The operation should be running by January, te Velde said Monday.
The purchase came with water rights to the Columbia River, and the dairy will use about 325 million gallons per year.
That’s about three times the amount involved in a controversial proposal to allow Swiss company Nestlé SA to bottle water from a state-owned spring in the Columbia Gorge.
Morrow County officials signed off on the dairy’s Land Use Compatibility Statement last year, but expressed trepidation and requested a public hearing, which will be held Thursday.
The dairy is within the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, designated for high levels of nitrogen in the groundwater, Morrow County planning director Carla McLane wrote.
“The addition of 30,000 cows has the ability to significantly contribute to the nitrogen loading of the LUB GWMA,” she wrote.
The full proposed dairy site is within a Critical Groundwater Area, designated by the Oregon Water Resources Department for areas with declining groundwater.
“The fact that there are already two dairies and a beef CAFO within a three or four mile radius, with some significantly closer, only increases concerns about the development of another, much larger dairy within the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area,” McLane wrote.
Dairy owner te Velde said all of the county’s concerns have been addressed.
The Oregon Water Resources Department does not have further concerns, spokeswoman Diana Enright said.
«If the Willow Creek Dairy manages its water use as outlined in its documentation, including proposed cooling water recycling, those measures should alleviate any additional stress on the Columbia River Basalt Group Aquifer System,» she said.
Still, McLane said, the county plans to testify at the hearing.
“Our concerns are still valid until we see how the state agencies are going to address those concerns,” she said.
CAFOs also can contribute to air pollution, and in 2005 researchers found elevated concentrations of ammonia and other nitrogen compounds in the eastern Columbia Gorge, with Threemile Canyon as a possible source.
The discovery prompted the formation of a legislative task force on dairies and air quality. Its recommendations never were implemented, said Kendra Kimbirauskas, chief executive officer of Salem-based Socially Responsible Agriculture Project and a member of the task force.
«It essentially has been shelved,» she said.
“Unfortunately, Oregon has exempted large-scale ag from air-quality oversight and DEQ is not monitoring air quality impacts from large CAFOs and feedlots,” Ivan Maluski, policy director for Friends of Family Farmers, said.
“If this new mega-dairy goes in, air quality in the region will likely get worse,” Maluski said.
More recently, high levels of ozone have been recorded in the Hermiston and Tri-Cities, Washington, area, said Mark Bailey, eastern region air quality manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
The ozone could be coming from CAFOs, coal power plants or other sources, Bailey said. DEQ began working with Washington state this summer to do more intensive monitoring in the region.
Source: StatesmanJournal
Link: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2016/07/25/second-mega-dairy-proposed-oregon/86951016/