Republished from Composting News, December 2016
By Ken McEntee
December 7, 2016
Many critics of the U.S. EPA have charged that the agency is “out of control,” with
overzealous regulations. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt is one of them, and starting next year, pending congressional approval, Pruitt will be in charge of the agency.
President-elect Donald J. Trump this month announced his intention to nominate Pruitt to serve as the administrator of the EPA.
“The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses,” Pruitt said.
Trump said Pruitt, who he called an expert in constitutional law and one of the country’s top attorneys general, brings a deep understanding of the impact of regulations on both the environment and the economy making him an excellent choice to lead the EPA.
“My administration strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity,” Trump said. “For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn. As my EPA administrator, Pruitt will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.”
Trump said Pruitt will be deeply involved in the implementation of his energy plan, “which will move America toward energy independence, create millions of new jobs and protect clean air and water.”
He said he and Pruitt agree that the new administration must rescind all job-destroying executive actions and eliminate all barriers to responsible energy production. This will create at least a half million jobs each year and produce $30 billion in higher wages, Trump said.
As new EPA regulations on clean water and air during the Obama administration have drawn fire from farmers, businesses, state officials and others around the country, Pruitt has been at the forefront of the opposition. He established Oklahoma’s first “federalism unit” to combat unwarranted regulation and overreach by the federal government and has said that states should have the sovereignty to make many regulatory decisions for their own markets.
In September Pruitt participated in oral arguments in federal appeals court in West Virginia v. EPA, in which West Virginia and other states filed suit to stay the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The Obama administration said the aim of the plan is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“This has been a historic and consequential day as 27 states joined together to ensure the precious balance of power is preserved,” Pruitt said during a press conference after the oral arguments. “This administration continues to treat states as mere vessels of federal will, abusing and disrespecting the vertical separation of powers defined by our Constitution. That is why attorneys general, senators and congressmen from across the country have joined together today to maintain rule of law and checks and balances in this very process. I am committed to ensuring the ultimate payer in this matter is not overlooked – the consumers.”
Last year, Oklahoma passed a law that protects the state from unlawful EPA overreach.
“The EPA’s so-called ‘lean Power Plan is the federal government placing the proverbial gun to the head of the state of Oklahoma to make the state bow to the pressure of an unlawful EPA rule,” Pruitt said at the time. “Senate Bill 676 is a bulwark against the overreach of the EPA. This is an important step to the state of Oklahoma’s ability to defend its interests against the unlawful actions of the EPA. No state should be forced to comply with this unlawful rule, and SB 676 is a common-sense approach that ensures decisions about Oklahoma’s power generation are made by state officials and not bureaucrats in Washington.”
In June 2015, in Michigan vs. EPA – a case in which the state of Oklahoma also was a plaintiff - the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the EPA unreasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act when it decided to set limits on the emissions of mercury and other pollutants from power plants without first considering the costs to utilities and others before doing so.
“Thanks to our victory, the EPA can no longer ignore the substantial costs its rulemaking can heap on industry, and eventually ratepayers,” Pruitt said. “The EPA routinely ignores statutes and congressional directive in order to pick winners and losers in the energy arena.”
Also in 2015, Pruitt was among the state officials who filed lawsuits against EPA over the agency’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, implemented under the federal Clean Water Act.
“I and many other local, state and national leaders across the country made clear to the EPA our concerns and opposition to redefining the Waters of the U.S.,” he said. “However, the EPA’s brazen effort to stifle private property rights has left Oklahoma with few options to deter the harm that its rule will do.”
Pruitt called WOTUS an “egregious power grab by the EPA and an attempt to reach beyond the scope granted to it by Congress. This rule renders the smallest of streams and farm ponds subject to EPA jurisdiction. This means that the first stop for property owners is the EPA, which may deem the property owners’ waters subject to the EPA’s unpredictable and costly regulatory regime. It would be a terrible blow to the private property rights of Americans.”
WOTUS is now in limbo and virtually certain to be rescinded under the Trump administration.
Speaking to Composting News last month (See Composting News, November 2016), Robert LaGasse, executive director of the Mulch and Soil Council, a trade association that represents soil and mulch producers, said he hopes the Trump administration will “take a stronger look at EPA and correct some of the errors that it has made recently.”
