WDA and VDC Set the Record Straight on Lawsuit Against DNR
Unsurprisingly in the times in which we live, anti-farming activists have been spreading misinformation about the lawsuit recently filed by the WMC Litigation Center on behalf of Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and Venture Dairy Cooperative. Because our legal position is so strong, farming opponents are invoking scare tactics and imaginary disaster scenarios instead of responding to the legal merits of this case. Warnings from anti-farming activists that the “sky will fall” if we succeed in requiring the DNR to follow the law are utterly meritless. Activists are using this litigation to paint our members in a bad light in an attempt to divert attention from the legal merits of the case.
To be clear, our success in this lawsuit would not:
Undermine the state’s ability to protect water.
Make it legal to pollute. Discharging pollutants into waters of the state is illegal for farms if we win or lose this lawsuit.
Stop farms from obtaining WPDES permits. Even if we win this lawsuit, many farms may still choose to voluntarily seek a permit to avoid the risk of significant penalties if an accidental discharge occurs. But that choice will be their business decision, not the choice of unelected DNR bureaucrats.
Change the requirement that a modern farm comply with a Nutrient Management Plan regulating the quantity and location of manure spreading. Those plans are required nearly statewide by local ordinance. This lawsuit does not challenge the legality of such plans.
Affect siting requirements of Wisconsin’s Livestock Facility Siting law. This lawsuit has nothing to do with livestock facility siting.
Impact enforcement of existing groundwater standards. Those standards have nothing to do with this lawsuit.
Impact Wisconsin’s Spills Law. Spills by haulers and other types of accidental spills are regulated the same whether this lawsuit succeeds or fails. Anti-farming opponents of this lawsuit have ignorantly (or perhaps intentionally) conflated Spills Law cleanup requirements with WPDES permit requirements. This lawsuit has nothing to do with the Spills Law and will not affect the legal responsibility for cleaning up spills of hazardous substances.
Impact a local unit of government’s ability to regulate a modern farm consistent with state law. This lawsuit has nothing to do with local regulations.
Rather, if this lawsuit succeeds, it will:
Require the DNR to follow the law, prohibit a narrow set of DNR regulations from exceeding federal standards, and eliminate red tape and unnecessary economic burdens with no cost to the environment.
Ensure modern farms are treated like any other “point source” in that they are not required to have a WPDES permit unless they discharge pollutants.
Eliminate the DNR’s irrebuttable presumption that farms are guilty of discharging pollutants.
Continue a critical claim first initiated by the Dairy Business Association so that this issue can finally be settled in a court of law.
That farm opponents want to use scare tactics and “Chicken-Little” techniques rather than respond to the merits of what the law compels is, in a word, telling.