It’s money, milk and manure

Dairies generate revenue along with increasing odor problem

Rebecca Boone
Associated Press The Spokesman Review

JEROME, Idaho _ John Beukers’ dairy is 64 times as large as it was when he first moved to Idaho nearly 30 years ago.

He started with 75 cows and one little barn. Now he has rows of buildings, acres of corn and 4,800 cows, each giving about 90 pounds of milk a day — not to mention the manure.

Beukers isn’t alone. Since 1979 the number of cows in south-central Idaho has increased nearly 380 percent, and dairy now generates more revenue than any other commodity in the state.

But some say that money comes at too high a cost.

"I grew up in Boise, so when I first moved to the country I thought it was the most wholesome, healthy lifestyle anyone could find," said Bert Redfern, now a Hailey resident and chairman of the Confined Animal Feeding Operation Accountability Project.

Redfern bought a home south of Buhl with her husband in 1980, picking the location because it was far from the large dairies springing up along the north side of the Magic Valley.

But nine years later a dairy moved into Redfern’s neighborhood and quickly grew from 300 to 3,000 cows.

Eventually, Redfern claimed, the overpowering smell of cow manure and concerns about water safety drove her from the neighborhood and into grass-roots activism against the dairy industry.

"It’s very difficult and very costly to point the finger at what seems to be the problem and prove it," Redfern said. "It’s frustrating for neighborhoods."

It’s frustrating for dairymen too, said Beukers. His dairy — like the dairy in Redfern’s old neighborhood — has been the subject of complaints from neighbors to state oversight agencies.

In an effort to reduce odor and pollution from cow waste, Beukers will soon build the state’s first anaerobic digester, a machine designed to turn the methane from manure into electricity.

"These animals don’t care what it smells like. They’re not going to give me one drop more of milk if I do a real nice job," Beukers said. "I feel bad because I haven’t kept my promise to my neighbors even though I’m trying to reduce the smell. It’s new to us, too, and it’s frustrating."

Odor complaints against dairies increased as more people moved to rural areas, he said, and as industry competition forced dairy owners to expand to survive.

"Really this whole odor and manure handling issue is fairly new," Beukers said. "Human sewage treatment doesn’t cross over very well to cow manure, and at this point we’re still using Band-Aids."

Meanwhile, he said, dairies have become the backbone of Idaho’s agriculture industry. All those cows must eat, and Beukers’ 4,800 cattle eat nearly 14,000 acres of corn a year. Though he grows much of the feed, he also buys corn from local farmers.

"That’s what’s really made farming in this community work. Potatoes are going by the wayside. Beans are not doing that well. But dairies have been really good for farmers in the area," he said.

Indeed, the potato state now earns more money from its raw milk used to produce cheese. Raw milk has outpaced potato revenue by millions of dollars.

In 1985, milk brought in nearly $289 million, while potatoes earned about $348 million. By 2001, revenues from milk reached more than $1 billion, almost double the revenue from potatoes at $551 million.

A Boise State University study commissioned by The Milk Producers of Idaho and The United Dairymen of Idaho estimated that dairies provided about $70 million in property, income, sales and corporate tax revenues that year, as well as about 7,700 jobs at dairies and milk processing plants throughout southern Idaho.

In past decades, dairymen were drawn to Idaho because of relatively low property prices, the arid climate and the number of milk processing plants in the state.

But Beukers predicts the influx is over.

"The environment has changed in Idaho — we’re not that welcome anymore," he said. "The state is going to see fewer dairies, but they’re going to be bigger. We have to expand to survive."

Those big dairies are the problem, said Duane Reynolds, chairman of the Sierra Club’s Northern Rockies Chapter.

"There’s no question that there have been economic benefits, but the benefits have been in the short term. The real question is, `At what cost?"’ Reynolds said. "There’s no question dairies result in air and water pollution, and effects on rural residents. So they’re not a complete blessing, if they’re a blessing at all."

Odor is only part of the issue, Reynolds said.

"The most serious problem — the one Idaho taxpayers will be left holding the bill for — is water pollution," he said.

Smaller dairies typically graze their cattle over pasture, he said, while large operations confine the cows to a small area.

"The cattle become just one more piece of the machinery to produce milk. What I hope happens is that dairymen find a way to produce milk that does not pollute the air, does not pollute the water, does not cause foul odors and does not destroy neighborhoods," Reynolds said.

Reducing pollution and odors is exactly what the industry and the state are working on, said Marv Patton, chief of the state Department of Agriculture’s dairy bureau. Still, he said, it cannot happen over night.

"People say dairies are flocking here because we’re less environmental, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I can’t think of another state in the West that has more comprehensive manure management," Patton said.

The agriculture department began regularly inspecting dairies and their waste management systems in 1995. Before that, as few as 50 inspections a year were done by federal agencies.

In the first year, he said, about half the dairies inspected were seriously noncompliant with water pollution regulations; a moderate rainfall would cause discharges of cow urine and feces into area surface water.

But within two years, he said, most of the dairies were brought into compliance.

"I think the question is, how do you quickly resolve those environmental questions without putting substantial numbers of them out of business?" Patton said.

Change is still coming too slowly, Redfern said, especially for those who live in dairy neighborhoods.

"People are prisoners in their own homes because they can’t stand to go outside," she said.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=092203&ID=s1414385&cat=section.business