Letter to the Editor: What the Governor Didn’t See

Sure, Gov. Tony Evers got a tour of a CAFO in Kewaunee County May 28 along with Joel Kitchens and other dignitaries, and they discussed digesters, cover crops, need for clear water and other good things. But what they experienced was a sanitized homogenized public relations event.

Next time, take the governor to an experience like the rest of us live with most of the time. Let him see tankers loaded with liquid manure lined up to spread the stuff on a field. Let him count the tankers. Let him see the field while it is being spread, and afterwards, and the next days too. Let him see the area right after it rains.

Get him to try to imagine the toxins that escape whenever the stuff is sprayed into the air.

Take him to a rural home where the residents can’t drink their water. Let him go along when the residents go to the store or other sources to pick up bottled water.

Let him talk to property owners who can’t sell or pass on their properties because they can’t supply water.

Let him count the number of wells that are polluted and let him tally the increase over the years.

Maybe then he will understand the urgency for actions and regulations to preserve what little we have left.

And to call this type of CAFO operation a ‘family farm’ is an insult to any of us, farmers or not.

Louis J. Janda

Town of Clay Banks, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin