“Sucked Dry” provides an important and powerful look at the mega-dairy industry. The repeated disregard by Riverview LLP for people, water and climate is telling. The company is destroying water supplies across the states it operates in, leaving thousands of people with dry wells. The carbon and methane emissions from these mega-dairies is, arguably, immoral, given the long-term impacts these emissions will have on the climate our children will be forced to endure.
The West will continue to experience significant groundwater depletions and climate-damaging industrial agriculture expansions as long as states fail to act in the interests of the public and our future generations. And this mega-dairy industry will soon face the realities of long-term droughts, heat extremes and carbon and methane fees. Additionally, with climate change, the public will find that milk and cheese products are not the best use of limited water supplies. These are not essential foods, and the massive government subsidies handed to this industry are not the best use of our public money.
I suspect that Riverview will not operate in these locations for decades, but probably long enough to ruin the aquifers, water quality and local communities. Per Riverview spokesman Kevin Wulf: “Integrity is about doing the right thing.”
Daniel D. Heagerty
Mill Valley, California
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline “Integrity is about doing the right thing”.
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