Marenda Porter’s new home in Ledgeview, Wisconsin, seemed like the perfect fit for her family of four children. The growing suburb outside Green Bay was a tight-knit community with nearby land for her kids to explore and space for a large garden. 

Then there was a knock on the door. 

A few days after moving in, concerned neighbors informed her that Ledgeview Farms, a large dairy farm behind her home, was planning to expand, which included building a manure pit to store millions of gallons of waste next to the subdivision.

Over the next several years, Porter began noticing manure runoff in the creek her kids would play in. Originally from rural South Dakota, she had been around farming her whole life, but this felt different.

“We don’t even want to think about health consequences because it’s out of our control, unless we were to pick up and move away,” she said. “But at this point, it’s just not feasible for us to do that.”

Residents, including Porter, openly complained about the farm’s operations and the risk associated with a waste pit near their homes. The town denied the farm’s permit application, saying the expansion would violate a newly updated town ordinance. 

In late 2023, the farm responded with a lawsuit against the town.

The legal fight between the large dairy farm and the city government is an example of a growing trend in the nation’s Dairyland. As Wisconsin dairy farms get bigger and municipal and state governments impose new restrictions in response, the dairy industry is increasingly fighting back through the court system. 

Many of the dairy farms that have sued municipal and state governments are represented by Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, a national law firm that helped craft state statutes to weaken local control over agriculture.

Since 2018, large Wisconsin dairy farms have filed 13 lawsuits against municipal and state governments, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of court records and state permitting data for concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

Dairy farms with roughly 700 or more milking cows are considered CAFOs, requiring a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permit.

“The trend does seem to be moving up, particularly for CAFOs and state agency-based litigation. The local municipality-based litigation tends to rise, as well,” said Adam Voskuil, a staff attorney at the environmental law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates. He does not represent either party in the Ledgeview Farms lawsuit.

The count only reflects the subset of CAFO conflicts that made it to the court bench: Farms settle many cases with municipalities or state agencies beforehand, sometimes after an appeal or public hearing. Farmers also settle legal disputes with municipalities after filing a notice of claim.

“As data comes out that shows the effects of (CAFOs on) groundwater contamination, local governments and the state government start responding with the authority that’s been given,” Voskuil added.

While the overall number of Wisconsin dairy farms has declined by nearly two-thirds over the past 20 years, the farms that remain have grown bigger. 

The state’s dairy industry is estimated to be worth nearly $46 billion, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison research. Most of Wisconsin’s dairy is used to make cheese.

“Demand for dairy products overall, both United States domestic and export demand, continues to grow,” said Charles Nicholson, an agriculture and economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

Larger farms mean more cattle. More cattle means more waste and runoff problems for nearby communities, especially in areas of population growth. Livestock waste runoff has been linked to various public health problems such as cancers, infant deaths and miscarriages. 

In its lawsuit over the town’s permit rejection, Ledgeview Farms claimed it had a right to farm and use its facilities as it was before the town’s ordinance changed. Farm owner Jason Pansier declined an interview with Investigate Midwest, as did his attorney.

Ledgeview attorney Larry Konopacki said the town has a responsibility to protect various — and sometimes competing — interests, such as the growth of a large dairy farm and the growth of a residential area.

“Frankly we have very limited tools to use because, in Wisconsin, we’re a very pro ag state,” he said.

Years of legal battles

In 2017, Ledgeview Farms applied to build a new manure pit that would hold upwards of 13 million gallons of waste, a move that would allow the farm to increase its herd size.  

Porter and her neighbors were worried about the impact of increased waste near homes and bodies of water. Even then-Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy, who lived in the area, expressed concern.

The once-predominantly rural town of Ledgeview had become a hotbed for suburban cul-de-sacs and housing developments. The town’s population increased by a third from 2010 to 2020, topping 8,800, according to U.S. Census data. 

The five-county region also had the largest share of CAFOs in the state. The buffer between residential neighborhoods and industrial dairy farms was shrinking.

The town board denied Ledgeview Farm’s permit application to build a new manure pit.

The state’s Livestock Siting Review Board, circuit court and court of appeals all sided with the town’s decision to deny the permit. The farm appealed to the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. 

In 2021, the farm opened a manure pit in the neighboring town of Glenmore, where it now transports some of its Ledgeview waste. Glenmore zoning administrator Ben Schauer said the pit is in operation and can hold upwards of 20 million gallons of manure.

In addition to denying the permit, the town of Ledgeview ordered the farm to maintain its herd at or below 1,000 animal units and to bring the farm operations into full compliance with state and federal law.

Herd size has been a contentious issue for the farm. 

During the permitting process for the manure pit application, Ledgeview Farms declined to provide the town with its herd numbers. In response, the town received a warrant for town inspectors, accompanied by the county sheriff’s office, to carry out an inspection. 

But the farm’s owners refused to let town officials take a head count, according to a town memo obtained by Investigate Midwest. While refusal to comply with the warrant could have led to an arrest, town officials eventually asked the sheriff to leave without making any arrests. 

