Judge asked to reconsider dairy rules ruling

After a district court judge denied the state’s Sierra Club chapter’s request that hearings on dairy rules be held in Santa Fe rather than Roswell, the Sierra Club on Wednesday asked the court to reconsider its denial.

On Sept. 25, First Judicial District Judge Jennifer Attrip denied the Sierra Club’s petition, but on Wednesday, the next day, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, representing the Sierra Club, asked the judge in a court filing to reconsider the decision.

At issue is where hearings will be held on technical issues as the dairy industry seeks to soften current groundwater pollution prevention requirements. The Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, the New Mexico chapter says state law requires these hearings to be held in Santa Fe.

The New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission and the state environmental department, however, have continued to insist the hearing be held in Roswell, a center of the state’s dairy industry, to allow people in the area most affected by the dairy industry to offer testimony, the environmental department and dairy industry officials said.

Dairy Producers of New Mexico said that a bipartisan group of 11 legislators from the southern part of the state, led by state Rep. Candy Ezzell, R-Roswell, have urged the Commission to keep the hearings in Roswell. This, they said, respects the need for the rural communities most affected by the rule to actively participate in the proceeding.

The industry employs 4,200 New Mexicans and is focused on the middle or southern part of the state, the dairy producers said in a news release.

The Sierra Club, however, insists that the law requires technical hearings on statewide issues to be held in Santa Fe, with additional meetings for public comment in places most affected by dairies, such as Roswell and southern New Mexico.

“This is what the WQCC has done in the past and what the law requires,” the Sierra Club’s spokesperson Dan Lorimier said. “Holding its only hearing in Roswell is just a way to make things difficult for clean-water advocates and community groups.”

Dairy industry advocates say current rules that require more monitoring wells and stricter standards for settling ponds and use of dairy wastes as fertilizer are excessively costly. Lorimier, however, says the dairy industry can easily absorb the extra costs, and that groundwater needs to be protected from contamination from dairy wastes for public health and safety.