Dunn County reinstates CAFO moratorium for 45 days

By LeAnn R. Ralph

MENOMONIE  — The Dunn County Board has approved reinstating the moratorium on expanding or starting new Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) for an additional 45 days.

Following some spirited discussion, supervisors approved the additional 45 days on a vote of 17 “yes” to 11 “no” at the Dunn County Board’s May 17 meeting.

Dunn County’s Livestock Operations Study Group was formed as part of the initial six-month moratorium and has been meeting regularly since November.

The study group had expected to report to the county board at the May 17 meeting, but the group is not yet finished with its work, said Tom Quinn, county board supervisor from Downing and chair of the Planning, Resources and Development Committee.

So far, the LOSG has had 13 meetings and has listened to ten to 15 presentations related to various aspects of CAFOs, Quinn said.

The PR&D committee is part of the Livestock Operations Study Group.

“We were not able to get through all of the discussion and recommendations in time for the May deadline,” Quinn said.

The PR&D Committee voted to ask the Dunn County Board to reinstate the moratorium for 45 days to allow the LOSG to finish the work and make any recommendations that the study group may decide are important, Quinn said.

The LOSG is expecting to finish the report and present the final version to the Dunn County Board at the July meeting, he said, adding that the original plan was to report to the county board by the end of the moratorium.

Diane Morehouse, county board supervisor from Menomonie and a member of the PR&D Committee, noted that the study group has worked very hard and has reviewed hundreds of pages of information if not thousands of pages.

“I want to give kudos to the citizen members (of the study group) for all of the hours they have put in,” she said.

Reinstating the moratorium for 45 days would “honor the process” and would allow the LOSG to make any recommendations, Morehouse said.

“It just seemed prudent to us,” she said.

County board supervisor Larry Bjork said he believed the study group and the moratorium on CAFOs was “needlessly scaring the public about animal agriculture” and that animal agriculture was seen as “somehow being a burden to the people in the rest of the county.”

Cranberry Creek

County board supervisor Jim Anderson said he subscribes to “The Country Today,” which recently contained an article about the Cranberry Creek Dairy in southern Dunn County.

Problems with Cranberry Creek are “making us think there are problems elsewhere,” Anderson said.

Although the Town of Rock Creek is unzoned, concern about the expansion of Cranberry Creek Dairy was one of the factors that contributed to Dunn County placing a six-month moratorium on forming or expanding Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that would have 1,000 animal units or more and forming the Livestock Operations Study Group.

The focus of LOSG is to evaluate the impacts of CAFOs on the health, safety and welfare of Dunn County’s residents in relation to groundwater, surface water, air quality, the economy, transportation and other resources, to make recommendations and to report on the group’s findings.

Getting it right

County board supervisor Gary Bjork of Colfax, who also is a member of the PR&D committee, said that while LOSG members say they need more time “to get it right,” the Styer family, owners and operators of Alfalawn Farm, “got it right.”

Other CAFOs in Dunn County, Denmark Dairy (Colfax), Five Star Dairy (Elk Mound) and Windmill Dairy (Colfax) also “got it right,” he said.

The CAFOs operating in Dunn County were built to minimum state standards, and any nitrate levels in well water under 10 parts per million are considered safe. The wells at Alfalawn Farm test at 3 ppm, said Bjork, who also asked for a roll call vote on the motion to reinstate the moratorium.

Wells around the Cranberry Creek Dairy are testing at 28 ppm for nitrate, and the dairy is proposing to truck manure 20 miles away, said Dale Harschlip, county board supervisor from Mondovi .

In La Crosse County, 2,000 wells have been contaminated by one CAFO, and “taking a few extra days to get it right is not a bad plan,” said Kelly McCullough, county board supervisor from Menomonie.

According to a recent editorial in the La Crosse Tribune, officials from La Crosse County were put in the position of making an Open Records request to the state Department of Natural Resources to find out about well contamination because the DNR does not have a policy for notifying municipalities when the DNR obtains information about contaminated wells.

Purpose

Several county board supervisors said they did not understand how reinstating the moratorium was going to help the LOSG finish the report.

“I do not understand the extra time,” said David Bartlett, county board supervisor from Boyceville.

“Will we still get the report? Are rules going to be proposed? If it is just the report, is no moratorium needed?” Bartlett asked.

The report may or may not have recommendations, and members of the LOSG are only starting to discuss the key findings, Quinn said.

The report could contain recommendations for the state and for the DNR or local recommendations for Dunn County, he said.

The actions of the Dunn County Board will be subsequent to receiving the report, said Steve Rasmussen, county board supervisor from Boyceville and chair of the Dunn County Board.

Vaughn Hedlund, county board supervisor from Boyceville, said he did not see a logical reason to continue the moratorium, although he believed the study needed to continue.

Gary Stene, county board supervisor from Colfax, noted that the LOSG is operating as an arm of the county board to do the research and is “now getting to the hard part” and that he would like to see the moratorium reinstated.

The LOSG report will influence policy and regulations at the county board level, he said.

“We want all the information we can get … I would like the moratorium to continue so (the LOSG) can finish the work,” Stene said.

Mike Kneer, county board supervisor from Menomonie and a member of the PR&D committee, said he had voted during the committee meeting to send the reinstatement of the moratorium to the county board so the board members could vote on the issue.

“Either way, LOSG will continue to work,” Kneer said, adding that the study group is an “excellent committee” and that livestock operations does not only refer to dairy but also includes other groups of animals such as pigs and poultry.

Reinstating the moratorium would be “symbolic, to let people know the work will continue,” Kneer said.

How they voted

The Dunn County Board approved the motion to reinstate the moratorium on forming new CAFOs or expanding existing CAFOs on a vote of 17 “yes” to 11 “no” with the following votes tallied.

County board supervisor Calvin Christianson, county board supervisor from Menomonie, was absent from the meeting.

Yes — Sarah Kennedy (Menomonie); Kuether (Menomonie); Teresa Lyall (Menomonie); Tim Mather (Menomonie); McCullough (Menomonie); Morehouse (Menomonie); Quinn (Downing); Mary Solberg (Menomonie); Stene (Colfax); Sheila Stori (Menomonie); James Tripp (Menomonie); Carl Vandermeulen (Menomonie); Jim Zons (Colfax); Elton Christopherson (Elk Mound ); Paul DeLong (Menomonie); Harschlip (Mondovi); Rasmussen (Boyceville).

No — Hedlund (Boyceville); Brian Johnson (Colfax); Kneer (Menomonie); Charles Maves (Boyceville); Jerome Prochnow (Menomonie); Gary Seipel (Eau Galle); Anderson (Menomonie); Bartlett (Boyceville); Gary Bjork (Colfax); Larry Bjork (Menomonie); Richard Creaser (Menomonie).