In
my blog about DDT (Blogspot 12-6-13), I mentioned that DDT became concentrated
in the skins of apples that became a waste product of apple processing called
pomace, and that dairymen discovered that this pomace, (initially available at
no cost, later sold for many dollars a ton when it became popular), when fed to
cows increased butter fat content in milk and thus increased income. When it
was discovered that this DDT passed right through the cows into their milk and
thus into the human food supply, the FDA outlawed apple pomace as a feed
supplement. However some scofflaws continued to buy black market pomace and hide
it in their silage. This necessitated the collection of suspect silage samples
from suspect dairies by intrepid investigators like myself. And in simple
terms, this action pissed off the dairymen. We seldom received a warm welcome
when we arrived at a dairy to collect silage samples.
The
setting: It was a grey, cold (below freezing) February morning in the central
Maryland highlands when I drove my plainly marked US Government issued car up a
lane to a free-stall adjacent to a milking parlor on a suspect dairy farm. Two
unfriendly dairy hands ignored my greeting and neither would accept the Notice
of Inspection (FDA's quasi search warrant) saying that they lack the authority
to take it. They added that the responsible person was in town and wouldn't
return until late afternoon. I was welcome to wait. I decided to breach
protocol; I'd collect my sample of silage, visit the other two dairies on my
list, stop back at this one on my way back to my office that evening and drop
off the notice of inspection. (I received a premium ass-ream from the Chief
Investigator when what I had done was made known to him.)
The free-stall was a large covered shelter with a concrete
floor open on two sides to a standing yard; here the cows assembled prior to
milking. The floor was covered with straw well saturated with manure, the
standing yard looked to be mud and manure frozen over solid. I asked one of the
dairy hands where the silage was stored and he pointed to a cluster of silos
about five hundred yards directly across the standing yard and a snow-covered
pasture. Not a long walk as the shortest distance between two points is a
straight line.
I
went back to my car, put on my galoshes, took my sampling equipment in hand and
cut back through the free-stall to the standing yard. I was about to step off of
the concrete into the yard when one of the dairy hands stopped me with, "I
wouldn't go that way, if I were you. To get to those silos, drive back down the
lane to the first gate on your right and go up that lane to the
silos." I thought to myself that
these good-old-boys were going to have a joke at my expense by making the dumb
government man drive at least a mile out of his way to get to get his samples.
I thanked them for their advice and stepped off of the free-stall floor—into a
knee-deep, semi frozen, very sloppy mud and manure mix that filled my boots to
overflowing, soaked my pant legs, and saturated my socks as it ran into my
shoes. The good-old-boys remained deadpanned as I sloshed my way back onto the
firmness of the free-stall floor and back to my car. I drove right back to
Baltimore with all of the car windows open and the blower on—the stench was
almost unbearable. The odor was prevalent in the car, near my desk, and in my
home for at least a week.
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