Dairy could doom historic California town, group says
By John Ritter, USA TODAY, January 21

ALLENSWORTH, Calif. - A few restored buildings among sprawling flat acres of farmland are all that's left of an ambitious experiment a century ago - one doomed to fail but still an enduring symbol of African-American self-sufficiency.

Allen Allensworth, a former slave who rose to Army colonel, brought a colony of blacks here to a sparsely settled corner of the Central Valley in 1908. His vision was a discrimination-free town where blacks, through hard work and education, could compete in white America.

Unforeseen events killed the dream, but in the 1970s, the state preserved the town as a historical park. Today, Allensworth, an icon of black history, is threatened by a herd of cows, its patrons say.
Tulare County, the USA's top milk producer, has tentatively approved plans for a large dairy outside the 240-acre park. The Friends of Allensworth, a group with members across the state, fears odor and flies from 9,000 cows and their manure will drive visitors away. The group wants the dairy located somewhere else.

"Allensworth is one of a kind. It can't be replaced," says Victor Carter, president of the Friends of Allensworth. "It should be there for our youth, to see what we can accomplish given a chance." The park had 7,843 visitors in fiscal year 2006, according to the state parks department.
Ed Pope's family settled in Allensworth in the 1930s. He returned in retirement "to become a preservation activist on the scene." The park is on the National Register of Historic Places. If the dairy comes, Pope says, he could stand on railroad tracks next to the park "and throw a rock and hit a cow."

"If people stop coming, the state can't justify spending money to keep the park open. And if the park dies, Allensworth dies," says Pope, 77.

'Leave Allensworth alone'
The California Legislature's Black Caucus opposes the dairy. Its chairman, Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, hasn't ruled out legislation to stop it, says his spokeswoman, Jasmyne Cannick.
As a state senator in the 1960s, Dymally sponsored the bill creating the state park. In December, he urged Tulare supervisors "to leave Allensworth alone" and find another site for the dairy.
The park's buildings - including a church, hotel, two general stores, post office, barber shop, drugstore, bakery and Allensworth's home - have been restored to original form. The Friends hold several annual events here. Volunteers from around the state interpret the history for visitors.
In its heyday, many black Californians disapproved of Allensworth. Hostility has softened over the years, Carter says. "Black leaders at the time didn't believe in separation," he says. "They felt like we were doing what the white population wanted. Feelings ran deep."

Col. Allensworth has come to be seen as a visionary. He tried to establish a college - a Tuskegee of the West - so young blacks in the early 1900s would have access to higher education without returning to the South.

"It was very hard to get a high school diploma, much less college, in the West at that time," Carter says. The Legislature killed a proposal for a college at Allensworth.

After the colonel was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1914, the town declined. Its land turned out to be less fertile than the founders had thought. The source of its economic prosperity, a stop on the Santa Fe Railroad line, was lost to a nearby town. World War I drew young men to jobs in the cities. Once-plentiful water dwindled.

"The plan was to make the town productive for the ages," Carter says. "That didn't come to fruition."

Dairy more than a mile away
County officials say the dairy, on two separate sites, will be more than a mile from the park's edge and won't be a nuisance to visitors. Modern dairy techniques control smells and pollution from open pits, or lagoons, that hold waste from dairy operations, county Supervisor Connie Conway says. Dairies must obtain water- and air-quality permits.

"It's a very high-technology, scientific business now," Conway says. "The industry is highly monitored and, in my county, very socially and environmentally responsible."
Conway says the dairy will be downwind from the park, though Carter and his group dispute that.
In 1998, Tulare County settled a lawsuit from the state attorney general, agreeing to study environmental impacts of dairy development. Two years later, the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, a California group that provides legal help on environmental issues, sued the county, claiming its study was inadequate.

The county settled again in 2001, ending a three-year moratorium on new dairies, but the study still isn't final. In 2005, more than 600,000 Tulare cows produced $1.5 billion in milk and dairy products.

The spread of industrial megadairies and their environmental hazards from contaminated runoff and air pollution caused by decaying waste have led to lawsuits and tougher regulations. Plans for new dairies near residential areas invariably draw opposition, even here where agriculture is king.
"We have some of the nation's worst air pollution, and with the influx of dairies it's only going to get worse," says Caroline Farrell, a lawyer for the center on race.

Landowner Sam Etchegaray plans to convert about 12% of his 2,692 acres of crops and pasture to more profitable dairy operations that his sons will operate, says his lawyer, David Albers.
State parks officials are exploring whether they can stop the dairy by buying development rights from Etchegaray and keep a crop buffer around the park.

"We're talking," Albers says. "The parks department seems very motivated to buy the rights. But we could have very different ideas about what the value is."