ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP AT CHERRY VALLEY DAIRY

Cherry Valley Dairy is committed to environmentally sustainable practices. We strive daily to return more to the environment than we are taking from it. We employ multiple strategies to accomplish this. We work with stewardship partners to help keep our waterways clean and their diverse habitat intact. We practice good pasture management principles to improve our soils and increase the carbon capture on our farm. We use reclamation efforts to conserve water in our creamery. We use biodegradable and reusable packaging of our products whenever possible. We keep the size of our herd small to mitigate methane generation and impact on the ground.

Turning this once traditional dairy into an environmentally sustainable one has been a years long process. It is also an ongoing one. We will continue to work towards our goal of improving the land that has given us so much.

Please read more about our efforts below…

SALMON-SAFE FARM

Preserving the natural habitat of our native Salmon population is so important to us here. Our farm straddles Rasmussen Creek, a historic salmon-bearing waterway. When we took over operations, restoring viability for salmon and increasing the buffer around the creek bed was a priority. Trees and native shrubs provide shade while cooling and filtering the water to make it more habitable for salminids.

In December 2013, the dairy was designated as a Salmon-Safe farm.  Since 1996, Salmon-Safe and its implementation partners have worked with more than 300 West Coast farms to provide incentives for the adoption of practices that protect water quality and fish habitat.  The Salmon-Safe farm certification program is focused on management practices in six primary areas: riparian area management, water use management, erosion and sediment control, integrated pest management, animal management, and biodiversity conservation. Check out the Salmon-Safe Farm Map to see other farms with the same passion to protect water quality and native salmon habitat.

CREEK BED RESTORATION

In 2012, Stewardship Partners began planting shrubs and trees along a portion of Rasmussen Creek, which runs through Cherry Valley Dairy on its course to join Cherry Creek.  They have been working to minimize the reed canary grass which had overgrown the creek banks and choked out native plants.  Adding native shrubs and trees while keeping the canary grass trimmed will eventually allow those native plants to grow tall and shade the creek, taking up space the canary grass would otherwise occupy.  Shading the water allows the temperature to remain more stable, creating a more hospitable environment for its varied inhabitants.

In the summer of 2013, The Snoqualmie Tribe removed a series of waterfalls from the 1300 foot section of creek immediately below the Stewardship Partners planting. The waterfalls were created by large boulders in the narrow creek bed. As the boulders did not have sufficient pools beneath them, they acted as barriers, preventing salmon from reaching the upper sections of stream. In removing those barriers, logs were used to create a more navigable course for the water to follow as it heads down the steep hill. Reed canary grass and Himalayan blackberries were the dominant plants along the creek bank, but those have now been removed.

In November 2013, Mountains to Sound Greenway mustered 50+ volunteers to plant over 1,000 trees and shrubs along the newly refurbished creek bank. Their work has already generated positive results: By December, salmon finally returned to the creek to spawn, well above the area where the fish barriers used to halt their journey.

In 2015, we worked with partners to install a bridge that allows livestock to move to pasture without interfering with the creek, and are actively considering new opportunities for creek restoration and conservation. We welcome new partners and volunteers in 2020 and beyond!

Below, you can see the product of all the planning, partnerships and hard work of the hundreds of volunteers that have helped us to restore this salmon habitat. We are so lucky to have this community support!

BIODEGRADABLE AND REUSABLE PACKAGING

Wherever possible, Cherry Valley Dairy uses biodegradable and reusable packaging for our products. Our cut wedges are sent to happy customers dipped in our signature black wax. This wax, while still a petroleum product, will biodegrade in the landfill. Typical plastic vacuum wraps will last forever.

This study highlights the biodegradability of wax: Biodegradability of petroleum waxes.

Our cultured butter and fresh cheeses are packaged in compostable, plant-based containers. Our lovely Meadow Bloom cheese is wrapped in a plant-based cellophane paper. Whole wheels are wrapped in recycled wax paper.

Fresh milk, cream and also our ghee is packaged in reusable glass jars.

Our tee-shirts are made in California with Organic cotton.

WATER AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

Unfortunately, dairying is a very energy and water intensive activity. It takes so much energy to power the lights, pumps, coolers and equipment required to produce our delicious cheese. It also takes a monumental amount of water to maintain our high level of sanitation. To help conserve energy, we worked with a company to evaluate our energy usage in the barns, milking parlor and creamery. With their help and after significant investment in new lighting throughout the farm, we were able to reduce our energy consumption by 18%.

That same year, we invested in a water reclamation tank in order to divert some of our water from the pasteurization process. The new tank saves 250 gallons of water per day. We pump that potable water back into our cleaning systems for reuse.

In all our cleaning operations, we use solutions in second-use applications as often as possible. For example, after cleaning and sanitizing the milking equipment, that sanitizer is reused to clean the walls and floors of the milkhouse. This reuse saves chemical and additional water runoff.

PASTURE MANAGEMENT

Perhaps the most important way that we can mitigate the the environmental impacts of agriculture is by caring for our soil.

Intensively managed grasslands are an opportunity to sequester carbon in soil. By using rotational grazing, we are able to both produce high quality milk with a unique flavor profile, as well as improve soil quality year by year. Pasturing the animals also allows us to sequester more carbon in our soils.

Each spring we subdivide a few more fields. This allows us to move our ladies off each pasture more quickly, giving it a longer rest period before it is grazed again. This intensive grazing, where we are allowing the grass to grow and then grazing it off quickly and removing the animals, causes grasses to push their roots down deeper into the soil. At the same time, weeds are inhibited. Over time, the pastures become more drought resistant, because the roots of the grasses are in contact with the water table longer into the dry part of the summer. 

We use a local custom hay company to harvest our large bottom field and this has allowed us to reduce our need for outside forages, saving diesel used to transport the feed. 

Optimal rotational grazing is always an ongoing project: we have improved the health of our pastures over the years, but we are not done yet! We plan to continue dividing larger pastures into smaller sections each year, with the goal being to move the milk cows to fresh grass daily.

Learn more about carbon sequestration here: Soil Carbon Storage