SACRAMENTO — The State Water Resources Control Board unanimously adopted new regulations limiting water pollution from dairies in the Central Valley. The requirements to comply with a nitrate drinking water standard of 10 milligrams per liter, store waste, apply manure, and provide alternative drinking water were retained in the newly approved order. Kjia Rivers implored the board to revise the order to require that dairies fund more opportunities for households to test domestic wells when nitrate levels are at or above 7.5 milligrams per liter.

"It’s critical that residents impacted by dairies and nitrate contamination are supported with both interim and long-term solutions," Rivers said. Abernathy expressed concerns that regulations may further consolidate the dairy industry.

"This has the potential to further consolidate the dairy industry into the Costco and Walmart world that we all live," Abernathy said. At the Tuesday meeting, over two dozen speakers voiced concerns over nitrates and what the new order included.

The state board’s 2024 draft order directed the Central Valley water board to develop revised dairy waste discharge requirements in line with recent findings. Feedback on the latest version of the order was gathered only in-person or via video during the Tuesday meeting, and no written comments were accepted.

The adopted order is 131 pages long and was released as a draft in September. An October 2024 first draft of the new regulations proposed requiring Central Valley dairies to comply with a nitrate drinking water standard of 10 milligrams per liter.

The draft regulations proposed new rules for storing waste, applying manure to fields of crops, and providing alternative drinking water to residents when nitrate levels in their water supplies are unsafe. The new dairy draft order was released online to the public on September 4.

A 2024 state tally estimated that more than 1.7 million cows generated over $8 billion worth of milk in California. Stanford University researchers released a white paper earlier this year outlining frequently underreported levels of wastewater and manure from large dairy facilities in the Central Valley.

The Stanford researchers noted failures by dairy owners to document where waste goes and by regulators to properly enforce reporting requirements. Drinking water contaminated by nitrates can interfere with red blood cells’ ability to carry oxygen throughout the body, according to Stanford experts.

The board’s goal is for dairies to stop contributing to nitrate contamination in 10 years. The board aims to reach a balance in which all nitrogen produced at a dairy is taken up by crops, exported, or treated.

Some advocates have fought since the early 2000s to increase oversight and management of water pollution from dairy facilities. Existing regulations of dairy farms were adopted at the urging of the Environmental Law Foundation and the Asociación de Gente Unida por el Agua (AGUA), which sued the regional board claiming its 2007 dairy regulations were inadequate.

AGUA and the Environmental Law Foundation petitioned for a review of the 2013 rule from the state water board. The state water board found over 10 years later that certain parts of the 2013 rule were still out of line with California policies.

The Central Valley water board oversees dairy farms under a 2013 waste discharge rule. A 2019 report from a group run by dairy operators led to what the state board called a fundamental shift in its understanding of where groundwater pollution from dairies was coming from. The 2019 report found that 94 percent of nitrogen pollution from dairies came from spreading dairy waste across crop lands as fertilizer, rather than leaking waste retention pools.

Why It Matters

Infants are acutely susceptible to low oxygen levels from nitrate impacts to water, which can lead to the potentially fatal blue baby syndrome. High nitrate levels in drinking water pose health risks such as miscarriages and infant mortality. Some counties in the Central Valley have seen 40 percent of drinking wells with nitrate levels above the safe limit established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Timeline

In 2012, a Sacramento court of appeals ruled that the board was out of compliance with California’s law to protect clean water. In 2013, the Central Valley water board began overseeing dairy farms under a waste discharge rule.

In 2017, a University of California, Davis study concluded that agricultural lands, including those with dairy operations, are the largest contributor of nitrate to groundwater in the Central Valley. On September 4, 2018, the State Water Board issued Own Motion Order R5-2013-0122.

In 2019, a report from a group run by dairy operators led to what the state board called a fundamental shift in its understanding of where groundwater pollution from dairies was coming from.

In 2024, the state board’s draft order directed the Central Valley water board to develop revised dairy waste discharge requirements in line with recent findings.

What's New

The Central Valley is a valley in central California, USA. California legislators passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 to curb groundwater decline and prevent wells from running dry.

The University of California is a public university in Berkeley, California, USA. Stanford University is a private research university in Stanford, California, USA.

How Sources Differ

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study titled "Groundwater depletion and sustainability of irrigation in the US High Plains and Central Valley" in 2012. California state figures from September 2024 indicate that more than 700 dairies in California, concentrated in the Central Valley, are within one mile of an area at high risk for nitrate groundwater contamination.