(UPDATE: Above, a photo by NCJ’s Bb Doran from the protest today — more an info-swap sesh.)
Neighbors of Cypress Grove Chevre, on 1330 Q Street in Arcata, say they’ll be descending upon the world-famous goat-cheese operation this afternoon at 3, pitchforks loaded. OK, they didn’t say anything about pitchforks. But they’re mad. Or confused. Concerned, shall we say, in only the way righteous Arcatans can be.
Word of the protest went up yesterday on a Facebook site created by Lee Sobo called “Stop the Industrial Dairy in Arcata.” A paid advertisement announced the site on Facebook. The site alleges that Cypress Grove is buying land nearby and “that there will be 1200-1400 goats, a concrete-floored barn and processing facility, and manure will be liquified and sprayed on fields around us.”
Subsequent posts lay out more concerns: What about goat flu? Traffic from feed trucks? The smell? The noise? Escrow on the land, they’d heard, was supposed to close June 8 — when were they planning to let the neighbors know? We want an EIR!
One lone voice, that of Sara Mosser, urges everyone to slow down and get the facts “before getting overly emotional.”
But it seems folks out there believe the inevitable is coming to pass: Homegrown little Cypress Grove Chevre, founded in 1983 by Mary Keehn and sold last August to Swiss milk processing giant Emmi Holding (USA) Inc., is becoming a corporate monster.
But that is not the case, says Bob McCall, Cypress Grove sales and marketing manager, who answered the phone when we called him earlier today.
Yes, they are looking at buying 23 acres across the street from the current Cypress Grover operation, and yes, it is in escrow — but it is not a done deal and definitely not happening by this Wednesday. McCall said some of the stuff folks were saying about Cypress Grove’s plans weren’t accurate. It will not, for instance, be an industrial feedlot, he said. It will be a goat dairy. Yes, they would build a big barn and put 1,200 to 1,400 goats in it — the equivalent of 150 cows, he noted; about three acres total would have buildings. Yes, they would feed the goats the solid types of food goats prefer, but the goats would be free to roam, to come and go from barn to pasture where there’d be grass and bushes to nibble. And the manure?
“We won’t liquify goat poop and spray it on the fields,” McCall said. “We will have large bins to compost manure in.”
The big barn and the manure composting process — layering fresh hay every day onto the manure the goats sleep and walk on, periodically shoveling that mixture into covered, leak-proof bins to compost some more — will be modeled after goat farms that Keehn saw in Holland. “This will be the most sanitary goat dairy probably in the United States, because we’ll be able to control all of the elements,” he said. “They’ll be fed very well — solid food, grains, alfalfa and woody things. We’ll mechanically milk them, like every other dairy in Humboldt County does [including some they buy milk from now].”
He said there would be some additional traffic at Q and 17th streets. And it will be smelly, but only about three to five times a year when the barn’s cleaned out; otherwise, he didn’t anticipate it would smell.
He also said that the company has all along been planning to share its plans with the neighborhood — once it has its ducks in a row. But, he added, the company is not required to get any land-use permits under the right-to-farm act.
Cypress Grove Chevre currently gets goat milk from about seven local families, said McCall. “We buy every drop of commercially available goat milk in the county.” He said that’s often not nearly enough milk to meet their demand, so they also buy goat milk from outside sources. He declined to specify how much or where from, however. “That’s something our competitors would love to know!”
The company will continue to buy all the local goat milk it can; the new goat farm won’t replace those sources. It will be an expansion to meet the ever-increasing demand for CG’s cheese.
“We are starved for milk,” he said. “It’s been double-digit growth — steady, for years. The popularity of small-batch, hand-crafted, artisan cheese has exploded in the United States, and we’re lucky to be at the forefront of that. The [purchase by Emmi] did not affect that popularity. But it did allow us the money to consider having our own goats. Mary had her own goats at the beginning, and we want to go back to that.”
McCall said a key protest leader, Karen Davidson, actually visited with him and Keehn this morning.
“We had a very nice conversation,” he said. “We talked about all of the misconceptions, and then she said she wished the protest wouldn’t happen and she wouldn’t be leading it. She left, but then she came back and said it had a life of its own now and would likely still be happening.”
