The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District thinks a cow creates about 19.3 pounds of volatile organic compounds a year. Those compounds are an ingredient in smog. The dairy industry thinks the number is closer to 5.6 pounds. The 13.7-pound difference carries big implications for dairy farmers.
A pop quiz: What is the largest source of smog-producing pollution in the San Joaquin Valley?
A) Light- and medium-duty trucks
B) Passenger cars
C) Oil and gas production
D) Pesticides
E) Dairy cows
If you know the answer, you're a step ahead of the controversy between San Joaquin Valley air regulators and the dairy industry.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District thinks a cow creates about 19.3 pounds of volatile organic compounds a year. Those compounds are an ingredient in smog. The dairy industry thinks the number is closer to 5.6 pounds.
The 13.7-pound difference carries big implications for dairy farmers.
The higher number puts dairies on top of the list of sources for such compounds, ahead of trucks and passenger cars.
That number will lead to measures individual dairies must take to reduce air pollution. The cost of those measures could range from thousands of dollars to more than $1 million per dairy, according to industry officials.
The issue is a critical one for the dairy industry in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, where milk is the leading farm commodity in Stanislaus, Merced and San Joaquin counties.
The combined farm revenue for milk in the three counties in 2004 was more than $1.6 billion. That figure doesn't include revenue and jobs created by dairy-processing plants in the region.
The battle over the emissions number leaves dairymen like Matt Genasci frustrated. Genasci and his brother Andrew work a 600-cow dairy near Turlock.
"It's disheartening as a dairyman to be portrayed as greedy businessmen and blatant polluters," Genasci said.
"That's far from the truth. Any dairyman cares about the environment and wants to follow the standards that are in place."
But the standards have to be based on good science, Genasci insists.
While Genasci's 2-Ace Holsteins dairy is too small to require a permit, he hopes it eventually will expand beyond the 1,000-cow threshold for a permit.
He and his brother are watching the issue closely.
"Dairymen in general are willing to do whatever it takes to solve the problem," Genasci said. But they don't know what the scope of the problem is or what kinds of solutions may be required of them.
"It seems like there is a lot of misinformation and politics that really isn't helping anyone come to a conclusion," he said.
The costs for individual dairies could range from thousands of dollars for changes in the feed for cows and more frequent flushing of dairy waste, to more than $1 million for covering waste lagoons and installing methane digesters.
"We don't know what the board is going to mandate," said Henry Van de Pol, an Escalon dairyman. "It's just hard to start reducing your emissions from a figure you know is too high." Van de Pol milks 1,900 cows on his farm.
Dairymen already have nutritionists to determine the best feed for the cows, Van de Pol said. "What are we supposed to reduce? I don't know. The idea is to make milk, not reduce feed."
Environmentalists and health officials say that the 19.3-pound number is too low, pointing to the valley's poor air quality and rising rates of asthma.
The two sides cite different studies to justify their positions, a problem that became obvious when an advisory group charged with recommending an emissions number failed to reach a consensus.
The group came up with three figures, ranging from 5.6 pounds to almost 35 pounds, and left it to the air district pollution control officer, David L. Crow, to choose a number.
Crow picked the middle number, which didn't seem to please either side. The air district said the number is based on a review of 15 dairy research studies.
The 5.6-pound number preferred by the dairy industry is based on a University of California at Davis study. That study indicates that most of the problem comes from the cow itself, which leaves diet change as one of the few remedies, according to Michael Boccadoro of the Community Alliance for Responsible Environmental Stewardship, a dairy advocacy group.
The higher numbers, based on studies conducted here and abroad, indicate that the lagoons and waste-handling systems at a dairy are significant sources of air pollution, Boccadoro said.
Those would require more expensive solutions, he said.
Michael Marsh, president of Western United Dairymen, said the air district staff ignored California studies supporting the lowest number.
"If a farmer is asked to mitigate something they can't even find, what is the cost going to be for chasing air? We could spend a lot of money and not benefit air quality," Marsh said.
Air district officials say they gave the heaviest weight to studies done in California. None of the studies looked at all types of volatile organic compound emissions, Crow said, so the district evaluated all the studies to come up with the number.
More research is needed, Crow said, and the emission factor will be reviewed as more information is available.
That makes the dairy industry even more nervous. Boccadoro raised the spectre of dairies being forced to invest in digesters only to have the air district decide later, with more research data, that they weren't necessary.
"It's critical to get this number right," Boccadoro said.
Stanislaus County Supervisor Tom Mayfield, who chairs the governing board of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, has problems with the 19.3-pound number.
"I'm not buying into it," he said of the air district staff's emissions estimate that puts dairies on top of the list of valley polluters.
"There's people, cars, subdivisions. I'm having a hard time believing cows are putting out that much pollution in the San Joaquin Valley," Mayfield said.
He asked the air district staff to put the issue on the Aug. 18 governing board agenda, so staff and the board can discuss the science that went into the emissions estimate.
The process of determining the cow emission number came about as a settlement of litigation between the air board and the dairy industry over the issue of air-pollution permitting of dairies. But the two sides are still far enough apart that the issue may return to court.
"I hate for it to end back in litigation, but it might," Marsh said. "If farmers are asked to mitigate emissions that scientists say are not even there, I'm not sure what choice we have."
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
