The Town of Emerald’s Emerald Sky Dairy has settled with the state more than once for spills of manure that killed fish, ruined nearby water systems, and may have hurt the health of the people who drink the water. Local people who are worried about their health and the quality of their drinking water have been very vocal about the dairy’s operations.
Since 2016, there have been seven manure spills at the dairy, and two of them led to five-figure settlements. The 1,500-cow dairy had to pay $65,000 for a spill in 2019 that killed a lot of fish in a nearby stream and $80,000 for a spill in 2016 that sent almost 300,000 gallons of manure into nearby wetlands and streams.
That leak, which started in December 2016 when a pipe broke, wasn’t reported for months. The DNR staff didn’t find out about the spill until they got an anonymous tip. It took them until March 2017 to get to the site. In some parts of the building, solid manure was more than three feet deep.
In the spring of that year, the farm’s property was cleaned up. Tons of solid manure were scraped out of two wetlands and a nearby stormwater pond. There was a lot of pollution in the water around the farm. When the DNR tested the stormwater pond, they found levels of E. coli. E. coli at a level eight times higher than what would close a public beach. Phosphorus and ammonia were also higher than they should have been.
Wetland 1, which was close to the farm, was also very polluted. The grade level E. Wetland 1 had coli levels that were 10.5 times higher than the level needed to close a public beach, but it wasn’t from solid manure. Instead, the DNR found that the manure had mixed with the water in the wetland.
“It’s not possible to get the manure back”
As the dairy worked on cleaning up, Wetland 1 didn’t get the same care, which has caused the DNR and local activists to disagree. Since then, the water in the area has gotten worse.
About a half mile away from the dairy is the town of Emerald Hall. Public health officials found that the level of nitrates in a public well at the town hall was four times the safe level. Nitrates are a contaminant that is often linked to large-scale manure spreading. Because of the Karst geology of the area, which has underground streams, caves, and springs, the groundwater in the area is especially at risk.
Residents can’t miss the link, and they have insisted that the fact that Wetland 1 hasn’t been cleaned up completely is a big reason why the groundwater in the area is dirty.
“The problem has never been fixed. “I don’t understand why they just gave up on this whole wetland and didn’t even try to clean it up,” Kim Dupre, who used to live near the dairy and is an advocate for water quality, told the Wisconsin Examiner in May. “That was never explained.”
Staff from the DNR say that because of how the spill polluted the wetland, it couldn’t be cleaned up like other parts of the dairy.
The DNR’s CAFO Program Enforcement Coordinator, Ben Uvaas, told the Wisconsin Examiner that all of these documents show that manure and water containing manure were dumped into Wetland 1. This was one of the violations that led to the $80,000 fine for this event. “Illegal discharges of pollutants into Wetland 1. So that happened, but that’s not the same as a cleanup where you can get that stuff back.”
He said that the manure pollutants in the water are broken down by nature, so they won’t fall out and you can’t get them back in some way.
He went on to say that the state thinks that manure is “just not recoverable material.” “You know, definitely not compared to the other sites or other parts of the site that are still contaminated.”
Inspection after the fact
This summer, the DNR checked Wetland 1 to see if manure pollution, which neighbours say is still happening, was still happening. This was in response to the continued efforts of community members.
In July, Uvaas and staff from the agency went to the dairy to take soil samples. There was no sign of manure in the area, however.
“The soils and plants seemed normal and unaffected by everything. A bucket-auger was used to look at the soil in five places. “At each point, the soil profile looked like other soils in the area that had been mapped,” Uvaas said in his report. “The top few inches of soil usually had decomposing organic matter, which is typical of a wetland. When looked at closely, this material matches the most common plant in the area, which is reed canary grass.”
In the end, he came to the conclusion that “inspectors did not find any solid manure deposits or other signs of an untreated manure discharge in wetland 1.”
In an email to the Wisconsin Examiner, Uvaas says that dissolved pollutants eventually get washed downstream, and the agency thinks that any bad effects on local water systems have been fixed by the settlement agreement and its fines and cleaning requirements.
“Pollutants that are dumped into waterways and then dissolve move downstream over time,” he says. “In related writing, this event is often called pollutant fate and transport. Concerns about the 2016–2017 spill were addressed by the civil action, forfeiture, and settlement agreement signed in 2019.
Residents aren’t happy
In a written response to the DNR report, local activists say they feel like their concerns are still not being addressed and that the agency has forgotten about their need for clean water.
“WDNR has consistently and repeatedly shown undue deference to this operation since the massive manure spill in December 2016 (and even before, as shown by site inspection findings just before the spill) at the expense of the local citizens’ water quality, quality of life, and health/safety,” wrote Steve Oberle, a former Taylor County conservationist who has been working with local activists and wrote the response.
“Since the massive spill and several others that followed, the fish kill incident, and several WDNR site visits, it has become much clearer to me, to the local people affected by [Emerald Sky Dairy], and to many others facing a similar fate around the State just how important water quality (surface water and groundwater) and local citizens’ and communities’ health and safety are to WDNR,” Oberle wrote.
“It’s a fair question: what is the main job and duty of a good government (in accordance with local ordinances and state laws) if not to protect the health and safety of the public?” he added.
The DNR is waiting to hear from the dairy on its request to renew its licence to run as a concentrated animal feeding operation. The agency is waiting for the results of a report on the quality of groundwater before starting the public comment process, which is required when a permit is renewed.
Oberle said at the end of his letter to the agency that he doesn’t think the water in the community is safe.
“Unfortunately and regrettably,” he wrote, “I cannot in good conscience tell local citizens that their short- and long-term water quality and health and safety concerns have been fully and completely addressed when WDNR has not yet produced any water quality (surface water or groundwater) data to show that wetlands, local wells, and streams affected by multiple spills are in compliance with current surface water quality and groundwater (drinking water) standards.”
