Cleaning Up Central Valley Dairies

A project of Deltakeeper, Baykeeper's work in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

On February 15, 2008, Baykeeper challenged the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board’s flawed regulation of dairy operations in the Central Valley. The Regional Board recently issued permits that do not adequately protect the Valley’s waterways from pollution caused by large dairy operations and do not comply with the federal Clean Water Act. Three million cows in the Central Valley create as much polluted waste as a 20 million-person city. Runoff from these dairies contains raw manure and harmful chemicals, including bovine growth hormones and antibiotics, which severely pollute groundwater, creeks and canals throughout the Central Valley.

Baykeeper is advocating for an effective, enforceable program for reducing pollution from Central Valley mega-dairies.