Citizen Ystad Speaks on Water Resources; Looking for Action

CAFO and liquid manure spraying are
killing Wisconsin waters -
Image from the Wisconsin
Initiative on Climate Change Impact

Citizens working with Saratoga Concerned and Rome Saratoga Friendly attended a Groundwater Summit this last weekend in Almond, Wisconsin in Portage County sponsored by the Central Sands Water Action Committee.

Residents in Juneau, Wood, Adams, Portage and Waushara counties should be on Code Red, as should all whole state.

Donald Ystad of Rome, Wisconsin is ready to go 15 rounds to protect Wisconsin's waters from polluters and cynical politicians. And Ystad is not alone.

The latest from Mr. Ystad:

As you can see from Rep Shankland's e-mail [below], the fight is far from over.  Ag lobbyists are working over their favorite lawmakers already. This will result in additional bills proposed to loosen what controls remain for protecting our water. We need to exercise our court of public opinion.  That's you and me, e-mailing and commenting on our water issues, and the threat to our growing recreational environment.  If you see an e-mail from me or a core group member titled action needed', please take the time to do a reply all so that the politicians and agency heads will know it's not just a handful of us who are concerned,

Ystad refers to Rep Shankland's (D-Stevens Point) note to Ystad and Bruce Dimick of Wood County:

Hi Bruce and Don,

It was great to see you both on Friday! Thank you for your thoughtful advocacy. I wanted to share with you this excerpt from the Wheeler Report on Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald’s priorities in January:

High capacity wells is an issue Fitzgerald said the Senate will be working on in 2015.  Fitzgerald said the Senate began working on the issue as a caucus but it fell victim to two major problems, a clear definition of the issue to be addressed and the end of session.  Fitzgerald highlighted the efforts of Sen. Kedzie working on high capacity wells to address a court case in his district while other members of the caucus wanted to address the issue on a statewide basis.  One of the major focuses for the caucus concerning high capacity wells is agriculture.  Fitzgerald said when the Senate returns it will be one issue his caucus will address. Fitzgerald said his caucus is also ready to work on reforms to workers compensation.  Fitzgerald said the caucus wanted to start reforms to the program during the 2013 session but ran out of time.

It looks like it could be SB 302 or worse. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you very much!

Yours,
Katrina Shankland
State Representative
71st Assembly District

Also from Ystad comes his very latest:

Even Nestle knows agriculture needs to clean up it's act‏

Politicians and agency people,

Perhaps you already knew that Nestle, the worldwide beverage and food company, has taken steps to insure the long term viability of it's food and water sources, and to insure their good reputation in the marketplace.  If you were already aware, shame on you for allowing them to upstage you and take these steps before you did.  After all, they're a for profit company, while you are the protectors of our state's resources.  They evidently see very clearly that the public is becoming more and more concerned about the abuse of animals and the damage to our natural resources caused by weakened laws and reckless farming practices.

Here in the Rome and Saratoga recreational area, we face the prospect of a 5,130 cow dairy CAFO right in our backyard, threatening class "A" trout streams, lakes, and a vibrant recreational tourist area.  It's incomprehensible that this administration could allow this to happen.  We read every day about manure spills, beach closings, e coli in our lakes, increasing nitrate and phosphorous levels in our lakes, water levels dropping in our lakes and streams, and drinking water befouled by manure runoff.  You'd have to live in a cave not to take notice about what's happening to our environment.  And yet, a for profit company is taking steps to protect and preserve, while we hear that certain ag friendly politicians are gearing up to take another run at further weakening our environmental laws.  What's happened to the Public Trust Doctrine?  Is anybody listening in Madison?

I'm a concerned citizen and I vote, as do many of the hundreds blind copied here.

Don Ystad
Rome, WI

Nestlé Announces New Animal Welfare Program that Will Impact Its Suppliers

August 21, 2014 at 12:58 PM

Nestlé has just signed an agreement with World Animal Protection, an animal welfare organization based in London. The result is that hundreds of thousands of farms that supply Nestlé will have to comply with tighter animal welfare standards. Here is the company's complete statement on the agreement.

World Animal Protection has been working with Nestlé on how to strengthen it's current sourcing requirements, which already include spacing standards for livestock pens. Going forward, the company plans to eliminate the use of a variety of other practices by suppliers, such as the use of veal crates, cattle dehorning, swine gestation crates, poultry cage systems and methods that artificially speed the growth of animals. The company has also identified the following dairy farming/processing "priority areas" for improvement:

1. Manure management
2. Water savings
3. Control and reduction of pollutants loads in effluents
4. Reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery of waste and by-products

Nestlé will begin a monitoring program to better understand and track the status of animal practices on farms. This will involve monitoring by an independent auditing firm that will be supervised by World Animal Protection. If a violation of company policy is found, Nestlé will work with the supplier so the farm can meet the required standards. If violations persist, Nestlé will stop doing business with the farm.