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Experts and advocates clash over dairy digesters’ climate and community impacts at Senate hearing
Summary
The hearing featured conflicting testimony: some advocates said digesters worsen groundwater and air impacts and are a poor use of public dollars, while industry and UC researchers said digesters, AMP, feed additives and other programs together are essential to meet California’s dairy methane goals.
A panel of academics, community advocates and industry representatives clashed at a March 19 joint Senate hearing over whether state funding should continue to support dairy digesters or be redirected to alternative manure management and other practices.
Phoebe Seaton, co‑executive director of the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, told senators that additional public funding for dairy digesters "does not make any sense from an environmental or an economic perspective." Seaton said digesters rely on liquefied manure, which she argued creates methane production, increases nitrous‑oxide risks and can exacerbate groundwater contamination and localized odor and air‑pollution problems in agricultural communities.
"Dairy digesters and the subsidies that support them rely on the…
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