Wisconsin Governor Walker A Friend of CAFOs

"...Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, where in 2009 animal waste contaminated more than 100 wells in a single town, the legislature had been considering a bill that would allow the state's Department of Natural Resources to set limits for how much animal manure can be spread on fields in areas with porous limestone karst that makes it easy for the waste to seep down and spoil the groundwater. Those areas would include Brown County, which has 15 dairy CAFOs with more than 1,000 cows each, and where many residents drink bottled water to avoid well water contaminated by manure. However, newly elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who has called the Department of Natural Resources "out of control," is unlikely to let these groundwater protections become law...."



"Ending last year's pitched battle between industrial dairy's desire to avoid regulation and the public's right to clean, safe drinking water, New Mexico's new Republican governor, Susana Martinez threw out regulations intended to control the continuing discharge of poisonous dairy waste into the state's water supplies. According to the state environment department, at least two-thirds of the groundwater underneath or adjacent to New Mexico's dairy CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) has been poisoned by nitrates. When other pollutants are included, estimates of water contamination by these factory farms can rise as high as 90 percent. No wonder New Mexico's legislature voted to have regulations drawn up to prevent this ongoing groundwater pollution..."

Read more @Huffington Post.