Wisconsin Factory Farm Summit, Sept 10-11 Comes Two Weeks before Voting

Two weeks after this weekend's Wisconsin Factory Farm Summit in Green Bay,  voting begins in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

The magnitude of this Wisconsin election cannot be overstated.

The future of clean, safe and fresh water are at stake, and the political choice is stark.

For the polluters are Wisconsin State Reps. such as Scott Krug (R-Rome) and Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay). Today's Republican officeholders must declare their fealty to Big Ag polluters, no matter the costs to families and communities, streams, rivers and lakes.

Wasn't always like this, but this reality should guide voters. Care about safe water? Do not vote Republican!

Against the polluters in central Wisconsin, David Gorski is running for the 72nd assembly district as a clean water activist, (Facebook); and Lynn Utesch is running in the first assembly district as a clean water activist.

Many more campaigns are being run on clean water, but these two elections will tell the story of clean water in Wisconsin.

Big Ag Pollution Is Coming to Wisconsin with Republican Invite

Atlantic Ocean - blue green toxic algae
blooms threaten tourism, fishing,
humans and other living things

What happens on industrial agricultural operations doesn't stay on agricultural operations

Updated - There are some 282 massive industrial agricultural operations, CAFOs, in Wisconsin with many new permits and permit expansions coming down the pike.

CAFOs are a menace to Wisconsin communities because the operations dump millions of tons of toxic and untreated liquid cow manure into the environment annually, befouling lakes, aquifers, streams, the air, and driving down property valuations for people living near CAFOs.

Florida -No Swimming, Blue Green
Algae alert on Florida beaches
2016 (Photo by Zach Brown)

To understand how politically powerful Big Agricultural operations are, consider what is happening to the Treasure Coast of Florida, now under a state of emergency as toxic Algea blooms created by Big Agriculture are dumped into the open toilet, called Lake Okeechobee, and vectored by Republican Gov. Rick Scott into the Atlantic Ocean.

"As we have described before, toxic algal blooms develop when water is polluted with high levels of nutrients, like nitrates and phosphorous. For algal blooms in Martin County, Lake Erie and other parts of the country, the primary source of pollution is conventional agriculture," writes Shannon Van Hoesen in AgMag. "In the Florida case, polluted runoff from sugar cane farms and other agriculture operations flows into Lake Okeechobee, the largest freshwater lake in the state. When water levels of the lake rise too high and it risks flooding, state officials will flush waters from the lake into rivers, like the St. Lucie River that flows from the middle of the state into the ocean ... While the impacts of pollution from Big Ag may seem like a distant thought to most of us, the typically pristine beaches of the Treasure Coast covered in blue-green algae are a reminder that what happens on the farm doesn’t always stay on the farm."

Wood County Wisconsin 2104 - Swim at your own
risk, do not ingest lake water, shower after
swimming, wash hands before eating
and do not swim if you are ill. Area industrialized
agriculture is actively targeting central Wisconsin
in an effort to conspicuously dump
liquid manure that so repulses multi-
generational families that long-time
residents will pack and leave the region.

In Wisconsin, massive dairy CAFOs produce millions of tons of liquid cow manure that is vectored into area surface waters and aquifers to equally tragic consequence as in Florida.

Big Ag in Wisconsin has purchased the Republican Party and Republican polluter-friendly incumbents, including Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa, Wisconsin) and Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin), are targets in November 2016 though their districts have been gerrymandered by Wisconsin Republicans.

Central Wisconsin and their allies across the state are now fighting an area CAFO, the giant Central Sands Dairy CAFO, and the effort by Central Sands to get state approval to vector more cow manure into surface waters and aquifers. Central Sands' owner, the Wysocki corporation, is attempting to begin operations for another proposed area CAFO, the Golden Sands CAFO.

From Concerned Rome (Adams County Wisconsin) Citizens email this morning:

Subject:CAFO Alert - Action Required‏

Fellow concerned citizens,

It's interesting that again, it appears a request has been made just before a holiday weekend, trying to "fly under the radar".  The Nutrient Management Plan (NWP) they want to increase above recommended standards controls how much manure can be applied around the CAFO, in this case the Wysocki Central Sands CAFO across the river in Armenia. Neighboring drinking water wells there are already far above the state limit for Nitrates.

Why is that an issue for you?  These are the same Wysockis trying to force in a CAFO next door in Saratoga and we need to stop their manipulation of regulations at every turn. 

Please see Criste Greening's e-mail below and send your request to the DNR's Tyler Dix.

