Kriss Marion: Big Ag Hits Tourism, Communities, and Way of Life

By Kriss Marion
Wisconsin State Farmer
USA Today Network - Wisconsin

Wake up Wisconsin! We are very much on the road to sacrificing our state’s primary natural resources — clean lakes, streams and wells and the beauty they support — for the opportunity to beat California at the dairy game it has already lost by ruining its water. Why are so many mega-dairy developers being lured to Wisconsin from California, Nebraska and Iowa? Because the cost of doing business there has risen as water woes have increased. Do Wisconsin citizens really want to be the cheapest state in which to operate industrial agriculture?

I encourage all of you who love living here to keep your eyes open for the ways in which Wisconsin’s primary industries, Agriculture and Tourism, are being pitted against each other by industrial ag interests, rather than working together to coexist with each other and with the frogs, birds and bugs that make our landscape so vitally alive. Perhaps the most tragic result of the takeover of Wisconsin lands by corporate interests, and possibly the most ultimately damaging to our shared culture, is the accelerated loss of the family-scaled farms and dairies which have defined our lifestyle and captured our imagination for decades.

Wisconsin DNR and DoJ Give Citizens the Shaft

It's almost summer in Wisconsin. Vectoring millions of
tons of pathogen-laden cow manure in liquid and aerial
emissions into surface waters and aquifers
has the go-ahead from the Wisconsin Department of
Justice, the Department of Natural Resources and Scott
Walker, the titular and corrupt governor of Wisconsin.
Image: Midwest Environmental Advocates

Republican War on Wisconsin in Fifth Year

Non-enforcement of regulations against pollution and poisoning of Wisconsin rural communities serves polluters, and a secondary objective to drive socially aware families out of state

The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ) refuse to act against water contamination by cow manure and pathogens in Kewaunee and Door counties, clean water activists noted this weekend. They say this non-enforcement stance is a statewide policy.

Kewaunee County residents, Nancy and Lynn Utesch, point to emails (below) sent and responded to by a Wisconsin assistant attorney general dated September 22, 2014.

In an email to Asst. Attorney General and Director of the Environmental Protection Unit with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Thomas J. Dawson, Nancy and Lynn Utesch reference a piece here entitled Sixteen CAFOs in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin Define Devastation.

The Utesches write in part to Dawson, "I do believe you should know the truth of what is going on--on the ground and in communities suffering from the ill effects of non-enforcement, non-regulations and fines that should be warranted for their reckless and dangerous behavior to citizens and the environment."

When something does finally happen, Mr. Dawson, it will be with the full knowledge of yourself, and the DOJ department, and through informative articles and information that the self-policing citizens are doing."

Something had happened days before in Kewaunee County in northeastern Wisconsin.

Reports Jim Lundsrum in the Door County Peninsula Pulse (Nov. 12, 1014):

A young family visiting Door County for a weekend in mid-September, [2014, days before the Utesches emailed the DoJ's Dawson], were the subject of a public health investigation when they returned to their Calumet County home and their four-month-old daughter came down with an illness that was identified as E. coli bacteria from a bovine source, [cow manure].

‘The department of health got involved. They asked me where I was. That was several phone calls, to try to narrow it down,’ said the infant’s mother (she asked that we not use their names).

It turns out the family had stayed that weekend at a West Jacksonport, [Door County], home now identified as in the area of concern for well contamination after a Sept. 8 manure spreading session that included spreading into a sinkhole. This was the Monday after torrential rains wreaked havoc and saturated the landscape. …

 ‘The department of health nurse said since the E. coli was combined with a campylobacter bacteria, that’s really indicative of a bovine source. They were able to track it to the source based on the type of bacteria in the water.’

The mother said she does not understand why manure spreading is not more regulated. …

‘Especially with the fractured bedrock and shallow soil. It doesn’t take much for it to get in the groundwater.’ …

For other reports and analyses of water contamination across the state, see "Manure spraying under scrutiny," (Seely, WisconsinWatch); and "Health Risks of Manure Spray Irrigation," (Kewaunee CARES).

In all, 17 people including the infant were sickened in one September 2014 incident from one near-CAFO that then became a CAFO-sized factory farm, Haberli Farms, in 2105, (Lundstrum, Door County Pulse). The DNR and DoJ conducted no investigation of the incident.

The September 2014 incident was followed by a report issued some 14 months later showing, "More than one-third of wells in dairy farm-intensive Kewaunee County were found to be unsafe because they failed to meet health standards for drinking water, according to a new study," (Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Today, drinking the water or bathing in the water in Kewaunee County and in numerous other areas across the state is rolling the dice with your health, ("Bacteria in state’s drinking water is ‘public health crisis’ Hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents are at risk of illness from waterborne pathogens in private and public drinking water supplies," (Seely, WisconsinWatch).

