Posted on 09/28/2011 11:14:23 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MAGNOLIA, WI — John Adams can’t see the nearly 3,000 cows on the dairy farm two miles from his Wisconsin home, but when the wind blows he can smell them.
The stench gives him and his wife headaches. They blame the big farm for contaminating their air and polluting the groundwater well they use for drinking, bathing and watering their garden. They no longer feel safe eating the vegetables they grow.
Adams also blames the state, which requires local governments to grant permits to large farms that meet certain limited criteria, even if there are additional environmental concerns. The rural farming town where he lives tried to impose stricter rules, only to be overruled by the state agriculture department.
Adams and seven neighbors, along with the town of Magnolia, sued the state and the farm in the first case of its kind to reach a state supreme court and the result could set a precedent throughout the Midwest. Similar cases have been filed in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio and Oklahoma, and two juries in Missouri have already handed out multimillion-dollar awards to homeowners who complained of intolerable odors from so-called factory farms.
At the same time, several states have passed or are considering laws that would make it easier for big farms to get permits. Lawmakers say the move creates uniformity, allowing farms to expand under predictable circumstances, and strengthens one of the few industries that didn’t tank in the recession.
Critics argue the laws deprive residents of a voice.
“A township should have the right to establish guidelines to keep its people safe, but it doesn’t,” said Adams, 61. “Those of us who are being affected, it’s like there’s nothing we can do.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
A Poop Factory should be located in an Industrial Zone!
I think at some point between 100 cows, and 4,000 cows, we could find a point where a dairy kind of slops over into a poop factory.
Not with Sven & Ole involved. They ARE the state of Wisconsin. Sven & Ole rule.
A few years ago he became enraged when he thought some planes were flying too low over his house as they prepared for landing. He actually went up to one of plane-owners house and physically assaulted the plane-owner. I can't remember the results of the trial, if there was one, but the man is no longer living at the end of the airstrip. he moved out. the moral of the story: if you don't like the way things are set up in the neighborhood you're moving to, don't move there.
Nope. Somebody puts a 3,000 cow dairy in next to you and you will sing a different tune.
This poor soul moved to the country for a reason; unfortunately, his image of the rural bucolic life was formed from watching Green Acres and Ma and Pa Kettle movies. He has discovered that rural life is not what he expected, but instead of conforming his expectations to reality, he now demands that the government alter reality to conform to his expectations.
Instead of moving to the country, only to discover that he didn't like animal smells, suppose he had moved to the railroad yard expecting only to encounter Thomas the Tank Engine. Could he then demand that the local government require the railroad only to operate their trains in the fashion of 19th Century England?
I live within afew hundred FEET of hundreds of cows, and within blocks of thousands of cows. And I smell them quite strongly every spring when the snow melts and their feces festers in the marshy fields. Why would I become a fascist because of the smell in the air? What a stupid argument.
This is such a pile of horse hockey. I have a new neighbor who moved to Texas from Massachusetts only at the insistence of her husband who had been unemployed but found a great job here. She was complaining about the odor coming from the refineries. I told her it was simply the smell of jobs and money coming from something other than government handouts.
“May I suggest that you know very little about farming.”
Not only that, but (s)he knows little about arguing either. Since (s)he decided to attempt to sell his ( or her) liberalism onto my by telling me how I’d feel about cows when I happen to live next to MANY dairy farms. What a moronic attempt to push a nanny state onto us.
“I told her it was simply the smell of jobs and money coming from something other than government handouts.”
Nice response!
In jdw11235’s world, zoning is a fascist idea.
So you like the smell of festering feces. Who cares?
Manure from a confined animal facility has to be ground applied. Let’s see, Lucas Oil Stadium is located in the old Illinois Central Railroad yard, so maybe the intersection of McCarty and Capitol would be a good place to spread manure?
Which was there first? The farm or the house? If the guy was dumb enough to build down-wind from dairy feedlot, well, he only has himself to blame for any smells that might be present.
LOL, Your posts wreak for festering feces.
“In jdw11235’s world, zoning is a fascist idea.”
How ever did we get along for nearly 140 years without zoning laws which were introduced in the progressive era! Oh my!
Best I could tell from the article, it was previously a dairy farm with the number of animals that was not a nuisance, then expanded to a 3 or 4 thousand cow facility, which made it a nuisance.
Farm was there first. Nothing else matters. The guy’s complaint is akin to moving next door to a national cemetery and getting pissed every time they play taps and have gunfire salutes.
He didn't just move in ~ I take it he is retired ~ and living right where he did all along.
People do that you know.
Larson is a young buck who recently inherited the family farm. He's stuffed his parents somewhere ~ probably a resthome in a different state ~ and now he's turning the old homestead into a poop factory.
I'm guessing larson's folk's resthome is butt up against an interchange on an interstate.
Well, anyway, none of these homes are new. They've been there for a coon's age. The fellow with the farm CHANGED THE nature of his farm operation substantially!It's like he built a real estate development in farm country and then began demanding everybody else put up with his stuff.
You can determine all of this by visting the area via Google Earth. That's what I did. It's pretty empty stuff up there ~ should be no need to put a poop farm within 10 miles of people but this guy did.
That's why I know a pig farmer is looking at this area ~ what a weak community. He'll bowl them over with 5,000 hogs ~ believe me this will make American Farmer and those guys will sit up and take notice of a NEW OPPORTUNITY.
A 3,000 head dairy farm in Wisconsin is a lot closer in size to the smallest farm in the state than it is too the largest.
Well, we didn't. Before zoning we had COVENANTS.
Most folks were happy to go along with that as long as their deed had a covenant that said "No Negros and No Members Of The Hebrew Race".
They'd skip right over the part referring to "provisions in (name) document of (name) Township, state of (name)."
The Adler v. Euclid case was the one selected by the Supreme Court for the original ruling that established the right of a state to authorize formal "zoning" by a municipal authority. At the same time, more importantly, Adler v. Euclid did not disestablish covenants so many older residential and industrial developments actually have cumbersome "covenants" that are IMPOSSIBLE to get overturned in court ~ you can't even bring in new zoning rules to displace them (except to the degree the zoning doesn't interfere with the covenants).
That, BTW, explains why there's such a hearty appetite for placing new industrial development outside of the older core cities ~ there's always something getting in the way.
Houston ran without zoning until quite recently. They relied entirely on covenants.
The very earliest townsites in America had covenants, even Indian villages required people to poop elsewhere!
Not in this area. Use google earth to check it out. It’s much more like the dairy industry collapsed around there and disappeared. They turned to other farming.
The gentleman in Wisconsin lives in an agricultural area but doesn't, apparently, participate in the economy. Instead, he demands that the local government require neighboring farmers to attempt to make a living following what he imagines to be the farming practices of their grandparents.
Assuming that mature dairy cows are somewhat similar in their consumption to mature brood cows, these animals will require 45 tons a day of forage and dry feed, producing 15,000 tons a year of waste which will require from 2,000 to 3,000 acres for application. This isn't an activity which can be conducted in an industrial park.
The local zoning board can no more require that dairy farmers till the soil and milk their cows in the manner of their grandparents (which led to the dust bowl, abject poverty and early death, by the way) than they can require that Boeing keep producing those wonderful DC-3's or Ford those really neat Model A's.
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