California’s Pixley — In some of the rural country of California, the smell of cow excrement, urine, and ammonia makes people keep their windows and doors closed. To combat the odor and, they claim, ward against air-related illnesses, some people run air purifiers around the house all the time.

Beverly Whitfield stated, “We have a lot of health problems going around in this community and most of them are respiratory problems,” in the middle of dairies in Pixley, a little Tulare County village. She thinks pollution from adjacent dairies is the cause of her allergies, her adult son’s asthma, and the respiratory problems of others.

Among the worst pollutants in the San Joaquin Valley, a top agricultural area in the United States with poor air quality, are existing industrial-scale dairy farms. Now, Whitfield locals fear that methane digesters, which may convert manure into a biofuel cleaner than conventional fuels like gasoline, may make health problems worse. Experts in biofuel claim digesters help lessen air pollution.

Converting Cow Manure To Fuel Is Growing Climate Solution, But Critics Say Communities Put At Risk

California is the leading dairy producer in the nation, with over 1.7 million cows. It also contributes significantly to methane emissions. Cow burps and manure release a strong greenhouse gas that is far more potent than carbon dioxide over a shorter time frame.

Digesters that turn manure and other organic waste into biogas to power cars or generate electricity have increased nationwide in recent years.

The number should increase since waste management techniques like digesters are now qualified for financing under President Joe Biden’s climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Most digesters are found in dairies, which convert methane from cow dung lagoons into biofuel. Commonly, liquid cow manure is kept in a covered digester where bacteria from the digestive systems of the animals make gas. After that, the gas is purified and squeezed into a liquid fuel suitable for use as energy.

Around 120 digesters have appeared in California within the past ten years, and another hundred are planned. However, a device heralded as an affordable means of assisting the state in achieving its methane reduction targets has drawn controversy.

Environmental justice groups demand that California cease offering financial incentives for building digesters because most low-income, Latino neighborhoods are already suffering from pollution from them. According to critics, state laws support industrial dairies and unsustainable animal farming.

According to Rebecca Wolf of the environmental organization Food and Water Watch, the state is rewarding dairy farmers to continue operating huge, already polluting facilities. With this setup in place, she declared, “You’re never going to stop polluting.”

Dairies contend that the financial agenda of the state is crucial. “There has to be some financial incentive there to give up some portion of your land to operate these systems,” said dairyman Brent Wickstrom, whose digester just went online.

Proponents emphasize that the technique effectively slows down climate change. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency, AgSTAR projects that manure-based digesters will have cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2022. That equates to about the yearly greenhouse gas emissions from almost two million passenger cars.

Supporters point out that by substituting cleaner vehicle fuel for fossil fuels like gasoline, biofuel derived from methane lowers pollution.

“This technology lessens odors and some local air pollutants,” said Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas public policy director Sam Wade. The greenhouse gas emissions are lowered concurrently.

The pungent smells and flies bother the locals living close to dairies.

Converting Cow Manure To Fuel Is Growing Climate Solution, But Critics Say Communities Put At Risk

Whitfield, who relocated to Pixley in the 1970s, stated, “You don’t want the doors open because you’re afraid of all the smells.” “The dairies have changed everything now.”

Some dairies believe that manure-covering digester tarps help minimize odor. Merced County dairyman Wickstrom remarked, “If anything, it should be keeping some of that odor in as opposed to making more.”

Studies have linked living close to big dairies to weariness, respiratory issues, burning eyes, and runny noses when odors are strong enough. Digesters can raise ammonia emissions by as much as 81%, according to a 2017 University of Wisconsin study. Fine particulate debris that ammonia can create can enter the circulation and lungs. Heart and respiratory problems have been associated with prolonged particle exposure.

Lead author Michael A. Holly, an associate professor at the Green Bay campus, said, “You want to consider the human health impact even though a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions is great.”

According to California air authorities, the many digester types and weather variables in this state make the Midwest study not always applicable. They also mentioned that research on digester effects on ammonia emissions is now underway.

The California Air Resources Board recently sponsored research indicating that dairy waste emissions from the San Joaquin Valley had minimal effect on levels of fine particulate matter and ozone.

Professor Michael Kleeman of the University of California, Davis, the main study researcher, said, “The air quality implications are essentially minimal, so we can choose whether or not digesters should be adopted based on greenhouse gas emissions. The agriculturally rich areas already have so much extra ammonia that digesters won’t be able to considerably improve the air quality.

74-year-old campaigner and former farmworker Maria Arevalo thinks pollution from dairies close to her Pixley house is the cause of her asthma and sleep apnea. She uses an apparatus to assist her breathing as she sleeps. Her grandchild is eleven, and her son is thirty-four.

She noted that although many families cannot afford air conditioning or open windows to let the breeze in, her neighborhood frequently smells ammonia. These dairies ought not to be located close to towns.

There are more cows than people in her community of approximately 4,000. The non-profit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability estimates Pixley has about 140,000 cows in its 26 dairies. AgSTAR reports that nine have digesters working on farms with thousands of animals.

Converting Cow Manure To Fuel Is Growing Climate Solution, But Critics Say Communities Put At Risk

15 Congressmen have written to the USDA protesting the agency’s decision to allow federal support for large-scale farming operations, such as roofs and coverings for waste disposal facilities.

They claimed that the hundreds of thousands of liters of liquid manure contaminate the nearby towns’ air and water. Digesters merely serve to reinforce this fundamentally unsustainable manure storage system.

According to Eric McAfee, CEO of Aemetis, a business that makes sustainable fuels and biochemicals, because trucks operate on natural gas, biomethane improves city air.

On his 2,900-cow farm, Joey Airoso discovered that odors decreased and nitrogen-rich leftovers could be used as agricultural fertilizer. He said that reduces the amount of nitrogen being applied, which is a major environmental benefit.

Digesters offer advantages, but Colin Murphy of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy added that they don’t cure air pollution or make living close to one any more enjoyable.

Residents in the valley who have complained about respiratory problems and odors claim they have been told to relocate. But many had been residents of tiny, rural communities even before dairies were established, and moving is not often an affordable option.

Where are you planning to relocate to? You can’t afford to relocate, the allergic Pixley resident Whitfield stated.