Subject: Compost Regs could Undermine Susta
From: Brian Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: 30 Jun 94 10:56 PDT
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture

FARMS COULD BECOME SOLID WASTE FACILITIES ACCORDING TO NEW REGS

Regulations being written by the California Integrated Waste
Management Board could subject farmers and others who compost
agricultural by-products such as manure to permitting requirements for
solid waste facilities. The Board's composting advisory board, which
has no representation from farmers, maintains that animal manure and
other agricultural by-products such as fruit pomace, cotton gin trash
and grain straw are "solid waste" although these materials have
traditionally not been committed to the municipal waste stream.

The regulations requiring solid waste permitting for composting on
agricultural lands may shut down many existing agricultural composting
operations. Many local land use ordinances require special permits,
public hearings and perhaps environmental impact reports for any
siting of "solid waste facilities" on agricultural lands.

The net effect of these regulations will be to suppress composting of
agricultural by-products and to discourage an environmentally
sustainable farming practice that is gaining ground on conventional as
well as organic farms. Compost provides an alternative to chemical
fertilizers, raw manure and other uncomposted materials that can cause
much greater environmental problems, such as non-point pollution.
Compost also increases the biological activity of the soil and can
help suppress pests and pathogens, thus reducing the need to apply
pesticides. While composting will have stringent additional
regulations if the proposed regulations are adopted, chemical
fertilizers, raw manure and contaminated plant by-products such as
cotton gin trash will go unregulated. With fewer composting
facilities, feedstocks will have to be hauled greater distances, which
will not only increase the transportation costs, but will also
increase the energy consumption and air pollution associated with
making and distributing compost. The decreased competition will result
in a direct transfer of income from small, family farms to large
waste-hauling firms.

"Farms are not solid waste facilities because they make compost," says
Diane Bowen, CCOF's Executive Director. "The Waste Board has its nose
in an agricultural enterprise which it knows nothing about and over
which it may have no legal jurisdiction. Organic farmers and waste
giants like Browning Ferris Inc. is a case of apples and orange rinds.
The intent of the legislation which created the Waste Board was to
deal with problems of urban waste management, not to burden farmers
with additional regulations. Now that municipalities are required to
divert source-separated green waste, giant waste-haulers like BFI are
apparently seeing an opportunity to monopolize agricultural compost
markets and squeeze out farmers and other small makers of agricultural
compost. While BFI claims it wants to 'level the playing field' it
acts as though it wants to own the playing field. Perhaps the Waste
Board is not concerned with this possibility." 

Brian Baker
Technical Coordinator
California Certified Organic Farmers
303 Potrero #51
Santa Cruz, CA  95060
408-423-2263
408-423-4528
[email-masked]

"Looks like a page from the Tonya Harding school of fairness.