Snyder administration explains agriculture proposal

Gov. Snyder’s call to protect farmers against unnecessary lawsuits and regulation by strengthening a voluntary environmental stewardship program should not be seen as an attempt to dial back environmental regulations for factory farms, administration officials said Thursday.

In one of the few specific policy proposals made in his Wednesday State of the State speech Snyder asked lawmakers to strengthen the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program to “make it a seal of assurance, so that farmers who run environmentally-sound operations are protected from unnecessary regulations and frivolous lawsuits.”

The Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program or MAEAP is a voluntary program that helps farmers minimize pollution from their farms by teaching them to identify and address risks such as improper pesticide or waste management.

Snyder’s discussion linking MAEAP to regulation and lawsuits immediately worried environmental groups because the Engler Administration fought to have this program replace legally binding regulation of factory farms under the Clean Water Act — a move that was deemed environmentally risky by both state and federal regulators at the time.

The animals in Michigan’s approximately 200 Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs generate more sewage than the state’s human population and their concentrated animal manure is often sprayed on fields where it can run-off and contaminate streams.

“We are looking for clarification from the Snyder Administration on this troubling development,” Michigan Sierra Club Director Anne Woiwode said after listening to Snyder’s speech.

“The contention that “frivolous lawsuits” must be averted raises an unsubstantiated claim that there have been numerous such lawsuits against agricultural operations in the state,“ she said. “In fact, Michigan’s Right to Farm act has barred hundreds if not thousands of rural neighbors of polluting factory farms from protecting their family’s health, their property and their businesses from the destruction caused by air and water pollution.”

In an interview Thursday DEQ Director and Quality of Life Group Executive Dan Wyant responded to these concerns about Snyder’s agriculture proposal.

“We are not going to backtrack on CAFO regulation or permitting,” he said. “This is not meant to circumvent that by any means.”

Wyant said that the strengthened MAEAP program will not have the power to prevent a lawsuit but could help farmers demonstrate their good practices should a lawsuit occur.

“It is felt that if farmers are meeting best practices and demonstrating environmental stewardship … it would minimize frivolous lawsuits,” he said.

Wyant said that the administrations goal is to get 80 percent of Michigan’s approximately 50,000 farms MAEAP-certified within the next few years.

He said that the administration will focus on finding incentives that will motivate farmers to participate in the program.

Scott Piggott, agricultural ecology manager at Michigan Farm Bureau said that he hopes that the legislation proposed by the governor will guarantee funding for the MAEAP program, which had its budget slashed from $500,000 to $260,000 last year.

Education for farmers is always a good thing, environmentalists say, but it should not replace strong laws to protect against malfeasance. Woiwode noted that MAEAP verification signs are still up at several CAFOs where the DNRE/DEQ has documented environmental violations, indicating that education does not ensure compliance with the law or the needs of public health.