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Oshkosh - As Wisconsin's dairy farms grow larger, state officials want to beef up regulations to control manure runoff.
The regulations would impose more controls over how manure from dairy cattle and other livestock is managed and spread over land on the state's largest farms.
Manure has long served as a rich fertilizer for crops. But over time, there has been growing worry over the destructive nature of animal waste when used indiscriminately.
Department of Natural Resources officials told members of the Natural Resources Board on Wednesday of 59 incidents in the past year of water pollution from manure in Wisconsin. Of those, 12 resulted in polluted wells and another 12 produced fish kills.
Last summer, a highly prized trout stream in Richland County was wiped out when a farmhand improperly spread manure near a stream, polluting Hollow and Willow creeks. DNR officials reported then that the agency, in today's dollars, had spent $1 million in easements and land purchases in the watershed.
In addition to the 59 incidents, others watersheds have been damaged. But DNR Secretary Scott Hassett said some other cases have likely gone unreported.
The board voted 7-0 to send the rules to a public hearing in early to mid-August. The measure would eventually come back to the board, and the Legislature, before becoming law.
The changes are driven not only by home-grown concerns, but also by federal regulations ordering a crackdown on so-called concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These large farms - 700 or more dairy cattle would qualify - have been regulated in the past. But the new rules would go further and include language aimed at giving farmers time and flexibility to meet the requirements.
Among the changes: Farmers would not be allowed to spread liquid manure on frozen ground unless it is injected. That's because waste can easily run off the land and into waterways. Another change: Farmers would be required to have six months of storage capacity to prevent excessive spreading when they run out of space to keep manure.
With large farms growing, some counties are nearing their capacity to accommodate more manure. Brown County, in northeastern Wisconsin, is one such county, said Gordon R. Stevenson, chief of the runoff management section of the DNR.
The regulations are aimed at about 140 of the largest dairy farms in Wisconsin, which represent about 10% of all dairy livestock, Stevenson said.
Regulators use a formula to count animals in different ways. A dairy farm would need 700 adult cattle, or 1,000 heifers or 5,000 calves to come under the regulations. A hog farm would need 2,500 or more adult pigs.
Today, there are more than 200 farms in Wisconsin with 500 or more cattle, according to a 2004 survey by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. But that number is expected to grow by 65% by 2009, survey figures show.