of that discussed, for
7 example, during the -- in the legislative debates
8 formally?
9 MR. BORUFF: I couldn't say that it was or
10 wasn't.
11 MS. TIPSORD: Okay, thank you.
12 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr. Marlin, do you have a
13 follow-up question?
14 MR. MARLIN: At those meetings, were
15 representatives of DNR, the public or other
16 Agencies that might have raised that question
17 present in the discussions you're referring to?
18 MR. BORUFF: Throughout the legislative process
19 there were a number of different meetings that
20 occurred, some where members of other Agencies were
21 present, some other legislators or industry
22 representatives were. The same cast of characters
23 was never at each individual meeting but kind of a
24 resolving group of folks.
ITV
215
1 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Boruff.
2 Mr. Harrington? Excuse me, one more.
3 Mr. Mudgett?
4 MR. MUDGETT: I might be able to shed a little
5 bit of light on question No. 31 about airborne
6 pathogens. I'm with the Department of Public
7 Health. There have been studies, and I think
8 they're actually fairly old at this point, of
9 health effects on sewage treatment plant workers
10 where the wastewater was actually being aerated
11 which would not be the case here. The findings in
12 those studies showed that actually sewage treatment
13 plant workers as a group were probably healthier
14 than the general population, maybe that they had
15 built up an immunity to the organisms they are
16 encountering, but there really was nothing that
17 showed that they were adversely affected by
18 airborne pathogens, and again, that's in the case
19 of aerated treatment systems which obviously should
20 produce more airborne organisms.
21 MS. MANNING: Thank you.
22 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Mudgett.
23 MR. HARRINGTON: Just for the record, I would
24 like it noted Mr.
Mudgett was sworn earlier today.
ITV
216
1 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Yes, he was.
2 MR. BORUFF: One thing, I believe we maybe
3 moved beyond setbacks, but I wanted to point out
4 too that at the last meeting in Jacksonville
5 members of the Board asked if we had looked at
6 regulations in other states as well and how they
7 may have addressed the various issues and we will
8 be prior to the ending of this process giving you
9 that information. However, one state in
10 particular, I'd like to read something to you here
11 and as follows: "A point that might be of interest
12 to the Board is the way in which the Iowa law
13 within its setback provisions addresses setback
14 distances applied to state-owned properties," and
15 so now I'm going to be reading directly from the
16 statute in Iowa as follows: "The closest point of
17 a public use area shall be measured from the
18 closest point of the facilities which attract the
19 public to congregate and remain in the area for
20 significant periods of time. A property boundary
21 land of the" -- excuse me, "a property boundary
22 line of the land owned by the United States, the
23 State or political subdivision which contains a
24 public use area, shall not be used as a point of
ITV
217
1 measurement for the closest point unless a property
2 boundary line coincides with the closest point in
3 the facilities."
4 And this is similar to our Department's
5 understanding of the legislative intent within the
6 Livestock Management Facilities Act and it's in
7 direct opposition of the proposal being suggested
8 by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
9 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: What is the cite to that
10 Iowa statute?
11 MS. MANNING: They're going to be presenting
12 that.
13 MR. BORUFF: That will all be part of our
14 exhibit later on.
15 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: All right. Mr.
Harrington,
16 you want to continue?
17 MR. HARRINGTON: In your testimony earlier you
18 referred to a house trailer being moved near a
19 proposed facility so as to bring it within a
20 setback zone. Do you recall that testimony?
21 MR. BORUFF: Yes, I do.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: And is that a specific
23 instance of which the Department is aware?
24 MR. BORUFF: Yes, it is.
ITV
218
1 MR. HARRINGTON: Was that trailer actually
2 occupied full-time?
3 MR. BORUFF: I don't know what level of
4 occupancy it has. I don't know if it's part or
5 whole time.
6 MR. HARRINGTON: How do you propose to deal
7 with this problem in the regulations?