That includes WOTUS, which LaGasse has said “presents a big problem for anybody who wants to make changes to their property.”
Jay Lehr, science director for the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based research organization, and one of the architects of the EPA who has since become a critic of the agency, praised Trump’s nomination.
“This is a great day for the environment, the American people and the economy – which will soon no longer be crippled by totally insane regulations, including the idea that humans exhale a pollutant with their every breath,” said Lehr, who has proposed the elimination of the EPA in favor of putting environmental protection under the control of state agencies. “There would be many people on my list for great EPA administrators but none would be any higher on it than Scott Pruitt. We have not had a knowledgeable individual at the helm of EPA for more years than I am willing to say. For well over a decade, we have had a combination of incompetence and anti-capitalists at the helm who knew nothing of environmental science and more importantly they did not care. As long as they could place road blocks in the way of progress with no validity whatsoever as to improved environmental protection, they felt they were doing their job.”
Fellow Oklahoman and U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee, also praised Pruitt as a “leader and a partner on environmental issues for many years.”
“Pruitt has fought back against unconstitutional and overzealous environmental regulations like Waters of the U.S. and the Clean Power Plan,” Inhofe said. “He has proven that being a good steward of the environment does not mean burdening tax payers and businesses with red tape. In his appearances before the Environment and Public Works committee, Pruitt has demonstrated that he is an expert on environmental laws and a champion of states’ roles in implementing those laws.”
Across the aisle, Pruitt’s nomination wasn’t greeted as enthusiastically.
“I cannot support Scott Pruitt, a denier of climate science, to lead the EPA,” said U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “Climate change is real, urgent and caused by humans. It is a scientifically proven fact that any EPA administrator should accept. The EPA has the enormous responsibility of protecting our environment and keeping Americans safe and healthy. Its administrator should share those goals, but Scott Pruitt’s record has shown us that he does not. While the EPA is tasked with protecting our people and our environment from the impacts of climate change, he denies the science behind it. And while the agency has worked to keep our air and water clean and safe, Scott Pruitt has worked to undermine the very rules that protect those resources. The health of our planet and our people is too important to leave in the hands of someone who does not believe in scientific facts or the basic mission of the EPA.”
According to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), “For the sake of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the planet we will leave our children, the head of the EPA cannot be a stenographer for the lobbyists of polluters and big oil. Pruitt has brazenly used his office as a vehicle for the agenda of big polluters and climate deniers in the courts – and he could do immense damage as the Administrator of the EPA.”
Speaking to Composting News last month, Lehr opined that despite Trump’s open skepticism about global warming, he doesn’t anticipate a sudden reversal in Washington policy regarding climate change.
“So far I haven’t read a single word that makes me believe we are going to back up at all on climate change,” he said. “There is no question that Trump feels that it is a hoax, and it is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on society, and I think he will stick with that. But I think it will take some time to slowly wind it down reasonably. Over a period of time, the more than $5 billion a year of research money that goes to support the climate models at the academic levels will dry up.”
By Ken McEntee, Owner
Republished from
Composting News, November, 2016.
The court-halted Clean Water Rule defining the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS), and even the U.S. EPA itself could come to an end under the administration of President-Elect Donald Trump, according to experts who keep a close eye on environmental regulations.
In the wake of Trump’s election, Composting News asked several experts about what they think the next four years have in store for WOTUS and environmental regulations in general. They included:
* Jay Lehr, one of the architects of the EPA who has since become a critic of the agency. Lehr, science director for the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based research organization, published a proposal two years ago to eliminate the federal EPA and secure environmental protection under the control of state agencies. Lehr said he is confident that at least portions of his plan will be adopted under the Trump administration.
* H. Reed Hopper, principal attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the Sacramento, Calif.-based public interest legal organization that has represented plaintiffs in property rights, civil rights and other cases against governments, including a lawsuit opposing WOTUS. Hopper said he expects WOTUS to be overturned, but doesn’t expect EPA to be eliminated or substantially reduced in scope.
* Robert LaGasse, executive director of the Mulch and Soil Council, a trade association that represents soil and mulch producers. LaGasse said he is optimistic that Trump’s planned infrastructure improvements will make transportation more efficient, and that an improved economy will boost demand for soil and mulch products.
