Lawmakers hold a roundtable to focus on the legal disputes between Washington dairies and the EPA.
Representative Dan Newhouse hosted the event because of a controversial EPA report that linked a handful of dairies to groundwater pollution.
Newhouse says that the report has been used for years to cause financial harm to the state’s dairy industry and finds the little effort being done frustrating.
Rep. Newhouse states, “I got to tell you, when the Trump administration came in, we were very excited and very hopeful that we could finally have an agency and individuals in the agency that would listen and we could make some real progress here, and we’ve made some but I got to tell you that there’s some disappointment that we haven’t been able to get as far as we need to go.”
Washington State Dairy Federation’s Policy Director points out that local farmers have worked hard to reduce the environmental impacts.
“I can tell you these families have spent upwards of $22 million dollars complying with the EPA’s request based on this science, and it’s sad to think what we could have done with that $22 million,” Jay Gordon adds.
Gordon says that the report has been used against eighteen dairies so far and more will likely be targeted.
