Kennington effort pays dividends
Argus Observer
04/02/01
Shannon Filonczuk

Ontario dairy farmers, Clinton Kennington and his father, Hugh Kennington, recently received the "Environmental Stewardship Award."

Awards are fairly routine for some. This one was not. It is the first award of its kind from the Oregon Department of Agriculture to a dairy producer.

The Kenningtons received the award in February during the annual convention of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association in Ontario.

To be considered for the "Environmental Stewardship Award," a dairy has to be in compliance with dairy farm permit, water quality statutes and rules. The dairy farm must also use an approved animal waste management plan and follow a nutrient management plan that includes periodic soil testing, routine manure analysis and irrigation water management.

Clinton Kennington said like the rest of Oregon dairies, he has tried to stay ahead of federal regulations for his dairy farm.

Kennington Dairy was built originally by Hugh Kennington in the 1950s. The dairy was improved in 1980 with new milking facilities.

The Kennington's dairy has about 250 cows, and approximately 140 of them are milked a day. The heifers are milked every morning and every night to produce about 7,000 pounds of milk a day, Kennington said. The milk produced by the dairy goes to the Dairy Gold plant in Caldwell for processing.

"We've worked hard at keeping all the manure we produce on this place, we get the nutrient value and the water stays clean. Stewardship is a good thing."

An example of Clinton Kennington's stewardship efforts includes managing the dairy's animal waste. In past springs, Clinton Kennington noticed the snow on the hills to the south of his farm would start melting and running across his fields. The snow runoff was a concern because it could mix with the fertilizer on the fields and contaminate the surface water if it escaped into the streams.

Clinton Kennington built a dike to contain the water and divert into waste water settling pools. The Kennington Dairy has four waste collecting ponds, one is strictly for safety, to capture any possible overflow. "We absolutely don't want anything to get away," Clinton Kennington said.

Clinton Kennington said that Oregon confined animal feeding operation officials decided that the Kennington Dairy needed three waste collecting ponds to be in zero-discharge permit compliance.

CAFO zero-discharge permit condition went into effect in 1989, ODA said. The permit is laden with many conditions, including no direct discharge or potentially harmful indirect discharge to state waters is permitted, adequate waste storage shall be provided which will be sufficient to store all manure and wastewater during periods when it cannot be safely applied to cropland without contaminating waters of the state and the permittee shall properly manage all parts of the wastewater disposal system.

All the water that is used to wash down the animal feeding areas, stalls and all the water that runs off his fields is collected and diverted to the waste water collecting ponds. In the ponds, solid animal waste is separated from liquid waste through gravity. The liquid waste is sprayed over grass, hay and barley fields for fertilization. The Kennington dairy has 45 acres of pasture to spread the nutrients from the manure on for fertilization.

"Divert the clean and contain the dirty," Clinton Kennington said as a simple way to describe his waste water management plan. "... and, try to have as little dirty water as you can."

The ODA instituted the "Environmental Stewardship Award" after it was approached by the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association that actually approached the ODA to put together an award program as a way to point out good efforts by individual operators, but as an inducement for other dairy farmers to follow suit.

There are more than 500 CAFOs in Oregon and most are dairies, ODA said. ODA has changed its CAFO regulatory focus from a compliance-driven inspection program to annual inspections coupled with a more problem-solving approach to regulation. The result has been that a majority of facilities are now in compliance with state laws, ODA said. In 2000, 293 CAFO facilities were in compliance, ODA said.

"We don't have a perfect system yet, but there is a big level of compliance," Debbie Gorham, administrator of the ODA's Natural Resources Division, said.

Dairy farmers in the course their business operations generate a lot of manure. Gorham said manure can pollute ground water and surface water if it is not properly managed. "All of us are faced with increasing water quality regulations so we can all enjoy the beneficial uses of clean water," Gorham said.

The aim of these stricter regulations, Gorham said is clean drinking water.

Clinton Kennington said he agrees with the reasoning behind the laws.

"I think it's good to keep water clean," Clinton Kennington said.

Clinton Kennington watches over the mix of barley, corn and protein canola pellets going into his feed storage bins