8 MR. BORUFF: The Department believes this to be
9 an issue of timing. In the case of the siting of
10 the lagoon the rule proposal requires a site
11 investigation with soil borings which require a
12 significant investment of both time and money. The
13 Department would suggest that the initiation of any
14 construction, including site investigation
15 activities and/or a lagoon registration with the
16 Department, should constitute a specific point in
17 time for the application of setbacks. The
18 installation of a house trailer or any other type
19 of residence after this time should not be allowed
20 to have an impact on the applicable setback
21 distances.
22 The Department suggests that either the
23 construction or maybe some type of an optional
24 nonfee registration should be recognized to allow
ITV
219
1 for livestock management facilities which do not
2 include the use of a lagoon and thereby remain
3 unaffected by this possible situation.
4 MR. HARRINGTON: Is there a follow-up to that?
5 MR. FLEMAL: I think I've got one. If we were
6 to implement some kind of start time, would it --
7 would you envision that time also expiring
8 eventually?
9 MR. BORUFF: I suppose that that would be a
10 possibility as well.
11 MR. FLEMAL: It seems to me that if we consider
12 the kind of circumstances you're trying to address
13 as an abuse, there's also a potential abuse on the
14 other side that I might dig a hole in every
15 possible place in the State of Illinois and say
16 that's the beginning of my lagoon and it's --
17 prohibits any subsequent development of ever having
18 an effect on a livestock facility then.
19 MR. BORUFF: Right.
20 MR. HARRINGTON: Would a definition provided
21 for a continuous process of development from the
22 beginning of the point be sufficient for that
23 purpose?
24 MR. BORUFF: That may take into account what
ITV
220
1 Mr. Flemal or Dr. Flemal has brought. I'd have to
2 think about that a minute but that might be a
3 possible answer.
4 MR. HARRINGTON: Thinking of a definition
5 similar to that used in new source permitted which
6 we can submit, I'm sure the Board is well aware
7 of. Would a definition of an occupied residence
8 also help solve the problem?
9 MR. BORUFF: A definition of occupied residence
10 could possibly provide clarification, but I do not
11 believe that it would completely solve the question
12 of timing.
13 MR. HARRINGTON: For example, would a
14 definition that provided that an occupied residence
15 would be one that had to be regularly occupied and
16 was -- met all legal requirements for human
17 habitation?
18 MR. BORUFF: That could be a possibility.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: What do you believe are the
20 boundaries for the definition of populated area as
21 proposed?
22 MR. BORUFF: The boundary of a populated area
23 is determined by using the proposed livestock
24 facility as a center point of a circle with the
ITV
221
1 applicable setback distances as the radius of that
2 circle.
3 MR. MARLIN: I have a follow-up. If you're
4 talking about a lagoon of eight to ten acres,
5 doesn't statute refer to the corner of the
6 property, the corner of the lagoon and things of
7 that nature? I'm wondering the center, you say the
8 center. I've never seen the word center used
9 before. Is that something I've missed?
10 MR. BORUFF: I can't say as to what you may or
11 may have missed -- may not have missed, but in the
12 example as you've cited, Mr. Marlin, that may be
13 possible, and the definition that I gave may have
14 to be modified a bit. But the definition that I
15 gave was intended for a person to get an
16 understanding of how the boundary would be
17 determined. That could be fine tuned later, given
18 a specific situation.
19 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping to 44 unless you have
20 something additional you'd like to add before then,
21 is the inclusion of setbacks from populated areas
22 in the proposal meant to address odor concerns?
23 MR. BORUFF: Primarily, yes.
24 MR. HARRINGTON: And a slightly modified
ITV
222
1 version of 45, and I think you've already answered
2 it, are the setbacks considered to be from the area
3 where people are located or from other objects such
4 as buildings or property perimeters?
5 MR. BORUFF: It's our feeling that the setbacks
6 would be applied from objects such as homes,
7 buildings or other structures.
8 MR. HARRINGTON: Which are, in fact, occupied
9 by human beings?
