Defining a CAFO

What, exactly, is a CAFO?

It's hard to say. The definition keeps changing.

For five years, the federal government, farm groups and environmentalists have sparred over how to protect the public from pollution by large-scale livestock operations known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.

CAFOs, generally defined as farms with 700 or more head of livestock confined for more than 45 days, have come increasingly under scrutiny by public health officials as a source of chronic diseases for those who live nearby, ranging from asthma to heart disease.

Because of their size and importance as a source of local jobs, CAFOs have changed rural economies, which are also challenged by poverty and poor health, according to an independent national commission of medical doctors, public health professionals, ranchers, veterinarians, and animal science and infectious disease experts.

"Those most vulnerable -- children, the elderly and individuals with chronic or acute pulmonary or heart disorders -- are at particular risk," concluded the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production.

Despite those risks, efforts at drafting regulations have been slow and difficult.

In 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued draft rules for a pollution permit to be required of all CAFOs.

The final regulations could be ready in mid-November. But in the intervening five years, the industry has prevailed over much of the state and federal rule making surrounding the permits.

Even the definition of a CAFO has changed.

Thanks to a federal court decision favoring the livestock industry, the number of Washington dairies and feedlots considered CAFOs has declined from 110 in 2005 to 31 in 2007.

The U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit said CAFO operators can't be required to get a discharge permit if there's only a potential for pollution. Put another way, a dairy that stores manure in lagoons and sprays it on crops is not considered to be discharging.

Meanwhile, the CAFO permit developed by the state Department of Ecology has been appealed by environmentalists to the state Court of Appeals.

Environmentalists argue the permit won't protect the waters of the state while Ecology and the livestock industry argue it will. Oral arguments are set for sometime this fall.