Judge says western Wisconsin CAFO permit doesn’t do enough to protect groundwater

A western Wisconsin factory dairy farm will have to restart its effort to obtain a permit after an administrative law judge found this week that the Department of Natural Resource’s initial approval failed to do enough to protect local groundwater. 

The Ridge Breeze Dairy in Pierce County has applied to expand from a 1,700 cow farm to 6,500 cows. The expansion is expected to generate 78 million gallons of manure per year. Since proposing the expansion, residents in the region have protested against the effects that operating the largest factory farm in western Wisconsin will have on the local water. 

Residents worked to oppose the DNR’s permitting decision along each step and previously raised concerns that the dairy had named properties as sites for planned manure spreading although those property owners were never contacted. 

Last year, the DNR granted a modified permit for the dairy to expand. Pierce County residents and a western Wisconsin-based advocacy group petitioned for a contested case hearing against the DNR decision. That hearing was held in Eau Claire in March.

In a decision issued Monday, Administrative Law Judge Angela Chaput Foy stated that the permit doesn’t do enough to ensure Ridge Breeze’s operations protect the groundwater. 

Communities across western Wisconsin have struggled with nitrate contamination in their groundwater, the source of drinking water for much of rural Wisconsin. Nitrate contamination has been linked to blue-baby syndrome, thyroid disease and colon cancer. 

The driftless region of western Wisconsin is especially vulnerable to groundwater contamination because parts of the bedrock are susceptible to sinkholes and fracturing. 

Residents in the area have pointed to the vulnerability of streams near the Ridge Breeze site and previous manure spills on farms operated by Ridge Breeze’s owner, Breeze Dairy Group. 

“The permit conditions set Ridge Breeze up for anticipated compliance, they also command compliance, but the permit lacks a mechanism to verify compliance,” Foy wrote. “By omitting a mechanism to verify actual compliance, the (DNR) has issued a mandate while simultaneously denying itself the tools or data necessary to know whether that mandate is broken.”

Foy’s order sends the permit back to the DNR, which will now have to include additional conditions in the permit to detect if the state’s groundwater standards are being violated. This could include installing monitoring wells, a step that some farmers and agricultural industry advocates say is too costly. 

“Protecting groundwater requires more than simply telling Ridge Breeze to comply with the law,” said Adam Voskuil, senior staff attorney at Midwest Environmental Advocates. “The DNR must have a way to determine whether those requirements are actually being followed and whether groundwater is being protected. This ruling makes clear that paper promises are not enough.”

Residents who spent years fighting the farm’s expansion celebrated the decision.

“This victory started when a handful of neighbors sat down together in the a garage down the road from Ridge Breeze and decided that we wouldn’t let our health, water, or our farming heritage be treated as an afterthought,” said Ty Fisher, a Pierce County farmer and member of Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin. “For more than three years, locals here have organized, testified, and stood together. This decision proves that when we’re organized we can take on corporate ag special interests and win.”

Gregg Wolf, the CEO of Breeze Dairy Group, told Wisconsin Public Radio that the farm has already completed construction on the new buildings for the expansion and currently houses about 6,000 cows. He said the decision will simply require the farm to do more to reassure neighbors that the state’s rules are being followed. 

“Ridge Breeze has always been committed to protecting the environment and all the resources, including groundwater, and doing things properly, and having enough acres to manage nutrients properly,” Wolf said. “This is just another avenue that is going to be added to the permit to reassure the community that’s being achieved.”

Danny Akenson, an organizer with GROWW, said that successfully overturning a DNR permit decision is a sign that residents opposed to the influence of factory farms over state policy can secure wins. 

“This isn’t the end of our fight, but it is proof that our organizing works,” Akenson said. “We’re going to celebrate what Pierce County residents won, and then we’re going to carry that people power to Madison to win the common sense accountability we need over corporate factory farms like these. Communities in Wisconsin shouldn’t have to fight for protections one factory farm and one permit at a time.”