10 MR. BORUFF: Here again, that's the situation
11 where we'd ask for some clarification, but it would
12 be our understanding that those would be occupied
13 residences or structures.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: Moving to 46, a series of
15 questions here deal largely with the licensed,
16 professional engineer question. Is it the
17 Department's position that the RCS staff and other
18 professionals are trained to make judgments
19 regarding the standards for livestock waste lagoons
20 and not be qualified to certify compliance with the
21 standards set forth in these parts?
22 MR. BORUFF: From this point on for a few
23 questions I'd ask Mr.
Goetsch to respond. He was
24 the one that offered the testimony for that
ITV
223
1 subpart.
2 WARREN D. GOETSCH,
3 being previously duly sworn, testified as
4 follows:
5 MR. GOETSCH: The registration and
6 certification processes contained in the rule
7 proposal include the need for various degrees of
8 geological engineering and construction expertise.
9 The levels of expertise will also vary with the
10 scope of the project both in terms of size and
11 specific site characteristics. All projects will
12 be required to include a site investigation. Some
13 will require the installation of a synthetic or
14 other special liner type and a substance of those
15 projects will include the installation and
16 maintenance of a groundwater monitoring well
17 network. It is the Department's position that due
18 to the wide variety and complexity of these
19 projects the requirement of certification by a
20 licensed, professional engineer associated with
21 either the site investigation and the liner when
22 required is appropriate. Further, the Department
23 acknowledges that consultation with NRCS staff will
24 certainly be valuable to many producers as they
ITV
224
1 develop initial plans for projects but respectfully
2 suggest that they will not be in a position to
3 provide the needed time and resources necessary for
4 the type of project oversight and compliance
5 monitoring which would allow them to provide
6 certification of either the site investigation or
7 the design, construction and installation of liners
8 when required.
9 MR. HARRINGTON: Is it the intent of the
10 Department to place liability to the site
11 certification process on the licensed, professional
12 engineer?
13 MR. GOETSCH: The rule proposal provides for
14 certification by a licensed, professional engineer
15 or registered professional geologist that the site
16 investigation was conducted under their direction
17 and that it has resulted in a rating of the site
18 relative to the presence or absence of aquifer
19 material within one of three depth ranges.
20 Further, the proposal requires the design,
21 construction and installation of a liner if
22 required by the site investigation be certified by
23 licensed, professional engineers meeting the
24 requirements of the rule. If the issuance of such
ITV
225
1 certifications includes the assumption of a
2 liability on the part of the licensed, professional
3 engineer, then the answer to your question is yes.
4 MR. HARRINGTON: Is the Department aware that
5 manufacturers of synthetic liners often require
6 their own technicians to install the liners in
7 order for the warranty to be valid?
8 MR. GOETSCH: Yes, the Department is aware that
9 many manufacturers require the use of their own
10 technicians in the installation of their products.
11 MR. HARRINGTON: Does the Department believe
12 that a licensed, professional engineer ought to
13 take the place of a manufacturer's technician in
14 supervising installation?
15 MR. GOETSCH: No, the Department does not
16 intend to require that the licensed, professional
17 engineer replace the manufacturer's technicians but
18 rather to be familiar with all the manufacturer and
19 installation requirements, including site
20 preparation requirements, quality control programs,
21 compatibility statements and to in general oversee
22 all the various facets related to this accessible
23 design and installation of the liner.
24 The Department envisioned that the LPE
ITV
226
1 would relate to the liner technicians as a general
2 contractor might relate to any other subcontractor
3 on a construction project. The LPE would be
4 depending on the performance of the soil excavator
5 for proper site preparation, the liner technician
6 for the proper installation of the liner and other
7 subcontractors for their respective portions of the
8 project. The Department contends that the LPE will
9 be the only person in an appropriate position to
10 certify that all the various components of the
11 design, construction and installation of the liner
12 have been appropriately brought together to result
13 in a liner which meets the requirement of the
14 standard.
