CAFO Moratorium passes in Dunn County

The Dunn County Board last night passed a six month moratorium on CAFO expansion of more than 10% on farms of over 1000 animals in the county. This is in response to a very large expansion of Cranberry Creek Farm planned for the county, and was prompted by many questions raised about the ability of the farm owners to manage runoff, and some serious issues with the application and the ability of the DNR to properly consider the issues  in awarding a permit. The permit is for an expansion of up to 7150 animals.

This is a very unusual step, and was largely brought about through the joint efforts of the Citizen Action Western Wisconsin Organizing Co-op and a very large number of concerned farm neighbors.  I want to be clear that this is not by any means an anti-farming measure, but is an attempt to pull these large CAFO expansions to a halt in the county until such time that more effective regulation can be put into place. 

I hope to have more detail on the wording of the moratorium, etc. later, but for the time being I'd like to ask that people in the western part of the state consider joining the Western Wisconsin Organizing Co-op - this has just been one of the most recent effective actions that the co-op has helped to organize. If you want more details or want to commit to being a member go to the Citizen Action web site at http://www.citizenactionwi.org/contribution_optionsec

Since Borges is out on vacation, I thought I'd bring up the fact that the 2400 head Vernon County CAFO operation that she blogged about recently is probably going in . The Vernon County Board has voted to not support a moratorium on CAFO operations. More details when we have some.

Update -

There's now an article in the Vernon County Broadcaster .  Although there will be no moratorium on large animal operations --

The board did, however, approve two measures to address farm growth and
land planning. On a pair of 15-14 votes, the board approved an animal
siting ordinance limiting animal units and approved a measure to begin
comprehensive planning.

The animal siting ordinance deals with
farms with more than 500 animal units. That ordinance only gives the
county oversight on the location of such an operation and is basically
a permitting system. The ordinance is very similar to state legislation
formulated for counties.