Texas Dairy Review

A warning is in order for Bosque River dairies concerning the recent action by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to recently reject two Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) permit applications. The Howle Dairy, owned by J.M. Howle, and the Parks Dairy, owned by Jack Parks, were seeking permit renewals to continue their CAFOs. However, the rejection by the TCEQ will force both dairies to scale their herds below the CAFO limit to 200 head.

This action by the TCEQ is critical to all CAFOs in the North Bosque River watershed.

The Parks Dairy is permitted for 700 head, currently milking 250 plus. The Howle Dairy is permitted for 940 cows, currently milking about 230. Both dairies have downsized considerably in recent months.
Parks said he was dumbfounded when he learned his permit was rejected. However, he made it clear that he does not blame the TCEQ or Waco.

‘‘Not this time,’’ Parks said. ‘‘This time, it was my consultant’s fault. He dropped the ball. He’s had health problems and I guess he was unable to oversee what was going on with my permit.’’

Parks said he had received letters from the TCEQ but was told by his consultant that everything was being taken care of. ‘‘But, I knew I was in trouble the day one of the consultants showed up and started taking pictures of my monitoring well, which should have been done a month before.’’

Parks said the rejection for his permit stated technical problems with his application and inaccurate or insufficient information. ‘‘I had called the TCEQ and talked to them. I had gotten two warning letters and I was very concerned. They told me to get onto my consultant about it. I can honestly say, the TCEQ made every effort to get my permit in. But, even though it was filed, the paperwork was not on time and it was too late. Now, I’ll have to file a new application and start over from scratch.’’

Parks said he has spent a lot of money to make all the environmental improvements and now it will cost a lot more. ‘‘But, I won’t lose my dairy. I’ve invested too much time and money to let that happen. I’ll do everything I can do to keep it. But, reducing the herd to 200 will cause some people to go out of business and it will definitely affect the milk market from this area.’’

Parks has been in the dairy business most of his life. He and his brothers, James Mack and Harold Wayne, started out together but split up to own separate dairies in the 70s. Parks has been at the current Lingleville location since 1976.

Parks is regarded as a distinguished member of the dairy industry having been on several boards and involved in various dairy affairs. His contribution to the industry includes board member of the former AMPI board of directors for 22 years; board member of First Financial Bank in Stephenville for 12 years; board member of Cobank board in Denver, Co. for 14 years.

For the past three years, Waco has heavily criticized the TCEQ for the backlog of Bosque River dairy applications. However, North Bosque River dairies have been stymied in their efforts to obtain wastewater permit renewals by protests from the City of Waco and Sierra Club. When a permit comes up for renewal and is only hours from reaching final approval, either the city or the Sierra Club has successfully been able to halt permit approvals by filing contested case hearings or public meetings that delay the entire permitting process.

Because of this purposeful action by Waco, dairies have not been allowed to obtain their permit renewals and therefore, cannot operate under the 2004 TCEQ rules that Waco had a very large part in writing. It is questionable why Waco continues to defeat its own purpose in requiring stricter environmental regulations in TCEQ rules for dairies yet won’t allow accurate permits to be approved.

This continuing ying-yang situation conducted by Waco and the Sierra Club has been the biggest issue dairies have faced up until now.

It is suspected that pressure from Waco has forced the TCEQ into this most recent action that points to more dairy application rejections.

Jim Bradbury, attorney for Parks, said Waco is applauding the TCEQ for taking such aggressive steps. Bradbury said its been brought to his attention that there could be as many as 13 to 15 more dairies in trouble because of insufficient applications.

‘‘Dairies need to realize the importance of having a top-notch, top-flight consultant to handle their applications,’’ he said. ‘‘Waco is watching every move the dairies make and they’re ready to pounce at every opportunity.’’

Bradbury contends that the permit rejections and other actions is ‘‘clearly an assault on the dairy industry.’’ Bradbury said nevermind all the business about environmental concerns by Waco. ‘‘They just want the dairies out of business and they’re going to target every one of them.’’

