Wisconsin Farmers Union holds spring meeting at Emerald

By LeAnn R. Ralph

TOWN OF EMERALD  —  Groundwater and the environment were the focus of the Wisconsin Farmers Union spring meeting at the Emerald Town Hall.

Allen Croes, a senior at Glenwood City High School, presented his Contemporary Social Issues project on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), and Kim Dupre, a Town of Emerald resident, reported on a Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network charter bus trip to Madison to speak with state legislators about groundwater at the meeting held March 19 in Emerald.

Several other people spoke about groundwater contamination issues as well.

All together, Wisconsin has 287 CAFOs, Croes said.

A CAFO is defined as 1,000 animal units or more. A milk cow is 1.4 animal units. A CAFO would include 714 milk cows or 2,500 hogs, he said.

“We are seeing the surge in CAFOs because of the reduction of small farms. The average age of (farmers in Wisconsin) is 57 years old,” Croes said.

The trend has been steadily increasing. The Glenwood City area has lost nearly 800 farms in the last 40 years, he said.

CAFOs have a large number of cows, “and what goes in, must come out,” Croes said. 

Manure is stored in open air lagoons, which are prone to overflow, sometimes due to heavy rain, or can leak or seep because of a faulty liner, he said.

“One CAFO of 2,000 cows produces more manure than the cities of Madison, St. Paul and Minneapolis combined,” Croes said.

The human waste produced by cities is treated by a wastewater treatment plant. The waste produced by a CAFO is spread out on fields where it is subjected to rainfall and goes into the land, he said.

Manure is good fertilizer and has nitrogen and phosphorus, but it can also carry harmful organisms such as e-coli and rotavirus, which can also cause illness. Fecal coliform is found in the intestinal track of all warm-blooded mammals, and e-coli helps with digestion, but certain strains can cause flu-like symptoms, Croes said.

There is zero tolerance in well water for e-coli. When nitrate levels rise above 10 parts per million, it can cause health symptoms for infants, such as “blue baby syndrome.” Nitrates attach to the red blood cells, and instead of the cells carrying oxygen, they are carrying nitrogen. High levels of nitrogen in the water also is suspected in certain kinds of cancers, Croes said.

Nitrogen is good for plants, but if it gets into streams or lakes, it can trigger fish kills. The dissolved oxygen becomes so low fish cannot live. Every year, a large dead-zone develops in Green Bay, and it looks as if “you could walk on the water” because it is so thick with algae, he said.

Kewaunee

Kewaunee County, not far from Green Bay, has 16 CAFOs, and one-third of the wells are contaminated and not safe to drink. Some scientists have compared the water quality in Kewaunee County to a third-world country, Croes said.

Karst bedrock is made up of limestone and is easily dissolved by water, which makes channels that allows contaminants, such as viruses or coliform bacteria, to get into the groundwater. St. Croix County also has some areas of karst bedrock, he said.

“If it could happen there (in Kewaunee County), it could happen here rather easily,” Croes said. 

St. Croix County has five CAFOs, and within a two-mile radius of Emerald Sky Dairy there are more than 90 homes, Croes said.

The best way to protect yourself is to get your water tested. The EPA recommends annual testing, and homeowners can test for nitrates, coliform and arsenic, he said.

Jerry Croes, president of the St. Croix County Farmers Union, suggested test wells might be helpful.

“My prediction is that these farms are going to end up with test wells around them … we need to go to these farms and have them prove this wasn’t here already … we need to show history that contamination was not there (before the CAFO),” Jerry Croes said.

Legislators

Kim Dupre of Emerald said she found out about the Emerald Sky Dairy proposed expansion through the Wisconsin Farmers Union network.

Emerald Sky Dairy’s current conditional use permit allows up to 3,400 dairy cows, or 4,760 animal units, and the existing operation has 2,460 animal units, or 1,757 dairy cows.

A proposed expansion at Emerald Sky Dairy would allow up to 6,289 dairy cows.

The Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network is a coalition of grassroots efforts concerned about water quality issues related to CAFOs, farms, pipelines and frac sand, Dupre said.

The Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network received an e-mail from an anonymous donor who offered to pay for five charter buses to bring people from around the state to go to Madison for one day to talk to legislators about clean water issues, she said. 

Dupre was among those who traveled to Madison.

All together, 95 grassroots groups from across the state were represented, and it was a great opportunity to talk to legislators and to each other, she said.

People living in Emerald are living in “Minne-sconsin,” and it is difficult to get news from other parts of the state instead of only news from across the river in Minnesota, Dupre noted.

Among the legislators Dupre visited, state Senator Sheila Harsdorf was in a meeting with St. Croix County Economic Development and did not have time to meet. Senator Kathleen Vinehout of Alma was outgoing, gregarious and concerned. State Representative Kathleen Bernier of Chippewa Falls was quite skeptical but did listen. Glory Adams of Eau Claire presented a map showing 700 wells in Eau Claire County contaminated with bacteria in 2013, Dupre said.

“We are not alone in this issue,” she said.

Dupre shared the Emerald story with legislators and told them she lives down the road about one-and-a-half miles from the town hall. Her neighbors never had high nitrates before in their well water but do now. The Emerald town hall also has problems with nitrate in the water.

When the Emerald Town Hall was built in 2007, a water test revealed a nitrate level of 6.9 parts-per-million. A water test in January of this year showed the nitrate level at 26.8 ppm. Another water test in February showed a nitrate level of 19.1 ppm, she said.

Forest Town Hall has e-coli contamination in the well and shares the well with a church next door. Stanton Town Hall (St. Croix County) cannot drink the water, and the Town of Warren had its own water study group for a number of years, Dupre said.

Glen Hills Park had bacteria in the wells, and a well at Somerset Park, built in 2002, was cased almost all the way down but is now contaminated with nitrates, she said.

“Our chickens have come home to roost. We have to look at what we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” Dupre said.

“While farming has changed, our need for clean drinking water will never change,” she said.

“People ask what they can do. Maybe the best thing they can do is stay informed,” Dupre said.

The St. Croix County groundwater study committee meets the second and fourth Tuesday, and videos of  presentations are posted on St. Croix County’s website, Dupre said.

The Wisconsin Farmers Union also held spring meetings in Franklin on March 20, in Ashland on April 3, and in Marshfield on April 5.