The EPA ignores its own advice and targets farm dirt over urban pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently revisited regulations and guidelines for the monitoring of air-quality standards, including those for fine and coarse particulate matter. While some claim these regulations did not go far enough, some of the new rules may have a significant negative impact on rural communities, with no concurrent benefits to human health. 

The EPA will add 75 new monitoring stations, and the revised regulations significantly tighten the restrictions for 24-hour fine particulate matter levels. The new regulations retain the existing 24-hour standards for inhalable coarse particulate matter and eliminate an annual standard on coarse particulate matter.

In the factsheet on the revised regulations, the EPA notes that scientific studies on the impacts on human health from rural particulate matter sources are limited and inconclusive.  Further, they also recommend that states focus their control efforts on urban sources. EPA actions, however, speak louder than its words. 

The EPA failed to pass the proposed exemption for agriculture and mining, which, along with road dust, are the most common sources of airborne particulate matter in rural areas.  Not only was this exemption not added, but despite the agency's supposed focus on urban air quality, the EPA will place more than a quarter of the 75 new monitoring stations in rural areas.  To target rural air quality seems out of place with the EPA’s own admissions and recommendations, and this is no minor detail.

The costs associated with the regulation of the particulate matter standards may be significant. Not only will there be costs associated with simply identifying violations and levying fines, but also with finding ways to cut the presence of particulate matter in these rural areas.  Contrary to what regulators seem to assume, these costs will be borne by not only the agricultural sector. The costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers and taxpayers in the form of increased food prices, or increased subsidies to farmers.

Agricultural machines inevitably kick up dust and dirt any time they take to the fields during dry conditions. Avoiding field operations would require, in many cases, significant and potentially costly changes in farming practices, and reduced yield.  Harvesting operations by machines also emit noticeable dust and particulates. Eliminating this source of particulate matter would require new designs on combines and harvesters.  The average price of these machines runs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Reinvestment in new, yet-to-be-produced equipment to limit particulate matter emission would add a new burden to agricultural producers. These additional costs would further drive small producers out of the market. 

In the case of cattle operations, the dirt and dust kicked up by animals in dry areas could be limited by confining the cattle to feedlot-style facilities.  However, feedlots generally pose greater risk to nearby water supplies than grazing operations, which is of greater concern in areas of limited fresh water supplies. Animal welfare advocates also consider feedlots objectionable.

The health effects from dirt and dust particles produced by agricultural operations are minimal, the numbers of people affected are low, and the particulate matter concentrations are localized and temporary. The EPA needs to revisit the facts and reconsider an exemption for agricultural operations. That will entail not a change of direction for the federal agency but simply following its own advice.

If EPA regulators truly want to protect the environment, they should focus on urban areas where smog is a concern, and not waste their time on farm dirt. Subjecting agriculture to this level of needless regulation would raise food prices across the country.