News
Polk County, Wisconsin’s latest attempt to regulate CAFO’s withdrawn
A proposed county ordinance to regulate CAFOs in northwestern Wisconsin has stalled.
Christopher Nelson is the Chairman of the Polk County Board of Supervisors. He tells Brownfield, “I can tell you that yesterday at Health and Human Services, I think due to maybe some outside pressure, phone calls to other supervisors, she has now withdrawn the resolution for the time being.”
Nelson tells Brownfield the proposed ordinance from Supervisor Amy Middleton of Osceola Township will not be taken up by the board, but he expects Middleton will try again to create local CAFO regulations. “It’s a specific couple of supervisors, it’s not the county board, and this is kind of a, I think, an attempt to try to keep this as a topic here in Polk County by certain folks because of the last resolution to extend the (October 2019 CAFO) moratorium failed.”
The Dairy Business Association is one of the groups opposing the additional county regulations. John Holevoet tells Brownfield the supervisors should try working with farmers instead of top-down regulation. “Sit down with your farmers. They’re going to be your best resources in how to move forward with this. We’ve seen that work in neighboring counties. We’ve seen that work elsewhere in the state. There (are) ways to move forward. If you have specific concerns, what can we be doing better about it? We’ve also seen the success of these farmer-led watershed groups throughout the state.”
Nelson says Polk County had another proposed ordinance that would have singled out swine CAFO’s, but state officials made it clear that would likely not hold up in court. Holevoet tells Brownfield the latest Polk County ordinance was vague, only saying the county should regulate more.
Wisconsin has guidelines for livestock siting under Chapter 93.90 of the state statutes and under regulation ATCP 51 through the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. So far, Nelson says no new proposals for county CAFO regulation have been drafted for committee consideration.
I am wondering, after watching a presentation on FStv this morning, why hasn’t Polk County supervisors proposed requiring CAFO’s build wastewater processing plants to process all the animal waste generated. If this were a housing development that would generate a similar amount of waste most jurisdictions would require, by law, the construction of a waste processing plant prior to any occupancy of the newly constructed homes. Just curious.