From: "Rebecca Leighton Katers"
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:51:39 +0000

March 29, 2000 
For More Information Contact:  
Melissa Scanlan, Midwest Environmental Advocates, 608-251-5047

FAMILY FARMER, NEIGHBORS, SPORTSFISHERS JOIN ENVIRONMENTALISTS TO SUE THE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES FOR VIOLATING STATE AND FEDERAL WATER LAWS

Citizens Bring First Statewide Challenge to the DNR's Permitting
Program for Large Animal Feedlots 

MADISON, WI  ---  The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
violated state and federal water laws when it issued a permit to a
factory farm in Shawano County said a group of citizens who are
petitioning the DNR for a hearing on the permit.

The petitioners include a neighboring small family farmer,
sportsfishers, and the directors of Clean Water Action Council and
Wisconsin's Environmental Decade. They maintain that the DNR has a
pattern of approving permits for large factory farms (for dairy, these
are facilities with 700 or more milking cows) without adequately
examining and controlling the detrimental impact the farms will have
on an area's water supply.  The petitioners challenge the permit
issued to Tauchen Harmony Valley, Inc. for its gross violations of
state and federal water laws.

"The agency has been on notice for months that they are not meeting
state and federal laws, but has chosen to ignore the law as it relates
to factory farms," according to Melissa Scanlan, Legal Director of
Midwest Environmental Advocates and attorney for the petitioners in
this case.  "The law clearly prohibits these facilities from using our
public waterways as conveyances of pollution, yet the DNR issued a
permit that allows the facility to discharge pollutants for well over
a year before they are required to correct any manure runoff and
seepage problems."

Federal and state law prohibits discharges from these facilities from
the day they start operating with 700 or more dairy cows, yet the DNR
has given this facility over one year before they need to stop
polluted runoff and seepage from their manure lagoons from entering
public waters.  

In violation of state water laws, the facility in question also failed
to produce a manure management plan prior to receiving a permit.
"DNR's failure to require nutrient management plans for factory farms
is not only a violation of law, it is a violation of common sense,"
said David Zaber, Director of Water Quality Programs at Wisconsin's
Environmental Decade. "A proper waste management plan provides
critical information on potential pollution of lakes, rivers and
groundwater resources. Without a plan, the DNR and the public have no
way of judging the potential for pollution and thus, cannot make an
informed decision on issuance of a permit. DNR should never have
issued this permit."

Ivan Klosterman, a petitioner and fourth generation family dairy
farmer who lives and farms near the Tauchen Facility sees the DNR's
action as a direct threat to his business.  "We small dairy farmers
are struggling to survive in this marketplace and when our state
agencies turn the other way and fail to require the large facilities
to follow the law, they are failing the small family farmer," said
Klosterman.

"The influx of these large animal facilities is not the invisible hand
of the market at work, but the intentional policy of our government
agencies.  The DNR's actions provide yet another environmental subsidy
that boosts large dairy facilities' ability to compete in the
marketplace," said Scanlan.  

"This is nothing more than pollution-based prosperity.  It is a threat
to our environment, our small, family farming heritage, and rural
economic development," said Rebecca Leighton Katers, Executive
Director of Clean Water Action Council and a petitioner in the case. 

Rebecca Leighton Katers
Clean Water Action Council of N.E. Wisconsin
East Port Center
1270 Main Street, Suite 120
Green Bay, WI 54302
Phone:  920-437-7304
Fax:  920-437-7326
E-mail: 
Homepage:  cwac.net 

CWAC.NET is designed by EarthWINS & hosted by EZWebtech