Friday, March 17, 2017

Don't look for Walker on manure spill inspection duty

He won't be inspecting the latest Wisconsin manure spill - - 3.5 miles long until it hit a waterway - in the feedlot-besieged NE part of the state:
The Wisconsin DNR says nearly 100,000 gallons of manure spilled at a farm in Brown County Monday.
Officials say the spill occurred at the James Kroll Farm on Finger Road and County Road V in the Town of Humboldt, after a valve was left open by a farm employee.
The manure flowed 3.5 miles reaching the Luxemburg Road crossing and into School Creek.
A question - - Why did it take three days for neighbors to be notified?
...Action 2 News spoke with some residents, who didn't want to speak on camera, who don't feel the same way. They are upset they weren't notified about the spill until 3 days after it happened.
And apparently the farm in question is not one of the behemoths, but don't look for the state to tighten up its oversight, as Walker has sent the DNR in the other direction.
State audit finds DNR not following own rules on water pollution
History lesson - - I remember when the DNR fined an operator $464 for a million-gallon manure spill. This recent spill of 100,000 gallons wouldn't be worth the DNR's paperwork time to write up and collect a $46.40 citation.

Side note - - Do not wonder why Lake Michigan into which these manure-polluted creeks and rivers empty has a persistent dead zone?


Also - - Do not wonder why so many rural Wisconsin wells are contaminated:

Nitrates Polluting 1 In 5 Private Wells In Wisconsin
State Data Says 90K Wells Could Be Contaminated By Farm Runoff
Plus - - expect to read more about land and water pollution in rural Wisconsin if Team Walker gives the biggest users of groundwater permanent resource control combined with intentionally-weakened oversight. 

Because that's the plan.

Coincidentally, I suggested here the other day that manure spills are part of the Walker iconography, as he and his allies in the Legislature, on the State Supreme Court and in the Attorney General's office, have enabled the explosive growth of animal feeding - - with more on the way - -  at the expense of the neighboring landscape, clean air and a sustainable water table. 

Surely the symbol below also from NE Wisconsin represents the consequences of Walker's tenure, writ regrettably large and pungent:

*  How about a plume of cow manure flowing like this one in Kewaunee County from one of the large animal feeding operations which Walker is deregulating, along with rule and legislative changes to give big well-water users easier and permanent access to the nearby groundwater through his ideologically-managed 'chamber of commerce mentality' Department of Natural Resources. 
Note that the DNR barely did any inspections of these big feeding operations or wrote up any violations, according to state auditors' records.

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