Big Ag Going Wild on Toxification of Wisconsin Waters to Pols' Silence

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

Mary Burke had this to say about directing toxins into Wisconsin lakes, rivers, streams and aquifers: Dead silence.

When it comes to the health of Wisconsin waters and the people of Wisconsin, silence is not golden, it's deadly.

A few weeks back a typical dullard politician, State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Wisconsin Rapids), threatened me with a libel suit for pointing how his corrupt policies [Krug doesn't make a move without an okay from the Party] are destroying the lifeblood of the Central Sands by the vectoring of toxins in liquid cow manure into the region's waters.

Krug backed off of course from his ill-advised threat, as every coward from a lightweight like Krug to a heavyweight like Michael Best and Friedrich's, (LLP) David A. Krass (representing Dairy Business Association (DBA) interests) do when confronted with facts.

Special delivery of liquid cow manure to Wisconsin streams and lakes -
Courtesy of Scott Krug, Scott Walker and the Dairy Business Association
[Notwithstanding Krug's public reversal on the proposed
Wysocki CAFO in mid-August]

The truth is Scott Walker's transformation of the independent Department of Natural Resources into a pollution-friendly arm of the Walker administration is a betrayal of several protections in the Wisconsin Constitution (emphatically so of the Public Trust Doctrine) of our "more than 15,000 inland lakes, 33,000 miles of rivers and streams, 5.3 million acres of wetlands, 471,329 acres of state forests, and a location alongside the Mississippi River, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior." (Jason J. Czarnezki, Marquette Law Review)

Equally true is that Mary Burke has to this point been silent on Walker's betrayal, despite the widespread belief, likely true, that Ms. Burke is as appalled as the folks in Kewaunee, Wood , Adams and Iron and Ashland counties.

Burke has made a political calculation out of fear of Walker and the DBA, and deceives the Wisconsin people with her silence every bit as Scott Walker does with his convoluted lies.

Other folks in Wisconsin are more candid, and not afraid.

Donald Ystad of Nekoosa and Rome: "A sympathetic county employee, who says we may well win the fight against the proposed Wysocki dairy CAFO, but Adams County should look to the south of Rome, along the Highway 13 corridor, all the way down to Adams-Friendship where a dairy industry gone wild may see their next opportunity. East and south of Dyracuse Mound (Motorcycle Recreation Area) there is nothing but pine forests and scrub, very few people, and the much-sought-after aquifer that underlies the Central Sands. That's something that should scare the heck out of Adams county residents as if they didn't have enough to worry about farther east in Richfield near Highway 51 (I-39). Holy smokes, where does it end?  Is he predicting another Kewaunee, with dairy CAFOs stacked up all the way down to the Dells?  Think about it next time you drive south through Big Flats on Hwy 13 to Adams-Friendship and beyond to the Dells. Then think about the (Walker)administration's desire to further expand dairy business in Wisconsin. I sure hope he's wrong."

For more candor, read on the linked pages:

Don Ystad in the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune
Lee Luft in the Green Bay Press Gazette
Greg Farnham in the RockRiver Times