Virginia Poultry Waste Permit Changes

 

State Water Control Board Adopts Changes to Poultry Waste Permit

DECEMBER 17, 2020 / VIRGINIA FARM BUREAU PLOWS AND POLITICS

The State Water Control Board adopted final amendments to the Virginia Pollution Abatement (VPA) Regulation and General Permit for Poultry Waste Management at its December 9th meeting.

During the public comment period for the proposed regulatory changes, Virginia Farm Bureau issued an action alert opposing the proposed end-user reporting requirements and new reporting requirements for permitted poultry growers, as well as requesting that the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) continue to reject a reporting requirement for the use of litter amendments. Thank you all to all Farm Bureau members who submitted comments or responded to the action alert!

Based on feedback during the public comment period, DEQ staff recommendations related to poultry waste end-user reporting were revised to address concerns that the new requirements would hurt market demand for poultry litter and hinder the transfer of litter from growers to other farmers. The original proposal would have required the end-user to report poultry waste transfer records, land application records, and supporting documents, including soil test reports, field maps, and nutrient management plans. This was modified to instead require the end-user to report poultry waste transfer records, the method used to determine the land application rate, and the county where the waste is being utilized.

In addition, litter amendment reporting requirements were not added.

Other major DEQ staff recommendations from the original proposal were adopted as follows:

Poultry Waste Storage, Site design, and Management

• specifies that poultry waste may not be stored within 200 feet of an occupied dwelling, not on the permittee’s property unless the occupant of the dwelling signs a waiver of the storage site
• addition of language to clarify which tools are to be used to determine the floodplain when siting poultry waste storage facilities
• addition of a new special condition that allows specific options for addressing situations where poultry waste storage is threatened by emergencies such as fire or flood
• addition of a new site management special condition related to managing impervious surfaces and poultry waste

Poultry Waste Transfer Recordkeeping

• addition of “county” to the poultry waste transfer data recordkeeping items to be documented by the permitted grower, permitted end-user, permitted broker, and un-permitted end-user and un-permitted broker

Permitted Poultry Grower-Waste Transfer Reporting

• addition of a new phased-in requirement for the permitted grower to submit poultry waste transfer records 

Poultry Waste Broker-Waste Transfer Reporting

• amendment of dates for recordkeeping and reporting requirements for the broker
• addition of a condition related to the original sources of commingled poultry waste

Commercial Poultry Processor Activities

• addition of a new section to address activities performed by the commercial poultry processor on the contract grower’s farm related to poultry waste and nutrient management
• requires the commercial processor to submit an operation and maintenance manual to DEQ that outlines proper procedures to be used while commencing with typical farming activities
• requires the commercial processor clean up and properly dispose of materials that are spilled in relation to activities in which the commercial processor performs

USDA Hog Report

 

Webinar Invitation: USDA Hogs and Pigs Report Analysis The National Pork Board will host a free webinar for pork producers this Wednesday. A panel of guest speakers will provide insight and analysis to the USDA Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report, which will be released that day. Guest speakers and analysts include:  Dr. Steve Meyer — Kerns and Associates  ​​​​​Bob Brown — Independent Market Analyst  Dale Durcholz — Grain Cycles  Altin Kalo — Steiner Consulting Group  Webinar: USDA Quarterly Hogs and Pigs Report Analysis  Wednesday, December 23 3:30 p.m. CST   Click Here to Register   The views expressed in this webinar by our invited guests are theirs and not those of the National Pork Board. The National Pork Board does not advocate or endorse any particular production or marketing direction.      Copyright © 2020 This message is funded by America's Pork Producers and the Pork Checkoff. Our mailing address is: National Pork Board 1776 NW 114th St Clive, IA 50325 Want to change how you receive these emails? Update Preferences

Women in Ag Network

 

Please join us for our next Women in Agriculture Network virtual meeting on January 5th at 7:30 p.m.!  Patty Johnson, Orange County beef cattle farmer, farm blogger, and past-president of the Virginia Forage and Grasslands Council will be talking about her experience as a woman in agriculture taking on leadership positions within the agriculture industry.  The second half of our meeting we will be splitting up by region and spend some time networking with other female producers.  

The registration link can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/womeninagnetwork

 

Beef Health Conference

 

Virtual Shepherd's Symposium

 

Crisis and Resilience conference

 

Click on the Program Cover to Flip Through Full Conference Program   Member Price: $75 Non-Member Price: $120 Scholarships Available!     Register Today!   Renew your membership first and save! Not sure if your membership is active? No problem! We've recently started using new member management software and are here to help you navigate it. Check out our FAQs here and email deb@futureharvest.org with questions.     Friday Opening Keynote: Growing a New World   Tope Fajingbesi, Farmer, Author, Lecturer, and Accountant. Dodo Farms and the University of Maryland, IAA   Agriculture is often viewed simply as an economic activity. To millions of people and communities around the world, agriculture has been, is, and will continue to mean, so much more. Through stories and historical examples, Tope will speak about the critical role farming has played in healing, growing humans, shaping culture, and helping communities overcome adversity, and call on all of us to rise up and explore ways we can use farming to heal our communities during this difficult time in US history.     Saturday Opening Keynote: The Next Agriculture Economy   Chris Newman, Farmer, Writer, Activist. Sylvanaqua Farms   The future of farming in America faces broad, systemic challenges, including access to land, markets, and capital; processing infrastructure; distribution; farm succession; farmworker exploitation and quality of life; land-use change; and environmental degradation. Our settler/colonial culture, unfortunately, with its reverence of the individual, has largely atomized the discussion to be about farms and consumer behavior rather than systemic change.    This has led to a sustainable agriculture movement that's big on cultural capital but small on impact. In this keynote, Chris will discuss an emerging design for an integrated, BIPOC-led food system in the Chesapeake Bay region that creates the necessary conditions for truly thriving farms, communities, and the environment.     TRACK HIGHLIGHTS:     Herbal Self-Care for Farmers with Violet King, herbalist and farmer, DC Herbal Mutual Aid Apothecary Irrigation Systems for the Small, Mixed Vegetable Garden with Adam Cottrell, Floating Lotus Farmstead     To Scale Up or Scale Down - That's the Question with Ellen Polishuk, Plant to Profit Mitigating Financial Risk in the Time of COVID-19 with Tope Fajingbesi, Dodo Farms     Weed Control: The Right Tool For the Right Job and Record Keeping and Crop Planning with Josh Volk of Slow Hand Farm Hand-Scale Cover Cropping with Cindy Connor, Homeplace Earth     We're Still Here: How the Farm Alliance Used Community Resources to Help Micro-Scale Farms Survive the Pandemic with Alison Worman; Denzel Mitchell, and Mariya Strauss, Farm Alliance of Baltimore Feeding the Fight: Black Farms, Communities, and How CSA's Can Get Political with Violet King and Zachari Curtis, Dreaming Out Loud     Lessons Learned From Adopting and Grazing Summer Annuals with Jacob Gilley, American Farmland Trust, Sustainable Grazing Project Key Tips for Raising Small Ruminants Naturally with Renard Turner, Vanguard Ranch     Cover Cropping and Reducing Tillage Within Annual Vegetable Production with Casey Gustowarow The Million Acre Challenge (MAC) Presents: The Dollars and Sense of Soil Health with Jill Lada, Green Things Farm Collective (pictured), Keisha Cameron, High Hog Farm and Rick Clark, Farm Green     View Full Conference Program     Questions? Contact Gail Taylor, Conference Manager, at gail@futureharvest.org.     REGISTER