A national animal-rights group filed a class action lawsuit Monday against Tillamook County Creamery Association, saying it falsely advertises that its cows graze on small family farms on the Oregon coast, although most of its milk comes from a megadairy in eastern Oregon.

“Consumers who believe they are buying products from small, high-welfare, pasture-based dairies in Tillamook County are instead unwittingly purchasing cheese, butter, ice-cream and yogurt made from milk from the largest industrial dairy in the country that confines tens of thousands of cows on concrete in the desert of eastern Oregon,” the complaint reads.

Tori Harms, Tillamook's corporate communications director, declined an interview request.

"The Tillamook County Creamery Association adamantly disagrees with the allegations made in the lawsuit and we will aggressively defend ourselves," she said in an email.

The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeks an injunction against misleading advertising and monetary relief.

It was filed by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a California-based nonprofit organization, on behalf of all people in Oregon who purchased Tillamook dairy products between Aug. 19, 2018 and the date on which the class is certified.

"While some of Tillamook's ads encouraged consumers to 'Say Goodbye to Big Food,' Tillamook is in fact the epitome of 'Big Food,' the organization said in a news release.

The lawsuit lists four Oregon consumers from various parts of the state as plaintiffs.

It takes issue with Tillamook’s advertising, which shows cows grazing on the “green, green grass” of coastal Tillamook County, where the company was founded in 1909.

The association is owned by about 80 farm families, according to Harms.

But, beginning in 2001, much of its milk supply has come from at least five dairies near Boardman, where the cows never set foot on grass. The dairies supply a second creamery and a whey processing plant, also near Boardman.

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The three largest dairies are owned by Threemile Canyon Farms, with 70,000 animals. Threemile, also known as Columbia River Dairy, also has a 93,000-acre farming operation where the millions of gallons of manure produced by the cows are used as fertilizer.

“Instead of Tillamook County’s mild and wet climate filled with verdant pasture, Boardman is a hot, dry climate classified as steppe or semi-arid,” the lawsuit reads. “Boardman is flat, arid and often swelteringly hot — nothing like Tillamook County. And the megadairy in Boardman is so large that it’s visible from space.”

The lawsuit says the named plaintiffs purchased Tillamook products believing they were all made from milk sourced from traditional pasture-based farms in Tillamook County. It says the plaintiffs were willing to pay more for those products, based on the company’s advertising.

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“Consumers prefer local dairies for a number of reasons, including perceived health or quality of the final product, reduced environmental impact, benefits to the local community’s economy, and seeing firsthand the production practices of the companies involved,” the lawsuit reads.

“Knowing this, Tillamook makes deceptive claims throughout the marketing campaign for all of its products,” it continues. “Deceptive representations about the geographic origin appear throughout Tillamook’s website, product packaging, print and television advertisements, and on internet advertising and social media platforms (in which Tillamook participates actively).”

In her statement, Tillamook's Harms said the co-op only works with business partners that share its values and live up to its standards.

"We are proud of our nearly 20-year relationship with Columbia River Dairy in eastern Oregon and have highlighted their leadership in environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture," Harms wrote. "The size of the farm does not dictate the quality of care."

A coalition of seven state and national health, environment and animal welfare organizations issued a statement in support of the lawsuit Wednesday afternoon.

"Tillamook also bought milk from the disastrous Lost Valley Farm, an eastern Oregon megadairy permitted for up to 30,000 cows that racked up hundreds of environmental violations in its first year and a half of operation and has since been permanently shuttered," the group wrote.

Tami Kerr, executive director of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Tillamook sold $800 million worth of dairy products in 2017, company president Patrick Criteser told the industry publication Food Navigator last year.

Contact the reporter at tloew@statesmanjournal.com, 503-399-6779 or follow at Twitter.com/Tracy_Loew