DNR holds public hearing on Emerald Sky Dairy WPDES permit and proposed expansion
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
TOWN OF EMERALD — The biggest concern about Emerald Sky Dairy at a public hearing held by the state Department of Natural Resources is high nitrate levels in the groundwater.
More than a dozen people spoke at a public hearing held by the DNR July 25 about an application from Emerald Sky Dairy for the re-issuance of a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit (WPDES) and a request for expansion.
The DNR held the public hearing using the online platform, Zoom, and more than 60 people logged in or called into the public hearing.
Emerald Sky Dairy is located on county Highway G northwest of Glenwood City.
Emerald Dairy’s first WPDES permit was issued January 1, 2000, and in 2016, the dairy was sold to Tuls Dairy and was renamed Emerald Sky Dairy, said Jeff Jackson, a DNR agricultural run-off specialist based out of the Baldwin office.
The new WPDES five-year permit would cover the dairy from 2023 to 2028, he said.
Emerald Sky Dairy currently has 1,600 cows and is proposing a herd expansion to 3,300 cows. All young stock are raised off site, he said.
Emerald Sky Dairy has an updated monitoring plan and an updated nutrient management plan that was approved March 17, 2021, Jackson said.
The dairy is located in the Willow River Watershed and has cow barns, two feed pads, two liquid manure storage units, a solid manure stacking pad, a milking center and a stormwater pond to the south, he said.
Emerald Sky Dairy has 5,371 acres available to land spread liquid manure in Polk County and St. Croix County, with most of the acreage located in St. Croix County. The land where the manure is spread grows alfalfa, corn grain, corn silage and some fall rye cover crop, Jackson said.
A total of 3,300 cows would produce 41.4 million gallons of liquid manure, wastewater and feed pad run-off annually, he said.
The dairy has 240 days of manure storage, and the minimum requirement is 180 days. The stacking pads can hold 59 days of solid manure, and there are field stacking sites in the nutrient management plan as well, Jackson said, noting that liquid manure cannot be land spread in February and March.
The DNR will compile all oral and written comments received about the application for a WPDES permit, as well as responses to questions asked, and will send those out to the people who registered for the public hearing.
Well water
The water at the Emerald Town Hall has tested far above the level recommended as safe for nitrates in well water, and the town hall well was installed in 2007, said Kim Dupre, a former resident of the Town of Emerald who lived there for 20 years.
The Emerald Town Hall is across the road from Emerald Sky Dairy.
The town hall well is 240 feet deep, but now the DNR is saying the town hall well was poorly constructed because it does not have cement grouted casing down to 260 feet, she said.
If the standards keep changing for clean drinking water, that does not address the root of the problem. People cannot afford to replace their water wells every 10 years, and the well drillers also say they cannot guarantee clean water, Dupre said.
Nitrate contamination around the Town of Emerald is more widespread than the DNR’s records indicate. When there was eColi contamination in the wells, DNR officials in Madison would not do source checking to find out where the contamination was coming from, she said.
Much of the nitrate contamination is not on record because residents in the area do not trust the DNR or St. Croix County, Dupre said.
The environmental assessment from 2000 regarding the nutrient management plan and manure storage said “all will be well” and that Emerald Dairy would not pose any threat to groundwater or surface water, she said,
Nutrient management plans are for crop production and are not about protecting water quality, Dupre said.
“If the DNR is not protecting water quality — who is?” she asked.
Some of the fields where the liquid manure is spread also have excessive phosphorus levels in the soil, Dupre noted.
What is the DNR’s role? To protect natural resources? Or to help the producers? she asked.
Dupre said she was asking DNR deny the permit.
Emerald Sky Dairy should have monitoring wells, and the number of animals should be capped at the current size, she said.
No expansion
Linda Hendricks of New Richmond said she lives 12 miles east of Emerald Sky Dairy.
The dairy has had numerous spills and violations and was fined $80,000 some years ago because of a manure spill. The fine should have been $1 million, she said.