15 MR. HARRINGTON: Skipping to Question 51, all
16 of the others have really been answered, with
17 regard to Section 506.203(b)(4) of the proposal,
18 your testimony states that some specific location
19 information is included to ensure that the owner or
20 operator of the lagoon considers whether these
21 items are possibly present at the site that the
22 appropriate setback is maintained. Does the
23 Department ever consider requiring that the
24 owner-operator list only those wells, residences,
ITV
227
1 streams and populated areas that are within a
2 specific distance such as 400 feet of the setback
3 zone from the lagoon rather than the nearest ones
4 which may be a long distance away?
5 MR. GOETSCH: The Department included the
6 requirement of nearest to allow for the disclosure
7 of these locations which might be useful for both
8 the small distances such as the 400 feet range as
9 you suggest as well as possibly larger distances
10 which might have an applicability to facility
11 setback distances. It simply seemed simpler for
12 the Department and the producer to require the
13 disclosure of the nearest item in lieu of stating
14 specific ranges for each item.
15 MR. HARRINGTON: Well, but as follow-up, as I
16 read this section there is some of the things that
17 are listed that are -- should be obvious, such as a
18 residence, but there are other things which may not
19 be as obvious, such as an abandoned well, which
20 would require a search and some ever-expanding
21 circle from the proposed waste lagoon, and I
22 suppose my question is aimed at is there a
23 reasonable distance that can be determined for how
24 far somebody should have to search for the nearest
ITV
228
1 abandoned well, for example, or drainage well or
2 injection well recognizing they should be
3 registered with the State but many are not. How
4 does one go about knowing whether one has found the
5 nearest one?
6 MR. GOETSCH: I think I understand your point a
7 little clearer than I did earlier. Our concern was
8 to and remains to ensure that both the
9 owner-operator and the Department are able to
10 exchange appropriate information, and again, trying
11 to keep things as simple as possible, it's easier
12 to -- or at least it was thought to be in looking
13 at other permitting programs or other programs that
14 exchanged this kind of information, it's easier to
15 ask for the closest. But perhaps some kind of
16 greatest distance to make that search within might
17 be appropriate to solve that problem.
18 MR. HARRINGTON: We can consider that as we go
19 forward. What is the statutory authority for the
20 Department's assertion that it may as a condition
21 of registration require periodic site inspections?
22 MR. GOETSCH: Several statements contained
23 within Section 15 of the Livestock Management
24 Facilities Act provide authority to the Department
ITV
229
1 relative to site investigations. First, Section
2 15(b) contains the statement, "The Department shall
3 inspect an earth and livestock waste lagoon during
4 at least one of the following phases:
5 Preconstruction, construction and
6 postconstruction. The Department shall require
7 modifications when necessary to bring construction
8 in compliance with the standards as set forth in
9 Subsection A of Section 15."
10 This statement contains the phrase at
11 least, which suggests that more numerous sites
12 visited by the Department would be advantageous to
13 the program. Secondly, at Section 15(a) the
14 statute contains the statement, "The owner or
15 operator of the earth and livestock" -- "the earth
16 and livestock lagoon may with approval from the
17 Department modify or exceed these standards in
18 order to meet site specific objectives. The
19 Department shall determine compliance with these
20 requirements."
21 The mandate to the Department here is to
22 evaluate a modification or
exceedence of the
23 standard. Such oversight by the Department due to
24 the specific nature of a proposed design may
ITV
230
1 require periodic site inspections to confirm proper
2 performance of the design, thus a requirement for
3 periodic site inspection as a condition of
4 registration should be considered as part of the
5 alternative design which is being registered by the
6 Department.
7 And finally, Section 15(a) includes the
8 statement, "The Department may require changes in
9 design or additional requirements to protect
10 groundwater such as extra liner depth or synthetic
11 liners when it appears groundwater could be
12 impacted."
13 As part of this proposal, the Department
14 is setting forth criteria regarding a site geology
15 investigation approach which would allow for such a
16 determination to be made. As a result, some
17 designs would include the use of synthetic liners
18 and/or groundwater monitoring well networks. These
19 designs will by their very nature require
20 additional site visits by Department personnel to
21 ensure that they are performing appropriately.
