Looking to Hedge His Bets, Mark McAfee Plans to File Suit This Week Over CA Coliform Regs

What will the New Year bring raw milk drinkers in California? Next Monday night, of course, comes the midnight hour, when new coliform standards take effect, and raw milk in California could turn into the proverbial pumpkin.

Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., and producer of upwards of 90% of California’s raw milk, says the wicked stepsisters are having second thoughts, and the raw milk honeymoon, whereby more than 30,000 consumers can buy raw milk from local groceries and health stores is intact.

“It will be a happy healthy New Year, indeed,” he writes in an email and posting on the OP web site. “In the last three weeks, the CA raw milk battle front has been abuzz with tremendous grass roots effort, back stage political activity, and high level meetings. As a result, the course of California raw milk history has been changed.”

Before I provide Mark’s reasons for optimism, I should say that nothing has changed in terms of the legislative situation. As 2008 dawns, the law on California’s books states that raw milk must not have more than ten coliforms per milliliter. As long as it’s on the books, the authorities can enforce it at their discretion.

In recognition of that situation, and having learned to take nothing for granted when it comes to politicians and bureaucrats, Mark is filing a lawsuit this week in San Benito County, requesting an injunction “against enforcement of AB 1735 standards.”

For now, here are the positive developments Mark is hanging is optimistic hat on:

–California’s secretary of agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, “has dedicated himself to safe raw milk for California, declaring that ‘AB 1735 standards will not act as a de-facto ban on raw milk.’” Mark says the secretary “made this statement adamantly and repeatedly at a December 20^th meeting with Claravale and Organic Pastures dairy representatives.”

To me, his quote sounds like an elegant way of saying, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

–Legislation to reverse AB 1735 will be introduced in January. According to Mark, “Assemblymen and State Senators who voted for AB 1735 are now very upset that they were misled, and support immediate repeal on procedural grounds… Hearings will soon be announced as part of the new bill and legislative process that will start in January. Your attendance will be essential to deepen the protections put in place.” But if the legislature votes a change, with the governator go along with it?

One thing definitely working in favor of raw milk in California is impressive media coverage of the pending coliform law. The Associated Press had a story picked up in a number of newspapers and television stations around the state.

We’ll see. This story has taken more strange twists and turns than Cinderella, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more.