3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 2017
Conflict brewing between oyster farm, Tillamook dairies
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
EO Media Group
A federal judge has dis-
missed a lawsuit accusing Ore-
gon regulators of allowing dair-
ies to contaminate Tillamook
Bay to the detriment of an oys-
ter company.
However, the underly-
ing conflict isn’t going away
and the case is expected to be
revived in the near future.
Last year, the Hayes Oys-
ter Co. filed a complaint argu-
ing the state Department of
Environmental Quality insuffi-
ciently regulated fecal coliform
bacteria from dairies in the Til-
lamook area.
Due to the low threshold
of allowable bacteria levels in
shellfish waters, the state’s reg-
ulatory shortfall has greatly
reduced harvests on Hayes’ 600
acres of oyster plats in the bay,
the lawsuit said.
Oyster
harvesting
is
entirely prohibited on about
250 of those acres and closed
for extended periods on the
remaining 350 acres, according
to the complaint.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John
Jelderks has now dismissed the
case, ruling that it should have
been filed in state court rather
than federal court.
Thomas Benke, attorney for
the Hayes Oyster Co., said he’s
preparing to refile in an Oregon
court soon.
Benke said the Depart-
ment of Environmental Qual-
ity wrongly assumes that per-
mits issued to confined animal
feeding operations by the state
Department of Agriculture
actually prevent the discharge
of bacteria into surface water.
But since bacteria are none-
theless released into rivers, the
Department of Environmen-
tal Quality has “sanctioned a
pollution easement across the
entire bay by the dairy farms,”
he said.
The Hayes Oyster Co. has
been unable to harvest oysters
during eight of the past 10 hol-
iday seasons due to high river
flows that are associated with ele-
vated bacteria levels, said Jesse
Hayes, the company’s president.
Jesse Hayes
Bags of oysters are pulled from Tillamook Bay before they’re graded and packaged by
a worker with the Hayes Oyster Co. The company contends that state regulators have
allowed bacteria discharged from dairies to greatly diminish its oyster harvest.
After heavy rains, the com-
pany must routinely wait until
10 high tides wash out the estu-
ary to resume harvesting, he
said. “You can’t imagine how
frustrating that is.”
Hayes argues the manure
generated by dairies in the
region exceeds what can safely
be applied to fields.
“If you take the amount of
dairy waste, there is not enough
room for it,” he said.
The goal of Hayes’ law-
suit is for the Department
of Environmental Qual-
ity to recognize that animal
feeding permits aren’t ade-
quately controlling bacteria
and to tighten manure man-
agement practices to stop
water contamination, said
Benke.
Another possibility would
be for wastewater plants in the
region to pay dairies to reduce
pollution, rather than be sub-
jected to stricter discharge con-
trols by the state, he said.
“It’s intended to create a sit-
uation where the citizens of Til-
lamook encourage farmers to
abate their fecal coliform con-
tribution to the estuary,” Benke
said.
Chad Allen, president of the
Oregon Dairy Farmers Associ-
ation, bristled at the notion that
dairies are under-regulated.
Manure can only be applied
to fields at agronomic rates
needed to grow crops, which is
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subject to oversight by regula-
tors, said Allen, who farms in
the Tillamook area.
To compare, crop farmers
aren’t subject to restrictions on
synthetic nitrogen, he said.
Dairy farmers have also vol-
untarily fenced miles of streams
to keep cattle out and planted
vegetation in riparian areas to
keep streams cool, Allen said.
“Dairymen here in Tilla-
mook take it extremely seri-
ous,” he said. “We’re not going
to survive in this estuary if we
can’t show we can co-exist.”
Reducing the amount of
manure on fields would basi-
cally mean decreasing the num-
ber of dairy cows in the region,
said Troy Downing, an Ore-
gon State University dairy
specialist.
If dairy operations ceased
operating, pastures could still be
stocked with other livestock that
also produce manure, he said.
Septic systems, horses and
wildlife also contribute to fecal
coliform bacteria, Downing
said. “That’s part of people liv-
ing here in the valley.”
Though manure levels are
applied at rates aimed at pre-
cluding discharge, it is possi-
ble for some bacteria to get into
water, said Wym Matthews,
manager of the Department of
Agriculture’s animal feeding
program.
“The field is a treatment sys-
tem and it’s not as highly con-
trolled as a factory would be,”
he said.
Even so, farmers are
required to change their waste
management plans if per-
mit conditions are found to be
insufficient, Matthews said.
“The plan is very specific
for each individual farm,” but
none are allowed to discharge,
he said.
Genetic tests have shown the
source of fecal coliform bacte-
ria in the Tillamook region is
most commonly human in pop-
ulated areas while ruminants
are the more common source in
rural areas, said York Johnson,
North Coast basin coordinator
for the Department of Environ-
mental Quality.
Over time, though, statis-
tically significant decreases in
bacteria levels have been doc-
umented in the Wilson, Kilchis
and Tillamook rivers, which
feed into the bay, he said.
“In general, we’re see-
ing improvement,” Johnson
said. “We’re making progress
toward our goal.”
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