Dirty Dairying

[Alicat]

Are they ever going to investigate this as a potential source in the area or is the alternative in the too hard basket?

Cemeteries as a Potential Source of aquifer pollution ?
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/290462/scho0404bgla-e-e.pdf

Most likely the too hard basket.

[ssweetpea]

I recall reading about an urupa up near Gisborne on an eroding river bank that was slowly being swept away. There must be many that are being affected by erosion. I noticed more than one in the Eastern Bay of Plenty that are on the seaward side of the highway where erosion could become an issue.

[nitpicker1]

I recall reading about an urupa up near Gisborne on an eroding river bank that was slowly being swept away. There must be many that are being affected by erosion. I noticed more than one in the Eastern Bay of Plenty that are on the seaward side of the highway where erosion could become an issue.

Seems to me that uruapa were often situated near coastlines (Colac Bay ion our extreme south coast for instance ) whereas modern cemeteries are mostly inland and near towns

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from Fairfax NZ....

DairyNZ to appeal ASA ruling on Greenpeace ad

Farming group is unhappy the advertising watchdog rejected
its complaint over Greenpeace “water pollution” ad

3:18PM - Monday, 09 January 2017


DairyNZ was one of the 12 complainants. — Photograph: Terrie Russell/Fairfax NZ.

DairyNZ says it will appeal the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling that Greenpeace's “dirty dairying” advert did not breach advertising principles.

Both Greenpeace and DairyNZ received embargoed copies of the ruling in December, which said they had until January 23rd to appeal the ruling, chief executive Tim Mackle said.

“We received the ruling, we are not happy with the outcome, so we'll appeal that.”

DairyNZ picked a fight with the group over an ad saying: “Precious water supplies are being polluted by industrial dairy farming and massive irrigation schemes”.

The dairy group was behind one of the 12 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the ad.

While the ASA process risked further legitimising Greenpeace's view of the dairy industry in the eyes of the public, appealing the ad was about doing what was right, Mackle said.

“We don't believe that standing by and allowing these activist groups to pitch messages and stories anyway they like to the public is acceptable.”

“We believe it's the right thing to do in this case and that's really based on the good work dairy farmers have done in the last five to seven years around environmental initatives.”

Rather than "admitting defeat" the right thing to do was to point out that this kind of advertising was not appropriate, Mackle said.

He also rejected any claims that it complaining about the ad, the dairy industry was attempting to brush the environmental issues it faced under the carpet.

“We're not covering anything up. That's a nonsense. Our issue is with that ad and how it is pitched.”


New Zealand waterways were the focus of the campaign.
 — Photograph: David White/Fairfax NZ.

However, Greenpeace says the dairy industry shot itself in the foot by complaining about the ad. In its ruling, the watchdog has found it didn't breach advertising principles — and gave the dairy industry a tune-up in its ruling.

The one-minute TV ad also said the Government was “allowing our precious rivers to be destroyed”.

Complainants claimed statements and images in the ad were “false and misleading”.

However, the ASA rejected all of the complaints.

Its complaints board said the statements in the ad "would not come as a surprise to most New Zealanders.

Greenpeace was not surprised at the ruling in its favour, its sustainable agriculture campaigner Genevieve Toop said.

“It's simple. The more dairy cows there are, the more polluted our rivers and streams become.”

She said the ASA accepted Greenpeace's position that “the impact of industrial dairy farming on water quality is widely documented”.

“We would encourage Dairy NZ to concentrate its resources into addressing the very real problems of river degradation, rather than trying to pretend the problem doesn't exist,” Toop said.

Attempts by the industrial dairying lobby to get the video banned actually had the opposite effect, Toop said.

“It became known as ‘the ad they didn't want you to see’.”


Dairy runoff is contributing to our polluted waterways, Greenpeace says.
 — Photograph: Greenpeace NZ.

Following DairyNZ's complaint, more than a quarter of a million New Zealanders went online and viewed it on Greenpeace's Facebook page.

Greenpeace provided the ASA with a 13 page file of scientific evidence pointing to nitrate and pathogen pollution of the country's waterways as a result of industrial dairying.

