Sierra Club sues over hog lot rules

An environmental group is taking legal action to stop pollution caused by hog lots and other animal confinement operations. Erin Jordahl , director of the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter, says they’re arguing proposed Bush Administration rules would legally allow animal factories to pollute streams and rivers with animal waste. The Sierra Club claims proposed Bush Administration rules will weaken safeguards on animal factory pollution and shield corporations from responsibility for environmental damage their pollution causes. The Sierra Club has filed a challenge to the Bush proposal in federal court. Jordahl says state and federal laws already favor corporations over the environment.Jordahl says there are many examples of the damage in Iowa, like last fall, when a hog facility in northeast Iowa spilled manure into a tributary of the Little Volga River in Fayette County, killing nearly 13-thousand fish. She says water quality testing done in the river basin found fecal bacteria levels at 18-hundred times the swimming standard.