In San Joaquin Valley, Cows Pass Cars as Polluters

[shockra]

Air district says bovines on the region's booming dairy farms are the biggest single source of smog-forming gases. The industry takes issue.

By Miguel Bustillo, Times Staff Writer

Got smog?

California's San Joaquin Valley for some time has had the dirtiest air in the country. Monday, officials said gases from ruminating dairy cows, not exhaust from cars, are the region's biggest single source of a chief smog-forming pollutant.

Every year, the average dairy cow produces 19.3 pounds of gases, called volatile organic compounds, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District said. Those gases react with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone, or smog.

With 2.5 million dairy cows — roughly one of every five in the country — emissions of almost 20 pounds per cow mean that cattle in the San Joaquin Valley produce more organic compounds than are generated by either cars or trucks or pesticides, the air district said. The finding will serve as the basis for strict air-quality regulations on the region's booming dairy industry.

<snip>

The dairy industry will be forced to invest millions of dollars in expensive pollution-control technology in feedlots and waste lagoons, and may even have to consider altering animals' diets to meet the region's planned air-quality regulations. Not surprisingly, industry officials challenged the estimate as scientifically unsound.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cows2aug02,1,6393711.story

[Son of California]

1. San Joaquin Valley!

Hey, that's my neck of the woods!
and those cows do stink! ew! haha

[ZinZen]

2. From nearby Stanislaus County

Yes, there are cows.. but the rapid housing and growth rate here is outsourcing the cows by far. I would put more blame on people's selfish habits of buying big houses, big trucks and SUVs then on the bovines that reside here.

[chaumont58]

3. I grew up in Modesto

The air was clear in those days. The population of Modesto, then, was about a fifth of what it is today. I just don't believe that cows farting is causing more air pollution than SUVs and other cars stuck in traffic, commuting to the Bay Area. The air around Bakersfield is supposedly worse than LA's. If that is so, it ain't caused by holsteins.

[getmeouttahere]

4. I've noticed the air getting worse up there.....

in the last 5-10 years, and I only drive through on I-5. I know the whole region has grown, but to blame smog on cows just doesn't make sense to me.

[Fescue4u]

5. Lets put Catalytic converters on the cows asses

That should do it!

[shockra]

6. Also, the New York Times.

Editorial

A Malodorous Fog

Published: August 7, 2005

Here is an axiom for farmers and consumers: Crowding animals together in large numbers always leads to problems. It turns hog manure, for instance, from a source of fertility into toxic waste. It creates enormous opportunities for disease, which tends to be warded off by inappropriate use of antibiotics. And in central California, it turns dairies, which are environmentally benign on a small scale, into major sources of air pollution - perhaps as bad as automobiles.

One of the smoggiest places in the country is the San Joaquin Valley, where one-fifth of the country's dairy cattle live - some 2.5 million animals and still growing. Local environmentalists and some local legislators argue that cow emissions - which come mostly from the front end of the animal rather than the tailpipe - have gotten out of control. There is a growing call to impose new rules that would improve air quality. The best way to do this isn't completely clear. But few, if any, of the proposed solutions would be palatable to the dairy farmers.

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District estimates that at present each cow emits 19.3 pounds of pollutants a year in the form of gases from manure, from regurgitation and from flatulence. Defenders of the dairy farms - a large and powerful California industry - say that number is a wild overestimation. But behind the debate over the emissions measurements and their regulatory implications, there is a simple fact to contend with: the eye-stinging, nose-burning smell of cattle congestion in rural California.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/opinion/07sun4.html?th&emc=th&oref=login