Toop said the Government's own figures show 62 percent of New Zealand's monitored rivers are already unsafe for swimming.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has repeatedly drawn a clear link between industrial dairying and water pollution.

“Industrial dairying is being confronted with its own truth, and doesn't like it,” Toop said.

“The decision by the ASA confirms that we have a major problem. Our ever-expanding dairy industry is polluting our waterways with sediment, pathogens and nitrates.”

She said Greenpeace would engage the public in its efforts to stop the construction of big irrigation schemes, even though those have the support of the government.

“These would drain water from iconic rivers and lakes, using it to create even more industrial dairy farms,” Toop said.

“[The industry's] failed complaint has only served to strengthen our resolve.”

• GREENPEACE New Zealand

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • Dr Mike Joy: The heavy price of polluted waterways

 • Government invests another $7.85m in Canterbury irrigation

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/88221016

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from Fairfax NZ....

Dairy industry plans to push herd numbers
to record size — Greenpeace

Farmers told to cough up the truth.

12:09PM - Wednesday, 11 January 2017


The introduction of new irrigation schemes in the South Island will lead to record
dairy cow numbers, says Greenpeace. — Photograph: John Bisset/Fairfax NZ.

GREENPEACE has accused the dairy industry of planning to push cow numbers to record levels.

The environmental group has claimed that DairyNZ was making a “cynical attempt” to distract New Zealanders from this growth.

Cow growth would come from large-scale irrigation schemes planned in Canterbury, Otago, Wairarapa, Northland and Hawkes Bay, Greenpeace campaigner, Genevieve Toop​ said.

“What industrial dairy lobbyists don't want the public to focus on is that they are planning a big increase in the number of dairy cows, already at six and a half million, which will cause more pollution in our lakes and rivers.”

“If these irrigation schemes go ahead there will be tens of thousands more dairy cows which will spell disaster for our lakes and rivers.”

The latest accusation comes after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rejected a complaint by DairyNZ that an ad produced by Greenpeace was misleading. Dairy NZ is now planning to appeal the decision.

“DairyNZ is continuing to deny the obvious — more industrial dairying means more ruined rivers,” Toop said.

DairyNZ's statement on the ASA ruling which pointed out its mitigation programmes of fencing rivers and planting trees missed the point, she said.

“While fencing and planting work is applaudable, too many cows on overstocked farms creates nitrate pollution from cow urine which seeps through the soil into groundwater and then into waterways where it can cause algal growth.”

“If we are going to save our rivers and lakes we need to ditch plans for irrigation schemes, decrease cow numbers and transition to ecological farming, without delay.”

• DairyNZ has been contacted for comment.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • The SPIN: Dairy farmers unfairly cop the blame over water quality

 • ‘Just not good enough’: Summer slow at polluted Canterbury river

 • Our freshwater health crisis — preventive medicine urgently needed

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/88305571

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

DIRTY  DAIRYING  ……  AMERICAN—STYLE…




from The Washington Post....

Deaths of farmworkers in cow manure ponds
put oversight of dairy farms into question

Outdated regulations aren't protecting immigrant laborers
in dangerous working conditions, critics say.

By TIM CRAIG | 6:05PM EDT - Sunday, September 24, 2017


A manure lagoon at a dairy farm in southeast Idaho, where the cows produce 200,000 pounds of manure each day.
 — Photograph: Kyle Green/The Washington Post.

JEROME, IDAHO — Alberto Navarro Munoz had been working on the farm for only two weeks when he encountered one of the most gruesome hazards that a dairy worker can face. His tractor tipped over into a pit of cow manure, submerging the Mexican native under several feet of a “loose thick somewhat liquid-like substance”, according to the police report documenting his death in southern Idaho.

Another immigrant laborer jumped in to try to save Munoz, but told authorities “there was nothing he could do”. Munoz, whose body was later retrieved by the fire department, died of traumatic asphyxiation.

Munoz's death, which occurred in the nearby town of Shelley last September, was one of two fatal accidents last year involving dairymen who either choked or drowned in pits of cow manure. Another laborer from Mexico died last month after he was crushed by a skid loader, used to move feed and manure.

