Dutch Impose an All-Night Curfew on Cows to Protect Supplies of Drinking Water

Authorities have ordered an 8 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew from spring to fall for cows in the pastures of this small Dutch farming community.

The new measure requires farmers to put their cattle in barns at night and keep their droppings outdoors from polluting the area’s drinking water.

The curfew, which takes effect Jan. 1, 1990, has farmers irate. For as long as anyone can remember they have left their cattle in the pastures at night during the warm months, saving the expense and time of moving them in and out of barns every day.

But environmentalists claim that the cows’ nights out are causing a serious pollution threat to the water supplies of tens of thousands of people in the southeastern Netherlands.

“The measure is part of a package to curb the contamination of our drinking water supplies with nitrates,” said Henk van Loon, a spokesman for Noord-Brabant, the southern province that includes this town of 7,800 people, 70 miles southeast from Amsterdam.

Earlier this year, the provincial environmental agency established that in the Vierlingsbeek reservoirs, which supply drinking water to 25,000 households in the area, the levels of nitrates, which are components of animal excrement, were three times as high as the 200 milligrams per gallon allowed under Dutch law.

The human body converts nitrates into nitrites, which can damage the adrenal glands, especially in infants.

“It was time to do something drastic,” Van Loon said.

Two-thirds of Dutch households get their drinking water from deposits such as those in Vierlingsbeek.

Vierlingsbeek’s farmers plan a campaign to protest the measure, which their spokesman, Wil Kuenen, claims will cost them “fortunes.”

He explained that herding the cattle to and from pastures every day--instead of letting them out and keeping them out from April to November--will mean higher labor costs for farmers.

“It will take hours to get the animals into the pastures and back,” Kuenen said.

“We’re being singled out while there are many more sources of nitrate pollution.”

Dutch Agriculture Ministry figures indicate that the main source of groundwater pollution is the 90,000 tons of manure produced annually by 5 million cows, 14 million pigs and 92 million chickens.

Pigs and chickens are put indoors at night year-round, but their droppings are often disposed of outdoors.

“The only way out was to ban animals from the land for part of the day,” said provincial spokesman Van Loon.

Under the provincial bylaw creating the curfew, cattle breeders face stiff fines if they let their cattle graze at night.

The curfew covers 1,771 acres of grazing land covering water holdings in Vierlingsbeek and neighboring Boxmeer, Van Loon said.

The measure also strictly limits the nitrate content of fertilizers used by the area’s corn growers, he said.

Farmers contend that they aren’t the only culprits.

The Rhine and the Meuse rivers, which together provide some 30% of the drinking water needs of the Netherlands’ 11 million people, are heavily contaminated with pesticides and herbicides dumped by West German and Swiss chemical companies, according to Jur Lieffering, a spokesman for the Assn. of Dutch Water Supply Companies.

He noted that Dutch produce growers also are contributing to the crisis via herbicide and insecticide use.