Calif. Planning to Build Cow Condos
Mon May 12,10:44 AM ET
BARSTOW, Calif. - A plan is in the works to build the West's largest cow town, a nearly 2,000-acre gated community in the Mojave Desert where 600 dairy farmers and their families would live alongside about 90,000 cattle.
The plan being pursued by two successful California businessmen aims to reduce agricultural pollution in the town by turning manure into clean, renewable energy to run the cow complex, with some left over for sale to the electricity grid serving Southern California.
Estimated cost of the project is $1 billion.
"We're talking cow condos, a complete gated community, sharing all sorts of services. It will be good for dairymen and a good way to dispose of animal waste," Henry Orlosky, one of the developers of the proposed cow complex, told the Los Angeles Times in an article published Sunday.
Orlosky and partner William Buck Johns plan to seek permits for the dairy in July from San Bernardino County. With strong backing from lawmakers and the dairy industry, the first of the cows could begin arriving in the high desert early next year.
The complex would build 30 dairy farms from scratch with 3,000 cows each on a 1,920-acre former alfalfa field in the Mojave just north of Barstow. The cow condos would include paved floors and covered stalls, complete with solar panels on the roofs. A plumbing system would continually flush each dairy like a giant toilet since cows can produce 100 pounds of excrement a day.
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