Nitrate Study Peer Review Pt 1
I'm Bob Larson. It was hoped a "friendly" administration might help turn around some of the challenges facing farmers, but Washington diary producers in the Yakima Valley are not feeling the love. Save Family Farming is out to spread the word about their request for EPA Administrator to conduct a long-delayed peer review of a damaging nitrate report ...
BARON ... "Farmers have been very concerned about this for some time because we know, based upon the review by every science expert, and there's between 15 and 20 of them that have looked at this in great detail, and said no, the EPA did not show what the sources of nitrate are even thought they claimed that they did. They're claiming that current dairy operations are responsible for the nitrate in ground water. We know that's not true."
The group's Executive Director Gerald Baron says facts should matter ...
BARON ... "However, EPA then used it despite warnings from other government agencies not to use it for enforcement, they used it as a weapon against four dairy farms in Eastern Washington to get them to sign an administrative order on consent. In other words, they got them to agree to this enforcement action that EPA was taking against them."
Baron says they had little choice ...
BARON ... "The reason that they agreed is because of the threats that the EPA made that they would take them into the 9th Circuit Court if they didn't and nobody wants to do that given the history of the 9th Circuit Court."
Listen tomorrow for more on this costly government delay and why this is so serious for dairy farmers.
