Collette, co-owner of Claravale Dairy, has asked me to post this to
all WAPF chapters. Please help us to save raw milk in California!

Dear Customers and Concerned Citizens:

As the owner of Claravale Farm, I would like to weigh in on the
recently passed AB 1735. We have been getting a number of questions
from our customers to which I would like to respond as well as the
press release from the California Department of Food and Agriculture
(CDFA) and a letter from Nicole Parra (chair of the assembly
committee on agriculture) that was sent to our customers.

Many of you want to know where we stand on this new regulation so let
me give you our position up front: This new regulation and the
method with which it was implemented stink. If you want to continue
to be able to get Claravale milk or any raw milk in California you
need to fight this law with everything you have.

For many years now we have been telling our customers that there is
no conspiracy within the CDFA to eliminate raw milk; that the state
was actually very supportive of the product. We were dead wrong.
I'm sorry for having misled you. They are simply much more devious,
two-faced, and sinister than I could ever have imagined. The reasons
that they state for incorporating this new regulation are so
transparently false and the highly secretive method of its
introduction so obviously inappropriate that I think that there can
be no doubt that the CDFA is on a mission to hobble the raw milk
industry in California. Once again, our government is using secrecy,
lies, and half truths to advance their own agenda without having to
put up with the inconvenience of having to deal with the people who
they supposedly serve.

We already have an excellent and well constructed raw milk testing
protocol in California which includes bacterial counts and tests for
all of the pertinent pathogens. The state has not been able to shut
us down with these regulations not because the regulations are
insufficient but because our product is clean and safe. So now they
come up with a new regulation that contributes not at all to product
safety nor, at the bacterial levels we are talking about, to product
quality. Rather, the regulation seems to be solely for the purpose
of limiting the raw milk industry in the state to an insignificant
level that would be entirely inadequate to meet the demands of the
people of California for raw milk.

Our customers tell us that the CDFA has told them that we are in
favor of this law. In some weird-bureaucratic- alien-space logic they
say that since we didn't say anything against it we must be for it.
Of course we didn't say anything against it because we, like everyone
else, knew nothing about it. We didn't inform them that we were
against it because they never informed us of its existence. Let me
be clear: we are not in favor of this law.

According to our customers the CDFA has also told them that we are
already in compliance with the new regulation. As I understand the
regulation this is not true. While the milk in our bulk tank (where
the milk is held after it comes out of the cow but before it goes
into the bottle) consistently meets the new requirement, the milk in
our bottles does not.

The CDFA's main argument in advancing this bill is a public safety
argument. They state that coliform bacteria are a fecal contaminant,
that it is a danger to the public, and that they need this new law in
order to protect the public. This statement is patently false on a
number of levels as discussed below.

1. The coliform bacteria in our milk do not come from manure
contamination. I am so sick and tired of the CDFA telling people
that our milk is contaminated with feces. It is not true. Our milk
is not contaminated with feces. They seem to think that if they say
it enough people will believe it. It doesn't matter how many times
they say it, it is not true. I repeat: Our milk is not contaminated
with feces. The fact that the milk in our bulk tank meets the
coliform limits for sterilized (i.e. pasteurized) milk demonstrates
this fact absolutely and conclusively. At Claravale farm we have
been producing high quality, clean, safe, raw milk for over 80
years. We know how to milk cows. I would take exception to the
CDFA's statement that most coliform bacteria come from feces but
whether they do or not, it is an irrelevant, inflammatory statement.
Coliform bacteria exist and thrive without contact with warm blooded
animals either inside or out. It doesn't matter where most of them
come from. The coliform bacteria in our milk are not from this
source.

The reason why it is so important to the CDFA that you think that
there is cow manure in our milk is that they are trying to play off
of the recent hysteria over produce and beef illnesses due to
pathenogenic coliform. They are trying to create a raw milk hysteria
that will get people to support their bill. In other words, they
think you're not very smart.