Asst. Attorney General and Director of the Environmental Protection Unit, Wisconsin Department of Justice Dawson replied to Nancy Utesch:

Ms. Utesch: As indicated in our letter to you of September 6, 2013 (attached), the DOJ enforces Wisconsin’s regulatory laws on referral primarily from the DNR. Our office has no independent environmental investigators or authority to prosecute violations except upon investigation and referral from DNR. Therefore, your concerns should be directed there. Thank you.

A request for comment sent by Mal Contends in a May 23, 2016 email, (below), to the DoJ was not met with a response.

Since 2011, the DNR has been radically transformed by Scott Walker and Republicans and turned into a vehicle to facilitate pollution instead of protecting natural resources, (The Political Environment).

Industry is not only free to pollute, it now free to plunder Wisconsin aquifers and surface water.

On May 10, 2106, Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel issued a formal opinion stripping "the ability of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to protect our waterways from wells that pump 100,000 gallons per day or more. This opinion ignores decades of legal precedent and sound science, and puts Wisconsin’s waterways at even greater risk of drying up," (Wheeler, The Capital Times).

Good news for industrialized, polluting agricultural operations such as Pagel's Ponderosa Dairy LLC in Kewaunee County, (Golden, WisconsinWatch).

Bad news for Wisconsin families.

"More streams, lakes, and wells will go dry at a time when these resources are already stressed, to the detriment of other property owners, recreational water users, and the environment. Citizens are already sick and tired of having to go to court and do the job the DNR should be doing to protect the state’s resources," said Christa Westerberg, attorney for Friends of the Central Sands, reacting to Attorney General Schimel's give-away opinion to Big Ag polluters, (Verburg, Wisconsin State Journal).
 --
Wisconsin DoJ, and Nancy and Lynn Utesch Emails notes reproduced below:
 ---
Johnnie,

Looking for a comment Re allegations of non-enforcement of regulated pollution events in Kewaunee County. Allegation is made by Lynn Utesch of Kewaunee County.

Utesch references emails, (from 2014), sent to and received from Asst. AG Thomas J. Dawson.

Utesch says:

- There is no enforcement of regulations Re CAFO pollution in Kewaunee County
- That the DoJ has been made aware of pollution events
- And includes an email from Dawson (below), reading in part: "As indicated in our letter to you of September 6, 2013 (attached), the DOJ enforces Wisconsin’s regulatory laws on referral primarily from the DNR.  Our office has no independent environmental investigators or authority to prosecute violations except upon investigation and referral from DNR.  Therefore, your concerns should be directed there."

Can you email me an on-the-record comment Re Utesch's allegations?

Thx!

Mike Leon

Michael Leon
Marketing and Public Relations Consultant
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

---

Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 14:51:24 +0000
From: lnutesch@yahoo.com
To:
Subject: Fw: MAL Contends . . .: Sixteen CAFOs in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin Define Devastation

The non-enforcement going on in our communities, and the resulting pollution and contamination.  The DOJ is aware.

n

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Lynn Utesch To: "Dawson, Thomas J." <DawsonTJ@DOJ.STATE.WI.US>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: MAL Contends . . .: Sixteen CAFOs in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin Define Devastation

Thank you Mr. Dawson. 

 I do not send you things to inundate you with information. 

 I do believe you should know the truth of what is going on--on the ground and in communities suffering from the ill effects of non-enforcement, non-regulations and fines that should be warranted for their reckless and dangerous behavior to citizens and the environment.  

When something does finally happen, Mr. Dawson, it will be with the full knowledge of yourself, and the DOJ department, and through informative articles and information that the self-policing citizens are doing.

Sincerely,

Nancy Utesch

---

From: "Dawson, Thomas J." <DawsonTJ@DOJ.STATE.WI.US>
To: 'Lynn Utesch
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 4:20 PM
Subject: RE: MAL Contends . . .: Sixteen CAFOs in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin Define Devastation

Ms. Utesch:

 

As indicated in our letter to you of September 6, 2013 (attached), the DOJ enforces Wisconsin’s regulatory laws on referral primarily from the DNR.  Our office has no independent environmental investigators or authority to prosecute violations except upon investigation and referral from DNR.  Therefore, your concerns should be directed there.  Thank you.

 

Thomas J. Dawson, Director

Environmental Protection Unit

Wisconsin Department of Justice

17 West Main Street

Madison, Wisconsin 53707-7857

(608)

From: Lynn Utesch [mailto:lnutesch@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2014 3:06 PM
To: Dawson, Thomas J.
Subject: Fw: MAL Contends . . .: Sixteen CAFOs in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin Define Devastation

 

http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2014/09/sixteen-cafos-in-kewaunee-county.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MalContends+(MAL+Contends+.+.+.)&m=1

Big Ag Pressures Wood County Board to Drop Groundwater Protection Initiative

Dairy Business Association fights local efforts
protecting against toxic, liquidized cow manure. DBA
members are the worst polluters of Wisconsin waters.

