Virginia to Spend $2.3 Million to Keep Cows Dry

Winchester Star: More funding coming for livestock fencing

Fencing perennial streams can reduce nutrients and feces from entering waterways when livestock pass through, which would help to achieve the water quality goals in Virginia’s final Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan.

On the other hand, streamline fencing is costly.

But a light has shined at the end of the tunnel.

Following an increase in livestock fencing program participation, the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Board recently voted in favor of supporting a new fencing reimbursement program called the Small Herd Initiative.

 

The program, which was allocated $2.26 million in state funding and starts on July 1, would put more money into the hands of small cattle operators.

“What we are attempting to do through the Small Herd funding is offer extra incentives,” said Darryl Glover, director of the Soil and Water Conservation division of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

Extra incentives would help to achieve Phase III’s goal for the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen entering the Chesapeake Bay by 2025 and avoid making fencing mandatory.

During the 2020 General Assembly session, Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration proposed legislation that would make fencing mandatory for any operator with 20 or more bovines in the Chesapeake Bay watershed by July 1, 2026.

I'm glad to see this. Large numbers of cows using streams is a significant pollution problem, for both sediment, and nutrients. At the same time, I'm gratified that the state is stepping up and handling it with their own money, and not relying of the feds (at least that I can see). 

Monday Morning Water Buffalo

and Hailey Clauson:

Linked at The Right Way in Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama.

California Addresses the All Important Issue of Cow Farts

California targets dairy cows to combat global warming

The nation's leading agricultural state is now targeting greenhouse gases produced by dairy cows and other livestock.

Despite strong opposition from farmers, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in September that for the first time regulates heat-trapping gases from livestock operations and landfills.

Cattle and other farm animals are major sources of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas. Methane is released when they belch, pass gas and make manure.

"If we can reduce emissions of methane, we can really help to slow global warming," said Ryan McCarthy, a science adviser for the California Air Resources Board, which is drawing up rules to implement the new law.

Livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, with beef and dairy production accounting for the bulk of it, according to a 2013 United Nations report.

Ranching cattle has a long history in California, as it was the primary land use under the Spanish, and then the Mexican colonization.

Yes, methane is a greenhouse gas, and more potent than CO2, but it has a short lifetime in the atmosphere by comparison, and its concentration is so much lower that it constitutes a small fraction of the greenhouse atmospheric forcing. Because of it's short term persistence in the atmosphere, concentrations are not rising especially rapidly, and if anything, it's rate of increase is declining.

Can we forbid politicians from producing methane, or at least ration them?

PA Farmers Resist Cattle Fencing

Survey: Don't pass Pennsylvania law that forbids farmers from allowing cows in streams

In a close vote, 55 percent of LNP readers responding to a survey on the issue said no such law should be enacted as it would place an unfair burden on farmers. Of the 215 people who responded to the survey, 45 percent said yes, it is time for farmers to keep cattle from the state’s waterways.

The survey was placed in a Sept. 14 LNP story about state Rep. Mike Sturla saying he intended to seek a law banning cows from being in streams.  Sturla said science has proven that cows in streams pose health risks to the cows, in addition to environmental damage as the cows crumble banks and relieve themselves, polluting not only local waters but the Chesapeake Bay, as well.

Pennsylvania is under pressure from federal officials to reduce soil and nutrient runoff that runs into the Susquehanna River and pollutes the Chesapeake Bay. In 2009, President Barack Obama issued an executive order to restore the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest and most productive estuary.

There's no doubt that having cattle be able to access streams is advantageous to the farmer; making it cheaper and easier for his cattle to get water. There's also no doubt it contributes to pollution; cattle stir up the water, and shit pretty much anywhere they are standing; but I just have to ask; will the Feds apply the same standards to the their sacred cows, the Bison of Yellowstone National Park?

CBF Loses Cowshit Lawsuit

Chesapeake Bay Lawsuit Aimed at Cows in Streams Rejected

A lawsuit aimed at keeping cattle out of Virginia streams that feed into the Chesapeake Bay has been rejected by a Circuit Court judge in Richmond.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation said Tuesday it will review the decision before deciding on its next step.

The foundation sued the state to push for regulations that would require Virginia's largest livestock operations to fence off streams to keep their animals out of the water.

The foundation has been leading the decades-long fight to restore the bay, and it argued that the fouling of waterways that feed the bay slows its cleanup. Animal waste and soil erosion are two contributing factors to the bay's pollution.

My guess is that they'll turn around and sue the EPA for failure to enforce a law that's not really spelled out, and the EPA will settle without much fight, since it does nothing but enlarge their authority. Sue and settle is an old dance for CBF and EPA.

Such regulations make cattle much more expensive, by requiring farmers to keep cattle out of streams where they go to drink, and requiring more equipment to keep them watered.

And yes, I have seen cattle in the water on the Chesapeake Bay.