Easterday Dairy in more trouble after dozens of contamination plan violations, says OR
Easterday Dairy is once again in hot water for intentionally over-fertilizing fields at risk of contaminating a protected aquifer.
The investigation found that Cole Easterday was in violation for not following irrigation limitations set out by the Oregon’s previous plan, not properly operating and maintaining their irrigation system and not completing monitoring requirements.
“Like the disastrous Lost Valley Farm before it, Easterday Dairy is a demonstrated threat to public health and the environment — even without a single animal on site,” Tarah Heinzen, legal director for the environmental group, Food and Water Watch, said in a statement.
She criticized Oregon agricultural officials for “once again” issuing a “slap on the wrist when it should have denied the mega-dairy permit once and for all.”
It’s unclear if the Easterdays will be farming the land this summer, as the company recently settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit out of court with the landowner.
Details of that settlement have remained under wraps, and attorneys for both parties have not returned requests for comment.
Ongoing nitrate contamination
Cole Easterday, 26, is the eldest son of Cody Easterday, and took over the dairy operations after his father pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2021.
Eastern Washington rancher and farmer Cody Easterday is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for stealing more than $230 million in what prosecutors dubbed a “ghost cattle” scheme, in which he billed Tyson Foods for care of cattle that did not exist.
He is currently suing Tyson from behind bars to reduce the amount he has been ordered to pay back.
Since taking over the dairy portion, Easterday’s sons have been in trouble with the Oregon Department of Agriculture for ground contamination on a property that is under a strict nitrate remediation plan, and is situated above an important aquifer.
The new contamination issues come after the Easterdays were found to have intentionally over-fertilized the fields and were placed on a corrective plan.
According to the National Institutes for Health, nitrate contamination in groundwater has been linked to increased risk of cancer, thyroid disease and birth defects.
Boiling water does not make nitrate-contaminated water safer to drink, in fact it does the opposite by increasing the nitrate concentrations in the water.
Last year the Easterdays were placed on the correction plan after the state ag officials found they intentionally over-applied more than 800,000 pounds of nitrogren fertilizer across 46 fields during the 2021 growing season.
In some fields where nitrate levels should have been the most restricted, they were found to have applied thousands of times more fertilizer than they should have in 2021, according to data provided by property owner Fall Line Capital in a lawsuit attempting to oust Easterday Dairy from the property.
For example, in one 112-acre field limited to 4 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer per acre, Fall Line says Easterday applied 331 pounds per acre.
That’s nearly 40,000 pounds of fertilizer in a field that should have been limited to less than 500 pounds total, the documents show.
In another with the same limit, they applied 255 pounds per acre. In total, the amount of nitrogen fertilizer used across those 34 fields should not have exceeded 506,000 pounds. According to information in the lawsuit, they applied 1.3 million pounds of nitrogen fertilizer in those fields.
Only a dozen of the 46 fields were within acceptable limits at the time. By January 2022 they had brought the fields to acceptable limits, but were under a strict reporting plan until they could show the fields remained in acceptable range for nine consecutive months.
Under their previous correction plan, they were required to report all discharges within 24 hours and immediately begin to take corrective steps. The new documents show they neglected to do so multiple times in summer 2022.
New fertilizer violations
Oregon state investigators found that in a span of less than three months, from July 7 through Sept. 20 last year the Easterdays failed to properly control nitrate application within the limits required by their nitrate correction plan 36 times across 21 fields.
The investigation began when Easterday Dairy called the state to report irrigation water runoff on July 7. They were given five days to submit a full report, but asked for an extension, filing the report on July 19, which said the runoff started on July 4 and continued through at least July 12.
On Aug. 11, an inspector arrived to follow up, finding two tanks had leaked. One had not been reported. Both leaks were in areas where they had no allowance for use of nutrient application, meaning the leaks were in fields that were barred from being fertilized.
The majority of required self-reports during that time period did not include soil samples, even when reporting over application of fertilizer.
Soil sample results taken by the state during the inspection later revealed that the leaks soaked into non-crop areas that had no allowable fertilizer application.
During a followup inspection on Sept. 12 inspectors found that a leaking liquid nitrogen application system had leaked to the point it had created pooling in a field, resulting in crop death of corn in the area.
The state believe this was the result of a liquid nitrogen metering system pump system that was sending 32% undiluted nitrate solution into a pivot that was not working, which caused a leak, spilling the liquid nitrogen with no irrigation water to dilute it. This “ponding” was not reported to the state.
Oregon response and restrictions
The department is now requiring Easterday Dairy to hire a qualified agronomist to fully test the soil and oversee all future application of nutrients.
They’re also being required to install runoff control in 21 of the fields that were impacted. These improvements will be required to be designed by a qualified engineer and approved by the state.
If Easterday fails to meet these requirements, the state may enforce civil penalties and revoke their permits.
Food and Water Watch, which has been tracking the nitrate contamination issues for several years, is pushing for an even stronger stance.
“The crystal clear track record of pollution at the Lost Valley and Easterday operations points to one thing: Oregon needs to press pause on factory farming. Lax regulation and business as usual are no answer to the pollution this industry brings to our state. Legislators must pass a bill this year that will address the threats posed by both new and existing factory farms in the state,” the group’s legal director said in a statement.
History of dairy’s contamination
A Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFO, permit was suspended during Lost Valley’s 2019 bankruptcy because the water source for the dairy is an aquifer that is at particularly high risk for contamination.
The aquifer was classified as protected in 1976 due to dwindling water levels, according to a 2018 Statesman Journal story.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture has refused to issue Easterday Dairy a permit for an animal feeding operation until the nitrate levels in the groundwater are brought back into compliance and a plan for maintaining safe levels is approved.
That means the company cannot resume dairy operations until then. The most recent violations will have restarted the nine-month reporting period required before their cattle feeding permit would be reconsidered.
In 2019, Cody Easterday launched Easterday Dairy Farms in a bid to resurrect the Lost Valley Farms megadairy in Boardman.
Before they could get operations back up and running though, the Easterdays would need to complete the process of decontamination because of the excessive nitrate levels found on the property caused by manure spills by Lost Valley.
Those restrictions from the Oregon Department of Agriculture meant that no cattle could be on the property until the process was complete and nitrates were shown to be kept at an acceptable level.
The nearly 7,300-acre site was partitioned into two parcels — 736 acres for the dairy and the remaining 6,542 for farm land.
In January 2019, Easterday Dairy entered into a $16 million self-financed agreement to buy the dairy facility portion. Later that year they signed a commercial lease for the farm portion, but did not buy it.
Cody Easterday’s plan was to bring the dairy plant and farm back online with more than 28,000 head of beef and dairy cattle and 5,700 acres of irrigated farmland, according to the proposal submitted to the state of Oregon.
That led to inspections showing they were in violation of nitrate levels monthly from November 2020 through November 2021.
The Department of Agriculture documents show that they were finally able to bring the nitrate levels within acceptable range by December 2021.
In the February 2022 letter, the department ordered Easterday to continue to submit water samples until they can show the nitrate levels are within acceptable range for nine consecutive months.
During that time Easterday and Fall Line became embroiled in lawsuits. Walther Farms took over the larger portion of the property, leaving the Easterdays farming the smaller 736-acre portion.
Easterday Dairy wanted $14 million to quit the property. It’s unclear what their March settlement entailed. Property records show the land has not changed hands at this time.
