Liquid manure spill
- Thread starter highhertel
- Start date
highhertel
Member
lol, what a clueless response to a huge problem. Don't worry, city folks are smelling it too, just depends on wind direction.
HH
highhertel
Member
Yep, you city folk just stay in town, let us country boys do what we want to do:
http://nocafos.org/news.htm
Wisconsin list of manure spills can be found half way through the above article.
Apathy by the general public on this issue will lead to an even greater environmental disaster. When I was younger growing up in Calumet County (and yes I was involved in farming), I would hunt and fish on Pine Creek east of Chilton. Tecumseh Products and farm runoff out of New Holstein polluted that stream so bad it is considered a toxic waste site. I would fish the Manitowoc River for northern pike, farm runoff has since polluted this river so bad that health advisories are posted against eating fish out of this river. I doubt that there are even any fish left in the Manitowoc to eat. On a good hot summer day, one can almost walk across the surface of the water.
I am not an environmental nut, but it is so easy to see what is happening to our water supply both above and below ground. If the public does not do what is right, the government will step in and create more and more rules to save us from ourselves. Just what we need is more government intervention, they can't even get along with each other more or less their constituents.
HH
http://nocafos.org/news.htm
Wisconsin list of manure spills can be found half way through the above article.
Apathy by the general public on this issue will lead to an even greater environmental disaster. When I was younger growing up in Calumet County (and yes I was involved in farming), I would hunt and fish on Pine Creek east of Chilton. Tecumseh Products and farm runoff out of New Holstein polluted that stream so bad it is considered a toxic waste site. I would fish the Manitowoc River for northern pike, farm runoff has since polluted this river so bad that health advisories are posted against eating fish out of this river. I doubt that there are even any fish left in the Manitowoc to eat. On a good hot summer day, one can almost walk across the surface of the water.
I am not an environmental nut, but it is so easy to see what is happening to our water supply both above and below ground. If the public does not do what is right, the government will step in and create more and more rules to save us from ourselves. Just what we need is more government intervention, they can't even get along with each other more or less their constituents.
HH
classic_rider
New member
seems to be the way of the future,,all the mega farmers going to the liquid manure pits,,,just to many chemicals ,,,even by me now they cant find enuff fields to dump all the liquid stuff soon all the wells will be polluted,,,bottled water is gonna go ski high!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tealracing16
Member
Just remember bottled water isn't regulated. I could fill bottles from my tap and sell it.
highhertel
Member
Toledo, OH found out the hard way what animal and human waste compounded with phosphorus can result in. One can only can image how many chemicals Toledo is pumping into their water system to make the drinking water 'safe' again. Read on:
Behind Toledo’s water crisis, a long-troubled Lake Erie
8/8 - Toledo, Ohio — It took a serendipitous slug of toxins and the loss of drinking water for a half-million residents to bring home what scientists and government officials in this part of the country have been saying for years: Lake Erie is in trouble, and getting worse by the year.
Flooded by tides of phosphorus washed from fertilized farms, cattle feedlots and leaky septic systems, the most intensely developed of the Great Lakes is increasingly being choked each summer by thick mats of algae, much of it poisonous. What plagues Toledo and, experts say, potentially all 11 million lakeside residents, is increasingly a serious problem across the United States.
But while there is talk of action — and particularly in Ohio, real action — there also is widespread agreement that efforts to address the problem have fallen woefully short. And the troubles are not restricted to the Great Lakes. Poisonous algae are found in polluted inland lakes from Minnesota to Nebraska to California, and even in the glacial-era kettle ponds of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Algae fed by phosphorus runoff from mid-America farms helped create an oxygen-free dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico last summer that was nearly as big as New Jersey. The Chesapeake Bay regularly struggles with a similar problem.
When Mayor D. Michael Collins told Toledo residents on Monday that it was again safe to use the city’s water, he was only replaying a scene from years past. Carroll Township, another lakefront Ohio community of 2,000 residents, suspended water use last September amid the second-largest algae bloom ever measured; the largest, which stretched 120 miles from Toledo to Cleveland, was in 2011. Summertime bans on swimming and other recreational activities are so routine that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency maintains a website on harmful algae bloom.
Five years ago this month, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state water authorities issued a joint report on pollution of the nation’s waterways by phosphorus and other nutrients titled “An Urgent Call to Action.”