Protect groundwater and we'll pollute more, says Dairy Business Association

Update: See also this morning's Farms, environmentalists spar over manure measure (Jonathan Anderson, Gannett Co. Newspapers); and rebuttal letter to the Board by Midwestern Environmental Advocates, dated August 12, 2015.
 ---
As residents of Wood and Adams counties fight to protect groundwater, Big Ag in Wisconsin as embodied in the Dairy Business Association, is arguing for the right to pollute.

The Dairy Business Association (DBA) in a letter dated August 6, 2015 to the Chair of the Wood County Board of Supervisors (and Cced to Board members) calls a proposed groundwater protection ordinance "unnecessary and potentially counterproductive."

The proposed ordinance will be considered in a County Board meeting on August 18th.

The DBA's members are among the worst polluters in Wisconsin, and DBA lobbyists still disingenuously cloak its operations in the image of the small farmer as industrialized factory farming corporations take over the production of agriculture in the Dairy State in the model of the huge Concentrated (Confined) Agricultural Feeding Operation (CAFO).

The text of the August 6 DBA letter by John Holevoet, Director of Government Affairs for the DBA, is reproduced below.

The DBA is politically aligned with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and local State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa) both of whom worked to decimate the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources water protection division, with Walker now calling for dismantling the federal EPA to whom clean water advocates have appealed for water protection from DBA members.

The DBA's Holevoet admits clean water advocates' point on groundwater and pollution and argues in a ludicrous line of reasoning that protecting groundwater by law will "discourage investments in new technologies and facilities that would better prevent the possibility of groundwater contamination."

Protecting groundwater by law will only hurt you, argues the DBA in its letter reading more like a threat.

Blue Baby syndrome (aka methemoglobinemia now prevalent in Yakima Valley in Washington state, caused by too many nitrates in surface waters and aquifers) will come to Wisconsin, and the DBA will keep on its pursuit for money over people.
---
August 6, 2015

Mr. Lance Pliml

Wood County Board of Supervisors, Chairman
4030 Woodhaven Court
Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494

Dear Chairman Pliml:

This letter is written on behalf of the Dairy Business Association (DBA) and its Wood County members, regarding the proposed Animal Waste Storage, Nutrient Management and Groundwater Protection Ordinance. DBA urges you to vote against this proposed ordinance, which has a questionable legal basis. This type of regulation is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive.

When the County Board previously discussed the proposed ordinance, Corporation Counsel Peter Kastenholz was clear that he did not believe the county has the authority to impose its own groundwater standards. The authority to produce such regulations has been granted to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR); it has not been delegated to the counties. This is no doubt why the most recent ordinance draft avoids direct groundwater regulation and attempts to address this issue through manure storage standards and the implementation of nutrient management plans (NMPs). These are areas over which counties have had some limited authority.

The ordinance's attempt to walk the fine line between legality and illegality calls its enforceability into question. At a minimum, concerns over the legality of certain provisions will likely produce legal challenges if enforcement attempts are made. For example, the ordinance has the potential to require NMPs for some very small farming operations. Any farmer who builds or alters a manure storage facility is subject to the requirements of the new ordinance, which includes the preparation of an NMP.

Nutrient management planning is worthwhile and should be encouraged, but it is doubtful the county can require it for non-CAFO farms unless the county provides cost sharing. (See ATCP 50.54(2).) Large farms that fit the legal definition of CAFO already have to prepare NMPs. This ordinance would impose additional requirements on such farms. This could create an issue if/when the requirements in a county manure storage permit conflict with the state requirements these farms must follow. This ordinance sets the stage for a situation where the county would deny a permit to a farm seeking to make an alteration to their manure storage that is required of them by WDNR.

This ordinance is meant to safeguard groundwater quality, but it will likely discourage investments in new technologies and facilities that would better prevent the possibility of groundwater contamination. Existing manure storage facilities are not generally subject to regulation under the proposed ordinance, unless they are altered in some way. This would discourage farmers from adding additional storage or updating existing facilities because that would subject them to all of the requirements associated with an animal waste storage plan. Discouraging investment and improvements on farms is not good public policy.

Farmers that only stack manure but might be considering constructing a more secure manure storage facility could be discouraged by the ordinance requirements. This could prevent them from growing their herd size and leave them stacking manure even if the runoff risk from their stacking location is far greater than it would be from a new manure storage facility. We want to encourage farmers to grow, invest, and innovate. This ordinance does the opposite.

Agriculture plays a vital role in Wood County economies. Our farmers are valuable members of our community. They are our neighbors and we know them to be good stewards of the land. This ordinance is a solution in search of a problem. There is no reason to believe that groundwater quality is significant concern in Wood County, nor that it is likely to become one. DBA asks you to seriously consider whether this ordinance is worth the added costs to farmers and all the taxpayers of Wood County, especially considering that portions of it may be unenforceable.