* Frank Franciosi, executive director of the U.S. Composting Council, the trade association that represents compost producers.
Lehr, who was the nation’s first Ph.D. in groundwater hydrology and was among the first advocates for the creation of the EPA almost 50 years ago, said he is confident that the agency will be dismantled under the Trump administration. His plan calls for a gradual dismantling of EPA over a five-year period.
“People are emailing me all over the place,” he said. “They think it can be done.”
Lehr believes that state control over environmental regulations will be improve the environment.
“100 percent of the work of the nation’s environmental protection is done by the 50 state agencies,” Lehr said. “The federal government does nothing. The EPA has 10,000 useless employees, and all they do is look over the shoulders of the 50 states that do all of the work. Anybody in any business knows that you don’t do your best work when you know some idiot is looking over your shoulder. The only time in recent memory that EPA actually got involved and got their hands dirty on the ground is when they sent several people to deal with a situation at a mining operation in Colorado (Gold King Mine, August 2015). They screwed it up and they contaminated the Animas River. EPA’s response was ‘we’re sorry.’ Anybody else would have been in jail.”
Lehr said he would retain EPA’s Office of Research and Development and reduce the agency’s budget from $8.2 billion to $2 billion.
“In two years since I introduced it, there hasn’t been a single person who has challenged me with regard to the logic of the plan,” Lehr said. “The EPA is made up of 14 separate offices, most of which are administrative. Only four of them actually deal directly with the environment. The Office of Research and Development is the only thing I would leave in the budget.”
Lehr believes WOTUS is dead on arrival of the new administration.
“The plan was to take over every drop of water in the United States,” he said. “Literally if there is a puddle on your farm and a bird lands in the puddle, the government would control that puddle. It’s dead. There is zero chance that it will go through.”
Despite Trump’s open skepticism about global warming, Lehr doesn’t anticipate a sudden reversal in Washington policy regarding climate change.
“So far I haven’t read a single word that makes me believe we are going to back up at all on climate change,” he said. “There is no question that Trump feels that it is a hoax, and it is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on society, and I think he will stick with that. But I think it will take some time to slowly wind it down reasonably. Over a period of time, the more than $5 billion a year of research money that goes to support the climate models at the academic levels will dry up. The maximum of Trump’s backing off will be to assign a new committee of non-hoaxters to study the issue and come out with directives, the bottom line which will be that the climate is always changing, let’s keep our eye on it, let’s make sure that we are prepared for whatever happens.”
Despite reports that former Goldman Sachs investment banker Steven Mnuchin – the national finance chairman for Trump’s campaign – is a top contender for secretary of the treasurer, Lehr doesn’t anticipate a resurgence in carbon credits and carbon exchanges. Goldman Sachs was once a leading proponent of a Cap and Trade system through which it hoped to be the largest player in a carbon credit exchange that President Barack Obama once estimated to be a $646 billion business over seven years. Another major player in carbon trading was Generation Investment Management, founded by former Vice President Al Gore, with three former Goldman Sachs bankers.
“Carbon credits have never gotten off the ground,” Lehr said. “I think the money that has been wasted on carbon credits and carbon exchanges is going to be reduced.”
He believes tax incentives, including incentives for food waste processing technologies and green fuel production, will be eliminated under the Trump administration.
“I’ve always thought that turning food waste into fuel was a great idea,” he said. But it can never compete with fossil fuel. We don’t have 100 or 200 years of shale gas and oil in this country. We have 1,000 years. These (alternative) fuels are going to be a niche market. I don’t want to see them go out of business but I don’t want to give them any tax breaks either. I can predict for sure than in the next four years we’re going to see a dramatic reduction in tax breaks on energy and a lot of things that have been around a long time.”
Lehr believes Trump’s cabinet will “make life better for every single industry. The people who read your magazine are going to positively influenced. If they live on tax breaks or they live on regulations that make their competitors lives more difficult, then they may not benefit. But in the long haul businesses will benefit by an economic boom.”
LaGasse has the same hopes for a booming economy and a better business climate spurred by rolling back regulatory obstacles. He also hopes to see an end to tax credits and subsidies that favor some industries over others.
“They create inequities in the marketplace and support technologies that aren’t marketable or can’t survive in a free market,” LaGasse said.