2. Coliform bacteria are not a health threat. I know it's been said
before but apparently it bears repeating: Coliform bacteria are
everywhere in vast uncountably huge numbers. They are on every
surface of everything you touch every day. They are on the top of
Steven Beam's desk (I doubt that even he would argue a cow manure
source for those particular coliform). Every day we all (even non
raw milk drinkers) consume uncountably huge numbers of coliform
bacteria. Right now, sitting there, you are composed of more
bacterial cells, living on and in you, than human cells. The vast
majority of these bacteria are coliform. It is a sign of the times
we live in that most people consider what are probably the most
numerous and ubiquitous life forms on the planet to be some bizarre,
dangerous, anomaly. If coliform bacteria were dangerous we would all
be dead before we even got out of bed.

All of this is not to say that very high levels of coliform bacteria
in raw milk are good. They are not necessarily (see below) but the
assertion that coliform bacteria are a health threat is illogical and
untenable and demonstrates a disturbing ignorance of basic
bacteriology. The CDFA knows that this assertion is false but again,
they think that if they can generate hysteria by calling it a health
threat they can gain public support for a law which has nothing
whatsoever to do with public safety but which has much more sinister
objectives.

3. Yes, there are very, very, very rare pathenogenic forms of
coliform bacteria but because they are very, very, very rare this new
regulation does nothing whatsoever to aid in the detection of these
pathogens. There already exists in California an excellent testing
protocol for raw milk designed to ensure public safety. Among many
other things, these protocols include limits on the number of
bacteria which are allowed in the milk and specific tests for all of
the pertinent pathogens including pathenogenic coliform. Even in
the absence of tests for specific pathogens a coliform plate count
tells you absolutely nothing about the presence or absence of
pathogens. To try to argue that the new regulation is necessary for
the detection of pathogens given the already existing specific
pathogen tests is just stupid. It is as if the CDFA doesn't even
know why they do the tests they do. Under the new law the coliform
counts will be taken on exactly the same milk samples as the specific
pathogen tests. These specific tests tell the CDFA absolutely
whether pathenogenic coliform are present or not. The overall
coliform count is simply meaningless in this context. Again, the
fact that this new regulation cannot be used to ensure public safety
since it gives no additional data pertinent to public safety argues
for an alternate objective for the bill's originators.

The whole thing seems doubly absurd given the fact that, to my
knowledge, there has not been a case of pathenogenic coliform
bacteria found in raw milk (there have, however, been cases of
government agencies trying to pin pathenogenic coliform outbreaks on
raw milk dairies unjustly). The pathogens which are more likely to
be found in raw milk (salmonella and lysteria) won't even show up on
a coliform count because they are not coliform bacteria. But again,
it doesn't matter because there are specific tests for these
pathogens which are routinely performed by the CDFA.

The whole thing seems triply absurd given the very real food safety
issues in California. To put this much time and money and energy
into trying to outlaw a food which is demonstrably safe when there
are other food industries out there which are demonstrably not safe
seems to me to be criminal.

On one of the "fact" sheets given out by the CDFA there is a
statement about how high levels of coliform bacteria can affect milk
quality by causing off flavors and shortening shelf life. This is,
strangely enough, actually a true statement. This is why milk
processors pasteurize; not for public safety but to get an absurdly
long shelf life. At Claravale we take a different tack. Rather than
sterilizing our milk to preserve it so that we can warehouse it
before we finally get around to taking it to the store, we take the
effort and expense to get it to our customers quickly. Some of our
milk gets to the store within hours of coming out of the cow and it
is never more than a couple of days old. This is nowhere near enough
time for bacterial levels to come anywhere near reaching levels which
would cause the milk to be noticeably bad. The coliform levels
necessary to create noticeably bad milk are orders of magnitude
larger than the less than 10/ml level. Our levels are higher than
10/ml but our milk lasts a long time; certainly longer than the
purchase by date that we put on the bottle. Even though our levels
are higher than 10/ml we daily get calls from our customers telling
us how delicious and wonderful our product is.

With respect to the discussion here, there are three factors which
influence the growth of bacteria in milk: initial bacterial count,
temperature, and time. As I remember from my bacteriology courses,
because bacteria grow exponentially, temperature and time are vastly
much more important factors in determining final bacterial count than
initial number. Within the narrow range of bacterial levels we are
dealing with here, initial bacterial count is irrelevant. This is
why there are currently regulations on what temperature raw milk must
be kept at and the time we can hold it but not on initial coliform
count. Again, it seems that the CDFA doesn't understand why they
have the regulations they do. Whether we begin with 10/ml coliform
or 20/ml the results will be essentially the same. Time and
temperature, however, have a large effect.

