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Editorials: 'Animal units' and waste

Posted: May 23, 2006

According to the state Department of Natural Resources, between July 2004 and June 2005, there were 52 manure spills in Wisconsin that damaged waterways or contaminated wells; major fish kills occurred on the West Branch of the Sugar River, the Pine River, the Jersey Valley Flowage and other waterways. In addition, between 20 and 35 rural wells were contaminated by manure in 2004 and 2005. In the first several months of this year, nearly 70 wells in southern Brown County were contaminated by bacteria, a significant number of them from manure.

The DNR has come up with a revised set of rules governing manure management on the state's largest farms, otherwise known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, that would take a big step toward reducing such spills and contamination. The Natural Resources Board will consider those rules today at a meeting at Elkhart Lake; it should not hesitate to adopt them, albeit with a few adjustments.

CAFOs are farming operations with at least 1,000 animal units - equal to 700 mature dairy cows, 2,500 pigs or 55,000 turkeys - and that generate at least 6.5 million gallons of manure a year plus other wastes. Changes in federal rules governing such large operations triggered the DNR's proposed changes to its rules, but they come none too soon.

As more people build homes in formerly rural areas, they learn that "the country" isn't quite the bucolic idyll they once thought. Bumping up against farmland, suburbanites and exurbanites find that farms have odors, noises and even worse things - such as manure spills - that they weren't counting on. This is hardly the farmers' fault - and, after all, they were there first - but it can lead to rising tensions.

A single cow generates as much "organic pollution," in the DNR's gentle phrasing, as 18 people; a farm with more than 1,000 cows can generate as much as a city the size of Sun Prairie. Placing stricter regulations on the largest farms to reduce the odds of spills and contamination is important for the environment and for rural homeowners.

Among other things, the revised rules would ban CAFOs from spreading solid manure on frozen or snow-covered ground during February and March unless it was immediately worked into the ground, require

CAFOs to have six months' storage for liquid manure and require farms to develop an emergency response plan to address spills or discharges.

All of the revisions make sense, although some of them could be implemented earlier than planned, as groups such as the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and Midwest Environmental Advocates are arguing. Concerns of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation also need to be addressed; the rules should not put undue hardship on farmers.

Still, given recent history and the looming future of development, leaving things as they are is not an option.