State judge upholds state factory farm regulations

A Newaygo County judge has upheld the legality of regulations imposed by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality that require large farms called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to obtain permits that limit the amount of pollutants they can release into surface waters in the state.

CAFOs are large farms that house thousands and thousands of cow, pigs or chickens. They can generate immense amounts of manure that contains large amounts of pathogenic bacteria, which they generally spread on their fields as fertilizer. But rainstorms can then cause that manure to runoff into lakes, rivers and streams.

The DEQ regulations require permits that set limits on that runoff and have requirements for how much manure can be spread on fields, when it can be done, and steps that must be taken to avoid as much runoff as possible.

The Michigan Farm Bureau challenged the regulations but Newaygo County Circuit Court Judge Anthony Monton ruled in favor of the state, saying that Michigan law “provides the DEQ the legal authority to regulate potential discharges of animal waste from CAFOs” and that such laws are “rationally related to the DEQ’s responsibility…to protect Michigan’s water resources from pollution.”