Unfortunately, this ordinance appears to be an example of legislating rules for the entire county based upon unfounded concerns regarding one proposed farm in one small section of the county. Wood County is home to a handful of geographic regions, two radically different types of soil, nearly three dozen municipalities, and approximately 1,000 farms ranging from cranberries to dairy. It is a diverse place. Even if the proposed ordinance was a sensible approach for southern Wood County, which it is not, it would make absolutely no sense for the clay fields found in the northern portion of the county. To dictate policy for the entire county based upon incorrect perceptions that only relate to a small corner of the county anyway is foolish. It would be bad governance, and we ask that you reject it.

Regards,

John Holevoet
Director of Government Affairs

cc: Wood County Board of Supervisors

Scott Walker Wants to Kill Runoff Mitigation

Water is worth protecting

Updated - It borders on deranged to poison drinking water and surface water intentionally.

Deranged policy is what Wisconsin, with its abundant fresh waters, gets from Scott Walker and his allies in the Dairy Business Association (DBA), Big Ag in Wisconsin.

That legislation protecting water would pass the Wisconsin GOP legislature is about as probable as Scott Walker holding a series of unscripted, no-holds-barred, town-hall-style listening sessions (see Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

The Scott Walker-proposed budget is an exercise in policy by bomb, bombs filled with poison, with unprecedented power grabs by Walker as he consolidates power in the Department of Administration (DOA), or as it is known in the Capitol, the "Department of All."

From George Hesselberg, Wisconsin State Journal (and Democurmudgeon):

Researchers and supporters of a program that helps farmers run cleaner and more efficient operations say they were “stunned” and “blindsided” by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut a third of the project’s funding. Discovery Farms, UW-Extension program that dates to 2001, applies science … to control runoff, calibrate fertilizer use and employ techniques to conserve land and water.

It has a $750,000 budget, of which $248,000 would be cut in the governor’s proposed state budget. … UW-Extension noted the loss affects longstanding projects and the ability of the small program to leverage crucial additional grants and funds.

Now, why would Republicans and Big Ag intentionally pursue policies that poison Wisconsin children? For the money.

The DBA has big pockets and that its members poison water is not their concern.

Word is out to Wisconsin Republicans in the legislature: Deny, deny, and cry, we're the Dairy State (Lundstrom, Peninsula Pulse).

Of course if their child is hospitalized and nearly killed by E-coli poisoning, or Blue Baby syndrome, even Republicans may feel differently.

Anyone who is not concerned about poisoning children is a sociopath or, as it turns out, a Republican.

The 'modern farming' model, or CAFO (for Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operation) in Wisconsin is accelerating under the Scott Walker administration.

The Scott Walker response to poisoning and polluting water: Kill the science that would measure poison and pathogens, get rid of the Wisconsin Idea, make the DNR part of the Walker administration, and take the administrative law judges that adjudicate complaints on DNR operations and transfer the ad law judges under the authority of Walker's DOA.

Two notes worthy of mention.

Former Governor Jim Doyle

Former Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Madison) (2003-2011) deserves condemnation for carrying the DBA's poisoned-water agenda leading to his seven-point reelection in 2006.

Doyle took in a hefty sum from Big Ag, even a contribution from the infamous polluter James Wysocki, a financier of the National Potato Council who has been upping his contributions of late to the National Republican Congressional Committee in the GOP quest to kill the federal EPA as Scott Walker is proposing to do to the Wisconsin DNR.

Wysocki's proposed massive CAFO in Wood and Adams counties has now so killed property valuations in Wood and Adams counties—an ideal site for tourism and recreation if local officials ever got their act together—that realtors, banks and property accessors on background say the area surrounding the proposed Wysocki CAFO site has been red-lined.

Proposed Sand Valley Golf Resort
in Adams County in Central Wisconsin
borders area red-lined over concerns
about pollution and poison from
massive, proposed Wysocki CAFO

Hence, residents and small businesses attempting to relocate and sell their homes are screaming at local and county officials who take their marching orders from the DBA and Scott Walker, as Wysocki and the potato growers suck up aquifers with high-capacity wells and send back pathogen-laden waste directly into the environment.

White-knight developers are finding central Wisconsin, the bottom of an ancient glacial lake known as the Golden Sands, stuck in economic malaise as local Republican state representatives like Scott Krug remain in the pocket of Party and polluters while paying lip service to concerns about the proposed Wysocki CAFO.

Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law

Secondly, the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law that CAFOs use in litigation is pure political payoff by the DBA, signed into law by Jim Doyle, and which became effective in May 2006.

