|
The Bad, the Ugly, and the Good Days 8, 9, and 10 were spent skiing on Snow Mountain Ranch in the Colorado Rockies – the Winter Park Area. No hogs, chickens, or cows involved. In two-and-a-half days of skiing, I only did one face plant, fortunately landing in a very deep snowdrift. For the most part I stuck to Beginner and Intermediate slopes. The face plant occurred when, trying to be cool, I headed down a Black Diamond run. Day 11 and 12: Twin Falls, Idaho Back to work.
A dairy cow, by the way, produces about 20 to 30 times more excrement than an adult human. Of course, raw human sewage isn’t spread out on the ground and left for the rains to wash away. Dairy waste is. At one point on our tour past Big Sky East a burly fellow in a large pickup turned around and followed us. While I was taking some photos of the operation, he stopped and asked, in a none-too-friendly manner, if he could help us. "No thanks," I replied, "I’m just taking some pictures on a public road." "You’re not very nice people," he said, and drove on.
The springs supply water to a number of fish hatcheries, both private and public. Spring water is typically kept pure by natural filtration, but allegedly, the hatcheries have, at considerable expense, installed filtering devices to take phosphorous and nitrogen compounds out of the water. Day 13 - A Tour of Twin Falls County The next day we drove out to Len Miracle’s place north of Buhl. For many years, Len was the Western Field Editor for Outdoor Life. After retiring from the magazine, he came home to Twin Falls County. Len has some colorful (some might say off-color) stories involving his various escapades as a youngster growing up in the Snake River Valley. "You know all the living people around the Twin Falls area," he once said to Bert. "I know all the dead ones. And they can’t tell any tales about me."
Big dairy operations began moving into the area back in the late 1980s, after wearing out their welcome in California’s Chino Basin and Central Valley. They carefully sought out and gained the support of pro-development politicians. After a flood of complaints by longtime rural residents and local farmers, the US EPA and the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality responded by signing a Memorandum of Agreement giving authority to regulate the dairies to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA). Immediately, the ISDA sprang into action, and declared that everything at the dairies was copasetic –- a predictable enough pronouncement given that the ISDA is primarily a promoter of Idaho agriculture, and, as such, singularly ill-equipped to enforce environmental regulations. Prior to coming on this trip, I requested from the ISDA a listing of all dairies with more than 1,000 Animal Units under the Idaho 'Sunshine Act.' CAFOs of that size or larger must obtain wastewater discharge permits. ISDA responded by informing me that the information was not available. Apparently, the ISDA considers the number of cows at a dairy to be "business or proprietary information." Eventually I was able to ascertain by other means that Idaho has 129 dairies, only one of which has the aforementioned permit. That one, owned by the Bosma family of the Washington State, got its permit after another Bosma-owned dairy had been successfully sued. So much for regulations … Up to Top |
Along with local Sierra Club leader Bertilia "Bert" Redfern -- formerly of Buhl, Idaho and now of Ketchum (home to the stars) -- I traveled to Tuttle, Idaho, to visit with rancher Diana Miketa. Diana lives near two dairy CAFOs -- Big Sky East and Big Sky West. These dairies, separated by milking facilities, have somewhere around 5,000 cows. There is also a Big Sky South, so presumably there’s a Big Sky North around somewhere in the vicinity as well. 
There have been several problems with "accidental releases" from the cesspits that hold manure and urine from these operations. One release flowed into a low-lying area next to a county road underlain by very porous lava rock. This poses a problem as nitrates and other organic pollutants can travel in "plumes" through the substrate. 
The last time Diana had her well checked it tested high in nitrates and fecal coliform. Now she’s anxiously awaiting results from the most recent sampling. The well supplies her drinking water. As if the water pollution wasn’t bad enough, Diana says she also has to keep her house closed up tight in summer, due to the overwhelming odor from the dairies and the hordes of flies it attracts. This is a common complaint from folks who live near CAFOs. To the dairymen, the manure may smell like money; to the rest of us, it smells like, well, … it smells like exactly what it is -– a load of crap.
Maybe Bert’s bumper sticker (Got Milk? Got Manure?) caught his eye, I don’t know. In any event, we are too nice people. We just don’t like people fouling our water or creating stench-driven plagues of flies. So there. 
From the Bad and the Ugly, we drove down to the Snake River canyon to view the Good. The aquifer that runs from the Sawtooth Mountains in central Idaho discharges its waters near Hagerman’s Niagara Springs and also in the Thousands Springs area downstream. These are no mere seeps. Rather, millions of gallons of water per day gush out of the earth and come roaring off the canyon wall. 
From Len’s house, we drove into Buhl to the Grandstand Sports Bar, where we hooked up with Guy Adams, a reporter for NPR’s "Living on Earth" and for High Country Radio (produced by High Country News). Guy interviewed Bert, Len, and me as we drove around and looked at ugly stuff in Twin Falls County. This once-beautiful area, on the high plains overlooking the Snake River Canyon, is now fouled by large dairies that spew copious wastes and nose-bending odors.