The deaths have rattled Idaho's dairy industry as well as local immigrant communities that do the bulk of the work producing nearly 15 billion pounds of milk annually on the industrial-sized farms in the state's southern prairie. As farms have transitioned from family operations into big businesses involving thousands of cows and massive machinery, new safety concerns have emerged.

Agricultural workers suffer fatal on-the-job injuries at a very high rate — far higher than police officers and more than twice the rate of construction workers in 2015, the last year for which comprehensive records are available.

Farms have become increasingly reliant on immigrant workers, who often have minimal training or experience dealing with dangerous equipment and large animals. That has left farm laborers especially vulnerable to workplace deaths, such as being electrocuted, crushed by tractors, kicked by a heifer or beat up by a bull.

Despite injury rates far exceeding other industries, the agriculture industry receives relatively light federal oversight of worker safety. Regulations established when farms were more likely to be small, family operations haven't kept up with the rapidly consolidating industry. Historically, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has taken a hands-off approach, conducting inspections when there is only a report of a serious accident or fatality.

The agency imposed fines of about $5,000 on the farms involved in the manure pond deaths. Most farms with fewer than 11 employees don't have to report such incidents.

Particularly on dairy farms, where workers care for 1,500-pound animals that together generate more waste in a day than a medium-sized city, this creates an underclass of workers who spend hours hauling excrement but are largely unprotected by labor safety standards.


Cows wait to be milked in the carousel milking parlor of a farm in Caldwell, Idaho. — Photograph: Kyle Green/The Washington Post.

There were 6,700 injuries on dairy farms with more than 11 employees in 2015 — a rate more than double the average for private industries. On those farms, 43 laborers died.

“Workers are extremely worried, and there is a consensus that government is not doing enough, and neither are employers, in ensuring safety precautions,” said Benjamin Reed, who hosts a Spanish call-in radio program aimed at local agricultural workers in Idaho. “Some of these farms are dirty, nasty and full of flies and there are a lot of these manure ponds filled with fecal matter and urine.”

SEEKING SOLUTIONS

In Idaho, dairy industry leaders are rushing to implement new statewide training protocols aimed largely at its Spanish-speaking workforce. About 90 percent of the state's 8,100 dairy farmworkers were born outside the United States. Nationwide, a little more than half of the dairy farms' 150,000 employees are immigrants, according to the National Milk Producers Federation.

“We won't shy away from the fact that those fatalities provided a wake-up call … that we need to be more robust in safety training,” said Rick Naerebout, director of operations for the Idaho Dairymen's Association. “Many employees now didn't grow up in the industry, either in the U.S. or Mexico, so they don't have the same exposure to working with animals or working with machinery that employees had in the past.”

The Idaho Dairymen's Association has budgeted $250,000 to train the state's dairy workforce. The initiative began earlier this month when Westpoint Farms here in Jerome, Idaho, used an iPad to give workers a tutorial in Spanish outlining best practices for working with cows and navigating common hazards on a farm.

Owner Tony Vander Hulst needs 65 employees to make sure his 5,500 Holstein cattle are fed and milked twice a day, so they can keep producing their daily 500,000 pounds of milk — enough to fill six tanker trucks.

But a big chunk of his staff's job is dealing with waste from the animals. Multiple times a day, trucks equipped with suction equipment pass through barns to collect it. Solids are heaped into piles to be dried and used as fertilizer. The liquid remains are diverted into a smelly, 15-acre, 10-foot deep pond.

Farmers refer to these pits as “green lagoons” … and at Vander Hulst's farm, seagulls and cranes were landing on it to feast on the proteins.

The lagoons pose a major danger for employees who must work around them.

At another farm in February 2016, Ruperto Vazquez-Carrera died after he drove a truck into a manure pond at a farm near Twin Falls, Idaho, according to the Jerome County Sheriff's report. Snowmelt had flooded the lagoon, making it difficult for the 37-year-old to distinguish the road from a steep drop off.


The Owyhee Mountains tower over a farm in southeast Idaho. — Photograph: Kyle Green/The Washington Post.

Although they remain relatively rare, similar accidents have been reported from coast to coast. Some involved multiple deaths during failed rescue attempts.

Five people, including four members of a family, also died while working on a manure pit in 2007 in Rockingham County, Virginia. They were overcome by methane gas.

