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In this June, 28, 2012 photo, a portion of the livestock being raised by hog farmer Robert Young mill around in the climate-controlled hog barn on Young's family farm in Buckhart, Ill. Four years after the U.S. Government Accountability Office raised conc M. Spencer Green, Associated Press
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In this June, 28, 2012 photo, hog farmer Robert Young approaches the million gallon manure pit under the hog barn on his family farm in Buckhart, Ill. Young uses the manure to fertilize the fields of his own farm along with those he has contracted with in M. Spencer Green, Associated Press
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In this June, 27, 2012 photo, hog farmer Robert Young checks the well-being of his livestock on his family farm in Buckhart, Ill. Four years after the U.S. Government Accountability Office raised concerns and 40 years after the Clean Water Act gave the EP M. Spencer Green, Associated Press
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In this July, 28, 2012 photo, Karen Hudson, co-founder of Illinois Citizens for Clean Air and Water, poses with signs in Elmwood, Ill., opposing huge corporate-funded farms that are springing up across country. Hudson says many rural communities have bee M. Spencer Green, Associated Press
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In this June, 27, 2012 photo, a portion of the livestock being raised by hog farmer Robert Young are electronically fed in the climate controlled hog barn on Young's family farm in Buckhart, Ill. Four years after the U.S. Government Accountability Office M. Spencer Green, Associated Press
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In this June, 27, 2012 photo, hog farmer Robert Young bales straw that is fertilized with manure from the 3,600 hogs he raises on his family farm in Buckhart, Ill. Four years after the U.S. Government Accountability Office raised concerns and 40 years aft M. Spencer Green, Associated Press
By Associated Press

CHICAGO — A report to Congress in 2008 said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was failing to regulate pollution from the nation's livestock farms because it lacked information as basic as how many farms existed.

Four years later, the EPA still doesn't know the location of many livestock farms, let alone how much manure they generate and how all the waste is being handled.

Environmentalists say they were flabbergasted when the EPA recently decided against adopting a rule that would require livestock operators to provide the agency with information.

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But industry officials say there's no reason for farmers to have to give the EPA information. An EPA spokeswoman says nobody at the agency is available to discuss the decision.

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