Dear friends & Concerned Citizens,

Time Sensitive - Response needed immediately

Once again the Central Sands Dairy and the Wysocki Organization is trying to sneak changes into their current Nutrient Management Plan. Their most recent request is to exceed manure application standards outlined by the UW Extension, this would allow them to apply much more manure to their fields than currently permitted to apply.  This is outrageous!

The public notice of this most recent modification request was posted on June 27th.  We have only 14 days to request a public hearing regarding the requested change.  Please do not delay, copy and paste the message below into a fresh email and send to Tyler Dix at the DNR.  This MUST be done before July 11th.  Tyler.Dix@wisconsin.gov

If choosing to construct your own individual email the following information MUST be included.

All petitions for a public hearing on substantial NMP modifications must include: the name, address and interest of the petitioner and reason(s) why a hearing is warranted.

Protect Wood County and Central Wisconsin, Say People

Shoveling some serious shite across Wisconsin -
Big Ag workers, State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa, Wisconsin)
and State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), work closely
with Scott Walker and polluters to help with pro-pollution,
effective political messaging. Krug and Kitchens made a
joint appearance on March 31, 2016 at Algoma City Hall
in northeastern Wisconsin. Krug and Kitchens
told residents to contact the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural
Resources (DNR) to have their concerns about polluted water
heard. The DNR under Scott Walker has abdicated its
traditional mission to protect natural resources, including
water. Citizens came out on a Winter evening and were lied to
repeatedly by two elected state officials who should be
looking out for constituents, not polluters.

Central Wisconsin citizens speak a simple and compelling message: Protect our communities' water, protect our environment, protect our children and protect our future.

Citizens' demands are met with just as clear a response from industrialized agricultural polluters and their protectors in the state and federal legislature: The response is, No.

For example, Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) belched up some blather in a June Is Dairy Month column. Kind does not mention corporate dairy agriculture and its ongoing environmental assault against family farmers and Wisconsin communities, used to having family farmers living on the land

Living near vast industrial manure ponds would be an act of madness, and suicide of course. One reason why the owners of one and every four pigs, for example, in the United States are Chinese and living safely away from their rural American colonies.

Death by manure pond

In a repulsive illustration of the scale of polluting industrialized agriculture, summer brings death by dairy and swine manure pond that happens every year across the nation. The deaths are every bit as horrific as they sound: See Another dairy worker drowns in a manure lagoon in less than a year, Two Wisconsin men die in manure pit accident, Iowa father, son die from manure pit fumes.

I guess CAFO owner and manure pond creator, James Wysocki of central Wisconsin, can't be blamed for not living on the grounds of his Confined Animal Feeding Operations, (CAFOs).

The problem is Wysocki and Big Ag have no reluctance to vectoring liquid manure into area communities with the predictable consequences of poisoning aquifers and surface waters with a lot of help from Scott Walker and the DNR. Big Ag both pollutes and deletes ground and surface water.

Political protection

Kind's constituents include Wood and Adams county residents where agribusiness, (Big Ag), is proliferating and targeting the region for shock-and-awe treatment in pollution and depletion-of-water tactics.

The business plan is to change a way of life so completely that multi-generational residents will become repulsed and terrorized, and they'll move out of their communities and leave the area as a colony to Big Ag polluters.

Doesn't seem right.

In Wisconsin state government, Big Ag's tools, State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa, Wisconsin) and State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), work closely with Scott Walker and polluters to help on pro-pollution, effective political tactics.

One example is a March 31, 2016 appearance at Algoma City Hall in northeastern Wisconsin at which Krug and Kitchens told residents to contact the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) to have their concerns about polluted water addressed, specifically the Ahnapee River, on Wisconsin’s Impaired Waters List.

Wisconsin's Republican attorney general working with the Republican governor and the Republican legislature has devastated the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources' ability to chronicle and respond to systemic attacks on safe and drinkable water so for Krug and Kitchens to suggest the DNR and feign no understanding of what their Party is doing is disingenuous.

Communities band together

I mentioned to clean water activists in central Wisconsin, that children being hospitalized and poisoned might finally elicit some spasm of conscience. The universal response: It's happened before and it won't matter to these people, [Big Ag].

Facing such inaction from state and federal government, communities have to monitor and document the devastation from liquid cow manure relying on citizen action.

Below is a video of decent central Wisconsin folk fighting a corporate-Republican assault on their way of life:

Scott Walker's Appetite for Money Leaves Wisconsin Behind

Wisconsin people stand together against the reckless, absent Gov.
Scott Walker. Walker's political "Dept of All" crafted a budget coming
from out of nowhere, maybe the visions of Walker. Walker says
God and his Church put him in this position for a run for president
and that he prays on every major political decision, including
his budget proposal. Jobs and honest work apparently are not
high on Scott Walker's list of thing to pray for.
"They ... smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back
into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever
it was that kept them together, and let other people
clean up the mess they had made."
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Jobs, jobs, whatever happened to Scott Walker's 250,000 new jobs promise? A floor, not a ceiling, yes?

