Gov. Tony Evers wants CAFOs to pay more of the cost now being carried by taxpayers to ensure that the facilities comply with water pollution laws. Below are highlights from an article by Steven Verburg that appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on March 17, 2019.
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor and a Republican legislative leader have put forth two water quality-related proposals signifying possible bipartisan support for clamping down on industrial farm pollution. The proposals call for increased use of fees paid by the state’s growing animal feedlots to shore up Department of Natural Resources efforts to keep millions of tons of farm manure from tainting drinking water, lakes and streams.
Newly elected Gov. Tony Evers has declared 2019 the “Year of Clean Drinking Water” and proposed $70 million in spending to protect water resources.
Under a 2009 law, each of the state’s 305 CAFOs pays a $345 annual permit fee. The DNR keeps $95 while the rest goes into the state’s general fund. [Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay] has introduced a bill that would keep the entire fee with DNR, adding about $76,250 to DNR revenue annually.
Decades of DNR staff cuts left the department with far too few employees to keep track of the feedlots, according to a 2016 report by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau.
Evers’ proposal to add the equivalent of five more employees — including two frontline workers — would bring the number of CAFOs handled by each field worker just below 20 while also bolstering support services, [Brian Weigel, deputy director in the DNR watershed bureau’s runoff management program] said.
For each five-year CAFO permit term, Evers plan would increase fees to $5,910 with higher amounts due for permit renewals to recognize the additional work for DNR staff.
Currently, each CAFO pays $1,725 over five years. In four neighboring states the average is nearly $5,400, ranging from $1,785 in Iowa to $12,660 for Minnesota, said Clean Wisconsin’s [Amber Meyer] Smith.
Read the article in its entirety at https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/tony-evers-republicans-both-looking-to-get-factory-farms-to/article_b6b8dd36-ffdb-57ea-bb2b-0d5a6afece66.html
