Dairy Digester | Tulare County Lobbies To Save Dairy Digester Funds

A local supervisor is lobbying the state to continue its funding for dairy digesters, which help reduce greenhouse gasses while creating a renewable fuel; but critics claim they contribute to the use of fossil fuels polluting nearby communities.

Environmental groups push to end the state’s funding of projects, which capture methane gas before it reaches the atmosphere and convert it into a renewable fuel

TULARE COUNTY – A local supervisor is lobbying the state to continue its funding for dairy digesters, which help reduce greenhouse gasses while creating a renewable fuel; but critics claim they contribute to the use of fossil fuels polluting nearby communities.

Tulare area Supervisor Pete Vander Poel traveled to Sacramento earlier this month to lobby the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to continue funding for dairy digester projects, especially in Tulare County, the nation’s top milk-producing county.

Cow manure is filled with methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas with a global warming impact estimated at more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide over 20 years. California law requires dairy and livestock operations to reduce methane emissions by 40% of 2013 levels by 2030.

Vander Poel says an annual survey in Tulare County measures how dairy digesters and other measures are cutting emissions – proof enough that the state funding effort underway since 2014 is making progress. Vander Poel hails from a dairy family and is well aware of the benefit the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) offers to help dairies afford to install these systems, allowing them to continue producing milk even as the air is cleaner and greenhouse gasses decline.

Not everyone is a fan of the state program, however. CARB has been criticized by some anti-dairy advocates and may vote to do an early phase out of the program despite its success. Sam Wade, director of public policy at the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas, believes the program is working but that has not “stopped a small but passionate band of anti-dairy interest groups from pushing CARB to end (avoided) methane crediting immediately in 2024.”

Environmental justice groups argue that funding incentives to convert manure to biogas is incentivizing dairies to add more cows which would drive up emissions. Some critics promote vegan milk as an alternative. Organizations such as Fresno-based Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, an advocacy group for small, rural communities, has called for the state to eliminate all incentive funding for the development or use of “factory farm gas,” its name for the biogas generated by dairy digesters.

“The production of and reliance on factory farm gas pollutes communities and, thus, it must not be funded or receive favorable treatment as a low-carbon fuel or a clean fuel,” the organization said in a May statement on the Governor’s 2023-24 budget.

The company cites Pixley as a prime example. The 5,000 residents of the unincorporated community south of Tulare “complain of breathing complications, nosebleeds and headaches, and constant smell of manure due to the dairy industry.” The Leadership Counsel says Pixley is home to 26 dairies, at least nine of which have digesters. Six dairies have expanded their herds since 2011, four by more than 10%, bringing the total headcount to 140,000 cows in and around the community.

To date, state programs through CDFA, California Public Utility Commission and California Energy Commission, have subsidized the dairy digesters and biogas infrastructure in Pixley with more than $20 million in cash subsidies in addition to revenues generated through the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Seven dairies in Pixley participate in the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program, which encourages the use of renewable biofuels instead of traditional fossil fuels.

Leadership Counsel claimed these are contributing factors to the impoverished community being in the 96th percentile in the state for pollution burden, 94th percentile for particulate matter and over 80th percentile for both ozone exposure and pesticides.

A MODEL FOR THE INDUSTRY

An annual report for Tulare County tells a different story as dairy herd is down and so are emissions. Since 2013, the number of mature dairy cows in the county has declined from 543,431 to 483,742 as of 2021, a drop of more than 60,000 cows, according to the report. The count of young dairy heifers is up by about 30,000 animals for an overall decline of 30,000 dairy animals in the number one milk producing county in the world. The numbers are tracked in an annual report Tulare County is required to complete by March 1 of each year as part of its settlement with the Sierra Club in a lawsuit over methane emissions.

Across California the number of milk cows have dropped from 1.8 million in 2014 to 1.72 million in 2021, says USDA. As for greenhouse gasses, the program-in place since 2014 has already reached about 56% of the goal toward its 2030 numbers. Vander Poel told CARB Tulare County’s efforts are “a model for the rest of the nation.”

The county has seen construction of about 40 digesters with 12 more in the works where harmful methane is turned into a positive resource. The machines work like giant stomachs, where bacteria break down manure and the byproduct is a natural gas which can be used to fuel farm vehicles, homes and transportation fleets. They also help reduce emissions by capturing them before reaching the atmosphere. The latest report in 2021 stated Tulare County dairies and feedlots produced an estimated 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e) GHG emissions, 19% less than the 2013 baseline year emissions and 3% less than the 2020 emissions.

The industry’s voluntary emission reduction projects in Tulare County included 70 solar panel projects, 11 solar thermal hot water systems, 38 digester projects and eight Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP) projects in 2021. The net result was 592,131 metric tons of CO2e reductions in 2021, 56% of the annual emission reductions needed to achieve the Dairy and Feedlot Climate Action Plan (Dairy CAP) target by the end of this year. To meet the target, local dairies and feedlots will need to reduce emissions by an additional 457,869 metric tons before 2024.

At the time of this study, the known additional projects scheduled for post-2021 start-up would provide further reductions of up to 418,796 metric tons of CO2e per year when operational. This leaves only 39,073 metric tons per year of emission reductions needed from yet-to-be identified projects.

CDFA has awarded $78 million for digesters at 50 dairies in Tulare County. Once these digesters have been operating for 10 years, the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reductions will total nearly 8.5 million MTCO2e.

EPA SUPPORT

“Make no mistake: there is overwhelming research demonstrating that avoiding, capturing and utilizing manure methane at California dairy farms offers significant environmental benefits,” Wade said. “That’s why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has supported anaerobic digesters at dairies for almost 30 years.”

Wade said independent researchers at UC Davis have recently demonstrated California dairy farmers are on their way to hit the state’s long-term methane reduction goals primarily due to widespread adoption of digesters. Outside of California, Cornell University, among many others, has highlighted the win-win-win climate, economic and community benefits offered by dairy digesters.

One company, Maas Energy, which has built a number of the area’s digesters, argues for the need to manage manure. In addition to preventing methane from leaking into the atmosphere, the company notes that the naturally-occurring bacteria to break down the organic matter creates biogas, an energy rich fuel. Some is turned into renewable transportation fuel as well and is injected in the SoCal Gas pipelines.

“Manure is a resource. For years, dairy farmers have been collecting cow manure, storing it, and using it as a renewable fertilizer. The biogas fuels electrical generators that supply power to the grid, or supply onsite needs,” the Mass Energy company said via statement.

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