The Cow Testing Ordinance Debacle
A local editor slams the city council for proposing an impossible dairy regulation that threatens to leave the town without milk.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The cow testing ordinance has been brought up again and there is just one comment we would like to make. The ordinance as it now stands prohibits, under penalty of heavy fine, the marketing of dairy products from cows which have not been tuberculin tested within a year. The ordinance is worse than useless for it cannot be enforced. Should the authorities attempt its enforcement, the creamery would be driven out of town and within a week there would be scarcely a pound of butter and never a pound of cheese in Kennewick. If the city council is anxious to protect the health of the people of Kennewick, they will replace this impossible ordinance with one possible of enforcement, providing for a license, inspection, and tuberculin testing in all dairies selling milk in Kennewick. This would eliminate not only all danger of contracting tuberculosis through milk, but it would also insure a pure milk supply which the present ordinance does not do.
“The ordinance as it now stands is worse than useless for it cannot be enforced.”
Public health ordinances often face a tug-of-war between safety goals and economic reality. This 1917 dispute over local dairy regulation mirrors modern debates where residents balance local food access and business viability against strict municipal codes.
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