New dairy regulations subject of NM water commission hearings

In 2009, members of New Mexico’s dairy industry successfully pushed for legislation calling for state regulation of their industry—so that dairies would have more clarity in the permitting process. But now the Water Quality Control Commission is set to consider new regulations crafted by the state Environment Department, dairymen say the new rules could be devastating.

Dairies in New Mexico are often family operations that have been handed down generation to generation, Beverly Fiske of the New Mexico Dairy Producers Association told The Independent. Dairymen live on their farms and are dedicated to making sure their groundwater isn’t polluted, she said. The new regulations are too expensive, and they go too far unnecessarily, she continued.

Bill Olson, chief of New Mexico’s water quality bureau, agrees that many New Mexico dairies are family farms, but they’re also really big, he told The Independent in an interview, with high concentrations of cows. And about 57 percent of the dairies in the state have polluted the ground water, he said.

New Mexico dairies average 2,088 cows

In fact, New Mexico has the largest dairy herds in the nation, at an average of 2,088 cows per dairy. New Mexico has the 7th largest total number of milk-producing cows overall in the nation, at about 355,000. There are 172 dairies in the state that produce 7.6 billion pounds of milk. The New Mexico industry is a major player–supplying about four percent of the nation’s milk supply. And it accounts for almost four percent of the state’s gross domestic product, directly employing about 4,221 people.

The proposed regulations are lengthy but Olson explained that if a dairy follows the new rules, it ought to get its permit.

But Fiske said that doesn’t make up for the high cost associated with some of the new rules, including the installation of synthetic liners for waste lagoons, and groundwater monitoring wells.

“The regulations would drive out 35 to 50 percent of the dairies in the state,” Fiske said. “And no new ones would come in.”

Fiske said that the requirement that new lagoons use expensive synthetic liners isn’t based on “sound science.” In some cases, she said, clay liners are better, and the NMED’s insistence on synthetic liners in all cases isn’t backed up by scientific proof.

Regulations intended to prevent waste from seeping into groundwater

But Olson disagreed, saying “We’ve provided a full technical and scientific analysis of why clay doesn’t work. …Their own documents support that clay liners seep. We can’t have the seepage–we already have extensive groundwater contamination across the state.”

While synthetic liners cost more, they are a “million times less permeable” than clay, he said.

Olson said he hasn’t seen any evidence showing that the new regulations will lead to dairies leaving the state. What the state would like to get across, he said, is that there is a very high cost to dairies associated with groundwater pollution.

When the groundwater is polluted by their operations, dairies have to install extensive groundwater monitoring well networks to determine the extent of the problem, and then implement remediation plans.

“The cost of pollution is very large.”

“We’ve been trying to get across that they need to prevent pollution,” he said. “The cost of pollution is very large, and it’s in their interest to prevent it.”

According to Olson, if a dairy isn’t contaminating the groundwater, the new regulations won’t require them to install new liners in their lagoons. It’s only new lagoons, or lagoons that are shown to be polluting the water, that would need the synthetic liners. If a polluting lagoon already has a synthetic liner, it might be a simple repair that is needed rather than a completely new liner, he said. And that requirement will only kick in for lagoons that are within 50 feet of groundwater.

The monitoring wells are a requirement for all lagoons, both new and existing, in order to get a permit. When a dairy comes up for a permit renewal—which happens every five years—they’ll have six months from the time the permit is issued to get the well sunk, Olson said.

Environmental organizations and dairy watchdog groups mostly pleased with regulations

A coaliton of environment organizations and dairy industry watchdog communty groups are “mostly pleased” with the proposed regulations, Michael Jensen, Communications Director for Amigos Bravos, told The Independent.

The regulations should include larger distances between lagoons and residences, businesses, and water bodies, he said. They’d also like to see the distance from the bottom of lagoons be at least 30 feet from groundwater rather than the current provision of just four feet. And, they’d like to see approved dairy closure plans and associated financial assurances in place at the outset.

“The dairy industry can prosper in New Mexico,” Dan Lorimier of the Río Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club said in a statement. “We’re just asking for a set of regulations that are fair to the industry and fair to the public. With the citizen’s proposed regulations, the dairy industry’s accountability, responsibility, and profits can all happen at the same time.”

The Water Quality Control Commission hearings that begin Tuesday follow a year long public process that included consultation with stakeholder groups, and the submission of written testimony to the Commission. Deliberations to make the final regulations official will come later in the year.