Bosque dairies report to state officials on lagoon storage capacity

Rain, rain, rain. It’s been a long time since anyone in north central Texas has seen quite so much. The recent rainfall has greened up the landscape and blessed area crops which are normally beginning to wither and dry as the hot July and August heat sets in. But, not this year. Although the moisture is deeply appreciated, farmers for once are beginning to say ‘‘enough is enough.’’

Erath County has gotten its share of rainfall with a record 10.52 average for the month of June. The rain has brought treacherous storms, rising rivers and lakes in other places causing severe flooding and evacuation of some homes along hard hit areas of the Brazos River in neighboring Parker County.

So far, Bosque River CAFOS have handled the tedious rainfall event adequately, according to John Cowan, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen (TAD) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

Cowan said the dairies, still operating under the old TCEQ rules, have been notifying the state officials about their lagoon storage as required in a 25-year, 24-hour rainfall event. Because of not being permitted yet to operate under the new TCEQ rules, dairies cannot exercise the 25-year, 10-day rainfall capacity for lagoon storage.

Dr. Tamilee Nennich of the Texas A&M Research and Experiment Station in Stephenville pointed out that CAFO permits are designed to allow for discharges in periods of catastrophic or chronic rainfall events.

‘‘Dairymen should check with their local TCEQ office before they dewater their lagoons for confirmation that they are in a chronic rainfall situation and that they are allowed to irrigate on saturated fields to keep their lagoons from running over.’’

She said rainfall records are the best way to prove the dates and amount of rainfall a specific operation has received. In addition, dairymen should record lagoon marker levels on a weekly basis and whenever more than 1 inch of rainfall is received if he has a general permit.

Saying goodbye to dairy offers heifer-raising service to others

The morning they came to take the cows away is something that Donald Parrish of Evant, Texas, will not soon forget. He vividly remembers the somber mood that enshrouded him and his entire family as they sadly stood by and watched as the last cow loaded and the lights of the trailer faded.

The Parrish family had spent a lifetime building a dairy business of which they were grateful and proud. ‘‘Of course, it was my decision to sell out,’’ Parrish said. ‘‘But, I had held on as long as I could, and just couldn’t do it anymore. I miss it,’’ he added, still visibly ruffled by the disquieting ordeal.

Oftentimes making a decision to let go of one thing forces a person to consider other endeavors. For Parrish, an alternate plan had already begun to form. While struggling to keep his dairy, he had discovered a need in the beef industry for a heifer-raising program. Having owned his dairy for 35 years, his knowledge and expertise with cows proved fruitful for the crossover into handling young beef cattle and he began to quietly build a second line of business while still operating his dairy.

But, the dairy business had always been Parrish’s first love. So, in order to stay connected to it and to be a part of something he literally could appreciate, Parrish recently began a dairy heifer-raising program named PX Feeders, LLC. He said he is raising replacement heifers for dairymen who don’t have the time to raise their own cows or the space to handle an overflow. ‘‘We take heifers that are 300 pounds and above and dry cows, too. We feed and graze them on about 4,000 acres of good pastureland,’’ Parrish said.

Realizing the needs of dairymen, he feels his new service will be valuable to dairymen throughout the central Texas area.

Parrish took a few minutes to reflect on his life as a dairyman. ‘‘The reasons I got out?----it all boiled down to the tougher and stricter regulations by the state and federal governments and the inevitable and mounting expenses for improvements.’’ Parrish said he also grew very weary of the continuing battle by the City of Waco and the TCEQ over permitting issues. In addition, an unstable milk market helped to further dash any hopes of a thriving future. These major concerns were critical to his pulling out.

‘‘When they loaded the cows, my dad and I sat down and cried like babies. It was like my heart had been ripped out. It was a way of life I had always known but it was the best thing to do and I had to finally give it up.’’

