Dairying demands, not disregard of law, keep operators from complying with new clean-water mandates.
By COOKSON BEECHER Capital Press Staff Writer, The Capital Press , 5/8/98
CHEHALIS, Wash. - Dairy farmers in the Upper Chehalis River basin will soon be learning the outcome of Department of Ecology inspections done in this area of Southwestern Washington earlier this year.
The goal of the inspection sweep, which included all 52 dairies in the watershed above Porter, is to ensure that waste from dairy operations is not going into the Chehalis River or its tributaries. The inspection area encompasses 2,600 square miles in a three-county area.
Kahle Jennings, coordinator for Ecology's water-quality program in the Chehalis watershed, said letters to dairy operators should be going out in mid-May. But he emphasized the department's goal is to contact each operator personally before following up with a letter.
Although the inspections, which were carried out from January to mid-April, are done, department officials are still in the process of rolling the information up into table form, said Jennings.
Nevertheless, he did share some unofficial results of the inspections carried out at the 16 dairies in Thurston County. Information from the inspections in Lewis and Grays Harbor counties has not yet been compiled, but Jennings said he expects it will be by this week.
Here is the overview pertaining to the dairies inspected in Thurston County.
Four of the 16 dairies were found to be in compliance with the Clean Water Act.
Five of the dairies are being recommended for permit coverage.
"They did have a discharge, and we will require them to have a permit," said Jennings.
A permit generally requires that a dairy operator have a farm plan that is implemented according to a specific schedule. As such, it includes inspections of the operation.
Of those five dairies, one had a fully implemented plan but had brought heifers back onto the farm, which resulted in pollution problems.
Another had a farm plan, but it was not fully implemented.
Two had farm plans, but because they were large operations and changes had been made, discharges occurred.
One farm had no plan.
As for the other farms, two will receive notices of correction indicating that though there was no discharge observed, there were problems, such as a full or overtopping lagoon, that need to be addressed.
Two of the dairies had permits in place prior to inspection and therefore didn't need to be inspected. And three of the dairies will need further evaluation.
The herds in the basin ranged from 60 cows to more than 1,000 cows.
Jennings said he was pleased to see there were still quite a few small dairies in the area.
When asked if there was a predominant reason for the pollution problems the inspectors discovered, Jennings had this conjecture to offer: "I think it's more of an issue of the demands of running a farm and falling behind on things than a deliberate disregard of the law," he said.
And he was quick to give praise where praise was due. "I think we saw a lot of farmers making an effort to implement practices to safeguard water quality," he said. "The response we got from the farmers was generally a good response. We didn't run up against any anger, although there was anxiety and concern."
The inspection sweep of the dairies in the upper basin was triggered by a water-quality study done of the Chehalis River in 1994. In that study, the department developed standards known as "total maximum daily loads," which determine the amount of pollution the river can bear without harming its health.
In developing the TMDLs, Ecology discovered current pollution levels were imperiling the survival of the fish in the river and its tributaries.
"There are many factors limiting salmon in a river," Jennings said, "and water quality is a big component of that."
Dairies were targeted in this round of inspections because they were identified as the largest source of non-point pollution - that due to low dissolved oxygen rates caused by too much fecal coliform entering the water.
"We found that dairies were contributing a lot of organic matter and that that was unhealthy for the river's ecological balance," said Jennings.
But dairies were not singled out as the sole source of pollution in this sensitive watershed. During an earlier phase, Ecology officials looked at point-source problems associated with industrial and municipal treatment facilities. As a result, the cities of Chehalis and Centralia and the Darigold Inc. plant will have to halt summer discharges by 2003.
Next on Ecology's list will be non-dairy livestock enterprises, such as heifer operations, and beef cattle and horse ranches.
From there, said Jennings, the department will go on to problems associated with failing septic systems and urban stormwater runoff.
"We want to make sure water quality is not the limiting factor to bringing fish back and restoring the health of the river," he said.
Unlike the unannounced dairy inspections conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency in Northwestern Washington, Ecology inspections in this basin were announced ahead of time. During the past several years, department and conservation district officials have been working with dairy operators informing them what they need to do to come into compliance with the federal Clean Water Act of 1972.
"So much of this is telling people what the expectations are and informing them what their responsibilities are," said Jennings.
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