Proposed Liquid Pig Manure in Lake Superior Spurs Opposition

Lake Superior Water Trail- Threatened by Proposed
Massive Factory Pig Farm CAFO

Bayfield and Ashland County Residents Are "Extremely Concerned"

Updated - "A proposal to establish a large-scale Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in the Town of Eileen in Bayfield County is one step closer to being a reality now that Reicks View Family Farm LLC has officially purchased approximately 560.6 acres in the Town of Eileen for $1,237,500," reports Amber Mullen in the Ashland Daily Press (Wisconsin).

The proposed CAFO is the first CAFO proposed in far-Northern Wisconsin in a move that many fear is the beginning of a large-scale incursion of industrial agriculture into the region.

Opposition is already growing.

"We met in the Town of Bayfield yesterday. There were about 20 residents from Bayfield and Ashland counties, including a man with the Bad River Band. People are extremely concerned about the negative impact on their economy and their health and the life blood of their communities—Lake Superior—if this CAFO goes through," said Lynn Utesch of Kewaunee County and the clean water group, Kewaunee Cares.

The residence of the meeting in Bayfield is located about a half-mile from Lake Superior.

The Lake Superior Water Trail (LSWT)
is a network of mapped access points
and recreational resources along
Wisconsin’s Lake Superior. The CAFO
would be located in just southwest of the land
jutting out into Lake Superior on the upper-right.

Utesch made a 10-hour, round trip drive to Bayfield from Kewaunee County out of concern that the swine CAFO would devastate the pristine beauty of the area as has already happened to Kewaunee County located on Lake Michigan.

"The spray irrigation of liquid pig manure is an inherent practice of swine CAFOs," said Utesch. "The volatility of liquid swine manure and the ammonia smell, its range and the effects of this practice alone make this CAFO siting unthinkable. What this will do to the water is worse."

Any visitor to the far northern region would agree, but several workers of the hotel where Utesch stayed had no idea about the proposed CAFO siting.

Residents and Utesch hope to change this.