Donald and his two brothers, Bryan and Rodney, had grown up in the dairy business working for their father, B.K. Parrish, who began a dairy operation in 1952. The three Parrish brothers followed closely in their father’s footsteps, each owning their own separate dairy for more than two decades making a total of four working Parrish dairies in the small community of Evant.

But as the years passed and dairy regulations and a fluctuating milk market became tougher, Donald watched his father sell out in 1992, followed by his brothers Bryan and Rodney, who also sold out by the year 2000.

Donald said by 2005, he had exhausted all other options for retaining his dairy. ‘‘I loved the dairy business. Still do. But, I had to give it up.’’

Donald and his wife, Dionitia, brought their children up in the dairy business, assuming that the dairy would always be there. Their son, John, and daughter, Gayla, were both seriously involved in helping their father run the operation.

Parrish said he began to downsize his herd from a 990 cow permit about five years before selling out. ‘‘We downsized, trying to hold on to what we considered our life’s work.’’ But, when those efforts became futile, it was time to turn to an alternative work style.

‘‘I remember how still it was that day after the cows were gone. It was so quiet. I purposely sold every piece of equipment I had so that I wouldn’t be tempted to go back into the business. I always heard that once you get milk in your veins, you just can’t get it out.’’

Parrish said for many years the dairy business was good to him. He said if it hadn’t been for its success, he couldn’t be doing what he’s doing today. But, with the turn of the century, changes became too much of a battle and it was time to say goodbye.

‘‘You know, in the 1970s, we milked cows. In the 1980s, we were dairymen. In the 1990s, we became agribusinessmen. I’m just not sure I made the trip.’’

"Just say cheese" may not mean exactly what you think

‘‘Just say cheese’’ does not necessarily mean posing for a picture or running out in a craved moment to buy a block of cheddar.

In today’s underworld of drug dealers and teens who seem to be buying and sometimes even dying from it, ‘‘cheese’’ is a heorine-based recreational drug that surfaced in the US in 2005 and was brought to the public’s attention when a string of deaths occurred among adolescents in Dallas, Texas, and the surrounding areas.

‘‘Cheese’’ is formed by combining heroin with crushed tablets of certain over-the-counter cold medication, such as, Tylenol PM, that contains acetaminophen---the active ingredient in Tylenol, and the antihistamine diphenhydramine---the active ingedient in Benadryl.

Depending on the percentage of heroin purity level, ‘‘cheese’’ may contain enough at 8% to start an addiciton in users of the powder that is snorted instead of injected.

Whereas once the phrase, ‘‘Do you know where your children are?’’ was a popular slogan in the 1980s on Dallas’ Channel 8 news at 10 PM, now it appears the slogan should say, ‘‘Do you know what your children are doing?’’

The ‘‘cheese’’ drug, referred to by law enforcement agencies and the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) as ‘‘starter heroine,’’ made headlines when it surfaced in some Dallas middle and high schools that reported incidents involving student ‘‘cheese’’ users.

Although the drug has a ‘‘cutsy’’ name and kids may not realize the dangers involved, authorities warn that it is addictive and could result in death.

Drug dealers coined the name ‘‘cheese,’’ prior to the marketing of the drug, when referring to a $10 bag of cocaine and a $5 bag of marijuana as ‘‘macaroni and cheese.’’

In April, 2007, The Dallas Morning News published an autopsy report for the period between 2005 and 2007 in conjunction with the Dallas County medical examiner’s office that suggested 17 adolescent deaths county-wide during that period were attibuted to ‘‘cheese’’ heroine.

A toxologist at the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas said the large doses of Tylenol PM in the cheese mixture can cause liver failure, among other problems. The hospital reports several teens coming to them for help with at least two admitted to intensive care.

A DISD police officer, Jeremy Liebbe, said since September 2005, about 200 criminal cases invoving students caught with ‘‘cheese’’ from Dallas area schools have been filed. So far in 2007, 113 students have been arrested for possessing the drug.

