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As the deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revise the national air quality standard for “coarse particulate matter” – also known as dust – approaches, farming interests, including some in Wisconsin, say a stricter standard could result in fines for farm dust in rural communities. But environmentalists say the rules are really aimed at urban soot from autos and manufacturers and unlikely to impact rural areas.

Wisconsin Congressmen Jim Sensenbrenner and Reid Ribble, along with 99 other House Republicans, recently signed onto a letter asking the EPA to reconsider enforcing a tougher standard.

(photo illustration by adrian palomo)

Under the Clean Air Act, the agency has until October to update the dust guideline. According to the Greenwire environmental news service, the process is advancing relatively slowly. All signs from the EPA, including an early draft it wrote, suggest the new standards would be roughly equivalent to the current rules. But farm groups insist the proposed rules would be harder for rural communities to follow.

“Activities such as plowing, planting, harvesting or even driving down an unpaved road can violate the proposed standard,” says a news release from the Dairy Business Milk Marketing Cooperative of Green Bay. “It would reduce allowable levels below naturally occurring levels.”

A study commissioned by the National Cattleman’s Beef Association found the proposed changes would push many sections of the South, West and Midwest “to the brink of nonattainment. Even slight changes in natural source emissions or weather conditions could result in nonattainment for these areas in the next several years.”

But EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe says the agency is not looking to “create onerous new rules for farm dust.”

In 2006, the last time EPA updated the national particulate matter standard, the agency clarified it would also apply to rural areas. Federal regulators have traditionally targeted sources of particulate matter in urban areas, where it contributes to smog. Such urban “dust” is more commonly called “soot.”

“The truth is that coarse-particle pollution comes from vehicles; it comes from power plants; it comes from oil refineries; it comes from manufacturing facilities; it comes from mines,” John Walker, an environmental lawyer for the National Resources Defense Council, told The Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Lobbyists, he argues, have “put farmers forward as the voice of reason opposing EPA’s attempt to regulate ‘farm dust,’ which is utter nonsense. That’s not at all what the EPA is doing.”

If the focus is on urban areas, why include rural areas in those open to enforcement, farm groups ask. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, tells Greenwire farm dust can be coated with pesticides or other chemicals and might, someday, come under greater scrutiny by the EPA. “It’s better to protect public health with a bit of uncertainty,” as to whether the EPA will enforce dust rules in rural communities, “than to ignore these health effects that we will regret later on.”

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