To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] The mind boggles . . . cow diapers?
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 10:33:27 -0500
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.