Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/dairy-farming/)
Among those watching the case for potential statewide impact are rural residents, groundwater advocates and farmers — including Kinnard Farms co-owner Lee Kinnard, whose permit is at issue.
“It doesn’t affect Kinnard Farms. This affects the dairy industry,” Kinnard said. “This is much bigger.”
In his ruling, Boldt blamed widespread well pollution in the area on what he called a “massive regulatory failure.” Now the farm is challenging his order that its permit include groundwater monitoring and a cap on the number of cows.
An administrative law judge says “massive regulatory failure” led to groundwater contamination in a dairy farming region and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources must use its powers to prevent further pollution.
Citing a rash of contaminated wells, the groups point to manure from animal agriculture as the leading risk to the region’s drinking water supplies and therefore the health of residents — and say state and local authorities have not done enough.
A proposal to ban waste spreading in winter and early spring on fields with shallow soil is facing opposition from powerful agricultural interests and questions about its legality.
In one of the most intensively farmed parts of America’s Dairyland, where 29 percent of the county’s private wells test unsafe due to bacteria or nitrates, residents have a new concern: estrogenic well water.
Dairy farmer Jeremy Meissner and farm manager Huron Mireles are part of the reason Clark County’s population is growing while nearby counties’ levels are declining. Part three of three in the Center’s Rural Slide series.
An influx of immigrants into Wisconsin’s dairy industry is giving a new Hispanic flavor to rural areas.
Wisconsin’s dairies are expanding, and they can’t do it without immigrant labor. Part 5 in our Dairyland Diversity project.
The state senate rejected a measure to impose strict penalties on companies found to have employed an undocumented worker. The bill’s failure is big news for Wisconsin’s dairy farmers, who increasingly rely on Hispanic immigrants to milk their herds. A report by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in November revealed the difficulties dairy farmers face finding legal workers for their operations.