22 Thus, the Department believes that periodic site
23 inspections are an integral part of these designs
24 and are therefore a part of the authority provided
ITV
231
1 under this section of the Livestock Management
2 Facilities Act.
3 MR. HARRINGTON: Combining Questions 53 and 54,
4 did the Department consider any limitations to
5 inspections, such as the inspector during the
6 periodic inspection be accompanied by owner or
7 operator of certified manager or the owner-
8 operator be provided with a copy of any report
9 concluding inspection or be provided with any
10 notices of deficiency?
11 MR. GOETSCH: Considering other similar
12 programs administered by the Department, such as
13 the agrichemical facility containment program or
14 the Department's nursery inspection program where
15 there are no statutory or regulatory limitations to
16 the number of site inspections conducted by
17 Department personnel, too frequent site inspections
18 have never been an issue. Also, considering that
19 funding and staffing levels at the Department, the
20 appropriate administration of this and other
21 programs at the Department would not allow for more
22 numerous site visits to a site than were absolutely
23 necessary to ensure the proper function of a
24 design.
ITV
232
1 The statutory language at Section 15(b) of
2 the Act requires that the person making inspections
3 shall comply with reasonable animal health
4 protection procedures as requested by the owner or
5 the operator. This statement implies that the
6 Department representative would make contact with a
7 representative of the facility to be notified of
8 the reasonable health protection procedures. The
9 Department does not desire to preclude being
10 accompanied by a facility representative during the
11 inspection but also does not want to make this a
12 mandatory requirement of an inspection.
13 In regards to reports, reports relative to
14 an inspection would certainly be subject to a
15 Freedom of Information Act request and thus would
16 be therefore -- and thus would be available to
17 anyone requesting it. Specifically though to an
18 owner-operator, the Department would not be opposed
19 to providing a copy of such a report to an
20 individual on an individual request basis without
21 requiring a written request but respectfully
22 suggests that such an auto requirement relative to
23 all site visits would not be an efficient use of
24 State resources. We would not be opposed to such a
ITV
233
1 requirement but would suggest that a time period
2 for such a notice be extended to 15 working days to
3 allow for the transmittal of information from the
4 field to the Department's main offices and the
5 accurate development of any notice which might be
6 required. And in addition we would think that if
7 15 days would be appropriate for Department
8 notification, then 15 days instead of 10 would be
9 appropriate for the answer back to the Department
10 by the facility.
11 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you. Mr.
Harrington,
12 would you wait one minute. Could we go off the
13 record.
14 (A discussion was held off the record.)
15 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Back on the record.
16 Dr. Flemal?
17 MR. FLEMAL: As regards the ability of the
18 Department to expect -- inspect facilities, it
19 would be my assumption that the Department
20 regularly does inspections in the field in other
21 programs other than this. Am I correct in
22 understanding that?
23 MR. GOETSCH: Yes.
24 MR. FLEMAL: What kinds of inspections, for
ITV
234
1 example, would Department personnel undertake under
2 current programs?
3 MR. GOETSCH: Just in the programs that I'm
4 involved with, we make annual inspections in
5 agrichemical facilities. Retail
agrichemical
6 facilities inspect their containment structures.
7 In our nursery programs that I mentioned, we
8 inspect all the State -- all the nurseries around
9 the State looking for disease, disease plants or
10 insects, pests, those types of things. In other
11 programs that I'm not that directly associated
12 with, our fertilizer inspectors go to the same
13 retail facilities to take samples of fertilizer.
14 Our feed inspectors take samples of -- or collect
15 samples for analysis so we -- probably just about
16 every regulatory program has those kinds of either
17 annual or semiannual inspections.
18 MR. FLEMAL: So would it be fair to say it's
19 not particularly a surprise for someone in the
20 agriculture business to be visited now and then by
21 somebody from your Department?
22 MR. BORUFF: I think not all of this -- I was
23 going to comment, the -- we have a couple of
24 programs that pertain closely to animal health
ITV
235
1 where we have veterinarians and field staff may
2 visit farms for disease control measures. When
3 they make these visits they work with the producer
4 ahead of time to know when the visit will occur,
5 also take into account
bio-security measures to
6 make sure disease control is maintained. This
7 would be a little bit of a deviation though in many
8 of our programs because we'd be dealing with
9 producers as opposed to retail or wholesale
10 businesses, but in all cases here again we would be
11 conscious of their scheduling and their particular
12 needs.
