Street roots., July 21, 2017, Page 5, Image 5

Street Roots • July 21-27, 2017
Special Report
Page 5
C o o tio w e d f r o m p a g e 4
cow
in Oreqon
Oregon’s
largest
source of
stay in the country to work on the ranch,
and immigration issues are compounding
the problem as the industry has largely
relied on Hispanic laborers to fill positions.
This is partly because as the minimum
wage has increased, said Rosa, ranchers
would rather pay a skilled laborer than a
high-school kid that might be goofing
off half the time.
“The labor situation is getting more
and more serious and more and more
difficult for us all the time,” said Rosa.
Beef cattle account for about 85
percent of Oregon’s bovine population; the
rest are in dairies.
Oregon houses one of the largest dairies
in the nation near Boardman, called
Threemile Canyon Farms. And another
mega-dairy is moving in about 25 miles
away. Together these facilities will house up
to 100,000 dairy cows and calves.
There are 227 cow dairies in Oregon, and
about 20 percent are organic. Organic
dairies typically graze cows on pesticide-free
pasture during the dry months and bring
them into a barn structure during the wet
months.
Conventional dairy practices vary, with
some confining cattle year-round, feeding
them a mixture of grain and grass.
Tammy Dennee, the legislative director at
Oregon Dairy Farmers Association told the
Oregon Board of Agriculture at a meeting in
hile individual c a ttle ra n c h e rs an d dairy
W
farmers may have different business
philosophies as it relates to organic versus
conventional, one fact is undeniable: They
massive
methane raise an animal that consumes
amounts of resources
while producing large
volumes of powerful
greenhouse gases.
Oregon’s 1.3
million cattle produce
more methane than
any other source in
the state, including all
municipal and
industrial landfills
combined, according
to data obtained from
P H O TO BY A R K A D Y B R O W N
Oregon’s Department
of Environmental Quality, or DEQ.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, the warming effect of
methane is 86 times as potent as carbon
dioxide over a 20-year period, and 34 times
as strong over a 100-year period.
DEQ’s modeling assumes methane is just
25 times as potent as carbon dioxide. This is
based on an earlier version of the IPCC
report, published in 2007, for a 100-year
period. In the short term, however, methane
has a much greater carbon dioxide
equivalent than DEQ methods reflect.
Cows also produce nitrous oxide in their
manure, a gas with warming potential 265
times greater than carbon dioxide.
According to DEQ modeling, Oregon’s
cattle produce nearly 3 million metric tons of
carbon dioxide equivalent in these two gases
per year. That equates to about 5 percent of
the state’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
But that’s just what comes out of the cow.
It doesn’t account for emissions related to
transporting, processing, growing their feed
lililí
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F T H R E E M IL E C A N Y O N F A R M S
May that in recent years, Oregon has lost
about six dairies annually.
Many dairy operators blame this decline
on large dairies moving in, saying that it’s
hard to compete when dairy giants flood the
market with milk, resulting in lower margins
that only they can afford to ride out.
But despite the shrinking number of
smaller and mid-sized dairies, in 2016 the
state saw record-setting production levels
with 2.6 billion pounds of dairy products
produced, according to USDA data.
That’s nearly a billion pounds more than
just 16 years earlier.
o r th e c arb o n se q u e s tra tio n p o te n tia l lo st
significant, if th e in d u stry c o n tin u e s
when cows eat all the vegetation, including
young trees, along stream banks.
In Portland, residents are encouraged to
utilize the curbside composting program to
help lower methane emissions at city
landfills. So what are policymakers on the
state level doing to rein in the state’s largest
source of methane gas?
The answer is not much.
While dairies and feedlots are known to
emit harmful pollutants in addition to
greenhouse gases, such as ammonia,
hydrogen sulfide and particulates, they are
exempted from air quality monitoring.
A bill aimed at removing this exemption
from dairies died this legislative session
despite widespread concerns that the
30,000-cow dairy coming in 25 miles away
from Threemile Canyon Farms would
compound air quality issues in the Boardman
area.
Bills seeking to implement a carbon­
trading program this session, which also
failed, altogether excluded agricultural
industries from their proposed carbon­
counting systems.
“Because agriculture feeds people, usually
it’s a more incentive-based program,” said
Jana Gastellum, program director of climate
at Oregon Environmental Council, one of the
bill’s primary backers.
Oregon is falling far short of meeting its
goal of reducing emissions to 14 million
metric tons by 2050, and there is no
comprehensive plan to address emissions
from the agricultural sector.
“It would be really great for Oregon to
have a broader strategy for how we are going
to hit those overall pollution caps,”
Gastellum said.
While cattle’s contribution of 5 percent of
total state emissions may not seem
unchecked and Oregon eventually meets it
emissions goal, cattle will account for 21
percent of the state’s greenhouse gas
emissions. Even more if the industry
continues to grow and more large dairies
move in.
Additionally, as carbon dioxide
emissions go down, so will the
aerosols emitted when we burn
fossil fuels, which actually
j
have a cooling effect by
jj
reflecting the sun’s energy
back into space. Therefore,
jj
it’s critical that more
powerful greenhouse gases,
such as methane and nitrous
oxide, be addressed.
"’i l l
California implemented a carbon
cap-and-trade program four years ago,
and dairies there are required to lower their
methane emissions 40 percent by 2030.
The Oregon Global Warming Commission
issued a warning to the state Legislature in
its February report:
“While individual agencies have taken up
both emissions reduction and adaptation
issues episodically, the State has no overall
climate change adaptation/preparation
strategy, action plan or investment criteria.”
The report also indicated agriculture has
been responsible for 8 to 9 percent of the
state’s greenhouse gas emissions since 2002,
with livestock being the primary source.
But that percentage is an estimate.
“We have a very rough read on what’s
coming out of agriculture,” said Angus
Duncan, the commission’s chair. But, he
added, “the issue of methane generally, and
of agricultural methane, we think is a
significant one.”
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOi
C o o tio o e d o n p a g e 7
Cows are milked
on a carousel at
Threemile Canyon
Farms.
METHANE
EMISSIONS
Oregon’s top
methane
emissions sources
in 2014 (the latest
year data are
available).
SOURCE: O R EG O N
DEPA R TM EN T OF
E N V IR O N M E N T A L
Q U A L IT Y