The Impact of the Clean Water Act on Farm Practices: The Case of U.S. Dairy Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations

We quantify the impact of the Clean Water Act (CWA) on farm waste management practices of U.S. dairy concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), including storage capacity, land application, and manure removal. We employ a double-hurdle model to examine how dairy farmers adjusted their practices in response to a major policy revision of the CWA in 2003. We find that the revision significantly increased the adoption rate of nutrient management plan (NMP) among dairy CAFOs. The results suggest that the CWA had a heterogeneous and limited impact on dairy CAFOs' waste management practices.