Letter to the Editor: More Manure In Our Future

Another public hearing was held in Kewaunee County on November 27 about more expansions in herd sizes and the re-issuing of pollution permits to spread liquid manure upon the lands. Recent groundwater studies have shown that the waste from these confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) has been and will continue to be a major contributor and threat to our surface and groundwater. It’s our water! All of us! And it is being allowed to be taken from us in unprecedented amounts. Millions of gallons every day, simply to wash away animal waste. The increase in animal units being proposed (approx. 4,500 animals units) would be equal to allowing 90,000 humans to move into Kewaunee County and defecate upon the land!

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was created to preserve, protect, manage and maintain the natural resources of the state. It has the responsibility to protect our environment from those who would exploit it. It’s not doing its job. So far, every river in Kewaunee County is considered impaired by pollution. Oxygen depleted dead zones exist in Green Bay, there is so much excess nitrogen, phosphorus and bacterial pollutants in the water that it is creating algae blooms, contaminated bathing beaches, disease and death to the inhabitants and users of these waters.

It is like a great black cloud of poison upon us. It is killing us, it is pitting neighbor against neighbor, it is sucking the life and love out of our communities, and breaking the hearts and souls within this beautiful countryside.

This agricultural model is unsustainable and we all know it. There is no love in this farming model where animals are nameless units and the suffering neighbors are viewed like the enemy. Let’s take a step in the right direction and turn this insane situation around. Let’s look into our hearts and into our neighbors’ eyes and do what we know is right.

If the DNR and the industrial farm owners will not stop this mass intrusion into the health and livelihoods of the inhabitants of Northeast Wisconsin. If the law makers that vote not by conscience but by the money from those who buy their re-elections, then we the people, who have to drink, bathe, swim in the tainted water; who are being fed these dairy products, laced with pesticides, synthetic growth hormones, antibiotics and disease causing elements must take action with our pocket books. We should not support the unlabeled, unhealthy products and only buy those products that are lovingly labeled organic.

It’s our water! Protect it.

Keep the waters pure,

Paul Leline, Door County Environmental Council Member

Baileys Harbor, Wis.