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Washington State signals softening on manure rules

November 24, 2015, Olympia, WA — The Washington Department of Ecology will likely exempt smaller dairies from expensive new manure-handling rules and also drop its assumption that clay-lined lagoons always pollute groundwater, a DOE official said recently.

The dairy industry remains alarmed by the prospect of DOE regulating manure lagoons, which has been the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s job since 1998. But Washington State Dairy Federation policy director Jay Gordon said DOE has at least been listening to dairy farmers’ concerns. READ MORE