07/21/05 EPA to monitor Idaho beef cattle

The Environmental Protection Agency says the Idaho State Department of Agriculture has fallen down on the job and isn't monitoring beef cattle operations to see if they comply with the Clean Water Act. EPA director of compliance Mike Bussell says his agency will do what Idaho should have done for the past five years. BUSSELL "We've had a number of concerns with how the state has been implementing that program on our behalf. We've had numerous meetings with them and sent them some pretty high level letters saying we've really got to see you improve your performance if we're going to be able to maintain this." So does that mean that Idaho has beef cattle violations and that livestock operators are looking at fines and penalties? BUSSELL "The objective is not to go over there and rack up a bunch of enforcement actions for the sake of enforcement actions." Bussell says it will take a couple of years to determine what is going on with the beef cattle industry in Idaho. BUSSELL "To get to a point were we've got a full grasp of how things are going and have a strategy to where we do have issues to start to work on them." Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott