Rhonda Carrell, from the Central Sands region, addresses the crowd, detailing the threats in her community. Forest attended, tabled, and spoke for CSP and Southwest Wisconsin. He talked of clean water as a right, the state’s apparent inability to protect that right despite good people on the ground, brought up Midwest Envitonmental Advocate’s Petition for Corrective Action, and touched on the precautionary principle.
There were approximately 100 in the crowd at its largest, maybe 120-150 throughout the day.
Representing the Driftless area with Forest were Jane Mussey, Brian Wickert, Jack Knight, and Rikardo Jahnke. I guess the Green County folks consider themselves Driftless as well, and it seemed like they had a good handfull there.
There was also strong representation from Wood County, Kewaunee County and the Clean Water Action Council (NE Wi), and Bayfield County, all of whom are facing threats of or already experiencing the effects of large industrial animal feeding operations.
The group mantra between speakers and songs was “Local Control!” and we hope the legislators take the peoples voice seriously in the five point message we delivered to their doorstep:
1) raise their awareness on the community impacts of CAFOs;
2) support enforcement of health and environmental standards allegedly violated by some of the state’s CAFOs; 3) champion upgrades in the Department of Natural Resources’ capacity to enforce the law;
4) ensure that regulations and safeguards are in place to protect Wisconsin communities from CAFO contamination threats;
5) and engage in open, impartial and sensible dialogue with impacted Wisconsin communities to seek workable solutions for CAFO created public risks.
