Though WI well water privatization looms, DNR stays mum on contamination

I just got finished posting a blog item about the pending privatization of those high-volume Wisconsin wells that feed the expanding number of big feedlot operations that, in turn, are contaminating nearby residential wells:

Walker can sign the groundwater giveaway now that the 'chamber of commerce mentality' Department of Natural Resources he's stage-managed since January 2010 finally announced bottled water deliveries - - a belated, tidy-up gesture, not a fix- - for families with persistently-contaminated wells near big feedlots and groundwater-sucking farms.

Now the La Crosse Tribune is reporting that Scott Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR has no policy in place to let people know that contamination is coming their way:

Sadly, we need to keep expressing concerns about enforcement of clean water regulations, because the Tribune’s report last week on elevated nitrate levels near a huge hog operation in La Crosse County was very troubling — and the DNR’s response to the potential groundwater problem is embarrassing.

Babcock Genetics has a permit to raise more than 4,000 hogs in the town of Holland near Holmen.

Since at least 2005, according to a report by the Legislative Audit Bureau, the nitrate levels measured in test wells near the hog operation have exceeded limits set by the state — as much as five times that limit as recently as 2010. 

Here’s what DNR spokesman Jim Dick told the Tribune: “The DNR doesn’t have a policy regarding notifying municipalities or private well owners in the vicinity when a CAFO violates a permit.”

 

Just another reason the groundwater privatization bill is bad policy on top of already intolerable dereliction of duty.