North Coast dairies affected by new effort to bolster water quality rules

North Coast water quality regulators are ramping up development of a new permitting program for the region’s dairies in an effort designed to enhance and streamline efforts to safeguard surface and groundwater supplies from contamination with bovine waste.

Cows produce the stuff in abundance, a factor that governs major aspects of dozens of dairy operations scattered across rural Sonoma County and elsewhere on the North Coast.

Roughly 150 farms dot the landscape stretching from Marin to Humboldt counties, and dairy production remains the second most lucrative farm sector in Sonoma County, with milk production alone worth more than $146 million alone last year, according to the county.

But as efforts to address bacterial impairment of the Russian River watershed advance, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is refining regulations for the dairy industry first launched in 2012, officials said.

The end goal is to ensure all manure and processing water that contains animal waste is captured and treated in ponds before it can be returned to the land as fertilizer and irrigation.

“The idea is the nutrients stay on the property,” Cherie Blatt, a water quality engineer with the North Coast board.

The agency also is contemplating new provisions that would require individual dairy owners to devise some means of keeping cows out of streams and waterways so they don’t directly contaminate water with their waste.

Regulators also may impose reporting requirements for manure applications on the land and efforts to ensure there’s no risk of run-off, particularly during storms.

Dairy leaders said farmers have worked hard for years to keep waste out of waterways. Their steps have included paying a third party to monitor area streams for 15 years, installing systems to keep storm water runoff out of manure ponds and making other improvements to their operations.

“We’re not polluting creeks, plain and simple,” said Doug Beretta, a Santa Rosa dairy farmer and a leader with the Sonoma County Farm Bureau’s efforts to monitor water quality regulations.

Melissa Lema, the region’s field rep for Western United Dairyman, which represents about 60 percent of the state’s dairies, said North Coast farmers have enjoyed a good working relationship with local water quality officials and are eager to see what specific new regulations will be proposed.

Dairy farmers will be looking for a balanced approach in any rules governing cows and creekside setbacks because it can “take a lot of land out of production.”

The aim, she said, is “to protect water quality but also protect the ability of farmers to feed their animals.”

Blatt and Jim Burke, an engineering geologist with the North Coast water board, said the goal is to ensure local dairies use best management practices developed over the past four or five decades in recognition of the risk of dairy waste escaping into the surrounding environment.

“Since 2012, I think there’s been pretty significant improvements in the (best management practices) to protect water quality on the majority of dairies that we regulate,” Burke said. “We see some room for improvement.”

Dairies in the North Coast district have about 50,000 cows across all or parts of 10 counties, including Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt and Marin.

Sonoma County itself has about 30,500 milk cows and heifers, according to the latest Sonoma County Crop Report.

Dairies are also a leading agricultural sector in Humboldt County, with 60 dairies alone, according to Blatt.

The new permitting program would apply to cow dairies, most in the range of 325 to 350 head, she said.

It likely would cover two water buffalo dairies on or near the Marin-Sonoma County line and a few, mostly small goat and sheep dairies, she said.

Staff Writer Robert Digitale contributed reporting. You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.