Livestock air emissions deadline looms

A spokesperson for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says the U.S. Coastguard national response center could crash when the livestock industry files air emissions reports later this month. Chief environmental counsel Scott Yager tells Brownfield more than 200,000 livestock producers will have 24-hours to call the Coastguard on January 22, to meet a new air emissions requirement. He says in mid-November, some farms decided to report early and caused substantial delays to actual emergencies.“They went from 150 calls a day to over a 1,000 calls a day, and that was just based on those additional farm reports.  It resulted in wait times of over two hours to phone calls that required an immediate emergency response.”