Melissa K. Scanlan: Spill into restored trout river shows need for new manure spreading rule
By Melissa K. Scanlan
March 10, 2005
Trout aren't the only ones that suffer from spreading liquid manure on frozen ground; people are getting sick, too. The manure can contaminate drinking water wells when spread close to residential homes. Last
week Wisconsin got a jarring wake-up call. Taxpayers woke up to find
that almost a million dollars in public funds had been wasted. Anglers
woke up to discover that a recently restored and prized trout fishery
had been polluted by a thick slug of manure. As February
came to a close, manure ran off a frozen field and killed more than 100
brown trout in the Sugar River's west branch in Dane County. The stream
had been removed from the Department of Natural Resources' list of
impaired waters last fall, thanks to more than $900,000 in federal and
state grants and thousands of hours of volunteer time. Manure can
be a natural and environmentally beneficial source of fertilizer for
growing crops, when it is applied under the right conditions. It makes
sense, environmentally and economically, to apply manure when it is
likely to stay on the field, not when the ground is frozen and snow-covered and the risk of runoff is highest. Unfortunately,
winter manure spreading is an all-too-common practice. Agribusiness
lobbyists and the largest livestock factories have argued against
having to store liquid and solid manure during winter months. We
can see the results of this extreme position in the dead trout in the
Sugar River. Last year around this same time, we also saw the results
in the Treml family's baby, who was taken to the emergency room after
manure contaminated her family's drinking water. Trout aren't the
only ones that suffer from spreading liquid manure on frozen ground;
people are getting sick, too. The manure can contaminate drinking water
wells when spread close to residential homes. People have unwittingly
consumed well water contaminated with E. coli bacteria, most likely
from the manure that was spread near their homes days before. That
is why it is so important to support the DNR in its modest proposal to
protect water and public health by disallowing spreading of liquid
manure from Feb. 1 to March 31 each year when the ground is frozen or
covered with snow. The DNR should finalize these rules to protect
people and trout alike. However, these regulations would apply
only to the largest livestock operations. Smaller farms also need to
stop this harmful practice, and they need financial assistance to do it. This
is where the Legislature should step in and protect the public trust in
our waters. While Wisconsin has strong rules to reduce this type of
pollution - called non-point pollution - year after year the
Legislature has refused to adequately fund the rules. Small farmers are
waiting to receive a 70 percent cost share to implement practices that
will reduce manure running off their fields and into our valuable and
vulnerable waters. In his budget, Gov. Jim Doyle allocated $2
million to reduce runoff from agriculture, including $520,000 to help
farmers implement good conservation practices. While this is not nearly
enough to prevent fish kills and illnesses from well contamination, it
is at least a modest first step that the Legislature should support. After
news of the Sugar River manure spill broke, one DNR biologist stated
that he hoped the spill would raise the eyebrows of his administrators
and the legislative community. We hope that it will also raise the
dollars that we should be investing to prevent the kind of tragedy that
visited the Sugar River last week.
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