Walker's 'legacy' further stained by more brown in the drinking water

Set aside the b.s. that Walker is pushing as his 'legacy' and focus on the actual b.s. people in Wisconsin are drinking:

Hazardous drinking water found in 42% of southwest Wisconsin wells

This is on Walker, and for that matter, his devoted water carriers - - whether those already polluted or at risk - - named Robin Vos and Scott Fitzgerald - - who were given their marching orders and aligned the Legislature with corporate water hogs statewide.

As the Wisconsin State Journal discloses:

Some 42 percent of 301 randomly selected wells tested in Iowa, Grant and Lafayette counties exceed federal health standards for bacteria that can come from animal or human waste, or for a toxic fertilizer residue...

“Walker’s DNR declined to participate in the three-county study, said Scott Laeser, water program director for the nonprofit Clean Wisconsin, which helped coordinate funding. A DNR spokesman declined to comment.

More on what Walker is omitting from his post-defeat legacy overreaches, here.

We have known about, and I have reported on, similar groundwater and public health failures in Eastern Wisconsin counties and the Central Sands which Walker allowed to fester while he turned more of state policy-making to the big operators who served his personal and partisan agendas. 

It would be hard to do justice to the matter of the expansion of the industrial-scale dairy cattle and other other animal feeding operations known as CAFOs, as they impact neighboring and downstream groundwater, wells and streams, air quality, the credibility of government and regulation.

The consequences have been particularly severe where CAFOs are numerous, like Kewaunee County, where we have known since 2015 that about a third of wells there, and on other areas in NE Wisconsin, and the Central Sands to the west were contaminated.

One major fight over a CAFO expansion led to landmark litigation in 2014, and is continuing to this day, with Walker ally, Wisconsin GOP AG and friend to big water users Brad Schimel maneuvering the case to friendlier court confines in Waukesha County, a Republican hotbed far from NW Wisconsin and where he previously had served as DA. 

Here is one summary post: 

WI Central Sands the next Flint? Kewaunee County already soaks up that honor.

 
And a more recent one: 

Infant's death, contaminated water, eligible for WI legacy scorecards

Walker has been framing his legacy: any room for this?

From the Minnesota Star Tribune comes this heartbreaking, infuriating story about the all-too-familiar water quality issues in rural Wisconsin's Central Sands:

WATER PRESSURE second in a three-part series

BABY’S DEATH SPARKS WATER SAFETY FIGHT

And this item sums up Walker's sacrifice of the small Wisconsin dairy operation to serve the larger and more polluting, and politically-active industrial-scale

CAFOs:

More Walker legacy material surfaces in national media 

The Dairy State gets highlighted, though I don't see the subject in Walker's Legacy File, while this Washington Post story with a Wisconsin dateline encapsulates it in a strong news feature: 

After 40 years of dairy farming, I sold my herd of cows this summer. The herd had been in my family since 1904; I know all 45 cows by name. I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to take over our farm — who would? Dairy farming is little more than hard work and possible economic suicide. 

The Journal Sentinel has a related Saturday story, and I'd been writing about it for a while, including this September post: 

Small dairies in Wisconsin remain under pressure, as trade negotiations with Canada approach a critical deadline later this month, reports the industry publication Dairy Herd: 

Wisconsin has lost another 47 dairy farms in August, with the total number of licensed farms standing now at just 8,372. The loss of 47 farms is just slightly lower than the 54 farms lost in July. The state has lost 429 farms since the beginning of the year, a decrease of 4.9%, and 588 the past year, a decrease of 6.6%.

Of course, Walker's priority is serving the big dairy operators' agendas, including environmental deregulation, that would help them increase their market share:

State records show that one day before Walker’s October speech in Trego, in northwestern Wisconsin, the governor’s office received detailed plans from the Dairy Business Association on legal requirements and strategic options to move the program. 

I'd noted those depressing, going-out-of-business trends in Wisconsin, here and also here: 

Walker no friend to Wisconsin family farmers. Or their water.

So here's the state of the Dairy State in one new headline:

More than 4% of Wisconsin Dairy Farms Call It Quits in 2018—So Far

Meaning that almost two WI dairy farms are closing every day this year - - 382 through July 31. 

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