Environmentalists Terminate Hamakua Dairy

[MarkD]

Excerpts:

"Managers from the mainland-owned Big Island Dairy (said)...they will be closing operations by the end of February...Big Island Dairy...has reached a point that it lacks the additional resources needed to continue the operation under current economic and regulatory conditions...

The lawsuit alleged that manure from the dairy overflows from open air containment lagoons through a “spillway” to the Kaohaoha Gulch in Ookala, about 27 miles north of Hilo....They’ll also seek fines for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act by the dairy. The maximum fines are up to $50,000 per violation a day...

https://www.civilbeat.org/2018/11/embatt...shut-down/

- - - -

Eventual closure of all Hawaii Island ranches is now on the horizon, if people want to take a hard line on effluent from cows. Holding ponds for cows effluent won't work for thousands of cattle roaming our ranches.

Roaming cattle produce waste just like confined cows, and it makes its way into the island's water table and eventually to the ocean also. Dispersal does not necessarily mean non-point source pollution is less harmful.

We''ll have to accept that environmentalists, with regulations on their side, will shut down all animal husbandry operations in Hawaii. Mainland states will produce these products and ship them to us on barges. We'll pay the high prices.

Next environmentalist target for termination: Hu Honua Bioenergy plant at Pepeekeo

[randomq]

"The maximum fines are up to $50,000 per violation a day."

The obvious answer is to dump the effluent all at once, and pay only one fine. The economy of scale!

Seriously though, is it your position that their overflows do not pose enough risk to merit the fines? Does science agree?

[kalakoa]

It's really more of a land-use problem:

- put thousands of cows on a hillside
- with 20-degree slope
- which receives 160 inches of rain/year
- and is above a community

What could possibly go wrong?

As an extra added bonus: it's State land, so that leases need not consider local residents.

I hope the environmentalists and NIMBYs have some replacement industries to create jobs and food security.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

This was not a farm, as most of us think of a farm. A normal dairy farm might have a hundred or a few hundred cows. Big Island Dairy had 3200. That’s not a bucolic rural setting, it’s a bovine city, without a sewage system.

One full size dairy cow produces 120 pounds of manure a day:
https://www.quora.com/How-many-lbs-of-ma...duce-a-day

which is ... a lot more than a human. Let’s say a human produces 2 pounds of waste per day, then 3200 cows produce the equivalent waste of 192,000 people. Without a sewage system, on a steep hillside, above homes.

Would you wish to live in your dream home, with the Turd of Damocles always above you, hanging as it were, over your head?

"I want great climate, we’re going to have that.” President Donald J. Trump, while viewing the massive wildfire devastation 11/17/18. (The J stands for Jenius)

[kalakoa]

Would you wish to live in your dream home, with the Turd of Damocles always above you

That depends: is there actual mitigation, or just some "effluent ponds"?

Of course, if they had been required to design/build adequate "containment", then suddenly the operation is no longer cost-effective.

If the residents of Ookala eat any beef or dairy products, then they're implicitly supporting the "it's just fine if it happens elsewhere" paradigm. It's going to be hilarious when shipping costs make that impractical.

[randomq]

Plenty of ranch land on the *Big* Island, sounds like they should lease somewhere more practical.

[glinda]

Next environmentalist target...

Am I right to assume any regulation of any kind is too much regulation for you MarkD? Or is it just environmental regulations?

[SBH]

Besides the Turds of Damocles, cows create a large amount of methane which some scientists say contributes to global warming.

“...methane from livestock accounted for 39 percent of all the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, according to a report that United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization...”

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/201...re-to-stay

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...-estimated

https://www.popsci.com/cow-farts-are-an-...we-thought

http://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-...ethane-CO2

[kalakoa]

they should lease somewhere more practical

It keeps coming back around to "failed land-use policies".

Most land is zoned "ag", which allows everything from pigs to cows to orchards to single-family subdivisions, with "special use" exceptions for just about anything else.

Sane long-term planning creates designated areas for industrial, commercial, residential, with buffer zones. People can buy homes secure in the knowledge that a large-scale dairy operation won't suddenly appear next to their house.

County refuses to address the root causes of this "problem" because it creates guaranteed employment for so many people: in addition to the usual trades, you also need a Planning Commission, and a County Council, and planning consultants, and some extra lawyers.

Meanwhile, we spend lots of time and money arguing "quality of life" instead of living it.

[snorkle]

I for one, will not miss the fatty glandular secretions of a hormone and antibiotic saturated field bovine.