Federal Court Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging ODA and Ohio EPA Livestock Permitting

A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit claiming that the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) is improperly issuing National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for concentrated animal feeding operations without authorization by the U.S. EPA.   Two residents of northwest Ohio filed the suit last summer against the ODA, the Ohio EPA and the U.S. EPA.  In a tenuous argument, they alleged that the Ohio EPA illegally delegated its authority over NPDES permits by allowing ODA to issue a manure management plan as a condition for obtaining an NPDES permit from the Ohio EPA, and by allowing ODA to “determine, collect and analyze” data required for an NPDES permit.  The plaintiffs had also requested a preliminary injunction against ODA, which the court denied last December.

The lawsuit aims at the Ohio legislature's action in 2000 that transferred authority from the Ohio EPA to ODA for Ohio's state-based permitting program for concentrated animal feeding facilities.  The state permit program is separate from, and in addition to, the NPDES permit program administered under the federal Clean Water Act by the Ohio EPA.  Following the transfer of the state program to ODA, Ohio requested that the U.S. EPA approve a transfer of the NPDES permit authority for animal feeding operations from Ohio EPA to the ODA.  The U.S. EPA has not yet approved the transfer, and the NPDES program remains with the Ohio EPA.  If approved by the U.S. EPA, both the state and NPDES permit programs would be administered through ODA's Livestock Envrionmental Permitting program.  Until that time, ODA administers the Livestock Environmental Permitting program according to Ohio law, while the Ohio EPA oversees NPDES permits for animal feeding operations that are also subject to the Clean Water Act due to potential discharges into waters of the United States.

The plaintiffs claimed that ODA is improperly administering NPDES permits because of the manure management plans required for both the state and federal permit programs.   An applicant seeking both an Ohio and an NPDES permit can submit the same manure management plan to each agency.  The standards for both programs are the same, because ODA followed the EPA's federal requirements for manure management plans when it developed Ohio's manure management plan standards.   It is possible that a manure management plan approved by ODA could also be approved by the Ohio EPA in the NPDES permit program.  Plaintiffs argued that by allowing a manure management plan that had been approved for ODA's permit program to be used in the application for an NPDES permit, the Ohio EPA was delegating its authority to ODA to review and approve manure management plans for the NPDES program.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. District Court disagreed. "Even though a permit applicant may submit to the Ohio EPA a manure management plan which was developed to satisfy Ohio’s permit to operate requirements, the plan is still reviewed by the Ohio EPA and will only be allowed to be used in the discharge elimination permit application if the plan satisfies federal regulations and the Clean Water Act,"  stated Judge David Katz.

Judge Katz proceeded to grant the agencies' motion to dismiss the case.  "Plaintiffs’ assertion that the Ohio EPA improperly delegated its authority regarding concentrated feeding permits to the Ohio Department of Agriculture is completely devoid of merit. The facts simply do not show that Ohio’s EPA and Department of Agriculture have engaged in any conduct which violates a federal statute or regulation."

Read the decision in Askins v. Ohio Dept. of Agriculture here.