Legislators Favor Campaign Contributors Over Safe Water

Madison - A proposal to reduce incidents of drinking water being polluted by manure was rejected by legislators because a small group of large agribusiness interests, who complained the rules were too strict, have spent nearly $916,000 on legislative elections since 2000, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says.
The proposal, which was rejected at an August 3 hearing by the Senate and Assembly Agriculture committees, would have regulated manure spreading by the state’s 150 large factory farms that have 700 or more animals. The spreading of large amounts of animal waste, particularly on frozen ground, has been the source of more than four dozen incidents of well contamination and fish kills over the past two years.

One incident seriously sickened a Luxemburg family with three small children. In another case earlier this year, animal waste was blamed for contaminating more than six dozen wells in the Brown County Town of Morrison so badly that some residents said their tap water smelled like manure. The state is paying tens of thousands of dollars to help residents dig new wells, but environmentalists argue the new wells could be polluted in a short time without regulations to control future manure spreading...

Read more about “Here’s manure in your water” at Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.