… The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will vote next month on whether to lock in the subsidies, which the Golden State has for years been offering to industrial dairies for installing technology that deploys bacteria to break down animal waste and then repurposes it as “renewable natural gas.” California officials argue these anaerobic digesters are environmentally beneficial because they capture methane, a gas produced by dairy cows that is about 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. But environmental groups and some residents of California’s Central Valley contend the technology also generates dangerous byproducts and encourages the propagation of polluting factory farms in vulnerable communities. … Water and air pollution linked to CAFOs, the authors warned, is disproportionately impacting low-income populations and communities of color. In Tulare County, they added, about 67 percent of residents are Hispanic/Latinx and 18.2 percent are living in poverty.