“Unfortunately, very little action has come from that,” said Jon Devine, the senior lawyer for the water program at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.
“When we bring this subject up for conversation with the regulators, everyone sort of walks out of the room,” Donald Moline, the Toledo commissioner of public utilities, said in an interview on Monday. “The whole drinking-water community has been raising these issues, and so far we haven’t seen a viable response.”
Lake Erie’s travails — and now, Toledo’s — are but the most visible manifestation of a pollution problem that has grown as easily as it has defied solution. Once the shining success of the environmental movement — Lake Erie was mocked as dead in the 1960s, then revived by clean-water rules — it has sunk into crisis again as urbanization and industrial agriculture have spawned new and potent sources of phosphorus runoff.
In Lake Erie’s case, the phosphorus feeds a poisonous algae whose toxin, called microcystin, causes diarrhea, vomiting and liver-function problems, and readily kills dogs and other small animals that drink contaminated water. Toledo was unlucky: A small bloom of toxic algae happened to form directly over the city’s water-intake pipe in Lake Erie, miles offshore.
Beyond the dangers to people and animals, the algae wreak tens of billions of dollars of damage on commercial fishing and on the recreational and vacation trades. With conservationists and utility officials like Mr. Moline, representatives of those industries have for years called for some way to limit the phosphorus flowing into waterways.
There are practical and political reasons, environmental activists and other say, why it has not happened. The biggest, perhaps, is that the government has few legal options to impose limits — and voluntary limits so far have barely dented the problem.
The federal Clean Water Act is intended to limit pollution from fixed points like industrial outfalls and sewer pipes, but most of the troublesome phosphorus carried into waterways like Lake Erie is spread over thousands of square miles. Addressing so-called nonpoint pollution is mostly left to the states, and in many cases, the states have chosen not to act.
Beyond that, the Supreme Court has questioned the scope of the Clean Water Act in recent years, limiting regulators’ ability to protect wetlands and other watery areas that are not directly connected to streams, or that do not flow year-round.
Wetlands, in particular, filter phosphorus from runoff water before it reaches rivers and lakes. A federal Environmental Protection Agency proposal to restore part of the Clean Water Act’s authority has come under fire in Congress, largely from Republicans who view it as an infringement on private rights and a threat to farmers.
Some efforts to control pollution have found powerful opponents in agriculture and the fertilizer industry, which, for example, has fought limits on lawn fertilizers in Florida towns and on overall pollution of the Chesapeake Bay. The principal industry lobby, the Fertilizer Institute, is part of a coalition of industry and agricultural interests that are opposing federal efforts to restore some coverage of the Clean Water Act.
With Lake Erie in peril, both Ohio and federal authorities have taken some steps to rein in phosphorus pollution. Some of the $1.6 billion that Congress has allotted for a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has gone to create wetlands and teach farmers ways to reduce fertilizer use and runoff. The Ohio government runs a Lake Erie Phosphorus Task Force that brings together interests from conservation to agriculture to industry to devise solutions to rising pollution.
But as in many places, Ohio has stopped well short of actually ordering the sources of phosphorus runoff to cap their production. A hefty Nutrient Reduction Strategy paper issued last year cites sheaves of demonstration projects, voluntary phosphorus reduction goals and watershed plans, but makes no mention of enforceable limits on pollution.
A spokesman for Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, did not return a call seeking comment on the state’s phosphorus initiatives.
The legislature this year passed a law requiring farmers and other major fertilizer users to apply for licenses and undergo certification, but limits control of pollution to voluntary measures.
All mention of one contributor to the pollution problem — so-called confined animal feeding operations, the industrial-size feedlots that produce manure en masse — was stripped from the version that was enacted.
Environmental advocates say they agree that voluntary measures to limit phosphorus pollution, such as targeting fertilizer to precisely the locations and amounts that are needed, are a big part of any solution.
“We’ve worked with farmers, and we know it works,” said Jordan Lubetkin, a Great Lakes spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation. “Voluntary programs will take you so far. But at the end of the day, you need numeric standards. You’ve got to limit the amount of phosphorus coming into the lake. That’s why you see what we’re seeing in Toledo.”
New York Times
Behind Toledo’s water crisis, a long-troubled Lake Erie
8/8 - Toledo, Ohio — It took a serendipitous slug of toxins and the loss of drinking water for a half-million residents to bring home what scientists and government officials in this part of the country have been saying for years: Lake Erie is in trouble, and getting worse by the year.
Flooded by tides of phosphorus washed from fertilized farms, cattle feedlots and leaky septic systems, the most intensely developed of the Great Lakes is increasingly being choked each summer by thick mats of algae, much of it poisonous. What plagues Toledo and, experts say, potentially all 11 million lakeside residents, is increasingly a serious problem across the United States.
But while there is talk of action — and particularly in Ohio, real action — there also is widespread agreement that efforts to address the problem have fallen woefully short. And the troubles are not restricted to the Great Lakes. Poisonous algae are found in polluted inland lakes from Minnesota to Nebraska to California, and even in the glacial-era kettle ponds of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Algae fed by phosphorus runoff from mid-America farms helped create an oxygen-free dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico last summer that was nearly as big as New Jersey. The Chesapeake Bay regularly struggles with a similar problem.
When Mayor D. Michael Collins told Toledo residents on Monday that it was again safe to use the city’s water, he was only replaying a scene from years past. Carroll Township, another lakefront Ohio community of 2,000 residents, suspended water use last September amid the second-largest algae bloom ever measured; the largest, which stretched 120 miles from Toledo to Cleveland, was in 2011. Summertime bans on swimming and other recreational activities are so routine that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency maintains a website on harmful algae bloom.
Five years ago this month, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state water authorities issued a joint report on pollution of the nation’s waterways by phosphorus and other nutrients titled “An Urgent Call to Action.”
“Unfortunately, very little action has come from that,” said Jon Devine, the senior lawyer for the water program at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.
“When we bring this subject up for conversation with the regulators, everyone sort of walks out of the room,” Donald Moline, the Toledo commissioner of public utilities, said in an interview on Monday. “The whole drinking-water community has been raising these issues, and so far we haven’t seen a viable response.”
Lake Erie’s travails — and now, Toledo’s — are but the most visible manifestation of a pollution problem that has grown as easily as it has defied solution. Once the shining success of the environmental movement — Lake Erie was mocked as dead in the 1960s, then revived by clean-water rules — it has sunk into crisis again as urbanization and industrial agriculture have spawned new and potent sources of phosphorus runoff.
In Lake Erie’s case, the phosphorus feeds a poisonous algae whose toxin, called microcystin, causes diarrhea, vomiting and liver-function problems, and readily kills dogs and other small animals that drink contaminated water. Toledo was unlucky: A small bloom of toxic algae happened to form directly over the city’s water-intake pipe in Lake Erie, miles offshore.
Beyond the dangers to people and animals, the algae wreak tens of billions of dollars of damage on commercial fishing and on the recreational and vacation trades. With conservationists and utility officials like Mr. Moline, representatives of those industries have for years called for some way to limit the phosphorus flowing into waterways.
There are practical and political reasons, environmental activists and other say, why it has not happened. The biggest, perhaps, is that the government has few legal options to impose limits — and voluntary limits so far have barely dented the problem.
The federal Clean Water Act is intended to limit pollution from fixed points like industrial outfalls and sewer pipes, but most of the troublesome phosphorus carried into waterways like Lake Erie is spread over thousands of square miles. Addressing so-called nonpoint pollution is mostly left to the states, and in many cases, the states have chosen not to act.
Beyond that, the Supreme Court has questioned the scope of the Clean Water Act in recent years, limiting regulators’ ability to protect wetlands and other watery areas that are not directly connected to streams, or that do not flow year-round.
Wetlands, in particular, filter phosphorus from runoff water before it reaches rivers and lakes. A federal Environmental Protection Agency proposal to restore part of the Clean Water Act’s authority has come under fire in Congress, largely from Republicans who view it as an infringement on private rights and a threat to farmers.
Some efforts to control pollution have found powerful opponents in agriculture and the fertilizer industry, which, for example, has fought limits on lawn fertilizers in Florida towns and on overall pollution of the Chesapeake Bay. The principal industry lobby, the Fertilizer Institute, is part of a coalition of industry and agricultural interests that are opposing federal efforts to restore some coverage of the Clean Water Act.
