More fecal matter confirmed in more WI wells

Another day, another report and story about fecal contamination in rural Wisconsin wells.

Tests show more southwestern Wisconsin wells contaminated with fecal matter

The test results include wells in Lafayette County, where local officials decided before the predictable backlash that the best plan of action to keep fecal matter out of the drinking water was to punish public employees who spoke about it and arrest journalists whose reporting deviated from what the county put out in news releases.

The hard truth about this situation: it's a long-standing problem also occurring in other parts of Wisconsin - -

This manure runoff was photographed in Kewaunee County, in NE Wisconsin

- - from the Northeast to the Central Sands.

While state and federal officials either look the other way.

Or encourage the expansion of industrial-scale animal feeding operations that has contributed to ruinous oversupply, either through weak oversight or publicly-funded programs that boost various big operators - -

In 2012, for example, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced an incentive plan to produce, as a state, 30 billion pounds of milk a year by 2020 — a 15% increase. The state offered farmers grants for updating their business and required them to put up their own money as well.

Dairy farmers reached 30 billion pounds in 2016 — four years ahead of schedule.

In fact, the power dynamics are are so lopsided in favor of special interests that entrenched water-carriers feel free to put their biases in writing, regardless of public health concerns.

Fitzgerald, Vos go to bat for bigger CAFOs

And so the persistent problems are matched by elected officials' inertia, making this July 30, 2018 blog headline a continuing scandal that underscore the SW Wisconsin well contamination and puts it into a bigger context:

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

Kewaunee County clean water activist Nancy Utesch has said it often, and no doubt people statewide are repeating it:

We have waited long enough.