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Photo: October 2004: Then TAD ED John Cowan speaks at a ceremony to kick off the TCEQ’s Environmental Monitoring and Response System Water Pilot Project.
By Jim Bradbury and Courtney Cox Smith James D. Bradbury, PLLC
Congratulations to the Texas Association of Dairymen (TAD), its members and all of the board members over the last three decades. We sure cannot cover all that has happened in the last 30 years in this space, but it’s a good time to reflect on where we have been. In many ways, the rest of the country has just started catching up to where we were decades ago.
As the dairy industry really began to expand in Texas, we saw the evolution from older style small facilities to larger scale CAFO facilities. These facilities were new, engineered and much larger than dairies had been in the past. These efficiencies have their impacts on smaller producers. All of these changes were for the better, but they carried tension. Most of all, these new facilities drew attention.
The larger scale dairies showed up on the radar of regulators, other ag groups and interest groups that had previously paid little attention. As the industry began to grow, the first major hurdle that developed was the TMDL in the North Bosque. Behind this effort was the City of Waco and its business partners who did not like the growth that was taking place in Central Texas. Change was viewed as bad, and they failed to see the benefits in terms of operational practices. This era brought us the Waco CERCLA lawsuit, a round of meetings on the TMDL, and new stricter rules applicable to the dairies in the North Bosque. Those rules and the individual permits developed around them were unheard of in Texas and nationally. Fast forward, many of those practices and techniques are now being contemplated many years later in all parts of the country.
During this period, it was difficult and at times bitter. But reason prevailed and the industry came out ahead. We had larger facilities getting better every year. Better practices grew, and it created real incentives for stewardship. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) became a better partner. As those years came to a close, facilities in the Panhandle and South Plains began to grow exponentially. It’s hard to remember now, but many of those first large-scale facilities were eye-popping in size. That was a leading trend in the dairy industry. Now we have robot milkers and dairies almost completely under roof.
TAD and its members have driven these positive changes. And going back to the very first days when change started to happen, the leadership and long view that TAD and its Board took paved the way for the success we have today. We have been very honored to be a part of this industry for so many years and congratulate TAD and all its members on this milestone.