2B Wednesday, December 13, 2017 Appeal Tribune
Willamette Valley dairy’s luck sours
Environmental violations
led to surrender of permit,
fines, $95K civil penalty
To comment
The Oregon Department of Agriculture is
seeking public comments on a proposal to
allow Dayton dairy owner Brian Turley to take
over the permit for Volbeda Farms, which
previously supplied Willamette Valley Cheese
Company with milk. The number of animals
permitted would rise from 1,200 to 1,600. The
permit also will allow the creamery to legally
discharge wastewater and whey into the
dairy’s manure handling system.
TRACY LOEW
SALEM STATESMAN JOURNAL
USA TODAY NETWORK
Over the past 15 years, Willamette
Valley Cheese Company, just outside Sa-
lem, has grown from a basement cheese-
making experiment to a regional tourist
destination selling its award-winning
cheeses throughout the Northwest.
In the creamery’s tasting room, at
farmers markets and on its website,
owner Rod Volbeda claims the key to the
company’s success is its on-site herd of
carefully cared for Jersey cows and its
sustainable farming practices.
“We milk our own cows and make it
into creamy, delicious cheese the same
day,” the company’s website reads.
But from its beginning, the cream-
ery’s dairy, called Volbeda Farms, has vi-
olated environmental laws that regulate
the safe handling, storage and disposal
of manure. By July 2016, the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture had cited the
dairy nine times, for 19 violations, and
fined it thousands of dollars.
Sometime before February 2015 —
Volbeda says he can’t remember the ex-
act date — the cheese company stopped
using milk from its own cows, instead
purchasing it from Darigold, a regional
dairy cooperative.
But it didn’t tell its customers. And it
still labels its products “farmstead
cheese,” even though American Cheese
Society rules allow the name's use only
for cheese made with milk from the
farmer’s own herd, on the farm where
the animals are raised.
In July 2016, under pressure from
state regulators, Volbeda transferred
control of the dairy to his father, John
Volbeda, whose Albany dairy had recent-
ly pled guilty to three criminal counts of
unlawful water pollution.
Rod Volbeda maintained control of
the cheese factory.
Conditions at the dairy rapidly wors-
ened, culminating in a weeklong manure
overflow in March that contaminated
nearby Spring Valley Creek, a tributary
of the Willamette River.
That prompted the Oregon Depart-
ment of Justice to file a lawsuit and tem-
porarily shut down dairy operations.
“ODA has made exhaustive efforts to
bring defendants into compliance volun-
tarily and through administrative en-
forcement,” the Justice Department
wrote to a judge in March.
In October, the Justice Department
ordered John Volbeda to surrender the
Mail comments to William Matthews,
ODA/CAFO Program, 635 Capitol St. NE,
Salem, OR 97301; or email to
wmatthews@oda.state.or.us.
Comments must be received by 5 p.m. on Dec.
8.
ODA will schedule a public hearing if written
request are received from at least 10 people or
from an organization representing at least 10
people.
Volbeda Dairy and Willamette Valley Cheese Company sits empty, as seen on Nov. 29.
TRACY LOEW/STATESMAN JOURNAL
dairy’s permit, remove the cows, clean
up the property and pay a $95,480 civil
penalty.
Today the barns sit empty. The prop-
erty housing the dairy and cheese fac-
tory has been sold to a Dayton farmer
who plans to open a new dairy there.
Rod Volbeda continues to operate Wil-
lamette Valley Cheese.
He declined to be interviewed for this
article.
In an email responding to the inter-
view request, Volbeda insisted all of the
environmental violations happened af-
ter he relinquished control of the dairy
and did not involve Willamette Valley
Cheese. He said he is only buying milk
from Darigold, “until my cows are
ready,” but declined to elaborate.
His father, John Volbeda, did not re-
spond to interview requests for this sto-
ry.
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Volbeda now distances himself from
his dairying family. But in interviews
over the years he has described the in-
terwoven business relationships among
its members, including his parents, his
brother, Darren Volbeda, and his sister,
Coleen Van Dreal.
According to Oregon Secretary of
State corporation records, John Volbe-
da’s company, Volbeda Dairy, was the
registrant for Rod’s Volbeda Farms.
Another company, headed by John
Volbeda, owned the recently sold proper-
ty housing Willamette Valley Cheese and
Volbeda Farms. And a company headed
by Van Dreal, Farmstead Family Foods,
was listed as an owner of the cheese com-
pany in 2012.