13 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Mr.
Harrington?
14 MR. HARRINGTON: Just a follow-up on that.
15 Would the Department have any problem with the
16 requirement that the owner or manager be notified
17 at the commencement of the inspection, be given the
18 opportunity to accompany the inspector rather than
19 a requirement that the inspector be accompanied?
20 MR. BORUFF: I don't -- offhand I don't think
21 that that would pose a problem.
22 MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you.
23 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Harrington.
24 Are there any questions of anyone in the audience
ITV
236
1 that they would like to ask the Department of
2 Agriculture? Any questions at this time? Okay.
3 MR. MARLIN: In regard to that last answer, are
4 you saying that you have no need ever to have a
5 surprise inspection or inspection where the party
6 is not given time to correct any obvious problems
7 before your inspector arrives?
8 MR. BORUFF: Yeah, I interpreted the question
9 to be one of whether or not we had a problem or a
10 concern with the owner or operator accompanying us
11 on that and certainly we wouldn't. If we're there
12 to make an inspection, we have no concern with them
13 being with us on that inspection. At least that's
14 the way that I interpreted the question.
15 MR. HARRINGTON: That was the intent.
16 MR. BORUFF: Right, and just to clarify that,
17 Warren brings up a good point, that if the
18 owner-operator is given the choice and chooses not
19 to go with us, they're certainly not required to go
20 with us.
21 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Boruff. Any
22 questions from anybody on the Board at this time?
23 Okay, then what we'd like to do now is continue the
24 hearing until Wednesday, which would be January
ITV
237
1 29th, at Galesburg and to note for the record, I
2 believe, Mr.
Harrington, we stopped at Question 54
3 of your
prefiled questions?
4 MR. HARRINGTON: I believe so.
5 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Yes, and if you have any
6 questions as far as -- I'm sorry, this is Cindy --
7 MS. BUSHUR-HALLAM: Cindy
Bushur-Hallam for the
8 Department of Natural Resources, and Ross and
9 Hardies, Harrington, you said that you were going
10 to present some proposed changes to the management
11 plan, and I was just wondering when they intended
12 to do that so the Agencies would have a chance to
13 respond. Just give a time schedule.
14 MR. HARRINGTON: We hope to present based on
15 what we've heard some testimony with proposed
16 changes in written format by Wednesday and with a
17 witness to follow in Mount Vernon so that there
18 would be some opportunity beforehand to see it
19 before the witness testified.
20 MS. LOZUK-LAWLESS: Thank you, Mr.
Harrington.
21 If anyone has any questions about where the other
22 hearings will be held or anything like that, we
23 have some maps that are available on the table in
24 the back of the room, and thank you very much.
ITV
238
1 MR. FLEMAL: Thank you all.
2 MS. MANNING: Thank you.
3 (The hearing was adjourned at 4:01 p.m.)
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
ITV
239
1 ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
2 In the Matter of: ) NO. R97-015
Livestock Waste )
3 Regulations, )
DeKalb, Illinois
35 Ill. Adm. Code 506, ) January 27, 1997
4
5
6 I, Carrie L.
Vaske, hereby certify that I
am a Certified Shorthand Reporter of the State
7 of Illinois; that I am the one who by order and
at the direction of the Hearing Officer,
Audrey
8 Lozuk-Lawless, reported in shorthand the
proceedings had or required to be kept in the
9 above-entitled case; and that the above and
foregoing is a full, true and complete
10 transcript of my said shorthand notes so taken.
Dated at
Ashton, Illinois, this 29th day
11 of January, 1997.
12
13
14
Carrie L.
Vaske
15 Registered Professional Reporter
Certified Shorthand Reporter
16 Illinois License No. 084-003845
8991 South Prairie Road
17
Ashton, Illinois 61006
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
ITV