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 ...
Stick to the facts of the case.
The farmer looks to have the law on his side, that’s why the little city is taking it to WSC.
No where in the article or other documentation can you show where the farmer has polluted anything.
What the heck are you quoting? Sounds pretty vague like a cannabis pipedream Laws.
You have to read the whole article.
I did read the whole friggin article, as I stated in prev post. Maybe YOU need to read the whole article and kindly show us where it says anything even remotely close to what you say.
“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”.
How is this relevant to anything? Are the cows negro or hebrew, or were you just throwing that in for effect?
“The problem is that it was only a nuisance in the eyes of the complaining yuppie.”
Your stat, even if true, is irrelevant. I can see you’ve never had a 3,000 cow facility move in next door.
Turns out it's terrible for corn and soybeans ~ the soil is not nearly as thick as Iowa, the windblown loess is still over in the Dakotas and Nebraska, and with the rocks all over the place somebody had to pick them up to allow ploughing. There are huge piles at the corner of the fenced fields.
Very interesting. We did our honeymoon there in the Fall.
There are some serious glacial till regions ~ with even more rocks.
It's pretty obvious you can raise cows there, but it is not so obvious that you have enough soil in most places to do much else.
This is NOT a Northern Northern Illinois ~ more like a Western bed of Lake Michigan! Fur shur it's not Noblesville, Indiana.
If you say these guys need 3000 acres for 3000 cows, could be. Maybe not. It rains a lot, but it runs off.
In the several dozen articles I read about this nowhere did anyone say Larson bought even one more acre than he already had when his grandpa ran 200 head. He's actually expanding to over 4000 cows!
His neighbors have medium sized farms ~ and like the guy said this sort of farm stands out in Wisconsin.
So, tell me, are you used to wideranging conversations or is it all about cows,
“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.”
Your analogy does not hold. A 3,000 cow operation is more like an industrial facility than a farm. If you bought next to a known size facility and then that facility undertook an expansion that exponentially expanded its size, smell, affect on your property value, and intrusiveness, that most certainly does matter.
Farms are farms - there’s smell involved. If you build a house downwind from one you have no standing to complain about odor. Size does not matter.
Right there ~ "high" ~ "local wells".
Water moves.
Did you gloss right over that?
Here, since "HIGH" means something ~ more than 10 milligrams per liter ~ let's go to an authoritative source ~ in Wisconsin ~
http://dnr.wi.gov/org/water/dwg/nitrate.htm
Yup, smell is smell. However, the mega dairy here shares the same surface aquifer as found in four states. http://bioquest.org/summer2004/projectfiles/ICEAGE.html Lots of relevant maps.
“Farms are farms - there’s smell involved. If you build a house downwind from one you have no standing to complain about odor. Size does not matter.”
No, that is not exactly true. A 3,000 cow facility is not really a farm; it is more like an industrial facility. As is a 100,000-hog hogfarm, etc. And, if you are living in a certain location and then a “farm” or any other commercial faclity becomes a nuisance through expansion, or changing the nature of its operation, or building a new facility that affects you through its’ pollution, odor, dust, noise etc., then you most certainly do have standing to complain. The law says so.
Exactly!
The reporting is also more than a little misleading. While it's true that the "average" dairy farm may have fewer than 100 cows, those "average" dairy farms are going broke at a breath taking pace. In 2000, there were over 84,000 dairy farms in the US With fewer than 100 cows; by 2006, that number had dropped to just over 57,000 with the trend continuing to the present. And while the "average" dairy farm has fewer than 100 cows, those farms produce less than 1/5th of our country's milk.
The Larson farm is no closer to Lake Michigan than is, say, Lafayette, Indiana. What it is close to is Madison, Wisconsin, and the Larson family's sin (Other than successfully farming 5,000 acres) appears to be in refusing to allow a bunch of yuppies to tell them how to run their business and lead their lives.
Dr. Michaels, who blew the whistle on the evil Dr. Mann who concocted that phoney baloney hockey stick graph (SEE:AGW Scandal), is the guy who invented a serviceable surface flow septic system that will work in this sort of country. As I recall he said he did the work right there in Rock county.
I do not recall that Dr. Michaels was terribly liberal ~ more like he's an arch conservative who set about doing something to deal with the lack of perk in the local soils in that very county.
Let me suggest that if it has trouble handling human poop it has trouble handling cow poop and every other kind of poop.
You are not discussing 4th amendment rights, or suppression of property rights by an evil city in this case. Rather, you are arguing on behalf of one guy creating a mountain of poop and allowing it to raise the background level of nitrates in the local aquifer to above 10 pts per million.
Everybody is rural in this rural area. And Lake Michigan is still directly to the East ~ it didn't move away.
NOTE: see ~ http://nationalparalegal.edu/conlawcrimproc_public/ProtectionFromSearches&Seizures/WhatIsASearch.asp regarding searches of open lands. The issue here isn't whether or not a search (for water samples) is violative of the 4th amendment, but whether or not the TOWNSHIP has authority to take such samples. There are other organizations in Wisconsin with the authority to enter onto those lands and take samples ~ which is probably underway.
Gives us a cite to the 5,000 acres.
Sorry, you can not pull something out of context like:
“ That’s what concerned local officials who considered Larson’s 2006 application for an expansion permit. The town’s experts reported finding high nitrate levels in a creek and local wells near the first site.
The town still granted Larson’s permit but with conditions. For example, Larson had to allow the town to conduct monthly water-quality tests on his land. The farm also had to follow certain crop-rotation strategies to reduce nitrate buildup.
Larson appealed to a review board run by the state’s agriculture department. The board agreed Magnolia had exceeded its authority by imposing additional conditions.”
As you can read the city issed the new permit even after the testing you indicated.
There is no indication the nitrates originated on Larson’s farm or that the creek drains Larson’s farm. Nitrates can come from other sources such as fertilizer. From some experience in Pollution Control and Abatement, it requires quite the research to find and prove the original source. This article seems to indicate the city did neither or this case would never have gotten this far.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not care for dairies. During several Fed Gov dairy “buyouts” most of the dairymen make out like bandits. But we are talking Private Property Right in this case.
BUT other government agencies DO HAVE THE AUTHORITY and are probably doing so (now or in the near future).
I suspect that based on the fact this particular story has now reached various news institutions all over the country.
Since the water flows in the region have already been determined, Larson would be a fool to NOT have testing done himself. Eventually someone will find a "source" (Hmm, 3,000 cows around, maybe that's it eh) and he'll be back to ground zero.
You might try looking at the website for Larson Acres. It's a family farm and they farm 5,000 acres. I just can't understand why they don't want a bunch of college hangers on to tell them how to farm their land.
You might try looking at the website for Larson Acres. It's a family farm and they farm 5,000 acres. I just can't understand why they don't want a bunch of college hangers on to tell them how to farm their land.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.