A Wisconsin Soil Survey by the U.S. Department of Agricultural-Natural Resources Conservation Service concludes: Central Wisconsin's sandy soil is susceptible to blowing hazards, high seepage of sewage lagoons, runoff during rain storms and snow melt, and high susceptibility to concrete corrosion, among other concerns.

Wonder what Jim Doyle has to say about getting the monstrous CAFO-industry juggernaut moving and polluting Wisconsin waters.

Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters Expands TV Buy

Folks in central and eastern Wisconsin are seeing Wisconsin waters ruined under four years of Scott Walker's disastrous environmental policies.

Voters are taking heed, and getting the message.

From the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters

Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters announced today that it has expanded broadcasting of the ad entitled “Water” into the Milwaukee media market. With this additional buy of $310,000, Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters has now made an investment of $1.3 million to date in their efforts to elect Mary Burke.

The ad highlights how Governor Walker risked contaminating the drinking water of Wisconsin citizens with arsenic and lead when he signed the open-pit mining bill. It also reminds voters that Governor Walker signed the open-pit mining bill after the mining company gave $700,000 to a group actively supporting Governor Walker.

The ad concludes with, "You can’t put a price on clean water. But it looks like Scott Walker just did."

Citizen Ystad: We can't live without clean water

Update: Sevastopol and Sturgeon Bay townships in Kewaunee County have both passed no-manure spray ordinances in reaction to massive pollution of acquirers and surface waters from CAFOs, under the Walker administration's newly revamped pro-pollution DNR.
---
IN central Wisconsin Scott Walker's ally, Wood County Chair County Board Chairman Lance Pliml is engaging in shady machinations to appoint a pro-CAFO county supervisor to a vacant position comes some sober commentary from a citizen of Rome.

By Don Ystad

The real shame here is that it has gotten to this point of acrimony between the dairy business and citizens of Wisconsin. Many generations of my family were dairy farmers; honest, hard working, highly respected stewards of the land. With the advent of large industrialized factory farms in the last few years, and the resulting weakening of our environmental protections through their lobbying efforts, dairy farming has taken on a negative connotation as a primary source of pollution in our state.

Citizens are being forced to take legal action to protect themselves from the effects of these factory farms, and from the effects of legislation gone wrong. Citizens fighting the Richfield Dairy CAFO have spent nearly 1/3 of a million dollars in legal fees to force the DNR to evaluate cumulative effect when permitting high cap wells. And now, Kewaunee County citizens, where 1/3 of the drinking water wells have been made unsafe through manure runoff, are forced to defend themselves through an action with the EPA.

Meanwhile, our current administration blindly supports their 30 x 20 program to expand dairy with no mention of taking any measures to control the environment effects; 2013 was a record-setting year for pollution of our waterways from agricultural sources. If you've been following the news, 2014 may surpass even that. We can't live without clean water. This has got to stop.

I'm a concerned citizen and I vote.

Don Ystad is a concerned citizens along with 10,000s others in central Wisconsin, but the bought-and-paid-for politicians have their own idea of democracy.

As citizens in Adams and Wood counties are acting locally, Scott Walker's fundamentalist and extremist brand of politics is reaching into central Wisconsin like so much liquid cow manure.

A letter from Nancy Koch of Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors calls for an open process to select a new county supervisor in this heavily-anti-Wysocki CAFO district.

Dear Wood County Board Members:

This letter is to request your full consideration of Bruce Dimick for the open position in Wood Co. District 17.

He ran for office against Mr. Allworden loosing only by 19 votes. He is clearly a people’s choice for the opening.

Past practice reveals Wood County Board positions have been filled with the alternate running candidate. Since it was such a close race during this past election, the public’s choice to fill the vacancy is obvious. Both Mr. Allworden and Bruce Dimick have similar thoughts on the issues addressing our areas of Wood County.

The peoples views would be represented by Bruce Dimick in a similar way that Mr. Allworden would be representing us. 

If other people are putting in a bid for the position, they should do the work required to run and be chosen by people’s vote in the election time, not be picked to fill a vacancy when such a good voted candidate is already available.

The most important thing to remember here when selecting a replacement for Mr. Allworden is to pick a representative for District 17 that will reflect the views of the people district 17. 

Nancy Koch

CAFO Champion Scott Walker Plagiarized PR; CAFOs Lie about Jobs

"[The Scott Walker campaign] might want to explain why the agriculture section on their campaign website was clearly lifted from a UW Extension press release," notes Uppity Wisconsin in an exclusive (Lounsbury).

Deny-and-run is the Scott Walker response when Walker is caught cheating, lying, laundering money and other typical Walker practices, though this time the Walker campaign will likely just run.

In other news, Scott Walker—who is the Wisconsin champion of concentrated agricultural feeding operations (CAFOs)—might offer some PR advice to his friends at the Dairy Business Association.

Turns out that CAFOs, designed to employ the least number of people under biologically hazardous conditions, are having problems attracting the migrant employees who would risk their health for a small pay check.

