On November 16th, ISDA held the first rule making meeting on pathogen drift from dairies (i.e. CAFOs) utilizing pressurized irrigation. The second meeting is scheduled for January 12, 2010, from 10am to 2pm at ISDA’s Boise headquarters.

Briefly, here’s what happened (for more detail, listen to our recording by clicking “play” on the media player above):

• It was clear from the start that ISDA and the Dairymen’s Association did not come to the table to negotiate in good faith. They already had their minds made up that there was “not enough research” showing possible harm from aerosolized waste, and in doing so conveniently forgot that the existing Rules Governing Dairy Waste state that dairy waste (in any form) is a potential public health threat:
  

  007.FINDINGS.
  The Department finds that pursuant to Section 67-5226(1), Idaho Code, these rules are necessary to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of Idaho, enhance Idaho water quality and preserve the integrity of the Idaho dairy industry. These rules establish design, construction, operation, location, and inspection criteria for dairy waste systems on Idaho dairy farms and enable the department to implement the 1999 NRCS nutrient management standards on dairy farms to appropriately manage livestock waste. These rules also provide penalty provisions. (4-5-00) (Rules, page 3; my emphasis).

  They had even arranged for an ARS researcher from the University of Idaho to give a presentation to the attendees and request money from participants’ groups for a “study” to determine whether aerosolized dairy waste is a health threat.

• Of course, the proposed study wouldn’t even have looked at what needed to be looked at– namely, epidemiological data about the health outcomes of those living or working near dairy sprayfields. Instead, its primary objective would have been to show that there is bad stuff in aerosolized dairy waste (which is clearly a stall tactic given that one of the documents IRC submitted to ISDA in advance of the rule making was an extensive EPA literature review of pathogens in CAFO wastes). Thus, if the study were to be done and for some reason come up with results not showing much, that would allow the Dairy Association to argue that there was no need for sprayfields regulation, all without bothering to look at the health outcomes of people living and working near the things.
• Several of those present strongly objected to making any kind of final decision about a study before we’d had a chance to find and offer some other expert evidence on the harms of aerosolized waste. ICARE specifically suggested a presentation from John Hopkins, as it is the acknowledged leading institution for CAFO-related health research. ISDA agreed to allow us until the next meeting (in January) to arrange such a presentation. ISDA also agreed to bring DEQ (which already regulates industrial wastewater because of the health threat it poses) to the table to present on how they approach industrial wastewater regulation.