Two county Farm Bureau chapters in Washington are advocating limits on the Department of Ecology’s power to require small livestock operations to get a CAFO permit.

Farms that confine livestock must have a CAFO permit if manure washes or seeps into water. The permit lays out Ecology’s rules for storing and spreading manure.

Statewide, 24 operations have CAFO permits, including one dairy with fewer than 200 cows. The other operations are larger.

Ecology, however, can require any farm that confines any number of animals to get a permit if the department designates them a “significant contributor” of pollutants.

Yakima County Farm Bureau President Mark Herke said Wednesday that he’s concerned the CAFO rules could be used to target people with just a few animals.

“I feel the bureaucracies are getting more aggressive. If some authority is written down, Look out!” he said.

Ecology is currently revising the CAFO permit. Ecology proposes to keep its authority to designate farms with any number of animals as significant sources of pollution.

Thurston County Farm Bureau President Greg Schoenbachler said the rules should be revised to exclude the smallest operations, such as the hobby farms in his county.

The rules now could apply to one horse in a stable, he said. “There’s a tremendous amount of ambiguity here.”

The Yakima and Thurston chapters have hired former Washington Farm Bureau CEO John Stuhlmiller as a consultant on the issue.

Stuhlmiller said that small farms should have a chance to work with conservation districts or the Voluntary Stewardship Program before being required to get a CAFO permit.

The permits would impose impractical rules on small farms and expose livestock owners to fines — up to $10,000 a day — and even jail if they can’t comply, he said.

“I don’t know of one small CAFO that’s been tagged by Ecology as of yet, but it doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen,” Stuhlmiller said.

Ecology spokeswoman Stacy Galleher said in an email that Ecology and Department of Agriculture inspect farms and offer technical assistance to stop the discharge of pollutants.

If problems continue, Ecology considers factors such as how much waste went into water and the likelihood of future discharges before designating a farm a significant contributor of pollutants, she said.

The one small dairy with a CAFO permit was referred to a conservation district for help, she said. When problems continued over several years, the dairy was required to get a permit, she said.

The Washington Board of Health alarmed livestock owners with a proposal that would have imposed strict rules on storing manure. The board in June adopted a more flexible rule.

Ecology last year said livestock owners must have a permit to draw stockwater from a stream or pond. Farmers and ranchers protested Ecology’s position was contrary to the law and decades of practice. Ecology backed off.

Herke said such proposals have put animal owners on-guard to rules that agencies could choose to apply. “They say, ‘Oh, we’re not doing that.’ What about tomorrow or the next day?”

Ecology will take public comments on the revised CAFO rules until Aug. 17. Comments can be submitted online at wq.ecology.commentinput.com. Comments also can be mailed to: Chelsea Morris, Washington Department of Ecology, P.O. Box 47696, Olympia, WA 98504.