“I became a farmer because I love cows and want to be out with them all the time,” Harrold said. “And every day, I spend less and less time doing that because we keep getting laws like this that require more documentation and layers.”
Harrold is also the president of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association’s board of directors.
Senate Bill 85 was signed into law by Governor Tina Kotek in July.
The new regulations mandate that major agricultural businesses get stricter water quality permits and develop a water supply strategy. The regulations also prohibit farmers from using drinking water for cattle unless they have a permit or a water right.
It would impose additional regulations on enterprises with more than 700 dairy cows or 1,000 beef cows.
Environmentalists believe the new legislation is a small step toward safeguarding Oregon’s drinking water.
“It’s really notable that our coalition and legislators were finally able to stand up to big ag and pass a bill that even enacts modest reforms on the factory farm industry,” said Tara Heinzen of Food & Water Watch. “Because this is such an incredibly powerful industry.”
Heinzen also claims that there is a lot more work to be done.
“This bill doesn’t go nearly far enough,” she said. “However, it is encouraging to see the state finally take factory farm groundwater overuse seriously and impose even a modest and temporary limit on exploitation of the so-called stock watering loophole, which has allowed factory farms to take vertically unlimited water from scarce groundwater resources.”
Threemile Canyon Farms, situated in Boardman, has 35,000 milking cattle, and Jeff Wendler, director of livestock operations, believes the new standards will benefit his firm. He claims that the new restrictions would be more difficult and costly for smaller livestock farms. Smaller dairies, for example, may need to construct water systems with flow meters to measure cattle drinking water use.
“If you’re not set up to track drinking water, it’s going to be an additional burden,” he says.
Wendler said that many of these restrictions were enacted in response to the conduct of one bad actor, Lost Valley Farm, which was closed due to huge pollution and difficulties. That farm is currently mostly managed by the sons of Cody Easterday, a rancher who defrauded Tyson Fresh Meats and another corporation out of about $244 million in cattle.
Threemile Canyon Farms, on the other hand, has worked closely with state officials to operate a closed loop for dairy waste, according to Wendler.
“We’ve always gone above and beyond what the regulations were doing anyway,” Wendler said. “Most of our industry adheres to the regulations; they do things the right way.”
