http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBGGJYX0WD.html(First in Nation)Pollution Rules Targeting Manure Could Force Dairies to Relocate
By Tim Molloy Associated Press Writer
CHINO, Calif. (AP) - Regulators trying to clean Southern California's infamously unhealthy air have long targeted factories and old buses. Now they're setting their sights on a different breed of offender - dairy cows.
Every year, the dairies east of Los Angeles and their roughly 300,000 cows produce a million tons of manure. The ammonia and other pollutants they generate mix with smokestack and tailpipe emissions blowing inland from the Los Angeles basin to create the dirtiest air in the nation.
Regulators said the situation has gotten so bad that they need to impose the first air quality rules in the country involving manure. Among other requirements, the plans ask farmers to dispose of the waste more frequently.<snip>
The district estimates the rules would cost the industry about $3.5 million a year, or $15,000 per dairy. Under the plan, the amount of ammonia and other pollutants in the area could fall from about 20 tons a day to less than 13 tons a day by 2010, officials said. <snip>
The proposed regulations would require that manure be (spread as fertilizer, or) collected every three months instead of the current six. Manure that doesn't become fertilizer would have to be disposed of in environmentally safe ways (such as an anaerobic digester that turns it into gas to fuel a plant).
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"For every cow that leaves this valley, you're gonna get two cars in return," Feenstra said.