BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A local farm advocacy group is applauding a recent court decision allowing a case against the EPA to move ahead.
The Washington State Dairy Federation sued in February saying EPA failed to follow proper procedures when it issued a 2012-2013 report blaming dairy farmers in the Yakima Valley for groundwater contamination.
Save Family Farming executive director Gerald Baron says the report falsified science.
The group says Freedom of Information Act requests show that enforcement staff drastically rewrote the final report:
The Capital Press reports the EPA’s motion to dismiss the suit was denied, with the Ninth Circuit Court expected to hear the case in October.
The report identified manure from a cluster of Yakima County dairies as the likely source of unhealthy levels of nitrates in nearby wells.