Hundreds of locals object to expansion of Pierce Co. CAFO

Hundreds of people watched the DNR virtual hearing on the Ridge Breeze Dairy expansion from an auditorium in Elmwood. (Photo courtesy of GRO-WW)

For more than three hours on Thursday evening, residents of western Wisconsin and water quality advocates testified in opposition to a proposed expansion to a Pierce County factory farm, complaining the expansion could harm local water supplies and that the company operating the farm has misled the Department of Natural Resources in its applications.

The Appleton-based Breeze Dairy Group has requested permission from the DNR to amend its current Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permit at its Ridge Breeze Dairy in Maiden Rock. The dairy currently has a herd of 2,400 animal units, about 1,700 cows, and is asking to expand to more than 9,000 animal units, about 6,500 cows.

Local advocates say that if granted permission to grow to more than four times its size, the Ridge Breeze Dairy would become the largest concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in the seven county western Wisconsin region of Barron, Buffalo, Dunn, Pepin, Pierce, Polk and St. Croix counties.

Breeze Dairy Group operates six factory farms totalling more than 10,000 cows around Wisconsin. The company has a history of manure spills at several of its properties. At the Pine Breeze in Waushara County, DNR records show nine manure spills in the last 11 years, totalling 150,000 gallons of spilled manure.

Earlier this year, Breeze Dairy Group purchased the Emerald Sky Dairy in the town of Emerald in St. Croix County shortly after the previous owners were granted permission to expand the operation from 1,600 to 3,300 cows. That operation has a history of harmful manure spills causing long term damage to water and fish kills.

People who live near the dairy in Emerald have complained for years about the farm’s long term effects on their water — though county and DNR officials have said the spills have been cleaned up. After the sale to Breeze Dairy, locals expressed concern about a large CAFO operating close to their homes and drinking wells without local ownership. Yet the company’s CEO, Gregg Wolf, told the Wisconsin Examiner in May that he wants to be a good neighbor.

“We’re a group of Wisconsin dairymen born and bred here. We’re committed to doing better, we feel like we can do better,” he said. “We want to put the right foot forward and show that a good operator can be good for the community and a dairy doesn’t have to be bad.”

If the expansion is approved, the amount of liquid and solid manure produced at Pine Breeze Dairy will increase from 14 million gallons in 2024 to an estimated 61 million gallons in 2028. The amount of manure and wastewater that will be spread on local fields will increase from 32 million gallons this year to more than 80 million gallons in 2028.

Just 10 miles from the Mississippi River, the dairy operates near the Rush River and Nugget Lake. Danny Akenson, a field organizer with Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW), told the Wisconsin Examiner many of the water bodies near the farm are listed as impaired by the DNR and all of the nearby water is a tributary with the Mississippi. Adding more cows, and more manure, won’t help local water, he says.

“A lot of our waters right now are at a state where many of them are listed as impaired,” he says. “By adding more manure to our land and really across western Wisconsin, by adding more manure, you could see the Rush River get a lot more polluted or Nugget Lake and that leads directly into the Mississippi River. Adding 4,500 more cows on their existing operation, quadrupling their size, is not going to improve our water set. It’ll only put it at further risk.”

Water advocate opposition

At the virtual public hearing on Thursday, more than 100 people packed into an auditorium in Elmwood to watch and comment from a location with more reliable internet than their homes, while hundreds more joined in on Zoom. Dozens of people spoke, yet only one, from the Dairy Business Association, spoke in favor of the expansion.

Kim Dupre, a former resident of Emerald who has been active in water quality fights across the state since the drinking water in her home was contaminated by a nearby dairy farm, said the DNR can no longer be relied upon to protect residents’ drinking water. A massive spill at the Emerald dairy escalated because it went unreported to the DNR for months, allowing manure to continue spilling into a local wetland.

“If you think DNR will have your back and protect your water, unfortunately, that was not our experience in Emerald,” she said. “There are bad actors in all walks of life, and producers are no different. But when self reporting and self monitoring is not working, even more oversight is needed. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I ask DNR to change course and put public health and safety first. Don’t assume compliance. We all know what happens when we assume things. Public health and safety should be assured to our residents and should be the priority.”