Admits a Dairy industry sheet: U.S.dairies seek ways to deal with labor shortages. (Ag-Web. Catherine Merlo)

Pete Wiersma used to get up to 10 applicants a week seeking work at his dairy in Idaho’s Magic Valley.

"Now I’m lucky if I get one person every two weeks," says Wiersma, who milks 1,500 cows near Buhl, Idaho.

The Dairy industry piece attributes the labor shortage to an improving economy in Mexico.

Left out of the piece are the health threats of working in and living near a CAFO, resembling a swim in a Central American lake.

Writes Don Ystad of Rome, Wisconsin in Adams County:

Thought you and your board might find this interesting regarding the jobs the proposed Wysocki dairy CAFO might bring to the area. 

This confirms what many of us suspected, the 25 to 35 CAFO jobs are primarily migrant labor. 

As the article shows, there is little interest in farm labor jobs from local labor pools. 

If you've read the many articles regarding immigration, you understand the demands a migrant population poses on local services. 

So, when the chamber endorses the CAFO, saying "they are all about jobs", I wonder how deeply they've thought about that stance. 

I wonder also, how their stance conflicts with the promise of 475 real jobs from the Sand Valley Golf development just down the road in Rome. 

Certainly they read the newspaper and would be aware of the conflict between a resort type tourism generating business as opposed to a stinking 5,300 cow dairy CAFO 3 miles away. 

The chamber of commerce is made up of business people.  Most successful business people have the ability to weigh the pros and cons of a business proposition; that's what makes them successful. 

Knowing that the Wysockis are members of your chamber of commerce, one must assume that we are dealing with the blind defense of a fellow chamber member, rather than the businesslike comparison of what's good for the business community as a whole.

Take the blinders off. 

You and your chamber of commerce board know full well that Sand Valley can be a boon to many of their own personal businesses and the business community as a whole. Even the ancillary jobs related to the proposed CAFO bring little directly to our area, especially when compared to the resulting loss of area property values, the declining lifestyle issues and reduction of tourism growth. 

American Lung Association Hit CAFOs for Pathogens Injested Through Lungs

Kewaunee County in Wisconsin is being devastated as 16 Dairy concentrated agricultural feeding operations (CAFOs) have destroyed the area as a recreational and tourism attraction while causing severe health problems in residents, and creating dead zones in Lake Michigan and literally destroying streams.

This crisis is replicated around the state.

Scott Walker's idea is: Let's build more CAFOs, it's what the Dairy industry wants and they give politicians a lot of money.

The American Lung Association has a different idea.

"We respectfully request that you hold a public hearing advance of issuing any (CAFO) permits, so that residents can be fully heard," says the American Lung Association letter dated March 26, 2013. (below)

Fully heard. Not a lot of money in that position for Scott Walker.

But Walker does feel compelled to cloud the issue by hawking a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit (WPDES), otherwise known as do-want-you-want-and-pollute-as-much-as-like permits.

"According to a report published by the National Associating of Local Boards of Health animal manure contains 160 pathogens that are capable of causing disease or infection in animal or humans, affecting the respiratory and digestive systems, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration, headaches, abdominal pain and cramping and other debilitating symptoms and illnesses. These pathogens can be transmitted through the air and/or water, potentially leading to widespread outbreaks. Manure Lagoons also contain antibiotics, hormones, barn cleaners and municipal and industrial wastes, all of which are potentially transferred to humans and animals a great distance from the spraying area," says the American Lung Association letter dated March 26, 2013.

Scott Walker should listen to health experts, and follow their advice.

In the meantime, boycotting milk should be considered as Dairy Farmers are destroying Wisconsin's water.

If you doubt this fact about the health of Wisconsin water, there is a test: Go to Lake Michigan by Kewaunee County, or Lake Petenwell in central Wisconsin or Lake Winnebago in east-central Wisconsin, or Lake Mendota in Dane County, grab a glass, dip the glass arms' length into the lake and drink the water.

Try it, but know where a hospital or the nearest Poison Center is located.

Sixteen CAFOs in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin Define Devastation

CAFOs in Kewaunee County Wisconsin

'There's nobody on the beach anymore'

Concentrated (or Confined) Agricultural Feeding Operation are CAFOs.

Devastating Wisconsin lakes, rivers, streams and aquifers, the issue is finally appearing on the radar of the Wisconsin gubernatorial campaign screen.

Babies with Ecoli, water wells contaminated with viruses, stench on the beach, declining property values, dead streams, toxic lakes, fear and Solastalgia Sickness. These are the consequences of living near CAFOs and their dumping 10s of millions of gallons of liquid cow manure straight into the environment every year.