Hispanic teenagers are the demographic group most frequently charged with possession of the drug.
The youngest student caught with the drug so far is an 11-year-old in elementary school. Dallas police narcotics division, however, report children as young as nine years of age have tried ‘‘cheese.’’

Some Dallas-area treatment centers report the age group of those admitted to their programs has shifted from a typical clinentele of 15 to 17-year-olds to younger children, ages 11 to 13.

While the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported in 2006 the usage of ‘‘cheese’’ was not increasing, the Phoenix Academy of Dallas, a treatment center, reported the opposite, claiming the usage of ‘‘cheese’’ is rising.

A 14-year old girl in treatment at the academy explained water is added to the heroin, often called ‘‘monkey juice,’’ and is mixed with Tylenol PM tablets. The makers of the drug heat the mixture to remove excess water to produce the final product.

The price of ‘‘cheese’’ varies but is relatively inexpensive with one tenth of a gram, called one ‘‘hit,’’ priced at $2, and one quarter gram costing $5.

Although the drug is cheap to buy, authorities warn the price of a life cannot be calculated. The drug can be addictive and dangerous to all those who participate in its use.

Realizing the threat posed by ‘‘cheese’’ the DISD, law enforcement agencies, and parents are working together to curtail the growing problem.

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Stet Corp. announces natural insecticide to destroy fierce fire ants

With its miles and miles of open grassland and pastures, Texas unquestionably has an extremely large concentration of red imported fire ants. For more than thirteen years, Wm. Dean Holz has been preparing for the eradication of these destructive pests. Recently, Holz officially announced the launch of Stet Corporation, a Texas-based developer, manufacturer and distributor of WisEarth(tm) branded insecticides and soil products. The company’s flagship product, True Stop(tm) Fire Ant Killer, an environmentally-friendly natural insecticide for residential, commercial, and agricultural uses, kills red imported fire ants---the entire mound.

The True Stop(tm) formula was originally developed by Holz in 1991 while working with fertilization and bio remediation. The Stet Corp. process manages dairy and feedyard waste materials by converting the highest quality liquid compost into stable, consistent concentrates. In its new manufacturing facility in Belton, Texas, The company stabilizes and preserves the nutrients found in the raw material to create all-natural, biodegradable and safe products.

‘‘Until now, the red imported fire ants had virtually no natural biological control agents in the United States,’’ Holz said. ‘‘Not only are we working to help rid the United States of this dreaded and sometimes deadly nuisance, but we are offering a solution to dairy farmers in the disposal of waste product.

‘‘We’ve developed a fire ant killer like no other," he added. "Once a mound is treated with True Stop(tm) Fire Ant Killer, ants become non-aggressive and within 24 hours, it’s possible to witness dead ants being removed from the mound, including the winged reproductive queens and the males. Additionally, there is no environmental damage with the use of WisEarth(tm) products,’’ he said.

Stet Corp. has partnered with dairyman Arjen Geijsel, owner of Wilhelmus Dairy, a 1,000-head dairy located in Hico, Texas. Geijsel is an adviser to the company on dairy-related business issues, especially items related to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Congressman John R. Carter givea Stet Corp. his full support. ‘‘Regulation of dairy waste continues to be one of the most controversial issues affecting dairy farmers today. Stet Corp. has devised a way to remove manure from the dairy farms in an environmentally sound and cost effective manner, creating best practices for reducing the potential for pollution from their farming operations. I am thrilled that we were able to assist Holz in getting approval from the EPA for Stet Corp so they can continue their important work.’’

Stet Corp. is currently working with several Texas-based distributors and was recently approved to distribute in many other states as well. The corporation is also working on partnerships in Peru and Africa.
Stet Corp. continues to develop additional innovative and environment-friendly products to add to its WisEarth(tm) line. Stet Corp. plans to release its WisEarth(tm) Liquid Compost and Root Stimulator in July.

Marketed under the WisEarth(tm) brand name, Stet Corp produces WisEarth(tm) soil products and True Stop insecticide products. The base ingredient for the WisEarth(tm) line is a by-product of dairy cows and their associated waste manure. WisEarth(tm) has two different products. Depending on their application they can be processed to ensure they are deodorized and/or odor free.

