Campaign 2018: Year of Water Is Here

Clean water advocates from across Wisconsin gathered
at the state capitol in Madison to demand clean and
safe water. Image is from a video filmed in November 2015.
(Mal Contends)

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — The toil of citizens working for clean water appears likely to pay off in the midterm elections statewide.

Massive water condemnation from factory farms enabled by corrupt Republican officeholders and resultant political activity have led to a reckoning — November 6, 2018, Election Day.

Republicans often sound like clean water warriors, adopting the language of the citizens fighting for water in political messaging.

Reports Jack Healy of the New York Times in a dispatch from Armenia in central Wisconsin this morning: "The groundwater that once ran cool and clean from taps in this Midwestern farming town is now laced with contaminants and fear. People refuse to drink it. They won’t brush their teeth with it. They dread taking showers. ... [F]ears and frustration over water quality and contamination have become a potent election-year issue."

Increasing opposition to proposed massive CAFO in central
Wisconsin signals statewide, clean water sentiment.
- Photo by Mary Captain-Braund (creative commons)

Potent is correct.

Wisconsin citizens around the state are working to protect Wisconsin's abundant fresh waters, (Saratoga Concerned, Kewaunee County, U.S. DHS, Mal Contends, In These Times, Water Watch Wisconsin, Kewaunee Cares, Tri-Lakes Management District, Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors, Citizens Concerned about Lake Superior CAFOs, Farms Not Factories).

Republicans are fighting for the polluters.

It's that simple.

Residents in central Wisconsin are fighting a proposed
massive factory farm owned by the infamous
Wysocki corporation, (Saratoga Concerned). State
Rep Scott Krug (R) runs political interference for
polluting industry, and appears poised to pay
the price at the ballot box in the gerrymandered
72nd state assembly district.

Writes the Times Healy

As [Gov Scott Walker (R)] runs for a third term, his Democratic challenger, Tony Evers, has turned polluted wetlands and unsafe water into campaign slogans. In Lodi, north of the state capital, Ann Groves Lloyd is campaigning for the State Assembly with a tongue-in-cheek ad in which she tries to water her cows with plastic bottles and irrigate her fields with a water cooler strapped to a John Deere tractor.

Some voters who say they cannot drink from the taps or water their livestock without worrying about nitrates or E. coli bacteria say the state’s deregulatory spree has gone too far.

'I blame the government,' Jose Rangel said one afternoon as he sat in the living room of his trailer home, reviewing a letter confirming that his 27-foot-deep well had tested at double the federal safety limits for nitrates. 'We can’t do nothing about it. I’ll vote. I want clean water.'

Election Day 2018 will remembered as the day Wisconsin citizens did something about it; they voted out the water polluters' lobby seated in the capitol.

NYT Investigating Central Sands of Wisconsin as Factory Farm Pollution Befouls State

Wisconsin's 15,000 lakes face
extinction as safe bodies of water
as industrialized agriculture, Gov.
Scott Walker (R) and state
Republicans have targeted the waters
as dumping grounds for cow manure

Madison, Wisconsin — Factory farming's dumping of cow manure into Wisconsin communities has become so dangerous, the befouling of water and communities has become a leading issue in the 2018 mid-term elections.

Two Democratic Party state assembly candidates, Dave Gorski (dist 52) and Art Shrader (dist 50) in central Wisconsin, have made protecting surface waters and aquifers major campaign issues, against the policies of Gov. Scott Walker (R) and every Republican running for state office. 

With Summer dragging into Sept., there is news every week on the clean water v. Big Ag-GOP front, as communities fight to prevent the next tragedy.

In central Wisconsin, a citizens group fighting the siting of a massive factory farm in Saratoga recently guided New York Times corespondent, Jack Healy, on a tour of the central sands  region under siege by industrialized agriculture and its political protectors, the Republican Party.

Saratoga Concerned works with a broad coalition fighting major ag polluters such as the Wysocki corporation.

Reports Saratoga Concerned:

In the first week of September, Saratoga Concerned members were contacted by Jack Healy, correspondent from the New York Times, interested in covering the Armenia water contamination situation. On Monday members of our team met with Jack, shared our story, took him on a tour of Armenia, and then set him loose to connect with residents and find his scoop.

A huge shout out of appreciation to Mr. Healy for his willingness to travel to Wisconsin and for his efforts reporting on issues facing rural America. We are all excited to see the resulting article coming in the near future.

An additional heartfelt shout out to those in Armenia who were fearlessly willing to stand up and speak out despite direct attempts made to pressure locals to remain quiet. Do not let the industry or others intimidate you into being silent, SILENCE SIMPLY KEEPS THE GUILTY PARTIES COMFORTABLE! 

Citizen action is feared by Wisconsin Republicans.