The Manager of Sustainable Development Programs with Manitoba Pork says proposed changes to the province’s Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation are primarily administrative and will, in no way, weaken environmental protection.
The comment period for proposed amendments to the Manitoba Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation ended in mid-May.
Mike Teillet, the Manager of Sustainable Development Programs with Manitoba Pork, observes we have read in the media and heard over and over again that the government is weakening environmental controls but that is certainly not the case.
I would say 90 percent of these regulation changes are purely administrative in nature. There are some that actually are changing some specific requirements but they’re not loosening or weakening in any way the environmental controls.
In fact all of the things, like setback distances and the requirement for manure management plans and all that sort of thing are still there so all of the significant environmental protections will remain in place. They’re going to raise the manure storage facility requirement maximum from 500 days to 750 days.
That doesn’t change anything in the environment. It just allows farmers to a little bit more flexibility as to when they spread their manure.
There was a number of places where there was duplication and redundancies within the LMMMR and they’ve removed most of those. They removed a requirement for the ban on winter spreading out of the LMMMR and there was a lot of initial objection to that but the reason they removed that was because it was already in another piece of legislation so it was in twice so they didn’t need it there twice.
~ Mike Teillet, Manitoba Pork
Teillet says this is the kind of thing that is being done so there is no weakening of environmental standards.
