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Dear Friend,
Factory farms and the GMO crops that feed them are polluting Wisconsin’s air, water and soil.
Your elected officials aren’t addressing this assault on your quality of life. But you can—by electing candidates who are willing to stand up to Big Ag.
Use your vote on November 8, to stand up for clean water! Vote for candidates that will fight to protect your air, water and quality of life from factory farm pollution!
Here are four candidates who have pledged to protect clean water and stand up to Big Ag:
- Lynn Utesch (WI Assembly District 1) - “Clean abundant water must be accessible for all citizens in the First Assembly district, and safeguards and protections must be put into place to secure that right.”
- David Gorski (WI Assembly District 72) - “Dave Gorski is not afraid to fight for clean water, clean air and clean resources for Wisconsin citizens and future generations.”
- Mary Hoeft (U.S. House of Representatives, District 7) - "The people of the 7th Congressional District deserve a legislator willing to fight to protect our water for future generations."
- Russ Feingold (U.S. Senate) – “If you want to represent the people of Wisconsin you have to pay attention to problems like groundwater contamination.”
The Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network is also standing up to Big Ag interests. Over 150 people attended a Stink-In at the State Capitol on October 22, to raise awareness about the pollution that often accompanies factory farms, or as agribusiness calls them, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network, a coalition of 13 grassroots groups fighting against CAFOs, called on members of Wisconsin’s State House to reverse the longstanding trend of failed CAFO oversight, faulty county and state CAFO permitting processes, and noncompliance with the federal Clean Water Act.
As an activist from St. Croix County said, "If we can't change our elected officials’ minds, we must change their faces."
The impact of factory farms on the quality of life in Wisconsin is tough to ignore. Dairy CAFOs have contaminated private drinking wells with nitrates and e.coli bacteria in Kewaunee County. Run-off from CAFO manure spread on farm fields has created a dead zone in Green Bay in Lake Michigan. And a 26,000-hog CAFO is being proposed in Bayfield County in the Lake Superior Basin.
Wisconsin’s livestock siting law, passed in 2004, took away local power to regulate CAFOs, leaving it up to the state. This one-size-fits all law, coupled with declining environmental law enforcement by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, has left rural communities in Wisconsin at risk.
Use your vote on November 8, to stand up for clean water! Vote for candidates that will fight to protect your air, water and quality of life from factory farm pollution!
Learn more from the Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network here.
- Melinda for the Organic Consumers Fund team