CPZ: A lot of staff time spent on manure spills
Nearly 40 years after Marathon County first adopted its animal waste ordinance, county employees are still devoting a lot of time every year to make sure manure doesn’t end up in local waterways.
Matt Repking, a conservation analyst with Conservation, Planning and Zoning (CPZ), spoke to the Environmental Resources Committee last week about the ongoing efforts required to monitor the county’s approximately 600 manure storage facilities and respond to complaints when those facilities fail.
Repking said he and other CPZ employees spend about 25 to 30 percent of their time enforcing the animal waste ordinance, which includes on-site visits after a spill and working with farmers on compliance issues. The department receives 18 to 25 complaints per year, he said, and each complaint requires anywhere from six to 40 hours of work by CPZ staff.
Marathon County is tied for the fifth-highest number of annual manure incidents among Wisconsin’s 72 counties, but Repking believes about half of the county’s spills go unreported.
“It’s not illegal to have a spill, but it is illegal not to report it,” he told the committee.
Between 2014 and this year so far, the county responded to 186 manure-related complaints; 83 of those were determined to be ordinance violations and 16 were violations of DNR regulations. Another 87 were non-violations, usually the result of someone not understanding the rules or a dispute between neighbors, Repking said.
Violations typically occur when manure is allowed to wash away from feedlots, when a storage pit overflows during a rain event or when animal waste is overapplied to fields, especially during the winter before the snow melts.
Repking said compliance with the county ordinance is the top priority of CPZ staff, so the county usually starts with written notices before citations and fines are issued. However, for particularly egregious or long lasting violations, he said daily fines can be imposed.
Before the adoption of the animal waste ordinance in 1985, Repking said a lot of manure storage facilities were built in “very questionable locations” near streams, rivers and drinking wells. Over time, a lot of those older facilities have been abandoned, but he said there’s still about 200 to 300 of them left in operation.
To prevent massive manure runoff, Repking said the first step is for farmers to develop a nutrient management plan, which quantifies exactly how much manure and fertilizer is needed – and when it should be applied – to adequately feed the crops on a particular farm. About 60 percent of farms in the county are under nutrient management plans, he noted.
The county gets about $100,000 from the state every year to help farmers pay for writing and implementing nutrient management plans, but at that funding level, Repking said it would take 50 years to get all of the county’s cropland under a plan.
County conservationist Kirstie Heidenreich said nutrient management is “the bridge connecting us to farmers,” but CPZ is looking at more innovative solutions to clean up the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir and other county waterways.
“If we do what we’ve always done, we’re going to get what we’ve always gotten, right?” she said.
Heidenreich said CPZ is currently focusing its attention on landowners with high nitrate levels in their private wells and farmers in the Fenwood Creek Watershed, which crisscrosses the western half of the county and drains directly into the Big Eau Pleine. Farmers in the Fenwood area are being offered free nutrient management plans with $40 per acre for implementing them.
Supervisor Tony Sherfinski wanted to know if the county has any data to indicate whether these efforts have had a discernible impact on the water quality of local streams and rivers.
Heidenreich said the DNR is pivoting to more citizenled surveying of water quality, and the county itself has recruited 25 volunteers this year to monitor streams through the Water Action Volunteers Network. However, she said the state used to have more stream biologists.
“We used to have a lot more data, but unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of current data,” she said. “Most of our streams in Marathon County have not been monitored since the 1990s.”
Heidenreich did cite a couple of studies of the Big Eau Pleine, one of which showed the river’s BOD levels (a measurement of bacteria) were 14% higher than the raw sewage entering Wausau’s wastewater treatment plant.
“That right there is telling me we really do have a problem,” she said.
Based on regular testing by the Health Department, she said the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir is “more often than not” considered unsafe to swim in.
Given the region’s unique reliance on agriculture, Heidenreich said the county needs to consider bold actions, such as minimizing or eliminating winter manure spreading.
“Western Marathon County and eastern Clark County actually have the biggest concentration of dairy farms in the world,” she said. “That’s a big burden to carry.”
