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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

In California, Agriculture Takes Center Stage in Pollution Debate

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 26, 2005; Page A01

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- On a clear day, San Joaquin looks like a bucolic 
farming community, complete with almond groves, cornfields and orange 
trees. But most of the time the valley -- trapped between the Sierra Nevada 
and the Coast Ranges, with two major highways running north to south 
through it -- is smoggy, filled with air that has fostered widespread 
respiratory disease.

Fifteen percent of the region's children have asthma, a rate three times 
the national average. Fresno -- the valley's biggest city -- has the 
third-highest rate of asthma in the country, and the San Joaquin Valley 
rivals Los Angeles and Houston for the dubious title of worst air quality 
in the nation. On bad air days, some schools hoist a red flag so parents 
can keep their children indoors; on good days, they raise a green flag.

Agriculture does not occupy a prominent place in America's environmental 
policy debates, but farming has arguably more of an impact on the land, air 
and water than any other sector in the U.S. economy, environmental and 
industry experts say. In addition to producing airborne emissions, farms 
take up nearly half of the nation's land, and nutrient-laden runoff from 
farms affects such waterways as local streams and the Gulf of Mexico."The 
sheer scope of farmland means that unless it is extremely well-managed, 
it's going to create serious problems," said Tim Searchinger, an 
agricultural policy specialist at the advocacy group Environmental Defense. 
"But with some tweaks and a few bold approaches, farmers and ranchers could 
do a lot of good."

Michael Kleeman, an environmental and civil engineering professor at the 
University of California at Davis, estimates that agriculture accounts for 
as much as half of the valley's air pollution.

The health problems caused by agriculture emboldened state Sen. Dean Florez 
(D-Shafter) to push to abolish farming's exemption from state air pollution 
laws. California was at risk of losing federal highway funds because of 
poor air quality, and Florez argued that farms had to curb their emissions 
like factories and power plants. By spewing smog-forming gases into the 
air, the legislature declared, cows had joined cars and trucks as major 
polluters."I wanted them to understand they've got to be part of the 
solution, not part of the problem," Florez said. "It's a cultural change 
for them."

Although California farmers are now legally accountable for emissions, 
environmentalists, regulators and farmers are feuding over how far the 
government can go in regulating things such as cow emissions and aging 
diesel equipment in the San Joaquin Valley. About a fifth of the country's 
milk production now takes place in this region, well more than that 
produced in Wisconsin.

This summer, the state Air Resources Board ruled that any existing farm 
with more than 1,000 milk cows had to apply for a permit on the grounds 
that dairies -- which release volatile organic compounds and ammonia -- 
rank as major polluters. Volatile organic compounds create smog when 
combined with nitrogen oxide, while ammonia reacts with that smog to form 
fine-particle pollution.

Dairy farmers have assailed the science underlying the rules and blocked a 
plan that would have made them install technology to capture methane and 
other gases that cows emit.

The rest of the story is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501172.html