We can thank the Diary Business Association (DBA)—the DBA's sock pockets, Scott Walker, Scott Krug, the Republican Party, several in the Democratic Party—all in political thrall of the myth and money of the DBA while the Wisconsin Dept. of Tourism presents "communities along Lake Michigan ... perennial vacation favorites with a true coastal flavor, complete with sandy beaches" with no apparent sense of irony.

Here is the reality, exemplified in Kewaunee County (northeastern Wisconsin) where 16 CAFOs are sited and more Dairy production is planned, per Scott Walker's Dairy 30x20 Initiative, a Soviet-style agricultural plan with no consideration of the environmental and health devastation.

Coming soon to your community:

Generic Fascism and the Mystical Small Farmer in Wisconsin

Politicians Cowed by Big Ag, Reactionaries and Racists in America's Dairyland as an Authoritarian Politics Emerges

Updated: See also Real Farms versus Farm Businesses (Ikerd): "Farmers historically have held positions of high esteem in the U.S. and in much of the rest of the world. Thomas Jefferson, for example, believed strongly that the 'yeoman farmer' best exemplified the kind of 'independence and virtue' that should be respected and supported by government."
 ---
In the realm of Cincinnatus tilling the soil, and the mystical Volk, is the small farmer in rural Wisconsin holding traditional (white) communities together through sheer work and ethics against the alien influences of the City (Milwaukee) and the University (Madison).

This is not an early 20-century description of Wisconsin.

This is Wisconsin today, where bigots combined with corporate money are attempting to transform Wisconsin into a One Party state.

The myth of the small farmer is of course absurd; the fact is small farming operations are a dying business replaced by rapacious corporate dairy operations that inject liquid cow manure into Wisconsin lakes and streams beyond the carrying capacities of both land and the water.

Dead Zones result, and unless Wisconsin has a radical change of course dead lakes and rivers will follow.

Younger generations, the current teenagers, look upon bigotry as a relic, a mark of derangement, but its roots run deep. Polluting the environment is equally irrational and sociopathic.

I was raised in a rural Wisconsin community: Fond du Lac, provincial, heavily German and overtly racist where "Nigger"and "Jew" jokes were openly shared in public accompanied with varying degrees of malice, where public elementary schools brought in kids from Milwaukee so Fond du Lac's generations' exposure to African-Americans was not limited to Brewers and Bucks games, and visits to the Milwaukee Zoo.

This 1970s program in Fond du Lac, Fondy, was the public teachers' idea.

Today, many rural Wisconsinites are only a few generations removed from farming and the prominence of the myth of the small Wisconsin farmer endures in the declining Wisconsin rural populations where few African-Americans reside.

Cynical race-baiting politicians know well the demographics.

Voters in "urban areas," to borrow a remark by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) made shortly after his 2012 defeat as vice-presidential nominee of the Republican Party, (Shear, Steinhauer, NYT; November 13, 2012), must have cost Mitt Romney Ryan's home state in Ryan's expressed view.

Ryan is a 2016 presidential aspirant, and his political ally, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, pretends to presidential ambitions even as Walker faces a 50/50 chance of defeat for his reelection bid in November.

Scott Walker

Walker is of course is heavily bankrolled by rightwing industry, but the evangelical Walker relies on a voter coalition of authoritarian reactionaries opposing marriage equity, voting rights, organized labor, women's choice, and public education.

Though Wisconsin lacks public ritual reenacting the myth of the disappearing small farmer, the iconic imagery of the small farmer is pervasive, and has been appropriated by Wisconsin Big Ag, emphatically the Dairy Business Association, a steadfast funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Scott Walker.

"We don’t need to look far to see all the positive icons about farming, particularly dairy farming in Wisconsin. We celebrate dairy farming with bucolic scenes embroidered and displayed on our walls, we memorialize dairy farming on both the front and back of every vehicle registered in this state ('America’s Dairyland')," Gordon Stevenson, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' Chief of Runoff Management from 2001-2011, said in an email."But lurking behind the embroidered scene of the red barn and roaming chickens, a CAFO may be found. Contaminated wells and dead fish [in lakes and streams] just aren’t good subjects for embroidery."

Neither are Wisconsin's 19th century abolitionist and underground railroad history, nor the Milwaukee sewer socialists appropriate fare for the Wisconsin tableau, this history isn't celebrated much except in the urban areas.

Meanwhile, as the Wisconsin gubernatorial election approaches an increasingly authoritarian, anti-education track, the Grand Ole Party targets political opponents through public policy while demonizing teachers, Milwaukee, consumer attorneys and Madison in an unprecedented gubernatorial campaign.

Scott Walker now proposes urine tests and public humiliation for disfavored recipients of public aid, as ridiculing rightwing talk radio "provide(s) open microphones for Walker and his legislative allies to gin up fear and anger among their conservative suburban and smaller-town Wisconsin listening audiences," as noted by Jim Rowen, a Wisconsin writer and politico in an important warning of the Southern Strategy employed in the North.

