Central Valley Dairy Factories

Central Valley Dairy Factory

By Sejal Choksi, San Francisco Baykeeper

»CaliFornia’S Central Valley is a powerhouse of agricultural production, supplying a famed abundance of fruits, vegetables and dairy. More than six million acres in the Central Valley are devoted to irrigated agriculture, producing $13 billion worth of food annually. Farms there thrive on water supplied by a single, vast estuarine system, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The delta’s watershed, which drains more than 40 percent of California’s landmass and empties into San Francisco Bay, provides drinking water to more than 22 million people. After decades of heavy fertilizer application, as well as the proliferation of highdensity animal factories, agricultural pollution is directly threatening California’s drinking water, devastating aquatic habitat and contributing to the dramatic collapse of fisheries.

The shift to industrial agriculture in the Central Valley has resulted in fewer farms, more cows, and much more wet manure and polluted runoff. Federal law requires factory farms to prevent runoff of manure and contaminated rainwater. Factory farms must implement basic controls such as keeping stormwater away from the areas where cows are crowded together. Further, farms must ensure that manure used as fertilizer is applied slowly so nutrients can be absorbed by the plants, without running off into creeks or soaking quickly into groundwater. Although federal law required pollution control plans for these animal factories, California regulators have refused to enforce the law.

Baykeeper is vigilant in enforcing the law to protect the watershed from industrial dairy fac-

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tories in the Central Valley. With the help of Waterkeeper Alliance, Baykeeper launched a Central Valley Factory Farm campaign in June 2006 by announcing lawsuits against three polluting dairies in the Central Valley. These suits succeeded in forcing these industrial dairies to obtain Clean Water Act permits and increased the pressure on the state to implement federal environmental law. More recently, Baykeeper has challenged the state’s entire illegal factory farm program. Meanwhile, we’re working to preserve state rules that afford at least minimal protection for groundwater, the source of drinking water for many rural residents. With sustained pressure, we believe we can clean up the delta while protecting and preserving family farms. W

The three million dairy cows statewide excrete more waste than all the people in California combined. This cow manure is not treated and much of it ends up in our waterways. Farmers usually promise the manure will not be used as fertilizer for crops that feed humans, but California’s rules make it very hard to keep spinach and other crops out of manure’s way.

Stream team

Santa Barbara Channelkeeper’s Stream Team has identified chronic nutrient and algae problems in several watersheds that feed California’s Santa Barbara Channel. In the Goleta Slough watershed, some local creeks have nitrate concentrations more than double public health standards. Agriculture is the chief culprit. Channelkeeper supported a new regulatory program that requires farmers on California’s Central Coast to develop water quality management plans to reduce nutrient pollution from irrigated fields.