Specifically, he says, subsidizing biomass energy diverts wood from mulch producers.
“Government subsidies - whether they are U.S. based or whether they are by foreign markets like the U.K., which subsidizes the import of millions of tons of wood pellets - take materials out of the historic wood fiber marketplace and redirect them. Instead of depending on a heavily subsidized foreign market we need to develop our own markets. America first is not a bad idea. If we spend our money here at home and improve our infrastructure and make the marketplace a stable place to do business, how is that bad?”
LaGasse hopes the Trump administration will “take a stronger look at EPA and correct some of the errors that it has made recently.”
That includes WOTUS, which LaGasse has said “presents a big problem for anybody who wants to make changes to their property.”
“We’re in the hopeful phases that they will be rolled back,” he said. “I think people have voted for the premise of returning regulatory agencies to being more regulators and less advocates. If (Trump) curtails some of the overreaching regulation like WOTUS, more development can proceed. Housing can expand. More jobs let more people afford housing, which creates more demand for our products.”
Hopper, lead attorney in the first lawsuit filed against the Obama administration to block implementation of WOTUS, said he is hopeful that the rule will be rolled back, along with climate change regulations.
“Trump has publicly stated his view that the WOTUS rule is unconstitutional, so it is likely he will pull the rule at some point,” Hopper said. “But it is equally likely the Justice Department will continue to defend the rule up until Trump takes office. The most likely outcome is that the new president will allow the Sixth Circuit (U.S. Court of Appeals) to decide the case, which almost certainly will go against the government given the Sixth Circuit’s nationwide injunction which held the rule was likely invalid statutorily and constitutionally. When that happens, Trump can pull the rule and refuse to defend it in the Supreme Court.”
Meanwhile, Hopper said he hopes Trump will roll back climate and carbon regulations, although he expects that it would take months before any changes are seen.
“I think Trump is serious about scaling back regulation, especially environmental and immigration regulations,” Hopper said. “In some cases, he may do so through an executive order, perhaps within his first 100 days. In other cases, he may have to allow the agency to issue a new rule that withdraws or supersedes the existing rule. This could take a couple years. There is a lot of inertia in some of these agencies like EPA and it will take awhile for the new administration to move its agenda down the line.”
Unlike Lehr, Hopper doesn’t foresee the elimination or reduction of the size of EPA.
“Even curtailing the agency seems unlikely,” he said. “So much of what the agency does is the result of entrenched, unelected bureaucrats overstepping their enforcement power. I don’t see that changing no matter who is in charge at the top. Even small-government types seem to change their attitude when they get to Washington and start working in these immense agencies like EPA. I fear the most we can hope for, at least in the near future, is to hold the line on EPA or simply slow its growth.”
Hopper said Trump’s lasting legacy may turn on who he appoints to the Supreme Court.
“This more than anything will make or break our country,” he said. “If Trump appoints some like-minded individual to replace Justice Scalia, at least the current balance of power on the court will remain with ongoing protections for landowners, state’s rights, and individual liberty. If, perchance, he gets to replace someone else on the bench, like Justice Ginsburg, that could provide a safeguard against big government for decades, if not generations.”
Franciosi said he wants to wait until Trump takes office before making any projections as so whether the new president will be a friend or foe to the composting business.
“We don’t even know who the EPA (administrator) is going to be, so it’s too early to say,” he said. “I can tell you that the people in the EPA who are working in resource management have been extremely cooperative and they and the USDA want to see the food scraps problem taken care of from a number of levels. From the standpoint of permitting, everything is done at the state level, so I don’t see any impact there. There are some bills in the Senate on food recovery. Those bills have proposed language on infrastructure funding. It seems to me that the new administration is big on infrastructure and big on jobs, and if you look at composting compared to other waste disposal options it creates more jobs than landfilling and incineration. The Institute of Local Self Reliance has done some studies on that. So the message we need to get out is that we are a better option when it comes to building infrastructure and creating jobs.”
Franciosi said he is a “firm believer” in climate change, in contrast to Trump’s view of climate change as a hoax.
“But what we do as an industry benefits the environmental tremendously, not only from a greenhouse gas standpoint, but also when you look at all of the eco- system benefits composting provides, like water saving, less pesticide, less fertilizer, better healthy soil. Those all relate economically as well as environmentally. We have been through this before with prior administrations.”
