We’re learning more about the damage done to several dairies in Washington State as the result of flooding at the end of last month. The Seattle Times reporting 100 dairy farms in two counties were impacted by the near record flooding. Many of the farms located near the Skagit and Nooksack Rivers.
You are seeing video of the damage to Sumas, which is just south of the U.S. Canadian border. It’s reported one dairy farm, Bumgardner Dairy near Mt. Vernon, lost 44 cows in the flood waters.
A Go-Fund-Me page says the family struggled in frigid, chest deep water for hours trying to save as many as they could but watched cow after cow succumb to the cold and collapse in the swift current.
Also impacted, EPL Feed in Sumas, the largest feed mill in the region. It supplies feed to about 100,000 milking cows in the area. It was offline until just a few days ago. Washington State is the 10th largest milk producing state in the nation.
The situation is not that much better as you go north into Canada and British Columbia. People in Abbotsford are just starting to clean up after an evacuation order was lifted over the weekend. The province’s agriculture minister reporting 420 dairy cattle died in the flooding along with 628,000 poultry and 12,000 hogs.
Richard Bosma was just one of the many farmers in the area who was forced to leave but worked with friends and neighbors to help rescue his animals. The good news, 98% of the cows in the Sumas Prairie region survived the flood waters.