In a recent wastewater permit application to the state, Ledgeview Farms said it had just under 2,000 cattle with plans to have more than 3,000 within five years, according to records from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

The Wisconsin DNR declined to comment on legal cases between dairy farms and local municipalities. 

In its most recent lawsuit, Ledgeview Farms argued it should be allowed to operate as it currently does because its large, free-stall barn was built before the town’s ordinance reducing the cap on herd sizes.

“Prior to 2017, the Pansiers had in place facilities that allowed them (to have) — and in fact did have — several thousand cows in their facilities,” said Eric McLeod, attorney for Ledgeview Farms, referring to the farm owners during a July 12, 2024, oral argument in Brown County court.

Town attorneys argued in July that the judge should throw out the lawsuit on the basis that the farm was operating illegally prior to the 2017 ordinance.

“The record demonstrates that this is a bad-acting farm,” said Ledgeview attorney Matthew Fischer. “They’ve violated basically every environmental state and federal rule. It’s not surprising that the town wants to stop these violations.”

Neighbors of the farm have seen these violations firsthand.

Porter said she’s witnessed overspreading of manure on nearby fields and found runoff from the farm in her yard. She said neighbors have moved out because the waste and odors were overwhelming. 

“We almost never open the windows because it stinks so bad,” she said.

Litigating for the industry

At the July oral argument hearing, a dozen members of the Pansier family packed the rickety, wooden benches of the small Brown County courtroom. A handful of Ledgeview officials sat on the other side of the room while Ledgeview Farms attorney McLeod said clashes between large farms and suburban residents had become common practice.

“I’ve handled many types of these disputes concerning large dairy farms, and they always arise in the context of when folks build residential developments adjacent to existing dairy farms,” he said. “What happens is the folks who built the homes in rural areas often find that they don’t like living next to a farming operation.”

Litigating these disputes has become a major business for Wisconsin attorneys like McLeod. 

In a review of lawsuits filed by CAFO permit holders, Investigate Midwest found the majority have been litigated by the national law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP.

Michael Best has five offices across the state and is a member of the Dairy Business Association, American Dairy Alliance and the Wisconsin’s Food and Beverage Business Network. 

Their attorneys helped create the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law, which CAFO critics said created industry-friendly standards and prevented local governments from explicitly preventing the expansion of agriculture facilities. 

David Crass, who has worked for Michael Best for over three decades, drafted the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law, which passed in 2004. Crass was working for the Dairy Business Association, a registered lobbying organization of dairy producers and farmers, which lobbied for the creation of the law.

The passage of the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law, which went into effect in 2006, “marked a major turning point for the state’s dairy industry — and a signature moment for our agricultural practice, which remains highly attuned to our clients’ issues and needs in the legal, regulatory, and social climates where they operate,” according to the law firm’s website.

Crass and the Michael Best law office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Michael Best attorneys have also routinely defended farm operators against fines for violating city permits and local pollution ordinances, Investigate Midwest found in its review of lawsuits.

McLeod, the attorney for Ledgeview Farms, formerly worked for Michael Best, where he represented a large dairy farm in a 2004 legal battle against a rural town in one of the first instances of the law being used in court. 

McLeod, who currently works for Husch and Blackwell, declined an interview request with Investigate Midwest. 

On the other side of the state, more business groups have become invested in similar legal battles. 

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business association, recently sued the town of Eureka over an operating ordinance that restricted the operation of CAFOs.

“If we allow local governments like the town of Eureka to violate the law, we’re going to endanger and potentially kill a vital aspect of our state’s economy,” said Scott Manley, WMC executive vice president of government relations, in an announcement of the lawsuit. “These farms already have a mountain of regulations.”

WMC represented dairy industry groups in a lawsuit against the state’s DNR last year. Venture Dairy Cooperative and the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance argued that the department overreaches by requiring CAFOs to have wastewater permits. The case was dismissed. The groups did not respond to a request for comment. 

This wasn’t the first time industry groups attempted to deregulate how the state runs its wastewater permitting for CAFOs. In 2017, the Dairy Business Association sued the DNR, claiming the department’s change to runoff management was not practical or science-based for Wisconsin farmers. The association settled with the agency that same year and was represented by Michael Best attorneys in the lawsuit.

The Dairy Business Association declined an interview with Investigate Midwest. 

Matthew Sheets, a policy organizer for the Land Stewardship Project, a Minnesota-based sustainable agriculture nonprofit, said municipalities often want to enact controls over CAFOs that cause health or environmental concerns in their community, but the fear of lawsuits and legal battles creates a chilling effect. 

“It’s a reinforcement of the idea that if you are large enough and if you have enough money to bring a lawsuit against a municipality and you have more money than they do, they’re going to not want to step in your way,” he said.

A version of this story was originally published by Investigate Midwest.

Wisconsin dairy industry fights back as towns seek to curb CAFO growth is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

After notifying a northwest Wisconsin town last October of their intent to challenge a local ordinance that regulates livestock farming, two residents last week made good on their promise.

