More than a decade after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began its campaign against four Lower Yakima Valley dairies, half of these family-owned farms have been forced out of business. Under the guise of environmental protection, the EPA has relentlessly pursued these dairies, using what’s now recognized as a falsified study to claim they contaminated groundwater.

The devastation caused by the EPA’s legal crusade reveals the agency’s disturbing pattern of predatory tactics, targeting farms until their resources are drained and they are left with no choice but to shut down.

“Anytime a family farm is lost, it’s devastating,” said Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming. “But when farms are pushed to the brink due to a federal agency’s unfounded and persistent harassment, it’s more than heartbreaking—it’s unjust.“

The targeted farms have invested millions of dollars in environmental improvements, implementing advanced manure management systems and rigorous groundwater monitoring—all to satisfy EPA demands based on faulty science that has since been discredited.

Liberty Dairy, a family farm that had produced milk in Granger, WA, for over 50 years, is the latest casualty. Its owners had already made substantial investments to protect groundwater in hopes of meeting the EPA’s demands, only to face another onslaught of legal action. This pattern reflects a strategy that relentlessly targets specific farms until they are forced out of operation.

“It’s a really bad look right now,” said Jay Gordon, Washington State Dairy Federation Policy Director.

“It sends a loud message to the rest of the farming community: ‘Hey, don’t ever let EPA on your farm, because you run the risk that they will just torment you until your equity’s gone and you’re out of business,’” Gordon told host Dillon Honcoop on the Oct. 12 edition of The Farming Show.

Now a decade after being legally bullied into an agreement with the EPA to spend millions on changes, just half of those dairies remain. But federal regulators are back on the offensive in court, claiming the farms still haven’t done enough. The EPA’s treatment of these Lower Yakima Valley dairies exemplifies an alarming pattern of federal overreach and predatory targeting of family farms.

It’s clear the EPA’s tactics aren’t about protecting the environment as they seem to have adopted a ‘regulate until you eliminate’ approach, ignoring the real environmental strides these farms have made. Instead, the EPA is back in court, accusing these farmers of still not doing enough—seemingly bent on regulating them into oblivion.