Feedlot Hazards Outpace Laws

[Guest guest]

From p. A3 of this morning's Chron:

 

FEEDLOT HAZARDS OUTPACE LAWS, REPORT SAYS

Sierra Club outlines deplorable conditions

 

Elizabeth Becker, New York Times Tuesday, August 13, 2002

 

 

The rapid growth of huge animal feedlots and slaughterhouses in the 1990s

has outpaced the power of state and federal regulators to keep them

operating safely and cleanly, leading to polluted rivers and lakes, meat

recalls and workplace injuries, a Sierra Club report says.

 

In its first effort to catalog the environmental, health and safety records

of the feedlots and packing plants owned by corporations, the Sierra Club

reported these findings from a study of state and federal records for the

1980s and '90s:

 

-- The slaughterhouses produced 134 million pounds of contaminated or

possibly contaminated meat.

 

-- Millions of gallons of animal feces and urine that seeped from manure

pits of the big feedlots polluted 35,000 miles of rivers.

 

-- More than $48 million in fines were paid for health and environmental

violations that included slaughtering diseased cows; polluting water with

animal carcasses, urine and feces; and selling rodent-tainted meat.

 

-- Labor and worker-safety violations led to 13 deaths and more than $35

million in fines for the corporations.

 

The study found that most violations had occurred in the 1990s, when the

meat industry began building large feedlots in rural America from North

Carolina to California. The 630 meat factories in 44 states covered by the

study included the largest feedlots, which raise millions of hogs, chickens

or cattle.

 

The report, " The Rap Sheet on Animal Factories, " is to be released today by

the Sierra Club, which has argued for more regulation. The report also

identified 10 companies as having the worst health, safety and pollution

records.

 

The meat industry criticized the report, saying it failed to reflect the

improvements in response to early problems or innovations to improve meat

safety. Instead, industry spokesmen said, the report focused on old problems

already uncovered by federal and local regulators.

 

One spokesman, J. Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute,

said, " In compiling a laundry list of information about large food, feed and

agribusinesses on issues ranging from food safety to animal welfare to the

environment, the Sierra Club seeks to sling as much mud as it can at the

U.S. meat and poultry industry and see what sticks. "

 

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups have argued that the

regulations were written to cover small family farms, not the huge modern

feedlots.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency is under court order to come up with new

federal regulations for feedlots. Stephanie Bell, a spokeswoman, said the

agency would complete them by December.

 

Worried that new regulations would impose new expenses, the large

corporations lobbied for and won eligibility for money from the new farm

bill to clean up animal wastewater.

 

Ed Hopkins, author of the Sierra Club's study, said, " That's why we opposed

the new farm bill, because it makes the American taxpayer subsidize these

huge animal factories and clean up their mess. "

 

The major poultry and meat producers said they stood by their records and

the fact that their big feedlots and packing houses translated into uniform

quality and lower prices for consumers.