Ninety families live within two miles of Emerald Sky Dairy. For the last four years, testing has shown the nitrate level in Hendricks’ well to be 17.2, 15.1, 14.3 and 11.3 milligrams per liter, she said.
Drinking water levels of nitrate at 10 mg/L or less is considered safe.
Hendricks said she was not in favor of expanding the dairy.
Residents
Virginia Drath said she lives 1.5 miles away from Emerald Sky Dairy and that she is opposed to the DNR issuing the WPDES permit for another five years.
Drath said she also objects to the idea of not installing any monitoring wells.
After talking with 133 residents in the area, two have installed reverse osmosis systems to deal with the nitrates in their drinking water and one had drilled a new well, she said.
Half of the residents are afraid to drink their water, but they also are afraid to test their water because they know they cannot afford to install a reverse osmosis system or drill a new well or do whatever else it takes to fix the nitrate problem, Drath said.
Drath said she has observed the manure spills and water contaminated with manure draining through a culvert to a waterway.
The situation is not good for the community. And while the DNR did publish a notice of the public hearing in the Baldwin newspaper, the Town of Emerald clerk did not receive a notice of the hearing. Providing a notice to town officials in the townships affected should be part of the DNR’s efforts to communicate about public hearings, Drath said.
Karst
Barbara Nelson lives on county Highway G one mile east of Emerald Sky Dairy and has lived there since 1990.
Water quality in the Town of Emerald has not been protected, she said.
There are problems with rising nitrate, phosphorus and eColi levels in the water, Nelson said, adding that she does not drink water from her tap because of the increasing nitrate levels.
In the past seven years that the Tuls family has owned Emerald Sky Dairy, no one from the dairy has attended an Emerald Town Board meeting or an Emerald Plan Commission meeting, she said.
The dairy has had five DNR violations in four years. The dairy spread manure in the fall of 2019, and later that night there was heavy rain, and then there was a fish kill in a nearby creek, Nelson said.
The area has karst topography that affects run-off into the Willow River, the Rush River, the Kinnickinnic River and the St. Croix River, she said.
In karst topography, which has soluble rock such as limestone, the dissolving of bedrock has created sinkholes, caves and other features that make it especially easy for contaminants to infiltrate groundwater.
No one should be afraid to drink their own tap water, Nelson said.
Emerald Sky Dairy must be better stewards before the dairy receives another permit. The DNR should reduce the number of cows, Nelson said, adding that she does not support issuing another WPDES permit or any expansion at the dairy.
Public health
The purpose of the DNR is environmental management to protect the air, land, water and public health, said Dayna Hennessy, a Town of Emerald resident.
At the last well water testing done by St. Croix County Community Development, Hennessy said her well water tested at 14 mg/L.
Since she is surrounded by a pollinator field of 40 acres and also a 40-acre woods, it would be reasonable to think the field and the woods would absorb nitrate, she said.
Hennessy said she cannot drink her water or wash her food or use the water to preserve and can food or to bathe or brush her teeth.
Certain cancers are caused by nitrates. Citizens have a right to clean water, she said.
If the DNR states that groundwater is of the utmost importance, then how can the agency issue a permit when there have been numerous violations on a permit that expired three years ago? Emerald Sky Dairy has been operating without a permit fir three years, Hennessy said.
Emerald Sky Dairy’s manure storage failed in December, but they did not report it until March, she said.
When attendees at the public hearing were given a second opportunity to speak, Hennessy said she wanted assurances that all federal and state statutes were being followed to protect public health and the watersheds, and that the issue of the Emerald Sky Dairy permit would be taken seriously.
Monitoring wells
Groundwater monitoring should be required of Emerald Sky Dairy, and there should be monitoring wells on site, said a representative of Midwest Environmental Advocates out of Madison.
The karst topography affects groundwater contamination. The well at the Emerald Town Hall has tested as high as 64 mg/L, or six times the amount that is considered to be the upper limit of safe for consumption, so there should be monitoring wells in the spreading fields as well, she said.
Emerald Sky Dairy has a record of non-compliance with the burst pipe and the manure spill and then the fish kill, the representative said.
