Air board cuts farm loophole, but issue's not over

By Mark Grossi
The Fresno Bee

(Updated Monday, December 23, 2002, 3:27 PM)

A 1970s loophole that allows on-field farming to escape air regulation has been removed from a key San Joaquin Valley air rule, but nothing has changed yet.

Under pressure from the federal government, Valley air board members Thursday removed the historic exemption from a rule governing new pollution sources. But, for the moment, the loophole continues in the Valley and elsewhere in California because it is a state law.

The air board needed to remove any reference to the exemption or face sanctions in February from federal officials who say agriculture should not be excluded from air regulation.

The sanctions would have started with higher fees on new or expanding businesses. By late August, $2.2 billion in federal road money would have been withheld from the Valley.

"We need to make sure our rule is silent [on the farm exemption]," said Sayed Sadredin, director of permit services for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. "But we would still follow state law, which pre-empts us."

The move Thursday took the district out of an inevitable confrontation between the state and the federal government over the loophole, which the California Legislature granted in 1976.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the federal Clean Air Act does not allow the farm exemption. After being sued by environmental groups this year, EPA announced many large farms would have to enter a permit program next year to track pollution.

The Valley air district was caught in the furor because it had been revising the rule over new pollution sources since 2001. Among other changes, EPA officials told Valley air officials the exemption had to go.

"We cannot propose approval of a rule that differs from the Clean Air Act," said Kerry Drake, an EPA official from the San Francisco regional office.

Several Valley board members were not eager to remove the loophole. Board member Jack Sieglock, a San Joaquin County supervisor, said it didn't seem right.

"Certainly an acre of crops is cleaner than an acre of houses," Sieglock said.

Air district data shows farming contributes more than half of the particle pollution in the Valley, which is among the three most polluted places in America. Valley farmers contribute 25% of smog-forming reactive organic gases and 19% of the nitrogen oxides, another ingredient of smog, according to district figures. By summer 2005, more smog-making gases will come from dairy and other livestock operations than cars, district projections show.

One farm lobbyist, Manuel Cunha of the Nisei Farmers League, supported removal of the loophole from the district rule, but he opposed the enforcement of an air permit program on farmers. "Are we supposed to put catalytic converters on cows?" he asked, as several board members chuckled.

Under the EPA order this year, farmers whose operations create more than 25 tons of pollution annually will have to begin applying for a federal permit program in spring.

The EPA told the state that the loophole must be repealed by September 2003 or California will face federal sanctions statewide. The Legislature may consider the issue in its next session, said Mark Boese, deputy air pollution control officer.

On another front, the exemption will come before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April. The California Farm Bureau Federation filed a lawsuit against EPA, saying the agency did not have enough scientific evidence. The reporter can be reached at mgrossi@fresnobee.com or 441-6316.