Comment Log Display

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release Contact: Tom Frantz, AIR (661) 817-6873
September 26, 2007 Linda MacKay, AIR (661) 747-3062
Avinash Kar, CRPE (415) 385-9793
JUDGE RULES KERN MEGA-DAIRY VIOLATED FEDERAL
CLEAN AIR ACT
Valley-Based Group Intends to Enforce Law Against Other Violators
SHAFTER, CALIFORNIA – Judge Oliver Wanger of the United States
District Court in Fresno
ruled yesterday that a Kern County mega-dairy violated the federal
Clean Air Act when it built
the dairy without an air permit and required pollution controls.
“The entire valley can breathe easier with this decision,” said
Tom Frantz of Shafter, a member
of the Association of Irritated Residents (AIR), a Valley-based
group, which brought the case
against the dairy in 2005. “This is a significant step towards
better health in the San Joaquin
Valley because our lungs will no longer be forced to subsidize the
dairy industry.” AIR members
reside in Kern, Tulare, and Stanislaus counties.
AIR member Teresa De Anda of Earlimart said, “This is a great
victory for clean air in the
Valley. This decision means that new dairies will have to reduce
their pollution.”
Judge Wanger ruled that California’s “State Implementation Plan” –
the plan and strategies the
state adopts to achieve healthy air in the Valley – required the
C&R Vanderham Dairy near
Shafter to get an “authority to construct” permit from the Air
District, to install the Best
Available Control Technology, and to purchase “offsets” or
“emission reduction credits.” Judge
Wanger rejected arguments that California law provided exemptions
from such requirements.
Further proceedings will determine whether the dairy must cease
operations until compliance and
the amount of civil penalties, which cannot exceed $32,500 per day
per violation.
“These are not ‘Happy Cow’ dairies,” said Linda MacKay, a Kern
County resident from Lebec
and an AIR member. “These factories are huge operations that
maximize profits and emit
significant amounts of air pollution, which the Court has ruled
must be regulated just like any
other industry.”
Decomposing dairy manure, livestock feed, and cows’ digestive
systems emit volatile organic
compounds. Volatile organic compounds react with emissions from
cars, trucks, and other
combustion sources – called oxides of nitrogen – to form smog,
also known as ozone.
Ozone pollution damages lung tissue, exacerbates and causes
asthma, reduces lung capacity,
increases respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions,
increases school and work
absenteeism, damages crops, and recent research shows that
short-term exposure to ozone kills.
The Valley consistently violates the federal health based 8-hour
and 1-hour ozone National
Ambient Air Quality Standards. The American Lung Association ranks
Bakersfield, Visalia,
Fresno, and Merced as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th most
ozone-polluted metropolitan areas in the
country. It also ranks the San Joaquin Valley counties of Kern,
Tulare, Fresno, and Merced as
the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 8th most ozone-polluted counties in the
United States, respectively.
Over twenty new dairies and over forty expanding dairies in the
Valley have applied for
“authority to construct” permits from the San Joaquin Valley
Unified Air Pollution Control
District. The Air District has issued several permits without
requiring offsets or emission
reduction credits, relying on the same arguments that Judge Wanger
rejected in his ruling.
Offsets are an important anti-pollution strategy that allow for
new development as long as those
new pollution sources pay existing Valley businesses to
voluntarily reduce pollution. Because
the new pollution source must buy more pollution reductions than
what it proposes to spew into
the air, the entire transaction ensures that the Valley’s air
quality will improve while allowing for
new businesses to locate here.
“The Court’s ruling shows that the Air District has looked the
other way and left Valley residents
to fend for themselves,” said Tom Frantz, President of AIR. “Until
we get real leadership at the
Air District that is not in the back-pocket of the Dairy Industry,
AIR will continue to enforce the
law.”