Davidson, reached by phone, said it was indeed a pleasant conversation. Keehn showed her a film, even, of a similar but much larger dairy operation in Holland.
“It did not make me feel better,” said Davidson, who moved to Arcata from Wisconsin in 2009 and lives on Q Street with her son and his family. “All of our house looks out on the field we’re talking about. And I learned it’s going to spoil more of our view than I thought: They’re building five buildings instead of just one. Who wouldn’t be worried about a building the size of the [Arcata] Plaza going up in the field they look out on? And they say it wouldn’t smell most of the time, which is difficult for me to imagine. My main concern is, I don’t think it should be this close to homes and schools.”
Davidson said she asked Cypress Grove folks if they’d consider looking for another site within five to 10 miles, and they said they would be open to that.
McCall, in a later conversation, seemed only slightly surprised by the uproar. “We half expected it,” he said. He hoped folks would come to trust the style of Cypress Grove’s proposed new goat farm, as well as its intention.
“It’s like foreign oil,” he said. “It’ll lower our dependence on outside milk.”
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This article appears in Invasion of Big Lagoon.
This breezy account of the neighborhood’s plight does not address the impact on adjacent homeowners’ dismay. Who among you would want a 3-acre mass of smelly buildings where cows used the graze? Imagine how attractive this will be to visitors — not at all like the Marsh and Bird Sanctuary. Who wants their kids to play anywhere near stockpiled manure which emanates from hundreds of animals within a small area? What happens to your property value? Imagine.
I’d prefer the goats over other possible neighbors in Arcata (indoor growers, trashy, noisy people, etc).
The noise would drive me nuts.
I feel compelled to remind The Nielsens that the Marsh and Bird Sanctuary is a critical element of the Arcata MUNICIPAL wastewater treatment facility and at certain times of the day is overpowered by the aroma of human wastes and at others, the sulfur-rich stink of low tide. Then there’s the concrete bunkers that make up the offices, labs and components of the treatement train. In regards to the proposed additions to CG-Having lived just on the other side of Alliance from the Cypress Grove facility, I have observed that our neighborhood smells alternately of manure, ammonia and silage, all part and parcel of living on the edges of dairy country. What’s a li’l more poo gonna hurt?
As writer Melissa notes, a li’l more poo, probably doesn’t bother her, but it may bother retirees, folks with modest incomes, and those with health problems. They bought property during the last eight years that this project was in the thinking stages, sunk their life savings into properties they thought would hold value – –with no disclosure. Corporate giants like Emmi can go anywhere they like: Why not move the plan further out to a location which does not have the environmental and human concerns that Bloomfield/Arcatans are voicing — why strike a blow at our midsection when there is plenty of grazing land located away from town? We love CG, but we can’t abide by the location!
The Nielsens write: “They bought property during the last eight years that this project was in the thinking stages, sunk their life savings into properties they thought would hold value – —with no disclosure.”
Actually, this is incorrect. Every person who has purchased a house or piece of property adjacent to the proposed dairy site had to sign a document at closing saying that they recognize that the acreage is zoned agriculture and that anything within the context of agricultural development can happen there and by signing it they agree to that type of development. So in fact, the Nielsens who paint themselves as being oppressed in this situation are in essence reneging on an agreement they made when they purchased their house. NIMBY-ism in its purest form.
Set the record straight: The Nielsens bought the house in 1920 from Pete Sacchi, passed it to their children Anna and Anders Nielsen in 1953 and in turn passed to their son Don Nielsen in 1979. No such document exists or was ever signed. The intent of the ag zoning is not for intensive farming; Masons have run 20-25 cows on the site for over 30 years. That’s one cow per acre; good husbandry.
I’m only responding to the Nielsens’ post and it states: “They bought property during the last eight years…” They set the time frame, not me.
“Agricultural Zoning
This is a common land use tool used by virtually all California counties that is intended to
segregate farms from all other land uses.”
“Right to farm ordinances
County and city ordinances which attempt to reduce complaints from urban dwellers about
farming practices (pesticides, dust, noise, etc.) on adjacent agricultural lands.”
What can a land owner do in Arcata that some enlightend one won’t find fault with?
Hi Melissa-No one lives near the marsh poop aquifiers.