As I have already stated we go to great effort to cut down the time
component. We also minimize the effect of temperature. While the
CDFA regulation on temperature is that the milk must be kept at 45F
or below, we keep our milk tank and cold room at 34F. This is why
our milk lasts so long. We start out at a low bacterial count
(although not as low as 10/ml) and then we keep the milk very cold
and get it to our customers very fast. Under the new regulation we
could actually legally produce milk that has a higher bacterial count
when it got to the customer than it does now by keeping it warmer and
using a longer purchase by date.

At any rate, with respect to product quality, this new law is
unnecessary and irrelevant. We already have laws pertaining to
product quality. Specifically, the product must be good within the
purchase by date which must be on the package. It is irrelevant how
the producer manipulates the above three parameters to get that
result. As long as the purchase by date law is enforced the customer
is assured of getting a good product.

In the CDFA "fact" sheet it states that the 10/ml level is the same
level used in several states including Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho,
and Washington. If nothing else does, this statement alone makes
their goal very clear. There are no raw milk industries in these
states. The regulations in these states were designed to hobble the
raw milk industry not support it. When the CDFA takes a law designed
to severely restrict raw milk production in one state and
incorporates it into California's codes obviously their goal is to
severely restrict raw milk production in California. In a classic
and blatantly obvious lie of omission, the CDFA does not tell you in
their "fact" sheet that the states of Connecticut, Idaho, and New
Mexico allow 50/ml in raw milk for direct human consumption and that
the state of Missouri allows 100/ml. These states have taken the
time to look at the science and develop rational, intelligent
regulations. They understand that using coliform levels to test the
functioning of a piece of machinery is different than setting
coliform level allowable in raw milk for direct consumption.

Several times in the literature put out by the CDFA they state that
they will be there to help us producers meet the new regulations.
Bull. It would have been helpful to have had some input into this
bill particularly concerning the specific allowable level of coliform
bacteria. It would have been very helpful to have had enough advance
notice to possibly be able to make changes to conform to the bill.
The fact that this bill was kept secret until there is not nearly
enough time to adapt (less than 2 months) demonstrates that the
State, in fact, wants us to fail. We recently completed a new dairy
facility at the cost of a million dollars. The CDFA was entirely
aware of this since we have to submit plans to them and let them
inspect the facility during construction. Had they informed us of
this new regulation we could have made changes to the facilities in
order to have a better chance of meeting the new regulation. Or we
may have decided not to build at all. Or we may have decided to
construct it to produce products other than raw milk. The fact that
they went ahead and let us sell our house and go into significant
debt to build a facility that they knew they were going to shut down
within a couple months of its completion indicates that they are
anything but helpful. Not only do they appear to want our dairy to
fail but they seem to want to totally destroy us personally.

Much has been said on the internet about the situation in
Washington. Washington may have about 20 producers on the books but
I don't see the state as having a significant raw milk industry. I
haven't researched the raw milk dairies of Washington but some have
called me for advice and I've heard about others. They seem
generally to be small goat operations that sell largely to their
neighbors. The packaging laws are also different in Washington where
they are required to bottle by hand, which means that they typically
pass the milk from the bulk tank through a couple feet of disposable
plastic hose into a sterile single use container. Contrary to what
it says on the CDFA "fact" sheet this is actually a much cleaner
process than using automatic fillers and cappers. (In fact,
California's machine capping law was not implemented for cleanliness
or public safety reasons directly but to prevent dairies from putting
milk in the customers own containers, which is illegal in
California.) Coliform contamination is a surface area phenomenon.
No surface is 100% cleanable. The more surface area the milk is
required to come in contact with, the more coliform will be in the
final product. The largest raw milk dairy in Washington that I know
about is about our size, however I don't know what percentage of his
milk he markets as raw. At any rate, both the coliform count law and
the hand capping law are used in Washington to limit the industry, to
keep raw milk production in the state small and insignificant.
Obviously you're not going to be producing milk for 50,000 customers
if you're standing at the bulk tank with a plastic hose filling each
bottle individually by hand. If we were to transfer that small goat
dairy model to California it would literally take thousands of new
dairies to fill the existing demand for raw milk. We just finished
building a new dairy in California. It took us 11 years and a
million dollars. No small goat operation is going to recoup that
kind of investment. Anyway, if you were to move these wonderful,
clean Washington raw milk producers down to California the CDFA would
shut them down because they don't conform to California's bottling
laws.

