Dairy Fined For Manure Spill & Swine Information Day

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Pomeroy Dairy, located near Custer, has been fined $6,000 by the Washington State Department of Agriculture for a manure spill last October. The spill was caused by a malfunctioning valve, which allowed manure to be transferred into an out of service underground pipe and then discharged from a broken riser. The discharged manure reached a nearby ditch that's a tributary of California Creek where an analysis found elevated levels of fecal coliform bacteria exceeding standards as far as five miles downstream from the spill; resulting in the closure of the beach at the mouth of California Creek, and a one week closure of commercial shellfish harvesting in Drayton Harbor. The dairy began work immediately to control the spill, but failed to report it, a factor that resulted in an increased penalty. The dairy has 30 days to seek an appeal.

WSU's Swine Information Day will be February 7 in Moses Lake. Sarah Smith, animal sciences extension educator with WSU Grant-Adams County Extension says that one of the main topics covered by featured speaker Dr. Chris Hostetler, National Pork Board Director of Animal Science, will be porcine epidemic diarrhea virus.

SMITH: He is going to give us a nice overview on this new virus that's been impacting the swine industry since about April - symptoms, what will you expect to see, you get out of your herd, and the implications it's going to have for the pork industry because so many piglets have been lost to it over time that there might be some short supplies of pigs going in.

Smith says the PED virus hasn't hit Washington yet, but it is in 23 states. On Monday Smith will talk more about the topics to be covered during Swine Information Day that they hope will allow Washington swine producers to have a better swine raising experience.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.