With Lake Erie in peril, both Ohio and federal authorities have taken some steps to rein in phosphorus pollution. Some of the $1.6 billion that Congress has allotted for a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has gone to create wetlands and teach farmers ways to reduce fertilizer use and runoff. The Ohio government runs a Lake Erie Phosphorus Task Force that brings together interests from conservation to agriculture to industry to devise solutions to rising pollution.
But as in many places, Ohio has stopped well short of actually ordering the sources of phosphorus runoff to cap their production. A hefty Nutrient Reduction Strategy paper issued last year cites sheaves of demonstration projects, voluntary phosphorus reduction goals and watershed plans, but makes no mention of enforceable limits on pollution.
A spokesman for Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, did not return a call seeking comment on the state’s phosphorus initiatives.
The legislature this year passed a law requiring farmers and other major fertilizer users to apply for licenses and undergo certification, but limits control of pollution to voluntary measures.
All mention of one contributor to the pollution problem — so-called confined animal feeding operations, the industrial-size feedlots that produce manure en masse — was stripped from the version that was enacted.
Environmental advocates say they agree that voluntary measures to limit phosphorus pollution, such as targeting fertilizer to precisely the locations and amounts that are needed, are a big part of any solution.
“We’ve worked with farmers, and we know it works,” said Jordan Lubetkin, a Great Lakes spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation. “Voluntary programs will take you so far. But at the end of the day, you need numeric standards. You’ve got to limit the amount of phosphorus coming into the lake. That’s why you see what we’re seeing in Toledo.”
New York Times
OK, I will not argue that we all want and need clean water, and that pollution is bad. But, we can not live without farmers. Farmers do not get rich doing what they are doing, and that is providing us all with something to put on our plate at each meal. How can a farmer abide by costly pollution control measures and still survive? Force them to abide and they go bankrupt. Then what? I do not condone pollution, but what can a farmer do and still provide for his own family. We need clean water AND we need farmers. I don't have the answers, but I do know that farmers really are not the bad guys that some would like you to believe.
Any farmer with a decent amount of land that didn't get to wild with debt is making a good living, and yes some are getting rich. The problem is from the liquid manure from confinement style farming. Pastures are a thing of the past, everywhere i look there is space that should be utilized as pasture that is not, to much money in junk crops like corn and soybeans that are profitable and easy. I do not blame the farmers, I blame our Government. Raising cattle on pasture is hard work, but we should be going back to turning fields and other land back to it. 1000's of head of cattle in a confinement barn ****ting and pissing through grates into a pit all day, then trying to find places to spread it is bad.
highhertel
Member
This farmer dumps 1 MILLION gallons of liquid manure into the Little Eua Pleine River in Marathon County and gets a fine of $464.10 for mismanagement of his farm. Simply amazing.
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/local/2014/08/12/farm-cited-manure-discharge/13983497/
HH
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/local/2014/08/12/farm-cited-manure-discharge/13983497/
HH
highhertel
Member
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel picked up on the story and also question the insane fine of $464.10, which by the way comes to $0.000464 cents of fine per gallon of poop. I wonder who this farmer was in bed with at the local DNR level that allowed him to dodge a larger fine like other violators have received.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statep...s-farmers-464-fine-b99331168z1-271412511.html
HH
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statep...s-farmers-464-fine-b99331168z1-271412511.html
HH
highhertel
Member
Is Green Bay/Lake Michigan going to be the next Lake Erie?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscon...ae-blooms-die-offs-b99344902z1-274684741.html
HH
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wiscon...ae-blooms-die-offs-b99344902z1-274684741.html
HH
highhertel
Member
640,000 gallons in Door County:
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com...2014/09/16/manure-spill-door-county/15743341/
HH
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com...2014/09/16/manure-spill-door-county/15743341/
HH
revx6002003
New member
I work directly with a lot of big farms in northeast Wisconsin. Do you really think the farmers want this to happen, or don't care if it does. I see more things happen because of mechanical things that break than the issue of people not caring about the environment. From what I see and know the "mega" farms have a lot more regulations on them than ever before for all sorts of things not just manure containment and where and when and how much they can spread on certain fields. A lot of these smaller farm have more runoff than a lot of people think, but the agencies can't keep up with the regulations on all these farms so obviously the larger farms get looked at first, and usually have more money to deal with this. I sprayed fields with all sorts of chemicals and fertilizers for the 11 years I have been in this business. You can just shut down a farm. There are a lot of animals that need to be fed and milked. I would like to see what kind of uproar there would be if we said " Ok we are shutting down the farm, find your own feed and milk yourselves."