For additional information, visit www.wisearth.com.

Company introduces new concept in animal nutrition

AqTrition USA, LLC, located in Springfield, Illinois, is introducing a new concept in Animal Nutrition. In the US, the product is a new form of trace mineral and vitamin supplementation for cattle, hog and poultry industries.

‘‘The product was developed in The Netherlands and has been successfully applied across Europe for the last ten years with excellent results,’’ said Jim Timberlake, company co-owner.

‘‘AqTrition is the result of a patented reaction process, whereby trace minerals are bound to organic acids, enabling the elements to become completely water soluble. These water soluble trace minerals are then delivered to livestock through the drinking water via computer-controlled metering pumps, or they can be mixed with liquid feed supplements and incorporated into the total mixed ration.

‘‘The result of the product is that trace minerals and vitamins are more bio-available to the animal,’’ he said.

Timberlake pointed out traditional dry mineral sources provided through the diet are generally poorly absorbed in the intestine due to degradation by rumen microbes or interference from other antagonistic minerals (i.e. excess iron, sulfur or molybdenum bind copper.) However, research shows that 40 to 80% of the water cattle drink bypasses the rumen. Supplementing micro-nutrients (minerals and vitamins) through drinking water improves nutrient utilization by delivering the nutrients post-ruminally, ultimately increasing animal performance, efficiency and overall health.

‘‘With improved bio-availability and accurately controlled dosing into the drinking water, AqTrition can have a significant economic advantage over conventional dry minerals and vitamins,’’ he said.

On-farm trials demonstrate the product’s liquid trace minerals and vitamins are more bio-available than dry minerals--inorganic and organic sources---supplemented in the ration.

‘‘We have seen significant increases in blood serum concentrations of trace minerals and vitamins in dairy cows switched to our liquid micro-nutrient products’’ said company co-owner Pat Collins.

‘‘By drawing blood samples on cows while still on a dry mineral and vitamin program, and then again after changing to our liquid products in the drinking water for a brief period, we are able to document the substantial increase in absorption of these trace elements.’’

Collins said dairy producers utilizing the liquid trace minerals and vitamins have seen dramatic improvements in the overall health and immune systems of their cows. This includes lower somatic cell counts and cull rates.

Timberlake adds that other improvements observed on farms following changing from dry minerals in the ration to AqTrition in the drinking water include improved heat detection rates, improved response time to medication treatments, reduced incidence of cystic ovaries, and a reduction in the occurrence of ketosis on those farms utilizing our XP-B4 product (trace minerals with choline chloride).

‘‘Since the absorption efficiency of minerals and vitamins provided through the drinking water are more available to the animal, substantially lower concentrations of these trace elements can be supplemented, which not only decreases ration cost, but also decreases excretion of minerals into the environment," Timberlake said. In ruminant applications, for the portion of AqTrition that enters the rumen, the acidity of the blends (pH 2 to 4) enables the product to be stable in the rumen. Since the product’s trace minerals are organically bound to an acid, excess rumen concentrations of other antagonistic minerals will not ‘tie-up’ the product’s trace minerals and render them unavailable in the small intestine.’’

DairyFest hosts 1st Annual “Milktown Trot” in conjunction with other dairy events

DairyFest 2007 was a great success. This year TriCounty Agribusiness held its first annual fun run ‘‘The Milktown Trot,’’ in conjunction with DairyFest events. Despite an early morning rain, 26 participants ranged in all age groups.

First place medals were given out as well as participation ribbons. The rain stopped just in time for the kick off of the afternoon fun, keeping the temperatures down for a cool, and enjoyable day.

More than three-thousand people made their way through the crowds again this year to enjoy the dairy-related food, free games, musical entertainment and over 30 vendor booths.

1521 C Lingleville Road, Stephenville, Texas 76401
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Sherry Webb, Publisher