HANFORD - Facing a July deadline, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's governing board voted Thursday to impose air pollution controls on dairies with 1,000 cows or more.

That includes 48 of Kings County's 152 dairies, according to 2005 statistics from the Kings County Planning Agency.

District officials hailed the rule as the fulfillment of a requirement laid down by SB 700, landmark 2003 legislation ending agriculture's exemption from air pollution controls.

"We do have a rule that will be very effective in reducing VOCs and ammonia emissions," said Seyed Sadredin, district executive director.

VOCs are one ingredient that goes into the formation of ozone (smog). The Environmental Protection Agency has labeled the Valley a "severe non-attainment" area based on the federal 8-hour ozone standard.

Many speakers challenged Sadredin's claim.

Clad in black T-shirts reading "got asthma?" a collection of protesters that included a large number of Kern County residents complained that the rule doesn't go far enough.

Opponents of the rule typically argued that it doesn't regulate all pollutants, that it won't achieve genuine reductions and that it is too easy on the dairy industry.

The rule requires controls in feed areas, milking parlors, pens, waste disposal areas and manure land application sites.

Dairymen must pick 19 of 69 specified control measures spread across the five categories.

Representatives of environmental interest groups claimed that the choices allow dairymen to pick the cheapest and easiest methods.

They questioned the district's claim that the rule will reduce volatile organic compound emissions - so-called VOCs - by 21 tons per day. Many argued that dairies were already doing a lot of the practices, such as frequent scraping of pens and covering silage piles with plastic tarps.

"This is a document that tells people how to run their dairies efficiently. It does not regulate air pollution," said Tom Frantz, president of Association of Irritated Residents, a Kern County-based citizen's group.

Sadredin countered by saying that the 21-ton statistic was legitimate. Sadredin also took issue with the assertion that dairies won't have to change their practices much to comply.

Dairy industry figures took the same tack.

"This rule will require a lot of work on the part of (dairymen) and the dairy industry," said Richard Cotta, senior vice president of California Dairies Inc.

"There are some facilities that will need modification," said Paul Martin, director of environmental services for Western United Dairymen.

The rule applies to existing dairies. New dairies face higher-tech, higher-cost restrictions

Air regulation of dairies has been a controversial process.

District estimates are that dairies are the single biggest source of VOCs in the San Joaquin Valley.

That claim generated a lot of controversy.

Dairy representatives were complaining last year about the district's per cow pollution estimate of 19.3 pounds of VOCs a year.

That estimate was itself the product of studies required by the settlement of lawsuit brought by the dairy industry in response to an earlier estimate of 12.8 pounds per cow per year.

Since then, the focus of research has shifted away from the animals themselves. Recent studies by California State University, Fresno, and University of California, Davis, researchers suggests that feed storage areas are a much bigger source of pollution than previously thought.

That could push VOC estimates up as more research is published. But dairymen aren't complaining these days.

The new studies have shifted the

focus away from expensive control technologies opposed by the industry - things like manure lagoon covers and bovine tents with biofilters - to a series of management practices that in some cases are already being done.

Those include frequent manure scraping, drier corrals and tarps over silage piles.

The district estimates that it will cost dairies an extra $26 million a year.

Few industry complaints were heard Thursday. Most dairy advocates - including some dairymen in attendance - praised the rule's flexibility.

The same couldn't be said for people like Frantz.

Frantz said he would give the board "a few more months to get it right" before filing a lawsuit.

(The reporter may be reached by e-mail at: snidever@hanfordsentinel.com.)

(June 16, 2006)