We are opposed to a coliform level regulation in raw milk because it
is unnecessary and ineffective in assuring a safe, high quality
product for consumers. All of the laws exist already which are
necessary to accomplish this end. That is why there isn't already a
coliform regulation for raw milk. It is irrelevant and unnecessary.
It wasn't an oversight on the part of anyone. A maximum coliform
level regulation for raw milk was purposely not included in the
code. For pasteurized milk the milk is pasteurized and then not
tested for pathogens. In raw milk the milk is not pasteurized but it
is tested for pathogens. Neither the coliform test on pasteurized
milk nor the level of 10/ml were developed to directly deal with
public safety issues. Both are used simply to see if the sterilizer
(i.e. pasteurizer) is working properly. That is why the regulation
has historically not been applied to raw milk. Raw milk is not
pasteurized therefore there is no pasteurizer to test therefore there
is no reason for the regulation. Once again, the CDFA does not seem
to know why it is performing the test it does.

While we think it is unnecessary, Claravale Farm would not be opposed
to a coliform regulation that was developed specifically with product
quality in mind. We think that a level of, perhaps, 100 cells/ml
would be more than sufficient to assure product quality, could be
obtained in farmstead settings with the application of good dairy
practice, and would allow for the continued production of raw milk at
current levels and above.

A couple of quick comments on some of the numbers on the CDFA fact
sheet and news release: The CDFA says that 25% of bulk tank samples
meet the 10/ml level suggesting that 25% of the milk could be sold as
raw. This is how that works out mathematically: 25% means that
three out of four samples are bad. The state condemns milk if three
out of five samples are bad. Three out of four is higher than three
out of five. At a 25% rate of good samples not a single drop of raw
milk will ever be bottled. The CDFA also states that 75% of the bulk
milk samples from the two raw milk dairies meet the new standards.
This may be true but it is irrelevant and intentionally misleading.
It suggests that, with the 3 out of 5 protocol, all of the milk from
these dairies could have been bottled as raw even under the new
regulation. As I understand the new regulation after talking with
the state, testing will be done in the final package, meaning that
bulk tank levels are irrelevant. With testing done in the bottle
virtually none of the milk from our dairy will be able to be bottled
as raw.

And yet Nicole Parra tells you in her happy letter that the
availability of raw milk in California will not be affected. Hmmm.

While the State of California would very much like to ban the sale of
raw milk outright it knows that this would be difficult to
accomplish. The tack that it has taken instead is to create a false
hysteria around the product concerning public health and then to
hobble the industry with unnecessary regulations designed to keep raw
milk production at a low and insignificant level. While the State
will then be able to say that raw milk is legal, because technically
it will be, it will not be possible to legally produce it on a scale
that will come near to fulfilling the demand for raw milk in
California. Believe me, this new bill will absolutely affect the
availability of raw milk in California and, regardless of what Nicole
Parra says, you will not be pleased.

If you want to continue to be able to obtain raw milk in California
you should fight this law with everything you have. Even if you are
not a raw milk drinker but want to be able to get fresh,
unadulterated produce or meat or, in fact any fresh food in the
future you should be fighting this law. This is only one additional
step in the State's campaign to pasteurize or sterilize everything.
In order to present a united front and not duplicate effort, or work
at cross purposes, we would suggest that our customers go to the
Organic Pastures website (www.organicpasture s.com) or
www.thecompletepati ent.com to find out what they can do to try to get
this law reversed.

Sincerely,
Dr. Ronald L. Garthwaite, BA, MA, PhD
Owner, Claravale Farm