A Washington State U.S. District Court last year engaged in a faulty analysis of the Resource Conservation Recovery Act in determining cow manure is a regulated solid waste.
A new U.S. District Court case in California –Blackwood V Mary DeVries – is taking the correct approach that Congress and EPA have argued for. The California dairy gets it right. “Congress did not intend for RCRA to regulate agricultural material such as manure produced by [a] dairy…”
The DeVries dairy makes arguments which should have been made in the Cow Palace case in Washington State. It tells the Court in a recent filing that manure is not a solid waste under RCRA. The brief makes clear “Congress has confirmed its intent that manure from a dairy which is reused [is] exempt from classification as a solid waste,…[moreover] EPA has respected this intent by not regulating manure from dairies under RCRA.“