Volbeda Dairy took out a lien on all of
Willamette Valley Cheese Company’s
equipment in May 2016, according to
Oregon Secretary of State Uniform
Commercial Code filings.
Darren Volbeda managed his father's
Albany dairy, and also has worked at Wil-
lamette Valley Cheese.
Willamette Valley Cheese is sold at a
half dozen farmers markets and in more
than 40 stores throughout the Pacific
Northwest. Between 2010 and 2017 it won
11 awards from the American Cheese So-
ciety alone.
But in 1998, the dairy began racking
up repeated violations with the Oregon
Department of Agriculture, which regu-
lates how facilities handle and dispose of
manure through confined animal feed-
ing operation (CAFO) permits.
In 1999 Rod Volbeda wrote to ODA to
complain about the scrutiny:
“I have had two inspections in about
one year, while CAFOS farther from Sa-
lem have had no inspections. The dairy-
men of Oregon need to know if this is go-
ing to be a reoccurring situation, this
could make the difference in dairying in
the Willamette Valley or going east.”
ODA officials responded that all dair-
ies should expect increased inspections.
In 2010, around the time the cheese
company opened its on-site tasting room,
ODA cited the dairy for two violations:
keeping manure piles on bare ground
and failing to keep records to show it was
complying with its permit requirements.
In 2011 ODA cited the dairy for bro-
ken gutters, run-off from the compost-
ing barn and pooled water in front of the
barn. It ordered Volbeda to install a col-
lection and pump system for the com-
post barn. In 2012 ODA found the dairy’s
lagoon was full, its dry manure storage
area was leaking, the pipe from the sep-
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Girls
Family's businesses were linked
Rod Volbeda, 52, grew up on the 400-
acre Albany dairy farm his parents, John
and Lucyann, bought in 1972.
He worked as an apprentice cheese-
maker in Holland, where his father was
from, completed the food-sciences pro-
gram at Oregon State University, and
worked at Oregon’s Tillamook Cheese
Factory before opening Volbeda Farms,
at 8105 Wallace Road NW near Salem, in
the late 1990s.
He launched Willamette Valley
Cheese Company in 2002.
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arator was not reaching the lagoon and
its annual report was incomplete.
Serious problems began in December
2015, when ODA inspectors found the
dairy had failed to notify the state that its
waste management system had failed
and was discharging manure into Spring
Valley Creek. An inspector arriving for a
scheduled inspection found manure
flowing down the entry driveway ditch.
It cited the dairy for six violations.
In January 2016, ODA modified the
dairy’s permit, requiring it to take pic-
tures of its manure collection, transfer,
treatment and storage facilities each
day and email them to the state each
week. Failure to comply would result in a
fine, officials warned.
In May 2016, ODA fined the dairy
$5,700.
John Volbeda was also having prob-
lems at his Albany dairy.
In 1997 Volbeda Dairy paid $8,000 to
settle a U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency complaint alleging the dairy was
discharging manure into Albany’s Truax
Creek.
Multiple additional charges in 2009
and 2010 led to criminal prosecution. In
2011 Volbeda Dairy pleaded guilty to
three counts of unlawful water pollution.
It received a $30,000 criminal fine and
three years’ probation. Darren Volbeda
was listed as the dairy's operator.
Volbeda Dairy voluntarily relin-
quished the permit for its Albany dairy
in May 2014 in lieu of having the permit
revoked, Matthews said.
State agency cracks down
Dairies generally dispose of liquid
manure by applying it to farm fields as
fertilizer. Their permits regulate when
and how much manure can be applied to
ensure it is properly absorbed and
doesn’t run off into public waterways.
That became a problem for the Salem
dairy after about 80 acres of its property
was repossessed in connection with a re-
possession of the Albany dairy property,
according to the Department of Justice
lawsuit. The bankruptcy happened after
John Volbeda surrendered the Albany
dairy's license in 2014, ODA officials
said.
The loss of nearly half of the Salem
dairy’s land meant there was too much
waste, said Wym Matthews, who over-
sees confined-animal permits for ODA.
Willamette Valley Cheese also was
discharging its creamery processing
waste into the dairy’s manure storage la-
goons, increasing the volume of waste.
In December 2015, ODA inspectors
became aware of the situation, Mat-
See DAIRY, Page 3B
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