On May 12, 2021 Zach Raff, Assistant Professor of
Economics, UW-Stout, provided an overview
of CAFOs and Water Quality in Wisconsin to the Environmental Action Team of Health Dunn Right. Over the past 30 years, livestock operations in Wisconsin – primarily dairies – have become more and more concentrated. This concentration of the industry has led to the proliferation of CAFOs in the state, which provide operational cost savings but are associated with several forms of external costs, e.g., nonpoint source runoff. He discussed the past, present, and future of the livestock industry in Wisconsin and the effects on surface water quality from the rise in CAFOs over the past 30 years in the state, while focusing on the economic implications and mechanisms behind the estimated impacts. He also provided policy recommendations to better control these external costs.
The research paper and the presentation slides are attached below.
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Wisconsin: Vote for Clean Water on Nov. 8
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Never more important.
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
Steve is a member of LION Publishers , the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce, the Online News Association, and the Local Media Consortium, and is active in Health Dunn Right.
He has been a computer guy most of his life but has published a political blog, a discussion website, and now Eye On Dunn County.
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