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CapitalPress.com
Friday, July 9, 2021
Dairy
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Darigold plans to build $450M facility in Washington
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
PASCO, Wash. — Darigold plans
to build a $450 million dairy process-
ing plant in Pasco, Wash.
The plant will produce a new spe-
cialized protein powder and but-
ter at what the company and Port of
Pasco offi cials are touting as “the most
sophisticated large-scale milk protein
facility in North America.”
“It’s great news for ag and all of
Washington State, keeping a process-
ing plant of this size and scope,” Randy
Hayden, executive director of the port,
told the Capital Press. “(It) will sup-
port not just the manufacturing jobs at
the plant – all of the jobs at the farms
and transportation industry. It’s great
to have these facilities here supporting
our farmers.”
“It’s a deeper commitment from the
state’s largest co-op to dairy in Wash-
ington state,” said Dan Wood, execu-
tive director of the state Dairy Feder-
ation. “A couple hundred direct jobs,
another thousand support jobs, which
is major economic development. It just
underscores how important dairy is to
the state economy.”
Port commissioners approved the
sale of roughly 150 acres of the Rei-
mann Industrial Center to Darigold
during a special commission meeting
July 1.
Darigold intends to bring the new
facility online in the fall of 2023,
according to a port press release.
Darigold expects to process up to 8
million pounds of milk per day in the
new facility, said Tafl ine Laylin, leader
of sustainability communications and
social engagement for the company.
The operation will produce specialized
products that can’t be made in any of
the company’s other plants.
More than 50% of the facility’s fi n-
ished product is intended for export,
with an emphasis on the Pacifi c Rim.
Darigold will deploy anaerobic
digestion technology as part of the
on-site wastewater treatment strat-
egy and use the extracted methane as
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a natural gas substitute, reducing fossil
fuel use, according to a company press
release. This will be complemented by
machinery that enables heat and energy
recovery and reuse.
In addition, the new infrastructure
is designed to accommodate future
electric vehicles, including a potential
conversion of Dairgold’s large fl eet of
semi-trucks — further reducing green-
house gas emissions associated with
transportation, the company says.
Darigold has been working with the
port since last fall as part of its exten-
sive Pacifi c Northwest search for the
right location for its new facility. Dari-
gold offi cials predict the capital invest-
ment will be between $450 million and
$500 million.
The new plant “is expected to
accelerate our farmer-owned coopera-
tive’s goal of reaching carbon neutral-
ity by 2050, cementing a longstanding
tradition of continuous stewardship
and sustainability improvements,”
said Stan Ryan, president and CEO of
Darigold, in the press release.
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A Washington appeals court ruled June 29 that the
state’s manure storage and spreading rules are too
weak to protect water quality.
Washington court
hands dairies a loss
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Washington’s
rules
for storing and spread-
ing manure on dairies are
too lax to protect water and
the Department of Ecology
must rewrite them, the Court
of Appeals Division II in
Tacoma said June 29.
The three-judge panel
sent the regulations, con-
tained in permits issued to
dairies and other confi ned
animal feeding operations,
back to Ecology.
It was unclear how the
ruling would aff ect Ecolo-
gy’s timeline for updating
the rules, which are due to
expire in March 2022.
Ecology already is work-
ing on a new CAFO per-
mit and may have a draft
proposal soon. An Ecol-
ogy spokeswoman said the
department was reviewing
the decision and considering
its next step.
Ecology
issued
the
CAFO permit in 2017 after
lengthy discussions with
the dairy industry and envi-
ronmental groups. The reg-
ulations didn’t entirely sat-
isfy either group, and both
sides appealed aspects of the
permit.
The appeals were merged
into one case. The court
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handed the coalition of envi-
ronmental groups, led by
the Puget Soundkeeper Alli-
ance, a nearly total victory.
The court did reject
claims by the environmental
groups that manure lagoons
should have synthetic lin-
ers and leak-detection sys-
tems. The judges agreed
with Ecology and the dairy
industry that synthetic liners
would be too expensive.
The court, however,
said the permits failed to
set deadlines for repairing
lagoons that were at risk of
leaking nitrates into ground-
water. High levels of nitrates
are a health risk, especially
for infants and unborn
children.
The court also said farm-
ers should be required to
monitor water quality. Ecol-
ogy had argued that testing
soils and other conditions
in the permit were suffi -
cient. Monitoring wells was
impractical and didn’t pre-
vent pollution, according to
Ecology.
The court also faulted
Ecology for not considering
the eff ects of climate change
in writing the regulations.
Washington State Dairy
Federation director Dan
Wood said dairies look for-
ward to talking about the
industry’s effi cient use of
land and water.
“Dairy farmers have a
remarkable story to tell with
regard to environmental
improvements and address-
ing climate change,” he said.
The judges also said pol-
lution-prevention plans writ-
ten by individual dairies
should be subjected to pub-
lic comment.
The court rejected the
one appeal brought by the
Dairy Federation and Wash-
ington Farm Bureau.
The farm groups argued
that a formula devel-
oped in the United King-
dom for determining when
crops were ready to take
up manure nutrients in the
spring would stunt crops in
Eastern Washington.
The court ruled that crop
growth wasn’t the point and
that there wasn’t any evi-
dence the formula would not
protect groundwater.
The permit, wrote Judge
Anne Cruser, “does not
require promotion of the
greatest crop yields.”
The court didn’t take into
account climate diff erences
between Eastern and West-
ern Washington, Wood said.
“We’ll continue to work
with Ecology to help them
understand that there are two
distinct climate areas in our
state and that standards must
be developed for each...,”
Wood said.
Judges Linda Lee and
Lisa Sutton concurred in the
opinion.
Washington has approx-
imately 300 dairies. Dair-
ies and other CAFOs are
not required to obtain per-
mits, but the permits provide
some protection from fi nes
and lawsuits. Any operation
that confi nes livestock to an
enclosed area for 45 days in
a year meets the defi nition of
a CAFO.
The other environmen-
tal groups involved in the
appeal are the Sierra Club,
Waterkeeper Alliance, Cen-
ter for Food Safety, Friends
of Toppenish Creek and
Community
Association
for the Restoration of the
Environment.