FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Neighbors Around the West Target Dairy Polluters

For Immediate Release:  May 30, 2007

Contacts:   

      Helen Reddout, CARE- 509-854-1662

      Bill Barrackman, ACE- 775-372-5259

      Charlie Tebbutt, Western Environmental Law Center

                  541-485-2471

      Bill Eddie, 503-542-5245

Neighbors Around the West Target Dairy Polluters

 In Western states, neighbors of large dairies are turning to the Clean Air Act to clean up air pollution emitted from cows housed in these industrial dairies.  With letters threatening litigation against dairies in Washington and Nevada – which follow similar actions in California and Idaho – neighbors are asserting that the dairies are not using the “maximum achievable control technology” to control air pollution.   Huge factory-scale dairies can emit over 10 tons per year of methanol, as well as numerous other toxic fumes.

In Outlook, Washington, neighbors issued allegations of methanol releases, as well as failure to report releases of toxic chemicals ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, to the DeRuyter Brothers Dairy.  “We are literally sick and tired of the noxious fumes coming from industrial dairies like DeRuyter Brothers.  People like Gene Martin, who lives right next to this 8,000 head industrial dairy, are suffering every day” said Helen Reddout, president of Community Association for Restoration of the Environment, herself a long-time farmer in the Yakima.

“The stench of these big dairies is horrific and, it turns out, from illegal emissions” said Bill Barrackman, a pistachio farmer who heads Amargosa Citizens for the Environment in Nevada.  “We’ve got to find a way to defend our homes and farms,” added Barrackman.   His group has charged the Ponderosa Dairy with violating the Clean Air Act.

Neighbors like Barrackman, Reddout and Martin are focused on the cows’ methanol emissions – a compound deemed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be a “hazardous air pollutant.”  Hazardous air pollutants are supposed to be tightly regulated by the EPA.  Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide pollution are also at issue.

“It is high time for EPA and the responsible state authorities to address the serious health problems caused by air pollution from industrial dairies” stated Charlie Tebbutt, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney working on behalf of the citizens with Portland, OR attorney Bill Eddie.

Industries that emit large amounts of hazardous pollutants, such as methanol, must meet strict pollution control requirements.  Recent studies on emissions of air pollutants from dairies have shown that dairy cattle and manure emit large quantities of methanol.

Exposure to methanol is particularly problematic for pregnant women and young children, as it can result in premature birth, increased number of caesarian births, and other developmental problems.   Methanol also causes ozone pollution, which is known to cause respiratory tract damage.  Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide further compound respiratory health effects.

 ###

###