On Thursday, a small group gathered to discuss “Wisconsin’s Clean Water Future” at Bubolz Nature Preserve Center in Appleton, sponsored by the local chapter of Trout Unlimited. The discussion was led by Melissa Malott of Clean WI, a resource protection advocate group who tries to maintain the balance between the environment and the industrialization of nature. It’s a Rubric’s cube that has many moving parts and on many levels is difficult to accomplish within the time we have in the delicate environment where we live.
Ms. Malott has been speaking out for environmental protection since I’ve known her. She gives well thought out testimony at Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) hearings when public comment is necessary to balance injustice and industry, like when corporatists inauspiciously attack the environment---or as the English philosopher, John Locke, wrote that
God gave the earth and its resources to “the Common” to use to sustain himself and to enjoy. But whatever is beyond this and more than his share; nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.
This night her topic was water. Further, clean water will be necessary to sustain life and we need to protect its accessibility and sustainability for future generations beyond our own.
Facts and figures of degradation and depletion afford one the sense that our water is being taken for granted. Vegetable growers in Wisconsin, (It takes 52 gallons of water to grow 1 potato), Industry and agriculturists are putting straws (High Capacity Pumps) into the groundwater and returning the water worse than how they found it.
Ms. Malott. showed plenty of slides which supported her view point. Our water is filled with toxic pesticides, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals. Moreover, it is transferred from its natural form through cows into dairy products and hauled away by truck to other markets while nearby neighbors’ wells go dry or worse fill with E.coli bacteria (Kewaunee County, 2005).
Questions from the group were raised. How do you sell a house that’s been changed from "country living" to an industrial zone? Another, what is the value of a property after its well has been determined unsafe? Or sell a house with well-water tests resulting high in herbicides? What is the deleterious cost to our State’s economy for lost manufacturing, lost tourism, and lost home value? Many questions came regarding the CAFO at Rosendale. How do you get business with so little regard for the resources to understand that their “bad apple” behavior is adversely impacting the State’s economy?
The conversation switched to 303d-listed waters, a definition by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) relative to impaired waters of the State. Lake Winnebago and the Lower Fox River are among these. And although about 1.5 million (depending on the current Census) get their drinking water here, it is listed as a “low priority” with the WDNR.
Slides of puddles of manure spread on fields near Paint Creek, (Manitowoc County) and more conversation about the Cladophora, a naturally occurring algae in Lake Michigan that incurs super-growth status and becomes noxious when charged with non-point polluted runoff nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen from nearby farm fields, here’s a picture of a man in waders waist-deep in Cladophora near the shoreline of his home on Lake Michigan.
There is a plethora of problems within the natural topography—Karst—and slope to waterways in many parts of the State and the old farming practices of placing tiles in fields to get the water away from plant roots so crops would grow. Wisconsin is water. But potable drinking water is a luxury; not a given. Why is this happening here?
The Clean Water Act is enforceable. Big farms, specifically CAFO-type are only 1% of all farms in Wisconsin. They are permitted to have zero discharge. They are governed by strict Nutrient Management Plans. They have rules. But what are the consequences when things go awry? Like the Stahl Brothers farms in Door County who had a “minor manure spill” like 200,000 gallons into the Kewaunee just after 250,000 trout fingerings were planted into the same river? What was the fine? What did the owner mean when he said he was “Sorry?” And later it was disclosed that this wasn’t the first occurrence for his behavior. Why is he always “sorry” but his problems to properly manage nutrients are a burden to everyone else? What is the penalty? One pound of Phosphorus equals 500 lbs. of algae. CAFO-RD generates 60,000 lbs. of phosphorus. Hmmm.
Ms. Malott said, “Most farms have good intentions.” There’s just a few bad apples. 80 percent of the problem comes from 20% of the polluters. In Dane County 99% of the farmers are good producers. 15% of mismanaged phosphorus comes from just 4 farms in the County. One of these is a 300 to 600 cow dairy. When does the “bad apple” have to “cease-and-desist?” After all, if your business is a nuisance and a threat to public health, should you be allowed to operate that business?
So seriously, what’s the solution to all this? Where’s the outcome from all the “outrage and dread? “
The Adaptive Management Option allows all stakeholders---Farmers Bureau and Municipal support---to work together for flexible, cost effective rules that are amenable to The Clean Water Act. Such activity is being fostered today in our State’s Capitol. Perhaps we’ll be hearing more on this in the coming months. Then we can tout something positive coming out of Dane County that will impact us all.
Thank you to all who attended this program. As always, I learned something. I hope this summary is useful to those who were unable to attend. I welcome your comments.
