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New regulations will target spreading, risk of spills

By Ed Byrne
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers

By next month, Wisconsin farmers will have a better idea on how to handle manure spreading.

The state's Manure Management Task Force will send its final recommendations later this month to the state Department of Natural Resources and the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. The task force plans to publish its final recommendation on a Web site in early February.

The task force's work has been watched closely in northeast Wisconsin, where a number of manure-handling incidents have led to massive fish kills and contamination of groundwater supplies and the wells drawing from them.

"Something had to be done to address the environmental issues we are seeing for manure spills and runoffs," said Kevin Erb, a nutrient management specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Green Bay and a member of the task force.

He said that the task force allowed for the farm community to have a major say in coming up with solutions.

Erb said there is no doubt there will be changes in the way people in agriculture manage manure.

"Farmers will need to have their own emergency response plans," Erb said. "If something does happen, people need to know how to respond. They can't stand there for 20 minutes wondering what to do."

Winter spreading of liquid manure and spreading during times of heavy rain are major concerns the task force identified, Erb said.

Task force member Dan Brick, whose Askeaton dairy farm has 500 cows, said he has about six months of manure storage capacity on the farm, but he still has to do some winter land application.

"We all know that we have a problem," Brick said. "Nobody wants runoffs. That's why we got together — to come up with solutions."

Brick said he is concerned that whatever the state requires be economical for the small farmer. "We have a lot of farms with 50-cow herds and no manure pits," he said. "If we get to the point that there's no manure hauling at all, what is that going to do to those farmers who don't have any storage at all?"

Some of the impetus for the task force's work has come from environmentalists, but more has come from people who have been on the receiving end of groundwater contamination traced back to inappropriate spreading of manure, liquid manure in particular.

"We have a couple of things we are doing, all advisory of course," said Manitowoc County Executive Dan Fischer. "We can't ignore it when someone down the road has a manure spill. We are all in this together. More than ever, people are looking for advice, and hopefully we can give them the right advice."

Another problem is improperly abandoned wells, which also provide a way for the manure to get deep into the ground.

Erb said the task force wants to see each farm have a manure disposal plan. If that includes winter spreading, the plan needs to take into account the geography.

"There are a lot of farmers out there who don't have manure storage not the economic ability to afford it, so they're spreading manure almost every day," Erb said.

Ed Byrne is editor of the Wrightstown Post-Gazette. He can be reached at 920-532-0054 or by e-mail at ebyrne@wrightstownpostgazette.com.