“Drowning usually doesn't come because they can't swim,” said Jessica Culpepper, an attorney at Public Justice, a law firm that advocates for workers and consumers. “Instead, they hit that level where gases are so noxious, it renders them unconscious.”

Indira Trejo, global impact coordinator for the United Farm Workers, said the danger of manure lagoons is just one of numerous threats facing dairy workers in Idaho. She said her organization has received scores of complaints from dairymen who say they are overworked and have limited access to safety training and bathrooms.

“All they want is our work and don't care if we get training or not,” one immigrant dairy worker said through an interpreter. He asked not to be identified because he feared employer retribution.

“We know if you fall into a lagoon, the moment you step in, you disappear,” he said.

FEDERAL OVERSIGHT

In 2012, OSHA launched unannounced inspections and more rigorous reviews of licensed dairy farms in Wisconsin. Two years later, the agency revealed a similar program in New York.

But dairy operators said there has been little difference.

“It's not even on our radar,” said John Holevoet, director of government affairs for Wisconsin's Dairy Business Association. “They were not very frequent, even at their peak, and now it has really fallen off. I don't think there has been a visit in six or nine months.”

When asked how it plans to monitor conditions for farm workers, OSHA responded in a written statement: “OSHA is dedicated to enforcing safety and health laws that apply to agricultural operations, and when a fatality or serious incident occurs, or when OSHA receives a referral or a worker complaint, it will conduct rigorous inspections and take appropriate measures.”


Cows eat corn silage in their pens at an Idaho dairy farm. — Photograph: Kyle Green/The Washington Post.

William E. Field, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University, said farmers are well-reasoned to be skittish about increased government oversight. In recent years, many have felt under siege amid blowback from regulators and consumers over issues such as genetically modified food, pesticide application and nutrient runoff.

“OSHA is almost adversarial to most businesses, so it's not really welcomed,” said Field, who has extensively studied the safety challenges posed by manure pits and grain silos. “It has become so hostile between OSHA leadership and the business world, there is very little room for collaboration.”

Culpepper, the Public Justice attorney who has extensively studied the dairy industry, said OSHA and other federal regulators should treat large diaries as any other industrial, polluting business. She notes a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency study that estimated 2,500 dairy cows generate the same daily waste as a city with 411,000 residents.

“Think how a paint manufacturer or a coal manufacturer is required to deal with their waste,” Culpepper said. “The sooner we start treating dairies as almost like an industrial waste, the safer people will be.”

If oversight were to expand, Idaho dairy farmers and their lobbyists say they'd want to work closely with regulators to limit the financial impact on an industry already battered by fluctuating markets and expensive machinery.

“OSHA would be a brand new thing for them,” said Bob Naerebout, Rick's father and executive director of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. “It's fear of the unknown, which is why we want to get them prepared.”

• Tim Craig is a national correspondent on the America Desk at The Washington Post. He previously served as head of The Post's Afghanistan-Pakistan Bureau, based in Islamabad and Kabul. He’s also reported from Iraq, the District and Baltimore.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/deaths-of-farmworkers-in-cow-manure-ponds-put-oversight-of-dairy-farms-into-question/2017/09/24/da4f1bae-8813-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Yep....just like New Zealand....industrial-scale dirty dairying.

And also just like New Zealand....pay shit wages so local workers don't want to have a bar of it, then scream to the government and get immigrant workers and exploit the crap out of them. Who cares if they die due to shoddy safety standards? After all, they're only SPICS (America) or SLITTY-EYES (New Zealand).

No wonder the cow cockies in New Zealand all vote for the Nats....it's because the Nats facilitate the farmers' “race to the bottom” when it comes to exploiting their workers with crap conditions and paying them crap money, then mouthing off at local workers who won't do farm jobs, even though the reason why local workers won't work on farms is because of exploitation and crap wages from those Nats-voting cockies who are into GREED and nothing else.

Just as it also is in America……

[aDjUsToR]

Mostly agree with that last post.

[aDjUsToR]

Not just farmers though. Since the eighties the race to the bottom of the barrel has gone on in many spheres. Don't worry. We'll all be fucked soon when the 1% run the robots.