Why the EPA regulates spilled milk
Feb. 6th, 2011 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillBecause milk pollution can make water unsuitable for downstream domestic users, kill aquatic life and cause long-term damage to waterways.
A dairy has to have a thousand cows before it qualifies as a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding organization--like a stockyard) and comes under EPA regulation. Since a cow can give up to 25 gallons of milk per day, that's a lot of milk that might spill into groundwater if something goes wrong. So the EPA requires that large dairy farms have plans in place for dealing with a milk spill. There are several ways people are allowed dispose of large amounts of milk, including feeding it to stock, diluting it and spraying it on pasture, putting it in temporary holding ponds (two days worth only) or dumping it on non-productive land away from groundwater. But you're not allowed to let it run into groundwater.
These rules have been in place since at least the year 2000, when a dairy farmer was fined for spilling 192,000 liters (about 50,000 gallons) of milk into the Campaspe River.
That is all.
A dairy has to have a thousand cows before it qualifies as a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding organization--like a stockyard) and comes under EPA regulation. Since a cow can give up to 25 gallons of milk per day, that's a lot of milk that might spill into groundwater if something goes wrong. So the EPA requires that large dairy farms have plans in place for dealing with a milk spill. There are several ways people are allowed dispose of large amounts of milk, including feeding it to stock, diluting it and spraying it on pasture, putting it in temporary holding ponds (two days worth only) or dumping it on non-productive land away from groundwater. But you're not allowed to let it run into groundwater.
These rules have been in place since at least the year 2000, when a dairy farmer was fined for spilling 192,000 liters (about 50,000 gallons) of milk into the Campaspe River.
That is all.
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Re: EPA regulating milk spills
Date: 2011-02-07 06:18 am (UTC)See Cat's first link. It's to an Australian site, but massive amounts of milk spilled in the water supply will do the same kinds of damage anywhere.