One of the proposals seeks to protect Devil's Lake State Park, while the other is a more general resolution encouraging the state to affirm the rights of all natural resources in the state.

The post Should lakes and forests have rights in Wisconsin? Bills seek natural resource protections. appeared first on WPR.

Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

Wisconsin farms applied about 16 million pounds more nitrogen than necessary to their fields in 2022, according to a recently released report from Clean Wisconsin and Alliance for the Great Lakes. 

The excess application of fertilizer poses serious risks to public health, raises costs for people who get their water from public utilities or private wells and increases costs for farmers, the report found. 

Throughout the report, the environmental groups included input from residents who have had their health and wallets affected by nitrate pollution. 

“I own a daycare center, and the mental toll of just staying in business because I did not cause the contamination of my well and yet am expected to solve the problem is exhausting…” Kewaunee County resident Lisa Cochart says in the report. “This could put me out of business. I work hard to provide my community with a service that assures that each child is receiving the best care and it can be shut down because of a nitrate test that I cannot control.”

The report makes a number of recommendations to better track the amount of nitrogen spread on Wisconsin’s fields and in Wisconsin’s water systems while better enforcing regulations meant to protect drinking water. But agricultural industry representatives have said the report places too much burden on farmers — even though agriculture produces up to 90% of the nitrogen in the state’s groundwater. 

“Wisconsin cannot afford to delay. The cost of inaction — both financial and human — is rising,” the report states. “A coordinated, science-based policy response is essential to reduce nitrate pollution at its source, protect public health and ecosystems, and ensure clean, safe drinking water for future generations.”

The report recommends tougher state standards for nitrates, improved enforcement of nutrient management plans on individual farms, creating a statewide registration system for manure haulers and requiring regular groundwater monitoring for factory farms. It also proposes collecting data on the cost of nitrogen contamination to public water systems, expanding the state’s existing private well compensation program and increasing the state’s nitrogen fertilizer tonnage fees.

While the report’s recommendations are aimed at a wide range of policy areas and farming is the major source of nitrogen contamination, dairy industry representatives have pushed back on its findings. Tim Trotter, CEO of the Dairy Business Association, told Wisconsin Public Radio farmers are already doing enough voluntarily to address the problem. 

“Our work with solutions-minded environmental groups and other stakeholders through a statewide clean water initiative has resulted in tailored changes to programs and policies that open up more opportunities for on-farm innovation that addresses this important issue,” Trotter said. “Reports like this one do little to bring practical, achievable solutions to water quality challenges, and can be counterproductive to progress.”

In the past, the Dairy Business Association has sued state regulators to weaken the state’s ability to regulate pollution sources such as runoff. 

The report states that the state Legislature and the courts have limited the authorities of state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, preventing them from doing all that is necessary to manage the contamination. 

“Because Wisconsin administrative agencies have been severely limited in their ability to establish new regulations, they have relied heavily on voluntary incentives, such as cost-sharing and price supports to incentivize farmers to implement conservation measures,” the report states. “However, it is clear that these voluntary incentives alone aren’t enough to solve Wisconsin’s nitrate problems.”

The report also found that in applying more nitrogen fertilizer than necessary, Wisconsin’s farmers are spending $8-$11 million more each year than they need to — “dollars that could be saved with more precise application.” 

More than one-third of the state’s residents get their drinking water from private wells, which are especially susceptible to nitrate contamination. The report recommends expanding the well compensation program, but adds that is just a band-aid solution. 

The program also limits participation to residents making less than $60,000 per year and includes a number of requirements that further restrict who is eligible, even if their wells exceed the state’s nitrate standard of 10 milligrams per liter, according to the report.  

Instead, the report argues, the state needs to better work to keep nitrates out of the groundwater in the first place. 

“Well compensation programs, while vital for near-term relief, are ultimately a stopgap,” the report states. “They do not address the root cause of nitrate pollution. Without stronger upstream controls on nitrate pollution, more families will face the high cost and growing scarcity of access to safe drinking water.”

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State environmental regulators can require large livestock farms to obtain permits that seek to prevent manure spills and protect state waters, a state appeals court has ruled. 

Last year, a Calumet County judge ruled in favor of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in a case challenging the agency’s authority to require permits for concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs. Those farms have at least 1,000 animal units or the equivalent of 700 milking cows.

In 2023, the WMC Litigation Center sued the DNR on behalf of the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy Cooperative. They argued that agency rules that require CAFO permits and regulate stormwater runoff from farms can’t be legally enforced because they’re inconsistent with state and federal law.

In a decision Wednesday, a three-judge panel upheld the lower court’s decision.

“Because we conclude the two challenged rules do not conflict with state statutes and do not exceed the DNR’s statutory authority, we affirm the circuit court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of the DNR,” the panel wrote.

A DNR spokesperson said it’s reviewing the decision and unable to comment further at this time.

An attorney for farm groups had argued the DNR can’t go beyond federal requirements under state law, adding that state and federal laws exempt farms from regulation of their stormwater runoff.

Federal appeals court rulings in 2005 and 2011 found the Clean Water Act doesn’t allow the Environmental Protection Agency to require CAFOs to get wastewater discharge permits until they actually release waste into waterways. The three-judge panel noted state permitting programs may impose more stringent requirements than the EPA’s permitting program.

In a joint statement, Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy Cooperative said the decision is disappointing for Wisconsin’s ag community.

“We believe that there is no place for bad actors and that polluters should face penalties, but this case had nothing to do with weakening environmental laws. Our sole mission in challenging the DNR’s authority was to ensure that Wisconsin farmers are held to standards consistent with federal law,” the groups wrote.

“We continue to believe that a ‘presumption of guilt’ runs contrary to the very fundamentals of the American justice system. We are disappointed with today’s outcome and will continue to fight for Wisconsin farmers regardless of the size of their farm,” the groups continued.

The ruling affects the state’s 344 CAFOs. Under permits, large farms must take steps to prevent manure spills and runoff that include developing response plans, nutrient management plans and restricting manure spreading when there’s high risk of runoff from storms.

Midwest Environmental Advocates is among environmental groups that intervened in the case. They said the legal challenge could have severely limited the DNR’s ability to protect state waters from manure pollution, noting CAFOs can house thousands of cows that produce more waste than small cities.

Adam Voskuil, an MEA attorney, said the ruling affirms environmental regulations.

“We’re continuing to protect water resources in the state, and (it’s) a prevention of rolling back really important, necessary regulations,” Voskuil said.

Without them, Voskuil said the DNR would be responsible for proving whether each individual CAFO has discharged pollutants to surface water or groundwater. He said it’s likely the agency wouldn’t have the resources to do that work, meaning many farms wouldn’t be permitted or taking required steps to prevent pollution.

Darin Von Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said there has to be oversight of any industry.

“There needs to be some kind of authority that can call out the bad actors and make sure our water supply is safe,” Von Ruden said.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has been defending DNR in the case. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has previously said the state should be strengthening protections for state waterways, not weakening them.

Manure has been linked to nitrate contamination of private wells. Nitrate contamination can lead to blue-baby syndrome, thyroid disease and colon cancer. Around 90 percent of nitrate in groundwater can be traced back to agriculture.

The lawsuit is not the first to challenge DNR’s authority to require permits for CAFOs. In 2017, the Dairy Business Association sued the agency in part over its permit requirements, dropping that claim as part of a settlement with the DNR. Large farms have also challenged the agency’s authority to impose permit conditions on their operations. In 2021, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the DNR had authority to impose permit requirements on large farms to protect water quality.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Wisconsin DNR can require CAFO permits to protect water, appeals court rules 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.