Background

The Regional Board adopted the current Dairy Order in 2013. That order was immediately petitioned to the State Board for review. The State Board took up the petition in 2018 and released the first draft of the Remand Order for public comment in October 2024. A second draft followed in June of this year, and the proposed final draft was released on September 4th and adopted on September 15th. This process certainly started slowly and picked up speed to end in a mad dash.

The order was revised to reflect public comments. One of the major changes: the order applies only to Central Valley dairies and does not apply to dairies outside the Central Valley. Also note that this order does not apply directly to dairies — it directs the Central Valley Regional Board on how to revise its own dairy order.

Key Provisions

Despite repeatedly acknowledging that cropland is by far the largest source of dairy nitrate loading to groundwater, the order’s first water quality directive targets lagoons:

• By September 2027: The Regional Board must develop a risk-based framework and begin sending letters to dairies in areas of shallow groundwater, requiring them to either submit a report showing their lagoon does not intersect groundwater, or reconstruct their lagoon. The final adopted version allows the Regional Board to move at a pace in line with its available resources for this work.

• Within 2 years: The Regional Board must direct dairies to more accurately measure nitrogen applications to cropland, such as through flowmeters.

• Ongoing: The State Board will develop new groundwater loading limits for dairies and provide them to the Regional Board for inclusion in its final order. For cropland, this will be implemented through a multi-year land application rate formula, also to be developed by the State Board.

Advocacy

Western United Dairies focused on three key issues:

1.Township averaging of nitrate loading CV-SALTS allows for a 35-year time schedule and averaging of nitrate loading over a township. State Board staff tried to eliminate township averaging and move the point of compliance to under the crop rootzone, within the footprint of the dairy. Board members disagreed with this approach, since it would treat dairies differently than every other industry under CV-SALTS. Staff offered a partial compromise that accounts for groundwater recharge in the area as part of the averaging.

2. Coverage of expanded and new dairies. The order will cover all dairies, including new and expanded operations. It directs the Regional Board to within 150 days, send a notice to dairies to report the number of cows on their dairy as of September 15, 2026. Those dairies, with that number of cows, become “existing” dairies — with the full benefit of the order’s time schedules.

• Dairies that expand between September 15, 2026 and the Regional Board’s adoption of the final order must meet the 1.4 nitrogen land application ratio for the expanded portion of the herd immediately.

• Dairies that expand after the Regional Board adopts its final order must meet all final standards — with no time schedule — before expanding. The management practices and technologies required to meet the final standards are likely things dairies do not have readily accessible today. Existing dairies and those in the first window of expansions have up to 35 years to implement those standards.

We argued that expanded dairies should also receive some benefit of the time schedules; the Board did not accept this argument.

3. The 1.4 nitrogen ratio. The order continues to require the 1.4 nitrogen ratio. We argued this requirement should be temporarily suspended while dairies focus on accurately reporting their ratio and work to reduce it over time. The Board declined, noting the 1.4 ratio has been in effect for nearly 20 years and that dairies should already be complying with it.

What’s Next

The State Board voted unanimously to adopt the order, directing the Regional Board to develop a draft WDR and CEQA document within 3 years and adopt a final order within 5 years.

Dairies should take this as a signal to work now toward achieving a Whole Farm Nitrogen Balance — the requirements in this order will only tighten from here. I will continue to keep our members up to speed as this issue develops. Please reach out to me if you have any questions.