Return to TFB Main Page
Return to Texas Agriculture Archive

March 16, 2001

Under Fire

City of Waco stirs water quality pot...

By Lana Robinson
Field Editor

Dairies in the North Bosque watershed are being blamed by downstream neighbors, including the City of Waco, for higher than acceptable levels of phosphorus in the Bosque River and Lake Waco. The controversy is not new, although a decade ago, the environmental concern was nitrogen, not phosphorus. Still, many elected officials, dairymen, entities, and other stakeholders along the stretch of the Bosque from Stephenville to Waco, working together on the Bosque River Advisory Committee (BRAC), felt they were close to building a consensus for implementing agreed-upon solutions to reduce pollution and clean up the river. Wrong! With the election of Waco's new mayor, Linda Ethridge, last May, all bets were off, and the responsibility for finding a solution fell back in the lap of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

The City of Waco has since challenged every upstream dairy and/or feedlot permit to curtail herd expansion in the watershed. Contests before the TNRCC and in court have sparked a whole new round of regulatory debates. Moreover, Waco has forged alliances with several cities and water users in the Leon River watershed, who are also waiting in the wings to file similar court actions. Some fear the prospect of increased regulations and lawsuits threaten the very survival of the $303 million-a-year dairy industry comprised by Erath, Hamilton, and Comanche counties.

Algae blooms an aggravation

At the heart of the dispute is the charge by City of Waco leaders that the Dublin-area dairymen have not done enough to protect the water-stream from nutrient runoff. The City of Waco has spent $3.5 million since 1995 to treat water taste and odor problems. Ongoing remedies for bad taste and odor linked to excessive algae bloom in the reservoir, thought to be boosted by excessive phosphorus, currently represent 55 percent of the city's chemical water treatment budget. About 75 percent of Lake Waco's water comes from the North Bosque. Contested studies conducted by the Blackland Research Center in Temple have found that 44 percent of phosphorus in the North Bosque comes from the dairies.

Although the Bosque River has been on EPA's impaired river list since 1992, the state of Texas does not list Lake Waco as impaired. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency ranks Lake Waco 39th best in overall water quality out of 111 Texas lakes.

Dairyman Willie DeJong, a spokesperson for CALM (Coalition for Affordable Local Milk), noted that the North Texas Municipal Water District issued a report last year stating that the excessive algae bloom in Lake Ray Hubbard, near Dallas, was due to natural causes—a combination of low water levels from drought and so many successive days of 100 degree-plus weather.

"There are zero dairies in this watershed," DeJong told a crowd about 475 strong at a Feb. 19 CALM community awareness campaign meeting in the Stephenville High School Auditorium in Stephenville. (CALM is a joint effort of the Texas Association of Dairymen, Zia Milk Producers, Elite Milk Producers, Select Milk Producers and Dairy Farmers of America, one of the largest milk cooperatives in the country.)

DeJong further noted that Lake Possum Kingdom and Lake Granbury, where dairy cows are not a factor, also had algae-related water problems last year, which killed some fish, adding: "I'm not sure I agree with the assertion that phosphorus is contributing to the algae bloom."

During the same meeting, Alan Vander Horst, a dairy representative who was involved in BRAC problem-solving discussions from its formation in 1996, assisted DeJong in a slide show entitled "The Cycle of Life." The presentation was designed to help those outside the industry understand just how much dairy operators are already required to do with regard to environmental protection. Vander Horst, owner of three dairies near Dublin, said mandatory and voluntary environmental measures have cost watershed dairymen over $100 million since 1988. He ticked off a long list of livestock, facility, and waste management regulations dairy producers must deal with every step of the way.

"We are subjected to the strictest livestock standards in the nation. Of all agricultural activities, dairy is the most heavily regulated. We support science-based environmental regulations. Our families live on these farms. We drink water that comes from under the land. We are trying to maintain our stewardship, but no matter what we do, it's still not enough for Waco," he said, indicating that the families living on the dairies are feeling harassed by the City of Waco's frequent helicopter flyovers.

TNRCC plan under fire

Last month, the TNRCC approved a plan that sets targets for reducing phosphorus in the stream, despite protests from both sides that the plan is too vague and the science behind it, questionable. The Texas Association of Dairymen has filed suit. The city of Waco has said they may sue the state agency because of it.

Like DeJong and Vander Horst, Dublin dairy farmer Jerry Dipple wonders where it will all end.

"Dairymen are very concerned that the bar is constantly moved upward, and our costs along with it. Today's compliance is tomorrow's violation. I care about what happens to Lake Waco and I am prepared to take additional steps to comply with regulations, as long as those regulations give me a chance to stay in business," said Dipple. "But in our business, the costs cannot be passed along to the consumer as other industries do routinely. The only way we can recover costs is to increase efficiency. Often, expansion is the only way to accomplish this. In modern agriculture, failure to take advantage of the economies of scale is suicide. Inflexible herd limits will mean the end of the dairy industry in Central Texas."

Give composting a chance

Dipple and fellow, area-milk producers believe given time, the composting project for both the Bosque and Leon rivers watersheds, announced in October 2000, will go a long way towards addressing the problem of dairy waste. Dairymen have committed collectable waste from 80 percent of the cows in the two watersheds—37,000 cows in the Bosque watershed alone—to the project which turns cow manure into a valuable soil amendment.

State Rep. Kip Averitt (R-Waco) and former State Rep. David Lengefeld (D-Hamilton), along with Sen. David Sibley (R-Waco), worked together to bring the composting plan to fruition and to secure $5.1 million in state and federal funding.

Here's how it works: 1) EPA, via the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, pays dairy owners to haul as much as 800,000 cubic yards of cow manure to area composting facilities over a three-year period; and 2) TNRCC passes grant funds to state agencies, such as the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDot) for the purchase of compost for erosion control and for turf top dressing in roadside parks and rest areas.

According to the TNRCC, there are six state permits for composting facilities in the two watersheds. Four are already accepting manure with another planning to open soon. The composting operations in the watershed are expected to be fully self-sufficient within three years.

Dairymen, like Darren Turley of Dublin, Erath County Farm Bureau president, suggest that composting and on-farm recycling are options that hold potential for both preserving the dairy industry and curtailing pollution that can be attributed to the dairies.

"Many area dairies are eagerly awaiting a compost technique now under development that would use all the nutrients in manure, and at the same time, generate electricity for dairy and local use. What we need is time to make all of this work. Both sides need to stop throwing barbs at each other and look for solid solutions," said Turley.

Dairy critics concede that composting is a good idea, but they are not convinced it's enough.

Meanwhile, the fact that the Waco City Council authorized spending $60,000 to hire the Thompson Group, an Austin-based public relations firm, for the next year worries the dairymen. The city has also hired a lobbyist to represent Waco in Austin. Taking a quote from Waco City Manager Kathy Rice, CALM's DeJong warned of the political realities the dairymen and their rural supporters face: "People vote, cows don't."