Dairy Industry

The 90-degree heat shimmers off the blacktop as Mark McLenithan dons a ski parka, gloves and goggles to go to work. McLenithan is plant manager for what today becomes the nation's largest ice cream factory, and he must be able to weather the minus-40 temperature of the "blast freezer" and the comparatively balmy minus-20 five-story warehouse. Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Holdings Inc.

Southern California's dairy industry is stuck in the mud. Torrents of rain this month have soaked into piles of manure, leaving about 300,000 dairy cows, calves and other cattle in the Chino Valley mired in so much muck that exhausted and sick animals are dying at three times the normal rate, an industry trade group says. The waterlogged mess "acts like a giant sponge and expands," said Nathan de Boom, assistant manager of the Milk Producers Council in Chino.

For decades, as his own industry struggled, seventh-generation dairy farmer Clark Hinsdale II watched visitors flock to the nearby Shelburne Museum to admire its vast American art collection. Hinsdale also was envious as travelers converged on the Vermont Teddy Bear Co. to create cuddly, customized stuffed animals, and crowded the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory to taste the latest flavors.

Citing harmful effects on air and water, a state agency voted Tuesday to impose a 90-day moratorium on awarding low-interest loans to California dairies. State Treasurer Phil Angelides, who heads the Pollution Control Financing Authority, said his agency erred in loaning nearly $66 million in anti-pollution bond money to a score of giant dairies that have helped turn the San Joaquin Valley into the nation's most polluted air basin.

Over the last four years, nearly $70 million in state bond money designated for pollution control has financed a score of giant dairies that have helped turn the San Joaquin Valley into the nation's most polluted air basin.

Alongside Interstate 80, a sign for the Milk Farm restaurant stands as a landmark for when this Sacramento Valley community was known as Dairy City and diners guzzled all-you-can-drink milk for a dime. But those days are long gone since the cafe closed, and some of the dairies that gave the city its distinction have dried up.

Kern County officials are considering a freeze on new dairies after receiving proposals that would bring 20 dairies and a calf feedlot to the county -- a total of about 150,000 cows. County supervisors will meet Tuesday to discuss the ban on new projects. Even if no new dairies are allowed beyond those already proposed, the county's herd is expected to more than double, officials said.

A federal judge will begin fining five Chino dairies $500 a day if they don't implement a pilot project to reduce air and water pollution from foul-smelling open wastewater lagoons within two weeks. But a dairy representative said they are already at work designing a state-of-the-art wastewater lagoon, and accused environmental groups that sued the dairies of "just trying to make the headlines." U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A.

Southern California air quality officials, whose regulatory efforts already cover smoke stacks, paint and hamburger stands, have taken on a new challenge -- cow manure. About 250,000 dairy cattle are packed onto farms in the Chino area. The dairy lands that straddle the Riverside-San Bernardino line generate millions upon millions of pounds of manure annually, much of it stored in towering, open-air piles.

A Marin County dairy has become the latest California farm to generate electricity from cow manure, thanks in part to government programs that grew out of the state's energy crisis three years ago. The Straus Family Creamery's $280,000 methane digester, unveiled this week, converts manure from its herd of 270 cows into electricity that helps power the farm and creamery.