EPA provides oversight for the regulation of Animal Feeding operations under the NPDES permitting program. Their website provides numerous publications and tools. One new tool out of the Office of Compliance and Enforcement is a training program on “Technical Fundamentals of CAFO’s for Permit Writers and Inspectors.” While the target audience for this workshop is state level regulatory agency enforcement staff, the training workbook provides many assessment flags and tools that would be helpful in preparing producers for an inspection. The National Agriculture Compliance Assistance Center is working on converting many of these tools to producer based tools which should be on their website in the near future. Other helpful tools for assessing AFO’s provided by EPA include:
- National Agriculture Compliance Assistance Center: Comprehensive overview of publications and information on agricultural compliance
- Fertilizer Storage and Handling Practices on the Farm: This html program gives a general overview of fertilizer handling and storage, and features a risk assessment section, and recommendations for correcting problems.
- AFO Virtual Center: Many great publications and BMP guides
- Information on conducting environmental assessments and compliance audits, non-ag specific
- Livestock Sector Profile
- Pollution Prevention