U.S District Judge Thomas Rice has granted the federal government’s motion for preliminary injunction and ordered three large dairies located north of Granger, Washington, in the Lower Yakima Valley to provide well testing and bottled water or water treatment systems to nearby community members at risk from nitrate-contaminated wells.
The action, brought under the Safe Drinking Water Act, seeks to ensure access to safe and clean drinking water and is part of the lawsuit, filed by the Department of Justice in June of 2024, that alleges that dairies in the Lower Yakima Valley have contributed nitrate to the area’s groundwater and contaminated drinking water wells. Nitrate is an acute contaminant. A single exposure can pose serious health risks, including a condition in infants known as methemoglobinemia, or “blue baby syndrome,” that can result in death.
In the court’s order granting the preliminary injunction, the court ordered the dairies to test drinking water wells in an area up to 3.5 miles down-gradient of the dairies and to provide and maintain reverse-osmosis water treatment systems or bottled water to homes where the testing finds nitrate levels above 10 milligrams per liter. The court also ordered the dairies to immediately conduct groundwater monitoring and test a lined lagoon for leaks.
