Stricter requirements proposed for manure use
By Anita Weier
May 23, 2006
Judy Treml recalls her horror in 2004 when the water coming out of her tap suddenly turned into liquid cow manure.Her
horror turned into anguish when her 7-month-old baby, whom she had
bathed the night before, "got diarrhea so bad it covered her." Other
members of the Kewaunee County family also were sickened, and they sued
nearby Stahl Farms, alleging that the spreading of 84,000 gallons of
liquid manure in the late spring that year on a field across the road
from their farmhouse contaminated their well. The state also
sued, and a settlement was reached in which the owners of the 900-cow
farm agreed to pay $80,000 to the Treml family for medical bills, well
replacement and property damage, as well as up to $100,000 for civil
penalties and $200,000 worth of environmental improvements including
enlarged manure storage structures and runoff control measures. Treml
recalled her case during a teleconference Monday in support of a
proposed revised Department of Natural Resources rule that she said is
needed to protect other rural children from e. coli poisoning. The
teleconference was organized by Midwest Environmental Advocates and
other groups to try to head off opposition to the rule by the livestock
industry. "Thirty-four years after the Clean Water Act, I never
thought we would have people getting sick from water pollution," said
George Meyer, director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. "Our streams are not agricultural sewers," he added, referring to several incidents of fish kills. There
were 52 manure spills that reached surface water and groundwater in
Wisconsin between July 2004 and June 2005, according to Midwest
Environmental Advocates. But Paul Zimmerman, executive director
of government relations for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, said there are
some valid concerns about the rule, and the bureau will ask the Natural
Resources Board to delay action on the rule until June so they can be
resolved. "The DNR is proposing more restrictive requirements
than the EPA in some cases, such as how animal units are calculated and
additional nutrient management requirements," Zimmerman said today. "Also,
they would require that manure be stored all winter. But if you store
it for six months and put it on just before crops are planted, there is
just a short window of time in April and if there is a lot of rain,
there could be increased runoff." Farmers would like a little
more flexibility, Farm Bureau officials said, so that they don't have
to spread large amounts of manure during a short time period. The
rule being considered by the Natural Resources Board on Wednesday when
it meets at Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake would generally affect
livestock operations with more than 1,000 animal units (715 dairy cows,
1,000 beef cattle, 2,500 large pigs or 55,000 turkeys, etc.). The rule would: •
Require that concentrated animal feeding operations have six-month
manure storage capacity, in order to prevent the need to spread liquid
manure when ground is frozen. • Ban application of solid manure on the ground during February and March, unless the manure can be incorporated into the soil. •
Bar the surface application of liquid manure when the ground is frozen
or covered with snow, unless it can be incorporated or injected, which
is unlikely. • Forbid application of manure on areas with certain levels of bedrock or groundwater. • Prohibit manure application when there is a 70 percent chance of rain within 24 hours. •
Prohibit manure applications within 100 feet of a stream, or require a
35-foot vegetated buffer along the stream or equivalent protective
practices.. Controversy has arisen over how animals should be
counted, using the DNR's prior method of combining all types of animals
on a farm in the count or the EPA method of counting only the number of
the type of animal with the largest count. The new rule would calculate
animal units in both ways and use the higher figure.
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