The DNR must assess the dairy’s impact on groundwater and must have an action plan. Climate change will mean more precipitation and more possibilities for manure run-off, she said.
Valuable resource
Carolyn Fuchs, who said she has lived in Hudson since 1979, has been married to a fish biologist for 55 years.
The groundwater is not being tested and something is happening to the groundwater, she said.
The DNR must explain how groundwater is tested, Fuchs said.
Everett Fuchs said he would submit more detailed written comments to the DNR and noted that groundwater is our most valuable resource.
Fuchs was a program manager in the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to an article about his son, who also is a scientist.
The groundwater pollution around Emerald Sky Dairy is getting worse with nitrates and phosphates, Fuchs said.
The Willow River and the St. Croix River are listed as impaired waters, and in 1968, the St. Croix River was named a wild and scenic river and is a national treasure, he said.
A large body of evidence shows that Emerald Sky Dairy has a reckless disregard for water quality and the lives of local residents, Fuchs said.
Intense monitoring of the wells at the facility and in the fields is needed, and if the water quality cannot be improved, then the number of cows should not be increased, he said.
The number of cows should be reduced to see if that helps improve water quality, even if it means reducing the number of cows to zero. While that may seem unfair to Emerald Sky Dairy, it is also unfair that people cannot drink their water, Fuchs said.
Fuchs said if he dumped his garbage in the middle of the street in Hudson, the city would hold him accountable, and yet, Emerald Sky Dairy has not been held accountable.
The DNR must come down on the side of clean water and local residents, he said.
“It’s a matter of fairness and doing the right thing,” Fuchs said.
When attendees were given a second opportunity to speak, Fuchs said a plan is needed to reduce nitrates that includes reducing run-off from farm fields.
What is Emerald Sky Dairy doing to help the Willow River and the St. Croix River so they are no longer impaired? he asked.
Worse
Jenelle Ludwig Krause said she has lived in the Town of Eau Galle in St. Croix County for 16 years.
Land spreading of manure from Emerald Sky Dairy also is done in the Town of Eau Galle.
The water was clear, but it has been getting worse every year and a reverse osmosis system had to be installed, she said.
The neighbors’ wells have nitrates and bacteria as well, said Krause, the executive director of GROWW Action, an organization with the mission of building power together to create change so that “everyone in our communities (can) make ends meet, live with dignity, and have a voice in shaping the decisions that impact us.”
Krause said she was opposed to the renewal of the permit.
Still fighting
Jody Slocum, a Downing resident, said she was at the initial hearing in 2000 for Emerald Dairy when the proposal was for 500 cows.
Twenty-three years later, and people are still fighting for the right to have clean water, she said.
The DNR must stand with the citizens, “and we have your back … you are our only hope to protect the water and the air,” Slocum said.
The DNR must do its job and protect the environment, she said, adding that there should be no permit for Emerald Sky Dairy and no expansion because the dairy has a “terrible track record.”
Stunning
Beth Wood, of the Star Prairie Land Preservation Trust, said she was surprised to learn that Emerald Sky Dairy had been operating without a WPDES permit for three years.
Emerald Sky Dairy has been inflicting harm on the neighbors. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) operate with impunity in Wisconsin, and everyone has the right to clean water, she said.
It is “stunning that this is allowed to go on in St. Croix County,” Wood said.
People have no recourse except the DNR, and in many instances, the DNR’s hands are tied. DNR personnel want to do what’s right, and “and we want them to do the right thing,” she said, adding that she is opposed to the permit and to the expansion.
Don’t mix
Dr. Steve Oberle, an agricultural consultant, said the DNR should shut down Emerald Sky Dairy.
Karst topography and large dairies “do not mix,” he said.
What they have
Carol Hardin of Hudson said she was opposed to reissuing a permit to a CAFO that “cannot manage what they already have.”
Nothing good comes from a CAFO except the money the CAFO makes for the owners, she said.
The impaired Willow River and the St. Croix River will not get better with a bigger operation at Emerald Sky Dairy, Hardin said.
Following the public hearing, the DNR accepted written comments on the Emerald Sky Dairy application until August 1.