Ben and Jenny Binversie, represented by the legal arm of the state’s largest business and manufacturing lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, are asking a circuit court judge to strike down the rules in the Polk County town of Eureka.

A ruling in their favor could set a precedent for all Wisconsin municipalities seeking to regulate agriculture, a $105 billion state industry.

“This ordinance is quite simply another case of government overreach,” the Binversies’ attorney Scott Rosenow, executive director of WMC Litigation Center, said in a press release.

He did not respond to a request for an interview. Jenny Binversie directed inquiries to Ben Binversie, who declined to comment.

Eureka’s ordinance, revised in March 2022, regulates large livestock farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. It doesn’t regulate where large livestock farms can go, but how they operate.

The regulations apply to new CAFOs, or smaller facilities with common ownership, that house at least 700 “animal units” — the equivalent of 1,750 swine or 500 dairy cows.

The rules require applicants to apply for an operations permit and submit plans for preventing infectious diseases, air pollution and odor; managing waste and handling dead animals. They also mandate traffic and property value impact studies, a pot of money set aside for cleanups and decommissioning, and an annual permit fee — atop costs to review the application and enforce the permit terms.

The Binversies’ attorneys find fault with 18 of the ordinance’s requirements, particularly fees. They also claim that Wisconsin preempts local authorities from passing regulations that are more stringent than the state’s unless authorities can prove they are necessary to protect public health or safety.

Even under that exception, which the attorneys say Eureka doesn’t demonstrate, they contend that more restrictive ordinances cannot add new requirements for which no state standards exist. They also argue Eureka’s ordinance imposes new performance standards that the state must approve, which they say the town hasn’t done.

The lawsuit acknowledges the ordinance’s requirements don’t apply to the Binversies, but the attorneys claim they harm the couple and other Eureka taxpayers because the town will use public funds to compensate local authorities and consultants to review permit applications and enforce the ordinance.

In addition to Eureka, four other northwest Wisconsin towns passed operations ordinances after a developer proposed in 2019 constructing a farrowing operation, known as Cumberland LLC, that would have housed up to 26,350 pigs — the largest swine CAFO in Wisconsin.

An advisory group drafted the regulations to plug gaps in state livestock laws, which they believe insufficiently protect health, property and quality of life. For instance, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources cannot regulate issues unrelated to water quality, including air, noise and vehicle traffic. 

Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s “right-to-farm” law protects farmers from nuisance claims, and livestock facility regulations restrict the use of zoning to control where CAFOs are sited.

No CAFOs currently operate in Eureka, a Polk County community of 1,700, but unlike other towns’ operations ordinances, Eureka’s requires CAFOs that intend to spread manure on fields within town boundaries to obtain a permit.

Another community with a CAFO ordinance, Laketown, also faced a lawsuit.

The two Laketown farm families who challenged its regulations included Michael and the late Joyce Byl and Sara Byl, who are the parents and sister, respectively, of Jenny Binversie. They were likewise represented by WMC Litigation Center. The town of Eureka sought to intervene, noting the two towns’ ordinances are “nearly identical.”

Laketown rescinded its regulations following a change in elected leadership, rendering the case moot.

Trial lawyer Andy Marshall, who represented the community and will do the same for Eureka, questioned whether a Polk County judge would agree that the Binversies have legal standing.

“It’s odd to me that they make the argument that somehow the plaintiffs have been damaged because their taxes will go to the optional hiring of experts,” he added. “It simply hasn’t happened yet.”

A judgment against Eureka might invalidate any Wisconsin municipality’s operations ordinance depending on the scope of a court ruling.

Town chair Don Anderson said he is concerned by the lawsuit, but believes the operations ordinance is important. The town of Trade Lake, where the swine farm was proposed and an operations ordinance also enacted, is not so distant from Eureka.

“We’re just wanting to protect ourselves in case it should happen,” he said.

Outside of the court challenges, state lawmakers recently attempted to preempt local farming regulations.

A bill that would have restricted local control passed both chambers earlier this year before Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it.

The proposal concerned only animal welfare, the administration of medications and vaccinations, and the ways animals are used, but skeptics believed it would have established a legal precedent that could limit any safeguards against potential harms caused by large livestock farms.

A public hearing, where lawmakers discussed the northwest Wisconsin towns, gave them cause to worry.

Tim Fiocchi, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s government relations director, expressed alarm that local ordinances, such as Laketown’s, “destabilize agricultural production” by creating a “patchwork of regulatory hurdles.”

Lisa Doerr, a Laketown forage farmer who chaired the town advisory group, said the Binversie case represents the latest effort at “harassing” those who “have the nerve to stand up” to the agricultural industry by enacting ordinances.

“They’ve been telling us for five years that this was illegal, but what did they do over the winter?” she said. “They went to the Legislature and tried to make it illegal because it’s not illegal.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Wisconsin town of Eureka sued over large farm regulations is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.