Franciosi said the Trump administration isn’t likely to support green energy, which could impact USCC members who are involved in food to biogas projects. He said, however, that most green fuel incentives are offered at the state level.
Franciosi said that from the standpoint of federal regulations, the only area that directly impacts composters is in biosolids composting.
“It’s the states that are overseeing the regulations that allow composting facilities to operate, and many of them in are in the process of reviewing their regulations,” he said. “We’re here to help them. We have templates for composting legislation, and if any changes are going to be made, they should be science based, not based on hearsay.”
(Published in Composting News, August 2015)
By Ken McEntee
The new “Clean Water Rule” defining the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) purportedly is intended to clarify enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). Instead, many observers say, the new rule, which is set to take effect on August 28, has further muddied the waters, creating new vagaries that can stifle even simple plans of businesses and landowners.
The rule, created by the U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, was published in the Federal Register on June 29.
“This rule presents a big problem for anybody who wants to make changes to their property,” said Robert LaGasse, executive director of the Mulch and Soil Council, the national trade association that represents producers of horticultural mulches, consumer potting soils and commercial growing media.
“Under this rule, making changes to your property is going to require a lot more investigation and engineering to be sure that you’re not going to be in violation of some law. If you have to make corrections to your land in a hurry, you are jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The rules are so vague that you might get one answer from one regulator and a completely different answer from another regulator.”
And the penalty for a violation – even an ambiguous one - can be severe: As much as $37,500 per day, and/or criminal prosecution, according to M. Reed Hopper, principal attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a Sacramento, Calif.-based public interest legal organization. In July, PLF, on behalf of a variety of landowners and organizations, filed the first lawsuit against the Obama administration to block implementation of the new rule.
As of August 18, the PLF suit has been followed by more than 10 more suits challenging WOTUS have been filed, involving more than 70 plaintiffs, including 11 states, filed in 10 different District Courts. The federal government has motioned to consolidate the district court cases in the D.C. District Court.
“The rule,” Hopper said, “is illegal and unconstitutional because it sets no limit on the CWA’s reach, while explicitly expanding it to waters that the Supreme Court has already ruled to be off-limits to federal control. This new regulation is an open-ended license for federal bureaucrats to assert control over nearly all of the nation’s water, and much of the property, from coast to coast.”
Previously, the CWA provided EPA jurisdiction over navigable waters. The new rule would extend that jurisdiction to such waters as Prairie potholes, Carolina and Delmarva bays, pocosins, western vernal pools in California and Texas coastal prairie wetlands. The presence of those bodies on a property generally could give EPA authority over that land.
Fortunately, said Jay Lehr, science director for the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based research organization, a barrage of lawsuits, injunctions and acts of Congress is likely to block the new regulations from going into effect.
“I think this will be in the courts for years,” said Lehr, the nation’s first Ph.D. in groundwater hydrology who was among the first advocates for the creation of the EPA almost 50 years ago. “With all of the various filers from multiple states and organizations, I can’t imagine that they will have trouble finding judges at the right levels who will place injunctions against the carrying out of this law. If we get lucky and we get a new administration we could put an end to this very quickly. Just about anybody who can get elected on the republican side I think would end it, although Jeb Bush makes me nervous. Even Hillary Clinton may not want to unleash the EPA quite as unreasonably as Barack Obama as a mechanism to reduce the capability of our country.”
Despite his optimism that the new rule, as written, will never take effect, Lehr says business owners should stay informed and proactively fight against it.
“Land and business owners should not be too comfortable about this being shot down,” he said. “I think people are better off being nervous and therefore activated. I would like to see people put their nervousness to use by contacting their representatives. We can’t afford to be passive. If everybody sits back and does nothing, we could end up in a world of hurt.”
What’s the problem?
Presently, through the Clean Water Act, EPA may regulate all navigable waters of the nation. The new rule extends that regulatory power to non-navigable waters – some of which are small and often unconnected to navigable water.
“The rule expressly excludes puddles,” Hopper said. “But it does include Prairie potholes and vernal pools which have the appearance of puddles. It also provides that water within a 100-year floodplain, or water within 4,000 feet of a tributary may be under EPA jurisdiction.”
