Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy are calling out another local municipality in Polk County for over stepping its authority when it comes to restricting farm expansion permits. The groups said in a release that the town of Luck's board of supervisors unanimously passed an unlawful ordinance last week similar to a CAFO ordinance enacted in the town of Laketown last spring, which is now subject to litigation brought by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce's Litigation Center on behalf of local farmers.
"Town boards are taking the Laketown ordinance and using it as a template to enact the same unlawful, anti-agriculture ordinances on their farmers," Wisconsin Dairy Alliance President Cindy Leitner. "We've tried to combat the anti-farming activist narrative by presenting facts and participating in numerous public hearings, just to be ignored. Enough is enough. That is why we worked closely with the WMC Litigation Center to challenge this exact type of ordinance."
Kim Bremmer, who serves as executive director of Venture Dairy Cooperative, adds that members of her group stand against attempts to skirt state law and enact policy that will ensure no farm will be able to grow.
"Eliminating a business plan option for generational family farms, and negatively affecting the future value of their equity, which is often times their retirement plan, is unfair to your local farmers," Bremmer said. "Piling on a parallel regulatory scheme alongside the state's makes expansion out of the question."
As Wisconsin Ag Connection reported earlier this year, six townships in Burnett and Polk Counties have created a model ordinance which many feel would impede large livestock farms by adding permitting conditions if they choose to expand.
In Polk County, the towns of Laketown, Trade Lake and Eureka passed new regulations that lower the threshold of a CAFO from 1,000 animal units to 500 in certain cases. In addition, the new standards require that farms conduct traffic studies, control air emissions, and open their bank accounts to the town as they navigate the process. The Bone Lake, Luck and Sterling townships have proposed similar rules.
Under the livestock facility siting law, which was developed in 2005, DATCP must spell out information that a livestock operator is required to include in an application for local approval in order to show that the new or expanded livestock facility complies with DATCP standards.
Categories: Wisconsin, Government & Policy