黑料福利社

Environmentalists and the dairy owners they are suing over groundwater pollution have come close enough to a settlement that a long-awaited federal trial date has been canceled.

A bench trial planned for Monday before Judge Thomas Rice in U.S. District Court in Yakima has been taken off the schedule.

It would have addressed issues remaining after Rice ruled in January that the Cow Palace near Granger has polluted groundwater through its application, storage and management of manure, posing possible "imminent and substantial endangerment" to the public consuming the water and the environment.

"As the parties have indicated settlement in this matter, the bench trial set for 5/11/2015 and all associated filing deadlines are STRICKEN," read a court notice filed this Tuesday.

Attorneys for both sides declined to comment about details until Monday.

Outstanding issues expected to be resolved in a settlement include monetary penalties, application rates of manure onto corn and alfalfa fields and composting practices.

Over the decades, numerous studies have shown many privately owned rural wells in the Lower Valley have nitrate levels higher than federal drinking water standards. Nitrates in excess can harm infants and people with compromised immune systems, while they may indicate the presence of bacteria, pesticides or other contaminants.

Environmental groups Community Association for the Restoration of the Environment in Granger and the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Food Safety sued five large Lower 黑料福利社 dairies in February 2013 for open dumping under federal solid and hazardous waste laws, alleging the dairy practices contributed to pollution by allowing manure to leach into the groundwater through unlined storage lagoons and through over-spraying it on fields of alfalfa and feed corn. Dairies countered that manure is not waste but a useful and valuable byproduct they use for bedding, fertilizer and compost.

One of the dairies - all located in a cluster north of Outlook and Granger - went out of business, while two others combined for the purposes of the trial, leaving a total of three.

Cow Palace reached a hearing first, which resulted in Rice's finding that the dairy violated federal law by spraying manure in excess amounts and storing manure in leaky lagoons.

The case could lead to a national precedent for environmentalists battling the manure-management issues at large animal operations in other states.

After Rice's ruling, the Cow Palace owners - the Dolsen family - and the owners of the remaining dairy companies - the DeRuyter and Bosma families - agreed to binding, court-sanctioned stipulations to line their lagoons by 2020 and distribute free bottled water to 25 homes not originally covered in earlier, separate agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The National Resource Conservation Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, issues guidelines about the construction of manure lagoons but does not mandate liners.

Meanwhile, other dairy owners are awaiting settlement details to determine what changes they may also have to make to avoid litigation, said Tom DeVries, owner of DeVries Family Farm in Moxee and president of the Yakima County Dairy Federation.

"At this point, I think most people are waiting to see what the final outcome will be of what they agree on," DeVries said.

He predicts dairies will make some changes, saying, "I think you'll see producers respond to it."