PEORIA, Ill. — Many of the 1,200 farmers and industry professionals who attended the recent 2012 Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Assoc. (IFCA) Convention in Peoria came to have one question answered: Will they be required to apply and pay for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit prior to the application of pesticides near or on their farm pond or other water sources?

Determining exactly who needs a NPDES permit was a hot topic of discussion during the convention, which was Jan. 17-19. The IFCA invited Leslie Lowery from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address farmers about NPDES permitting requirements, which went into effect on Nov. 1, 2011.

“Leslie is one of the people who will provide oversight for the program. We’ve been working for a year-and-a-half with Leslie knowing this was coming and figuring out how to minimize as much as we can the impact on agriculture,” explained Jean Payne, IFCA executive director.

“(Lowery advised) if you are going to do any aquatic applications – and it doesn’t matter if you are just a homeowner with a pond in your backyard – you must get a permit,” said Payne. “How many farmers have a farm pond and want to keep the algae under control or the cattails out of it? Those ponds with an overflow are going to need a permit to be treated.”

Extra paperwork requirements and permit costs will add to the expense of doing business for retail chemical and fertilizer applicators and could cause some to stop offering aquatic applications altogether, Payne fears. Adding to the confusion is what she called unclear language from the EPA regarding exactly how applications “near or on” a body of water are defined, plus an open-ended system exposing violators to fines of up to $25,000 per day under the auspices of the Clean Water Act.

The IFCA is also concerned for professional applicators and agricultural producers who could be forced to open their books to the public under the conditions of the NPDES application process.

“We went to momentous efforts in Congress to stop (last year’s NPDES permit legislation). 

It passed the House to kill it and we had over 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, but the Senate leadership made a decision not to address it and now we are stuck with it,” Payne said. “Any application of pesticides to water is going to require a permit.”

In other convention news, Payne said the IFCA’s new office building, part of a suite of offices planned in conjunction with The Asmark Institute’s new 26,000 square-foot training complex for grain, chemical and fertilizer employees, will be finished soon. An open house is planned for the new facility, which is located off of Illinois State Route 9 on Carole Drive west of Bloomington, for sometime this summer.

The IFCA will share the office suite with the Grain & Feed Assoc. of Illinois, which will oversee a new grain handling safety program offered by Asmark.

“This is a training center in a centrally located area for the fertilizer, pesticide and grain industries,” said Payne. “The Asmark Institute has been a valued partner with the IFCA for the past 15 years.”