COLUMBUS, OH – A new study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics reveals that 2003 Clean Water Act regulations, while effective for their intended targets, ultimately had little to no impact on water quality in Iowa due to the shift it caused in the structure of the state’s hog industry.
The research, conducted by Chen-Ti Chen and Gabriel E. Lade of The Ohio State University, John M. Crespi of Iowa State University, and David A. Keiser of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, investigated the effects of federal regulations on water quality downstream of large hog animal feeding operations (AFOs) in Iowa. Iowa is the nation's largest hog-producing state, raising about a third of all U.S. hogs. The study linked historical regulatory records of AFOs to nearby, downstream water pollution monitors from 2000 to 2012 to determine the regulations' impact.
"When these updates to the Clean Water Act were passed, the EPA estimated that the regulations would lead to valuable improvements in downstream water quality that would justify the permitting and construction costs they impose on animal producers," said Dr. Gabriel Lade, Associate Professor and C. William Swank Chair in Rural-Urban Policy. "Our study set out to see if those benefits were realized."
The researchers found that the regulations were successful in reducing ammonia concentrations downstream of large, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) by 6-8%. The reductions were most significant during heavy rainfall events, suggesting that the regulations effectively reduced on-site spills and runoff.
However, the study also uncovered an unintended consequence of the policy.
"We found that the regulation incentivized many smaller and mid-sized operations to enter the industry and avoid the new rules by staying below the regulatory cutoff," said Dr. Chen-Ti Chen, Assistant Professor with the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at Ohio State. “The growth in the number of these mid-sized facilities over time offset the gains from regulating the largest operations.”
The researchers concluded that the overall effect of the regulation on water quality was not statistically different from zero.
"Our findings suggest that size-based regulations can have unintended consequences," Lade said. "The Clean Water Act CAFO rules probably deserve a rethink if we want them to be effective and justify the costs they impose on the agricultural industry.”
###
- Chen-Ti Chen, Assistant Professor, Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University
- Gabriel E. Lade, Associate Professor, Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University
- John M. Crespi, Professor, Department of Economics, Iowa State University
- David A. Keiser, Professor, Department of Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Citation: Size-based regulation and water quality: Evidence from the Iowa hog industry https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajae.70006?campaign=wolearlyview