December 22, 2010 – The
Western United Dairymen board of directors voted at its December 17 meeting to
endorse the program whose purpose is to significantly reduce regulatory costs
for member dairies by administering a representative groundwater monitoring
program.
December 22, 2010, Modesto, CA – The
Western United Dairymen board of directors voted at its December 17 meeting to
endorse the program whose purpose is to significantly reduce regulatory costs
for member dairies by administering a representative groundwater monitoring
program.
A dairy’s membership in
good standing in Central Valley Dairy Representative Monitoring Program
(CVDRMP) can substitute as a lower-cost alternative for the current regulatory
requirement for each dairy to install monitoring wells.
WUD director Tom Barcellos
serves as CVDRMP chairman. In a recent Ag Alert article, Barcellos explained
that in 2007 the state adopted comprehensive new water quality regulations for
Central Valley dairies requiring the installation of wells exclusively for
monitoring first-encountered groundwater. It was estimated that the costs of
the regulation could be $40,000 per dairy to drill the wells, plus the ongoing
costs to cover sampling and reporting.
“Our coalition offers a
better alternative,” says Barcellos. “A scientifically guided program will
locate wells strategically on a representative set of dairies, instead of all
dairies. Our program will be smaller, smarter and more efficient. It will generate
the results to meet the regulatory compliance needs of our monitoring coalition
members, but it will cost significantly less because fewer dairies will need to
be monitored and because we will pool resources and pass the savings along to
coalition members.”
More information on the
coalition is available at http://www.dairycares.com/CVDRMP/.
