EPA Requires Feed Manufacturers to Limit Toxic Emissions

The Environmental Protection Agency will begin requiring animal feed manufacturers to implement new controls and work practices to reduce emissions of air toxics such as chromium and manganese, according to a final rule published in the Jan. 5 Federal Register.

The Environmental Protection Agency will begin requiring animal feed manufacturers to implement new controls and work practices to reduce emissions of air toxics such as chromium and manganese, according to a final rule published in the Jan. 5 Federal Register.

Required work practices include industrial vacuums or manual sweeping to reduce dust; removing dust from walls, ledges, and equipment using low-pressure air or by other means monthly; and keeping doors shut, according to the final rule. It also requires facilities to store raw materials containing the toxic metals in closed containers and to cover mixing machinery when it is in operation.

Under the new rule, feed manufacturers with average daily feed production levels exceeding 50 tons per day are required to install and operate a cyclone to reduce particulate emissions from pelleting and pellet cooling operations.

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is required to identify industrial sources that emit one or more of 187 listed toxic air pollutants and to establish appropriate national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants. Area sources — those that emit less than 10 tons annually of a single air toxic or less than 25 tons per year of any combination of hazardous pollutants — are required to meet the generally available control technology standard. Larger sources must meet the more stringent maximum achievable control technology standard.

EPA is under a court order to issue hazardous pollutant emissions standards for 50 categories of area sources.

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