- - - Updated - - -
Also, the population keeps moving out to the country. I can't remember a time when a farmer moved his farm in to town. If you want to live in the country but want everything the town life offers stay there!
highhertel
Member
I have several family members that are farmers, believe me when I say I am 'pro' farming. I spent most of my youth years working on several dairy farms, so I have seen the farm evolution throughout the years.
Remember the good old days when straw was used for bedding and it absorbed the cow urine? Limited smells to deal with because of the absorption, resulting in semi-solid manure to be spread on the fields, not liquid which usually ended up in a near by body of water. Obviously as dairy farms got much larger this was not an economical method of handling the millions and millions of gallons of cow poo.
Ken Buelow from Chilton ran a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in the desserts of the SW successfully for years. No neighbors to worry about, operation worked well. He brought this idea to Wisconsin a couple decades ago, lots of neighbors and dense population makes CAFO a bad idea. America's population has grown by 100M the last 30 years, people have to live somewhere.
What has worked for the farmer in the past is not going to work today with CAFO farms located in densely populated areas. Something has to change and thank goodness people are looking at green Lake Erie and Lake Winnebago and taking action.
Most of my food I buy I get from local farmers that raise their animals organically and free range grazing. I understand this type of meat is not available everywhere but the business model is a good one. Unfortunately for the small dairy farmer that is concerned about the environment, he is up against a very strong farm lobby group in Washington that is more concerned about profit than our environment.
HH
Remember the good old days when straw was used for bedding and it absorbed the cow urine? Limited smells to deal with because of the absorption, resulting in semi-solid manure to be spread on the fields, not liquid which usually ended up in a near by body of water. Obviously as dairy farms got much larger this was not an economical method of handling the millions and millions of gallons of cow poo.
Ken Buelow from Chilton ran a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in the desserts of the SW successfully for years. No neighbors to worry about, operation worked well. He brought this idea to Wisconsin a couple decades ago, lots of neighbors and dense population makes CAFO a bad idea. America's population has grown by 100M the last 30 years, people have to live somewhere.
What has worked for the farmer in the past is not going to work today with CAFO farms located in densely populated areas. Something has to change and thank goodness people are looking at green Lake Erie and Lake Winnebago and taking action.
Most of my food I buy I get from local farmers that raise their animals organically and free range grazing. I understand this type of meat is not available everywhere but the business model is a good one. Unfortunately for the small dairy farmer that is concerned about the environment, he is up against a very strong farm lobby group in Washington that is more concerned about profit than our environment.
HH
highhertel
Member
Cow poop for dessert? Eww, I'll pass on that delicacy!
Ha! frnash you got me. Darn thumbs, I was wondering where you have been.
Good to see you are still watching.
HH
highhertel
Member
Looks like the farmer involved in this most recent 'accident' (negligence) was cited by Door County earlier in the year for an animal waste disposal violation. Maybe he can use some of the $113,000 Environmental Quality Incentive Program subsidy that he received back in 2009 to help pay for the clean up.
http://farm.ewg.org/persondetail.php?custnumber=A10946173
HH
highhertel
Member
Yep, this chit is flowing into your water supply.
Because a few people are making some noise about the damage that is being done, the livestock operations siting rules are going to be reviewed:
http://doorcountydailynews.com/news/details.cfm?clientid=28&id=144497#.VBztbFeGe3M
HH
I really can't see how you can call yourself "pro-farmer" when you have done nothing but post stories of accidents and criticize how they do things. This is just like any other environmental issue, it's the few bad ones that you hear about, never all the good ones. For every farmer you have talked about who has done something wrong, I can show you a hundred more who have never done anything wrong and are in full compliance with their local laws. There will always be accidents and there will always be those few bad apples who may not care as much as others and then the entire farming community gets blamed for it. And no matter how much farmers try to prevent it, it's never enough. Every year there are more and more regulations to follow that cost them more money by both buying/installing new equipment, and making it harder to do their jobs. What more do want them to do?