Managing Manure To Improve Air and Water Quality

Animal waste from confined animal feeding operations is a potential source of air and water quality degradation. Pollution from animal waste poses challenges to farmers and to resource managers because it can affect multiple resources while environmental laws typically focus only on a single resource. This report assesses the economic and environmental tradeoffs between water quality policies and air quality policies that could require the animal sector to take potentially costly measures to abate pollution, based on a farm-level analysis of hog farms, a national analysis including all sectors, and a regional assessment in an area with high animal numbers.