State leans on citizens to scrutinize big farms’ manure plans. Opponents fear serious environmental harm.
Tag: Hogtied
Large livestock farms called concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, have proliferated in Wisconsin, stirring high-stakes debates about their effect on quality of life, property values and public health. A proposed swine operation in Trade Lake — pitched to be the state’s biggest — doesn’t yet exist, but it has occupied the hearts and minds of area residents and property owners for nearly five years.
Wisconsin Watch conducted more than 100 interviews with experts, public officials and residents and reviewed more than 5,000 pages of court documents, newspaper clippings, engineering and operations plans, emails and transcripts to examine the political, regulatory and economic forces shaping the project in the state’s northwestern corner. Simmering beneath a clash of values and personalities is a broader question: Who gets to determine farming’s future?
Posted inEnvironment
The businessman: Pig farm developer gains little trust in Wisconsin town. He doesn’t particularly care.
Critics accuse a developer of disregarding local concerns in his push to construct the state’s largest pig farm. He calls himself the victim of “selfish” residents.
Posted inEnvironment
The chairman: How a plan to develop Wisconsin’s largest pig farm upended a small town’s politics
A proposal for a $20 million concentrated animal feeding operation sowed distrust in Trade Lake as opponents accused the town’s chairman of backroom dealings to facilitate construction.