Storm stalls milk pickups
Monday, December 13, 2010
by SUSAN MANN
Milk from about 60 dairy farms west and north of London couldn’t be picked up today because a vicious winter storm has caused havoc on area roads.
Derek McClary, general manager of Blue Water Milk Transport Co-Operative, says roads are impassible and visibility is zero. “It’s just very dangerous conditions right now.”
Only about half of Blue Water’s trucks were out today picking up milk east of London but the ones that normally go to farms west of the city couldn’t get there. On Monday, Blue Water couldn’t pick milk up from 20 farms, while today it’s close to 60 farms that missed their milk pick up.
The milk transport co-op has 200 farmer customers and covers an area from Chatham to St. Marys. Last week, the co-op couldn’t pick up milk from five or six farms in the Lucan area where they got six feet of snow. But this week, Blue Water can get into that area.
Milk from some farms west of London wasn’t picked up on both Monday and Tuesday. McClary says they will try to get them all picked up Wednesday. But with more squalls on the way, he says he doesn’t know if that will be possible.
“Because of the back log of milk, it’s going to take twice as many trucks as it usually would as well,” he says.
Dairy Farmers of Ontario says in a message on its web site if milk isn’t picked up on their normal pick up day farmers can add one more day of milk to their tank if they have the capacity. If the tank can’t hold the milk, farmers should dump it. Also if the milk hasn’t been picked up after three days all that milk has to be dumped.
Dairy Farmers doesn’t pay producers for milk that has to be dumped because of road closures.
Joe Dickenson, who works with his parents on their dairy farm near Sarnia, says they had to dump their milk. The last time their milk was picked up was Saturday. Monday was their next normal pick up day but trucks couldn’t get through Monday or today.
The roads became very treacherous Sunday night and were very bad Monday morning “to the point that they had pulled the snow plows by about 9 a.m.,” he says.
“We have four day old milk in that tank and it has to go,” says Dickenson, who was at an Ontario Federation of Agriculture meeting today in Guelph and couldn’t return home tonight. He expects the roads to be clear enough so he can go home Wednesday.
Joe’s parents, George and Agnes, milk about 50 cows. Joe also operates a cow-calf to finish beef operation on a farm near Oil Springs.
Bill Mitchell, Dairy Farmers assistant communications director, says on Monday it was 60,000 litres that couldn’t be picked up, while today it was 200,000 litres. But Dairy Farmers doesn’t expect there to be milk shortages for processors. “It’s not a big enough number to cause a significant issue because it’s expected to be so short term. Some of the volume could come back tomorrow.”
Environment Canada issued snow squall warnings for Lambton, Middlesex, Huron and Elgin counties. The weather agency says 15 centimetres of snow was expected today and 20 cm is expected tonight, while strong winds gusting to 70 kilometres an hour was causing widespread blowing snow and reducing visibility to near zero. Squalls were expected to continue into Wednesday. There is also a snow squall warning for areas near Georgina Bay from Wiarton and Collingwood to Dufferin County.
Lambton County declared a state of emergency Monday night. About 300 cars were stuck on Highway 402 from Sarnia to London and rescuers were working today to help those people. That stretch of the highway is closed plus there are cars stuck on the side roads, which Blue Water trucks would be using.
“We’re trying to let the crews clean up and rescue the cars that are out there,” McClary says.
Bob Nichols, Ontario Transportation Ministry spokesperson, says in addition to Highway 402 being closed Highway 21 from Grand Bend to Port Elgin is shut down. Local roads in those areas may also be closed. BF