United States-Chicken Association sue the government.

UNITED STATES-POULTRY PROBLEMS.

The National Chicken Council and the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association have filed suit in the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to challenge certain aspects of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulation on water pollution discharges from so-called confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, the groups said in a news release.

The new regulation was issued in response to a 2005 ruling by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that said EPA could not require growers to apply for permits merely because they have a "potential to discharge" pollutants to U.S. waters.

EPA has replaced that portion of the rule with a new provision that would require permits where there is a "proposal to discharge." The NCC/USPOULTRY lawsuit contends the new requirement does not conform to the Second Circuit’s ruling.

In addition, the lawsuit challenges recent guidance documents, issued by EPA in the form of letters, that interpret the CAFO regulation. According to NCC and USPOULTRY, the letters essentially say a grower has a "proposal to discharge" and therefore must apply for a permit, if poultry housing has a ventilation fan that may potentially exhaust dust or other substances on the ground where rain water might wash them into a ditch leading to surface waters. NCC and USPOULTRY will argue that Congress did not intend to regulate these normal agricultural practices when it enacted the Clean Water Act.