Contact: Don Reuter (919) 715-4112
Date: December 10, 1999
Growers Directed To Revise Spraying Activity In Response To Judge's Order
RALEIGH -- The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) today directed large-scale animal growers to alter their waste management practices to comply with a restraining order issued by an administrative law judge.
Judge Fred G. Morrison in the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings issued the 10-day restraining order prohibiting operators from spraying fields at rates potentially greater than the agronomic rates (a level at which nutrients are properly absorbed by growing plants and crops) set in state Environmental Management Commission rules. Morrison's order came in response to a motion filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill on behalf of the Neuse River Foundation and the Alliance for a Responsible Swine Industry.
Following consultation with experts at N.C. State University, the rates were increased as part of recent emergency best management practices (BMPs) approved November 5 by the N.C. Soil and Water Conservation Commission to address dangerously high lagoon levels in the wake of recent hurricanes and associated flooding. The BMPs were intended to offer growers operating flexibility in an effort to protect lagoons from seepage, overflows and potential failure. Lagoons at six pork facilities in eastern North Carolina failed in the aftermath of the storm and more than 40 other animal operations were flooded.
The judge determined that the maximum plant available nitrogen (PAN) level of 200 pounds per acre for harvested small grain and winter grasses allowed under the emergency BMPs was in excess of agronomic rates established in the EMC rules. In response to the order, growers have been directed to follow application rates established in their existing certified animal waste management plans (in use prior to emergency BMPs).
Growers who have added fields for land application have been advised to spray at specific agronomic rates identified for the crops and vegetation on those fields. Growers are being encouraged to seek assistance from a technical specialist to determine appropriate agronomic rates of application to those added sprayfields and overseeded winter crops for incorporation into their certified animal waste management plans.
All other provisions of the Soil and Water Conservation Commission's BMPs for animal waste management systems remain in place as long as the producer applies waste within agronomic rates.
The temporary restraining order remains in effect until a hearing December 20 at the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings.
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