WI over-produces milk; WI producers want more mega-dairies
No doubt you've heard that several dozen modestly-sized Wisconsin dairy farms may have to close and send their herds to the slaughterhouse because Canada has cut back on what it imports from Wisconsin and there is a known over-supply of milk in the state.
Yet:
* Right-wing GOP WI Gov. and captive of the dairy lobby Scott Walker has been promoting a massive expansion of dairy farming in the state because the bigger the special interest, the more Walker is there to serve.
Like the costly-mega highways he's championed at an unsustainable rate. big is not better. Republicans keep telling us government needs to be run like a business, but so far we know that does not include road construction firms or dairy farms.
* One large and controversial operation in Kewaunee County which recently expanded to 6.500 animals began in 2000 with just 350, the Journal Sentinel reported.
* There is still a pending and highly-controversial application to build a mega-scale dairy with operations spanning Wood and Portage Counties which would house 5,300 animals and require 33 high-capacity wells - - the very large-capacity ag pumping operations that are draining the water table.
The very kind of high-volume pumping of the people's water which the Wisconsin DNR is waiving through almost universally to private applicants and which GOP Wisconsin legislators and Gov. Walker intend to lock-in through perpetual privatization.
And which the corporately-controlled WI GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel has said cannot be monitored by the state, just as he also opined that the state cannot mandate the size mega-dairy herds regardless of their impact on groundwater, neighbors or downstream waters.
So how many of these big animal-feeding, manure-producing, water-draining operations with dairy operations accounting for most in The Dairy State?
One DNR data base says there are 200 such big feeding centers with current permits and another 93 not currently operating.
Another DNR website shows approximately the same information, though it graphs data ending in July, 2014, as I noted last month:
Yet:
* Right-wing GOP WI Gov. and captive of the dairy lobby Scott Walker has been promoting a massive expansion of dairy farming in the state because the bigger the special interest, the more Walker is there to serve.
Like the costly-mega highways he's championed at an unsustainable rate. big is not better. Republicans keep telling us government needs to be run like a business, but so far we know that does not include road construction firms or dairy farms.
* One large and controversial operation in Kewaunee County which recently expanded to 6.500 animals began in 2000 with just 350, the Journal Sentinel reported.
* There is still a pending and highly-controversial application to build a mega-scale dairy with operations spanning Wood and Portage Counties which would house 5,300 animals and require 33 high-capacity wells - - the very large-capacity ag pumping operations that are draining the water table.
The very kind of high-volume pumping of the people's water which the Wisconsin DNR is waiving through almost universally to private applicants and which GOP Wisconsin legislators and Gov. Walker intend to lock-in through perpetual privatization.
And which the corporately-controlled WI GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel has said cannot be monitored by the state, just as he also opined that the state cannot mandate the size mega-dairy herds regardless of their impact on groundwater, neighbors or downstream waters.
So how many of these big animal-feeding, manure-producing, water-draining operations with dairy operations accounting for most in The Dairy State?
One DNR data base says there are 200 such big feeding centers with current permits and another 93 not currently operating.
Another DNR website shows approximately the same information, though it graphs data ending in July, 2014, as I noted last month:
Some DNR data on CAFOs stuck in 2014More later.
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