No.

Scott Walker proves jobs no longer matter. Neither do promises.

Scott Walker is plundering Wisconsin for his perceived self interests.

As Walker jets across the nation, Wisconsin residents are left behind, bringing up the rear in job creation and becoming the unwilling recipient of a Walker budget proposal, eviscerating the DNR, public education and the University of Wisconsin System. Crazy.

Walker didn't run on these ruinous measures. Even right-leaning newspapers and residents who have protected Walker in the past are wondering where Walker's budget of destruction is coming from. So, increasingly is business (Torinus, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

So, Walker feels entitled to launch his shock-and-awe fire sale of Wisconsin to the special interests, funding his quasi-presidential campaign at the expense of small farmers, working families and the centers of rural communities called rural school districts.

All the while Walker takes the money to fund his project selling himself as a regular Wisconsinite and not a ideological zealot who doesn't know much about public policy.

"One hiccup in Walker selling himself as a regular guy is that regular guys don't have rope lines to keep reporters at a distance. During three public events on Thursday and Friday, he never was within earshot of national reporters following him. ... As Walker crisscrossed South Carolina, he never took questions in public from prospective voters, either. There were no town-hall style events, and when he met one-on-one with voters the media were kept from that room," notes John McCormick in Bloomberg.

That Walker speaks earnestly about making his political decisions after consultations from God is troubling, that Walker was caught on tape taking his orders from billionaires is disturbing.

But whatever happened to Walker's focus on jobs?

God must have told Walker to avoid question-and-answer sessions and questions about jobs as well because the few softball interview questions Walker entertains reveal a shallow and deceitful man.

The fact is Scott Walker is a pathological liar without a conscience, Walker is even targeting the disabled again.

I guess this utter lack of empathy for everyday people is God's will, if Scott Walker is to be believed.

Door County Republican Pummeled over Walker Budget

There is a point at which enough people are hurt by a slow-motion destruction project, a breaking point, that a change in the political culture results.

Freshman State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) is finding this out.

Kitchens held listening sessions in Door and Kewaunee County in northeastern Wisconsin on Scott Walker’s 2015-17 biennial budget and was battered.

Reports Jim Lundstrom in the Peninsula Pulse:

Gov. Walker's biennium budget was a focus of a recent listening session held by freshman 1st District Assemblyman Joel Kitchens, which contains proposals that seem to confirm fears that Wisconsin is in a fight for its identity, with attacks on several sacred cows – public education, the UW System, the state parks, the Natural Resources Board, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, and, yes, even the Wisconsin Idea.

As summed up by Dr. Peter Sigmann at the Feb. 27 standing-room-only listening session at the Sturgeon Bay Public Library, in his time at the Medical College of Wisconsin, talented people were recruited to the college from other states because of Wisconsin's quality of life, and now that is under relentless attack. ...

"The problems we've had in Door County we're not caused by CAFOs," Kitchens said.

"Yes they were," many voices responded.

Don Freix of Fish Creek (one of only three people who identified himself before asking a question) pointed out that in 2000, the state was spending 32 percent more on the UW System than on corrections. "That's what's eating up our budget," he said.

"As of this proposed budget, we'll be spending 17 percent less on education than we will be spending on corrections," he said. "We're at a pretty hypocritical place right now. What will this Assembly majority will do to cut these costs?"

Another man said it is the sentencing system that is wrong. "We're overcommitting too many people," he said.

"We do need to look at the court system," Kitchens said.

A woman pointed out that the elimination of SeniorCare would force her onto Medicaid, which will triple her premiums.

"I think we can save it. I'll be introducing an amendment," Kitchens said.

"A lot of representatives are hearing about that," [Rep. Michael Schraa of Oshkosh]  added.

Attacking constituents through the state budget is not playing well in Door and Kewaunee County.

CAFOs were reportedly the topic of heated commentary.

Kitchens must not have heard yet about his own constituents poisoned and hospitalized last year by pathogens in liquid cow manure vectored into the aquifers and surface waters.

As for Scott Walker, he's on his fundraising tour, pretending he'll be president one day.

Worth noting is a Wisconsin state representative is holding no-holds-barred listening sessions two months into his first term, and Scott Walker has yet to hold even one listening session with the people of Wisconsin, and Walker is telling Republicans around the nation how "bold" he is.