Saturday, July 28, 2018

The DNR seems to have deleted, not updated, CAFO chart

I'd noted several times on this blog that Wisconsin DNR webpages devoted to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOS, featured a chart with decades of data that had not been updated since May, 2014.

Here is one such post, from 2017, with the chart and my suggestion that the DNR update it.
So maybe the DNR's chart needs an update:
CAFO Graph
Wisconsin CAFO WPDES permits by animal type over time
File:Confined-animal-feeding-operation.jpg
I hadn't looked at the page for a while, but since I have been writing frequently about well water users' health consequences near CAFOs, and major CAFO expansion, and the DNR's rapid-fire CAFO permitting procedures, among other issues,  I checked to see if the chart had been updated.

Nope.

Instead, it has been deleted, taking away the ease of historical comparisons along with the visual snapshot in graphic form it provided.

Reminded me of the deletion of climate change information he agency deleted in 2016Again - - why not improve on what was there for the public to see, and analyze, and share, instead of erasing it?

You can root around the DNR's web site and see some current CAFO data - - but the loss of the chart's easy-to-see comparisons by animal type and groupings of years is a public information loss.

If the chart is there and sharper eyes have found it, let me know.

The search for good CAFO data is muddied, as DNR webpages make a distinction between CAFOs with current as opposed to expired permits, but 2017 reporting showed that a third of CAFOs in Wisconsin continue to operate with expired permits.

And who knows shat information will be given the public when CAFO regulation, such as it is at Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality'-run DNR,' is shifted to the friendly environs within the state ag department - - where Big Dairy wants it moved.

Just fyi, here is a webpage showing recent CAFO permit issuance or renewal application information

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