Environmental groups sue California over livestock manure policy

Multiple environmental groups are suing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for neglecting to address the potential negative impacts of the recently approved amendments to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

The aim of the LCFS is to reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels in California, but there have been protests over the past few months about the potential environmental and fiscal impacts of the amendments.

“The amendments channel global, national and local private sector investment towards increasing cleaner fuel and transportation options for consumers, accelerating the deployment of zero-emission infrastructure, and keeping the state on track to meet legislatively mandated air quality and climate targets,” reads a statement from Dave Clergan, CARB public information officer.

However, the petitioners of the lawsuit - Defensores Del Valley Central Para El Aire Y Agua Limpio, Food & Water Watch and the Animal Legal Defense Fund - are alleging that CARB has skirted its responsibilities under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to disclose, analyze and mitigate significant environmental impacts caused by the LCFS. Most notable to the petitioners is the financial incentive for farmers to collect “biogas.”

Biogas is produced from manure which creates the gas most dangerous to polluting the ozone layer and causing health issues for those who live nearby - methane. This incentive from CARB would go to operators of large dairy farms with industrial scale manure management systems, encouraging them to expand their operations and install anaerobic digesters to collect the methane and convert it into fuel.

“Factory farms are large-scale industrial operations that generally confine thousands—if not tens of thousands—of cows, hogs, or other animals,” reads the lawsuit. “This extreme concentration results in many severe human health and environmental impacts. Factory farms emit large quantities of methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouse gases far more potent than carbon dioxide, as well as multiple forms of air and odor pollution, and cause severe water contamination.”

These farms most often utilize industrial-scale manure management systems which flushes the waste into large manure pits and then that waste is applied to fields and biogas is captured. However there is so much manure that nitrate will leach into the groundwater, contaminating water resources and ecosystems. The effects of this can be found most obviously in San Joaquin Valley where the majority of the state’s dairy farms are located.

“CARB must acknowledge the environmental and public health harms caused by its prioritization of pollution-heavy practices over sustainable solutions,” said Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Limpio representative María Arévalo. “In the Central Valley, we live near 90% of cows in California and some of the largest dairy operations in the entire world. We raise time and time again that the conditions and impacts in our communities are getting worse as dairies are getting bigger and dairy digesters are installed. Despite our ongoing advocacy from the local to the federal level, but more than anywhere at CARB, our concerns have been ignored.”

These among other environmental complaints came up during the public comment period, but CARB responded by saying that considering a potential increase in livestock operations is too “speculative” to address as a negative impact and that they cannot propose mitigation measures efforts if that does happen because they do not have “direct authority” over those operations.

“Several comments also raised concerns that avoided methane crediting for biomethane captured from livestock manure may lead to additional greenhouse gas emissions and prevent the state from meeting its climate goals,” reads CARB’s master response. “However, capturing methane from California’s methane sources (including, landfills, dairies, and wastewater) is critical for achieving the state’s 2030 methane reduction and 2045 greenhouse gas reduction targets.”

CARB has taken the stance that the amendments would not encourage the expanding production of methane, but incentivize the construction of the infrastructure required to collect biogas.

“The Proposed Amendments aim to capture biogas from dairy and swine facilities, food processing, and other organic waste management facilities that is otherwise released to the environment,” reads the response. “Capturing biogas reduces the climate impacts of fugitive methane emissions. This recovered methane from biogas can then provide energy for electricity, heating, or transportation fuel.”

The petitioners ask that CARB delay moving forward with the proposed amendments until a prevention and mitigation plan can be put into action. CARB refused to comment on pending litigation.

“Increasing data supports what CARB refuses to acknowledge — perverse incentives in the LCFS for fuel derived from manure at factory farms exacerbates severe environmental impacts, causing cascading harm to communities in California and beyond,” said Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability co-director, Phoebe Seaton. “State law requires CARB to analyze, evaluate, and mitigate these impacts, which it has failed to do despite numerous warnings from environmental justice and environmental groups through the LCFS rulemaking process and numerous calls from communities to correct course.”