Over 200 letters from Wisconsin residents, bridging the state from  Dunn to Milwaukee County and stating the critical need for the DNR to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement on what is currently the largest
proposed factory farm in the history of the state of Wisconsin were delivered to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Environmental Assessment Team Supervisor Tom Lovejoy, today Friday, March 5.

Uncertainty about economic and environmental impacts of Primera Foods Inc. proposed 1,100,000 egg-laying and breaking facility near Wheeler, Dunn County, Wisconsin has led citizens across the state to request the
DNR conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement.

Written by sportsmen, small farmers, rural landowners, local and outstate residents, the letters address many concerns that a full EIS needs to explore thoroughly  including:
 

• the effects of Primera on a watershed already overloaded with phosphorus
• concerns about impacts from toxic emissions in the form of dust, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide
• likely nitrate contamination of a pristine aquifer
• effects on overloaded and inadequate waste water treatment plants
• the possibility of disease transfer to wild and domestic birds
• disease control
• foreign ownership
• thin financial structure
• lack of experience in the field of agriculture and feed operations

Without an  Environmental Impact Study, the rural land in Northwest Wisconsin is vulnerable to the same harmful factory farming impacts experienced in other states.  In her letter,  Kathryn Wilson, Wheeler landowner writes:

"Industrial animal feeding operations are a relatively new thing in Wisconsin, but in states that do have experience, (Iowa, North Carolina, North Dakota) there have been urgent calls for more stringent regulation and enforcement, and for moratoriums until the standards are in place.  Please let us learn from other state's
mistakes."

Clayton farmer Brenda Start, writes:

"Being a farmer in Wisconsin I find it incredible that this type of facility would be allowed to exist.  It is not ecologically sound to put that many animals in such a contained facility.  The pollution to the water system alone is obvious to anyone with common sense."

Making sound decisions in a scientific-economic arena requires training but  also includes drawing on past experience and sound reasoning.  John Perri, Menomonie writes:

"From a position of simple common sense, based on observations and readings of what Primera is proposing, this factory has the potential of impacting our area with future negative results in ways that even the so called "experts" may not have thus far envisioned or imagined.  (Keep in mind it was "experts" who promoted, designed and built the 'Titanic,' 'Three Mile Island,' 'Challenger,' and 'Exxon Valdez.')."

Currently the DNR is in the final phase of an Environmental Assessment regarding Primera's permit application.  The Draft EA is scheduled for release at the end of March, and after a thirty day comment period, the DNR could either approve Primera's plans or  recommend the need for a full Environmental Impact Statement.  The letters delived today will become part of the DNR's EA and strengthen the need for deeper study.

Locally the letter writing effort was supported by several organizations including Citizens For Responsible Development, One River, and Northern Thunder.  Letters from Eastern Wisconsin were gathered by Wisconsin Citizen Action.