Vernon County CAFO Moratorium Defeated

The Dunn County Board last night passed a six month moratorium on CAFO expansion of more than 10% on farms of over 1000 animals in the county. This is in response to a very large expansion of Cranberry Creek Farm planned for the county, and was prompted by many questions raised about the ability of the farm owners to manage runoff, and some serious issues with the application and the ability of the DNR to properly consider the issues  in awarding a permit. The permit is for an expansion of up to 7150 animals.

There has been good news for those organizing for responsibility on the part of large animal feeding operations (CAFOs.) The conference in early April was a terrific success with good attendance from the concerned as well as ag industry. From this lift there is a new blog on the block Wisconsin_CAFO_Watch that will help organizers network and get news out to state and national environmentalists. Watch some video there from the April Conference.

[press release from Midwest Environmental Advocates via WisPolitics]

Once again, factory farms get a pass from a major environmental law 2/27/2008

If you live downwind from a mega-farm, don't put away those gas masks just yet.

The Natural Resources Board voted today to approve a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rule that grants "sources of hazardous air pollution associated with agricultural waste" (read: manure) yet another exemption from state requirements concerning toxic air emissions. Now, these sources of pollution won't have to meet state requirements until July 31, 2011.

Since Borges is out on vacation, I thought I'd bring up the fact that the 2400 head Vernon County CAFO operation that she blogged about recently is probably going in . The Vernon County Board has voted to not support a moratorium on CAFO operations. More details when we have some.

Update -

There's now an article in the Vernon County Broadcaster .  Although there will be no moratorium on large animal operations --

The board did, however, approve two measures to address farm growth and land planning. On a pair of 15-14 votes, the board approved an animal siting ordinance limiting animal units and approved a measure to begin comprehensive planning.

The animal siting ordinance deals with farms with more than 500 animal units. That ordinance only gives the county oversight on the location of such an operation and is basically a permitting system. The ordinance is very similar to state legislation formulated for counties.