Whether or not EPA could regulate such water would be determined on a case-by-case basis under the “significant nexus standard.” Significant nexus refers to whether a body of water has, or reasonably could make a connection to navigable waters.
“This is no small thing,” Hopper said. “If this goes into effect, trying to do almost anything on land where any water runs would require you to go through a federal approval process. Basically, if you are within 4,000 feet of a stream and you are going to disturb the land, you will need a federal permit and the cost is prohibitive. On average it would be $170,000 and it would take a couple years to process.”
The vagueness of the 85,000-word rule, Hopper said, is equally problematic.
“If you have wet spots on a property within EPA jurisdiction, and you want to know whether you can do anything on that property, a prudent lawyer is going to tell you that if your situation is not expressly excluded in the rule, that you should get a determination from the Corps of Engineers,” he said. “That creates another problem because up to now the courts have said that if you disagree with that determination you have no right to challenge it.”
Because EPA doesn’t have the resources to enforce the new rule on everybody, LaGasse said, enforcement would likely become a complaint-driven.
“It’s something that could pop up anywhere at anytime, and enforcement would be uneven,” he said.
General runoff, Hopper said, is typically excluded from regulation.
“But if it is a point source where they can point to a specific conduit as a discharge then it is questionable,” he said. “This has come up in situations like in manure piles at a dairy. The agency has gone both ways on this, so you’re taking your chances. That’s the problem. There is no clarity.”
Lehr calls the rule “shear insanity.”
“I have been involved in this since day one and I have yet to find a single human not connected with an environmental activist organization who thinks this makes sense” he said. “It isn’t about clean water. It’s about the EPA taking over every stitch of land with water on it that they possibly can.”
Impact on compost and mulch
The U.S. Composting Council, the national trade association that represents compost producers, isn’t concerned about the new rule, according to Cary Oshins, director of education for the organization.
“I don’t think this will make much of a difference for compost sites,” Oshins said. “This rule really just refines the definition of waters of the U.S. We are already strong proponents of using best management practices for storm water and contact water management. Since the rule encourages the use of green infrastructure, which is a strong and growing market for compost, this is overall a good rule change.”
Will Bakx, founder of Sonoma Compost Co., in Petaluma, Calif., disagrees.
“I don’t feel so comfortable about it,” said Bakx, vice chair of the California Organic Recycling Council and an executive board member of the California Compost Coalition. “I think neighbors have been provided with another avenue to go after composting facilities.”
Bakx has first-hand knowledge about that.
In May, his 22-year-old operation was ordered permanently shut down to settle a federal water quality suit filed by a neighborhood group. The suit, which involved storm water runoff into a nearby creek, cited violations of the Clean Water Act, which regulates the discharge of any pollutant into waters of the U.S.
“Our situation had less to do with water quality than politics,” Bakx said. “The Clean Water Act was used as an excuse to shut us down.”
Which is precisely what concerns WOTUS opponents like Lehr and Hopper.
“The worst case scenario is the cost of fighting it legally when the EPA comes at somebody without just cause,” Lehr said.
Although Sonoma’s problems preceded the new WOTUS rule, Bakx said the new rule could make it difficult to operate a composting facility. Waste discharge requirements for compost operations, now under consideration by the California Water Boards, he said, are directly impacted by WOTUS.
“Although they say otherwise, the state guidelines basically require a zero discharge facility,” Bakx said. “It will present significant costs to operators. It’s ironic, isn’t is, that there is a mandate to divert organics from the landfill, then they make it expensive to do it. If you’re in an area where landfill tipping fees are $25 a ton, how can you set up a composting facility that will cost you $50 a ton to operate?”
Implementation unlikely
Lawsuits like the one filed by PLF on behalf of the landowners, state cattlemen’s associations of California, Washington and New Mexico and others, Lehr said, will likely prevent WOTUS from ever going into effect.
On August 12, the Southern District Court of Georgia held a hearing on the preliminary injunction motion filed by 11 states opposing the rule. Chief Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said she would rule by the WOTUS implementation date of August 28 on the preliminary injunction motion filed by 11 states opposing the rule.
“I am the world’s leading optimist so it is not conceivable to me that this could ever become the law of the land,” Lehr said.
This article, by Composting News editor Ken McEntee, was originally published in Mulch & Soil Producer News.