Large farms are required, as part of their WPDES permits, to create nutrient management plans outlining how they will handle their waste; when and where manure will be spread on fields and how many potentially harmful chemicals such as phosphorus and nitrates will be put into the environment. At the hearing, Akenson of GROWW said the nutrient management plan in the application for expansion lists a number of properties as sites for manure spreading in which locals later found the company never actually made an agreement with the property owner. Several of the properties listed  aren’t eligible for spreading because of soil requirements, Akenson testified.

Application concerns/subhed] Akenson also said the company does not have nearly enough land to accommodate such a large herd. He said he believes the dairy should have 1.5 acres of land available for manure spreading per animal unit. Under the application it has 0.61 acres per animal unit.  “To put it simply, Ridge Breeze Dairy does not have enough land to expand,” he said. “If this proposal is accepted, this is going to be the largest factory farm in the west central region of Wisconsin. With these developments, though, Breeze Dairy has shown that they are not fit to run a factory of the size they propose. We ask that DNR caps the animal units for Ridge Breeze at their current amount, and that for any future and current land spreading agreements with Ridge Breeze, they require signed and notarized agreements instead of just verbal agreements. Ridge Breeze has shown that they should not be trusted.”  Adam Voskuil, a staff attorney for Madison-based Midwest Environmental Advocates, said that his concern about the expansion application is that the DNR has not properly assessed if the dairy is in compliance with the requirements of its permit now, before it grows to four times its current size.  “I believe the DNR should not allow a CAFO to expand if the operation is not in substantial compliance, a compliance report would note issues like problematic waste storage management, the need for additional evaluations on lagoons, or potential channeling of waste or leachate off site,” he said. “But here, we don’t have that … I have really significant concerns with this approach, because it doesn’t ensure that Ridge Breeze is in substantial compliance. And therefore I think that the DNR should not modify the present permit as one example of potential inadequate analysis.”  The DNR is unable to answer questions about the permit application until it issues its final determination. [subhed]Local opposition

Among the local residents who testified against the expansion, neighbors worried about the effect the expanded herd will have on local groundwater and their private drinking wells — where most residents in the rural area get their water — which already show high levels of nitrates. Smaller local farmers testified about the harm they believe CAFOs like Ridge Breeze present to their existence. Local officials on village boards and planning commissions came out against the expansion.

Despite his opposition to the expansion, Tom Manley, a farmer in the nearby town of Gilman, said the testimony Thursday was “futile” and that the dairy is already operating as if it will receive the approval from DNR due to the “aggressive construction” already taking place on the site. But, he said that the turnout was a sign that residents were willing to fight for their rural way of life and a time when farms were smaller.

“I’m saying this as a farmer who works with a lot of dairy farmers and have watched a lot of dairy farms close,” he said. “You look around here, all the silos that we can see from the place where we are, here in Elmwood, every one of those used to supply a small dairy herd. And our schools were better for it. Our communities were better for it.”

“The biggest threat to your farm and the thing that’s going to prevent the milk truck showing up in your driveway is the moment Ridge Breeze expands to that level,” he continued. “It’s a bigger threat to you than any city slickers or environmentalists who might be anti-farming. So just look out for the threat that really exists. Because all of these people in this room, we’re supportive of agriculture. Many of us are farmers. This is not anti-agriculture. This is not anti-animal agriculture. I raise cows myself. I love my cows. Everyone I know who raises animals loves their animals. This is a factory. This is not a farm.”

While the DNR often approves permits or permit expansions despite significant local opposition, Akenson says he believes the local residents have made a good case that the CAFO hasn’t fulfilled its requirements and even if approved, the permit should include requirements such as signed agreements with property owners for manure spreading and monitoring of local wells.

“Hopefully DNR will at least put some tighter restrictions on them, signed agreements, groundwater monitoring, animal unit cap. I think there’s a chance we get some victories out of this even if it’s not that they can’t expand,” he says. “In many ways we are presenting facts in a case to the DNR about why this proposal is wrong, beyond just general worries. It takes a lot of really organized people, really passionate people to dig to the bottom of that stuff. Everyone has reason to be worried about this proposal. Many of those people are dedicating their time and energy to this, to learn the facts and get to the bottom of this proposal. I think we have some substantive arguments against this, reasons to be concerned about it. That comes from a place of people fighting for their homes.”

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The post Hundreds of locals object to expansion of Pierce Co. CAFO appeared first on Wisconsin Examiner .