WI Central Sands the next Flint? Kewaunee County already soaks up that honor.

[Updated from 7/27/18 - note the website of the Friends of the Central Sands, read about its various actions, including against the Richfield CAFO, and understand why it is harder to see the CAFO big picture in Wisconsin. And may get even harder with a major Walker administrative move.]

Juneau County and Wisconsin's Central Sands covering parts of several other counties is now ground-zero for Big Ag groundwater contamination, and perhaps some long-overdue public agency action, I noted Tuesday.

A commenter left this observation on the post:

Is the Central Sands of Wisconsin the next Flint? That is question we need to ask ourselves. Are we willing to put economic gain by one of the largest corporations in WI above the needs of the families who live and work in the area and who have lived and worked in the area long before this corporation brought dairy to the area? 

So let's take a deeper dive into this Wisconsin-Flint-fouled pool, as I've made the Wisconsin-Flint comparison on this blog several times in the context of persistently contaminated water in Kewaunee County near big dairy operations.

Which the state keeps enabling with weak inspections, lax enforcement, and special interest/driven permitting, including feedlot and animal “unit” expansions

Kewaunee County, in the northeastern part of the state and bordering Lake Michigan south of Green Bay, has so many dairy-related concentrated animal feeding operations, (CAFOs) which can pollute the groundwater that the DNR will supply bottled water to people who believe their wells have runoff contamination. 

So goodbye 'brown water events' downstream - - or at the kitchen tap - -

Manure runoff in Kewaunee County

- - and Flint, Michigan, Hello!

* And, here, a year earlier, in 2017:

More, here:

WI ignores lessons of self-inflicted MI water crises.

...file under 'with governing comes responsibility.'

5 Michigan Officials Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter in Connection With Flint Water Crisis

I'm not saying there is perfect equivalency between what happened in Flint and what is going in Wisconsin's Kewaunee County, but the state has not moved aggressively against known, long-standing drinking water contamination - - 

Complete DNR fail: Massive fecal pollution in Kewaunee County wells

 - - and where lax pollution inspections and enforcement has been organized against by citizens and advocates, and documented:

State audit finds DNR ignoring own rules on water pollution

* Also in 2017, Midwest Environmental Advocates helped push the DNR to supply Kewaunee with state-provided bottled water, a la Flint:

DNR will provide emergency drinking water for

families with contaminated wells

Years of citizen pressure results in agency acting on existing power

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 9, 2017

MADISON, WI – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is taking steps to provide emergency drinking water to rural Wisconsin residents with drinking water wells that are contaminated with livestock manure. 

* And in 2016:  

Some experts see Wisconsin as Flint 2.0 - - like former DNR official Gordon Stevenson:

"We're arriving at an important crossroads in Wisconsin. We have our own version of Flint, Michigan in Kewaunee County where citizens cannot drink the water and we have our own version of the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone. A dead zone now also exists in Green Bay that runs from the City of Green Bay all the way up to Marinette."

Walker literally helping spread more cattle manure on top of the water table in NE Wisconsin near residential wells - - not to mention the 26,000-hog CAFO his DNR might approve near pristine Lake Superior in NW Wisconsin - - could give Bucky that toxic designation.