Ruling on Kinnard Farms will affect all Wisconsin state agencies, court of appeals says

A legal battle over expansion of Kinnard Farms will have statewide implications and should be handled by the state Supreme Court, according to a request issued Wednesday by the state’s 2nd District Court of Appeals.

At issue is legislation approved during Gov. Scott Walker’s administration that effectively limited the state Department of Natural Resources’ authority to limit Kinnard’s herd size or require the farm to monitor groundwater as part of state permitting.

Kewaunee County’s combination of thin soils and fractured bedrock create the potential for manure to easily reach groundwater, an issue that has put many of the residents at odds with the county’s extraordinarily large number of concentrated animal feeding operations — CAFOs like Kinnard Farms, that have 700 or more animal units, or roughly 1,000 cows, or more....

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Ken Notes: We need far more than the courts here. We need the legislature to recognize that farms over 1,000 head produce huge amounts of waste that is not environmentally safe handled in ways designed for much smaller farms and should be regulated in this light. We should demand digestion and treating (heating) effluent. We are the dairy state and we are losing our farms at an alarming rate and actually milking more cows. This is not good. We need to act now...