Small farmers still exist, and a sustainable farming movement is beginning to thrive. Citizen groups fight back.

Scott Walker and a neo-fascist coalition are a dangerous underground movement, fueled by hate, funded by corporate money and now dark money as Walker and his movement target the right of their political opponents to participate in the polity.

It would serve the Wisconsin people to acknowledge this reality of Wisconsin politics.

Breaking an out-and-out fascist coalition requires candid and repetitious political activity by citizens who know but remain silent.

As for Wisconsin waters, the Department of Natural Resources under Scott Walker offers market-driven calls for more Dairy production with no plan for protecting the water, an abandonment of the charge protecting the 15,000 lakes, the trout streams and aquifers.

Wisconsin Dairy Business Association Is the Scourge of the Environment

U.S. Homeland Security Acclaims
the value of our water; why can't
politicians and Big Ag?

I've said this before, but I have to say it again. The Dairy Business Association (DBA) is driving a wedge between dairy farmers and non-farming citizens.

Where we previously enjoyed beautiful family farms run by caring multi-generational stewards of the land, we now deal with the stink of industrialized farming factories polluting our lakes, streams and groundwater while sucking up the subsidies initially intended for family farms.

The DBA is a tool of these industrial farmers, spending $200,000 annually buying influence in Madison. They care nothing for the environment, ignore the science, and instead generate gobs of hyperbole to deflect and defer.

Unfortunately, they have a number of our representatives and administration people in their back pocket. Coming from a farming family, it saddens me to see public attitudes towards farmers worsening so quickly.

Like the dirty, polluting factories of the early 1900s, these large agribusinesses are becoming the scourge of the environment. They'll make a mess of our environment, then take their money and run to the next opportunity, while we clean up their mess.

Manure-laden in Kewaunee County,
Wisconsin. Don't drink the water!

In it's haste to reclaim the title of "America's Dairyland", this [Scott Walker] administration is blindly ignoring the effect on our groundwater and surface water. It's a short-sighted objective sure to result in long term problems, many of them irreversible. Remember that when you vote.

Don Ystad
Rome, WI
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There They Go Again
The dairy industry defends the indefensible

By the River Alliance of Wisconsin

We've almost gotten inured to the dairy industry's rationalizations, denials, obfuscations, deflections and excuses for not changing its polluting ways. For decades, dairy farmers blamed sea gulls for algae pollution in Lake Michigan. They used to blame algae blooms in the Madison lakes on dogs and geese, until they finally succumbed to the decades of research conducted by world-class UW-Madison scientists and hundreds of graduate students which have proven that the Madison lakes' algae blooms are caused largely by farm runoff.

When they don't have a handy scapegoat for the problems they cause and need to buy time, farmers and their groups invariably call for "more research," even if extant research is unambiguous in defining a problem.

And there they go again, this time in Kewaunee County. That county is saturated in cow manure, and the already-huge farms keep expanding. The groundwater there is very vulnerable to contamination as the county sits on "karst" geology -- shallow topsoil underlain by porous and cracked rock.

Manure-laced water can run through these cracks and straight to the aquifer. About a third of 550+ wells tested recently in the county had some form of contamination.

The county is bravely attempting to regulate this problem by limiting how much manure can be applied in vulnerable places at certain times of the year. It's a common-sense and long-overdue partial solution to a looming public health crisis.

Enter the Dairy Business Association (DBA), a trade group. It has innuendo and fear-mongering down to a science (maybe the only science they understand), and, true to form they're pushing back at the proposed Kewaunee ordinance.

It calls provisions of the ordinance "vague" and likely to "confuse" farmers. The ordinance is actually quite specific in its prescriptions for manure spreading on vulnerable lands. DBA insults its own brethren by saying they will be confused by the ordinance. These are sophisticated people running complex businesses.

DBA contends the ordinance was provoked by "a couple of studies." To the contrary, the problem the ordinance is trying to solve has been well understood for years, by several studies and analyses, including the testing of thousands of wells.

Given that 10% of wells "throughout Wisconsin" have nitrates, observes DBA, what's the big deal? Imagine if we knew that 10% of car accidents in the state had one cause. You think we'd want it shrugged off like DBA wants well contamination shrugged off? And by citing only the nitrate number, they conveniently ignore coliform bacteria, even salmonella, in well water there. And even if the water you see in this sink were pure, would you want to brush your teeth with it?

There's more but it's almost too frustrating to read. But we're not too frustrated with talking about it -- certainly nowhere near the frustration of hundreds of Kewaunee County residents having to live with what one observer called "Third World conditions" for drinking water.

We will have more to say in the coming weeks about this issue. Meanwhile, reading the excellent Restore Kewaunee website will give you a taste (we use that word advisedly) of what's going on Kewaunee County, and the brave fight underway.