If justice delayed is justice denied, what do we call years of delay in simply setting up a system to get the word out to local officials that a feedlot is polluting nearby drinking water?
Case in point:
There has been recent reporting that the Wisconsin Legislature is finally close to implementing a system that would require the DNR to notify county officials within seven days if a health hazard has been detected.
But you say, well, this is still progress.
Until you realize that there was an uproar about the lack of required notifications which I wrote about in 2017:
Case in point:
There has been recent reporting that the Wisconsin Legislature is finally close to implementing a system that would require the DNR to notify county officials within seven days if a health hazard has been detected.
The bill would also require the DNR to create a notification system for county health departments, county land conservation departments and residents who sign up for alerts of water standard violations.Seven days? Why not seven minutes or seven hours?
But you say, well, this is still progress.
Until you realize that there was an uproar about the lack of required notifications which I wrote about in 2017:
Now the La Crosse Tribune is reporting that Scott Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' DNR has no policy in place to let people know that contamination is coming their way:
Sadly, we need to keep expressing concerns about enforcement of clean water regulations, because the Tribune’s report last week on elevated nitrate levels near a huge hog operation in La Crosse County was very troubling — and the DNR’s response to the potential groundwater problem is embarrassing.
Babcock Genetics has a permit to raise more than 4,000 hogs in the town of Holland near Holmen.
Since at least 2005, according to a report by the Legislative Audit Bureau, the nitrate levels measured in test wells near the hog operation have exceeded limits set by the state — as much as five times that limit as recently as 2010.
Here’s what DNR spokesman Jim Dick told the Tribune: “The DNR doesn’t have a policy regarding notifying municipalities or private well owners in the vicinity when a CAFO violates a permit.”
I suspect that Kewaunee County clean water activist Nancy Utesch would say, as she did more than a year ago, and again several months ago, that this is more of what's way overdue:
Months ago, Kewaunee County clean water activist Nancy Utesch said enough was enough.
We asked the US Environmental Protection Agency for an investigation into the cause and source of well water contamination in our 2014 Safe Drinking Water Act petition, but the EPA has yet to address it...
Central Sands has the Wysocki CAFO. We have 16 CAFOs. Wisconsin should long ago have stopped acting confused as to the cause and source of known, widespread contamination and moved instead to protect Kewaunee County residents and water resources of people statewide...
Without real investigations, will we ever know the full extent and costs from the illness and suffering resulting from agribusiness here?
Why has it taken this long?
We have waited long enough.
