I have been informed that citizen activists from “Whey to Go” are organizing a protest in Waterbury near the Cabot Creamery Annex, on October 9 from 9 AM until 6 PM.  



They are requesting that fellow Vermonters join them in asking Agri-Mark to clean up their wastewater spreading operation.

According to “Whey to Go,”

The newest in Agri-Mark’s arsenal of chemicals is listed as “Orbit No. 363” contains (among other things) Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate which can be found on Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDS) listed as diethyl sulfate, which gives clearly thre Toxicology as being “Probable human carcinogen and mutagen.  May cause reproductive defects.” This single chemical “causes burns, Severe eye, skin and respiratory irritant.”

Considering that Agri-Mark/Cabot Creamery is spraying this onto fields in **large enough quantities that will literally fill half the septic tanks in Vermont on a DAILY basis, we need to make them put in a waste treatment facility and abandon it’s current practice of disposing of Industrial Wastewater on fields/receiving streams from Newport to Randolph Vermont.

You may recall that Agri-Mark’s  practice of spreading wastewater over agricultural fields in Vermont has long been a source of controversy; and that, just last year, Agri-Mark  was granted a permit to increase the volume of waste it disposes of in this way.  

**Note: I am informed by Jill Alexander that this was an abbreviated and unofficial comment. More exactly, she says that the” total permitted amount of chemically laced wastewater (185,000 gallons per day) would fill half of the septic tanks in Vermont on a daily basis.”

She points out that there is no way of knowing how their comingling might increase their individual hazards.

“Whey to Go” derives its name from the traditional organic waste product of cheese-making.

It was on the assumption that whey would be the primary material spread on farm fields that Agri-Mark’s original permit  for the practice was issued.  But the group points out that, when dairy whey itself became a marketable nutritional commodity, the wastewater distributed from the plant began to be primarily composed of cleaning agents and other non-dairy substances.

When a waste-water processing plant that was promised during the permit hearings never materialized, and neighboring residents began to experience health issues, members of the community assembled into the grassroots group now known as “Whey to Go.”

While the good folks of “Whey to Go” confront Agri-Mark/Cabot directly for its failure to observe good environmental practices, the question must really be pressed before the Legislature, who have it within their purview to impose  regulations that cannot simply be circumvented by unscrupulous industries.

Agri-Mark will predictably do what every corporation is designed to do: protect its bottom line, whatever the environmental cost.

If, in more than twenty years, they have never been compelled by law to do the right thing and build that promised wastewater plant, there is no reason to expect that they will do so in response to the anguished pleas of their Cabot neighbors.

Personally, I’ve sworn off of Cabot brand products because the waste-spreading story turns my stomach; but boycotts and demonstrations simply can’t do the job that responsible legislation could so readily accomplish.