MADISON, WI  ---  The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) violated state and federal water laws when it issued a permit to a factory farm in Shawano County said a group of citizens who are petitioning the DNR for a hearing on the permit.

The petitioners include a neighboring small family farmer, sportsfishers, and the directors of Clean Water Action Council and Wisconsin's Environmental Decade.  They maintain that the DNR has a pattern of approving permits for large factory farms (for dairy, these are facilities with 700 or more milking cows) without adequately examining and controlling the detrimental impact the farms will have on an area's water supply.  The petitioners challenge the permit issued to Tauchen Harmony Valley, Inc. for its gross violations of state and federal water laws.

"The agency has been on notice for months that they are not meeting state and federal laws, but has chosen to ignore the law as it relates to factory farms," according to Melissa Scanlan, Legal Director of Midwest Environmental Advocates and attorney for the petitioners in this case.  "The law clearly prohibits these facilities from using our public waterways as conveyances of pollution, yet the DNR issued a permit that allows the facility to discharge pollutants for well over a year before they are required to correct any manure runoff and seepage problems."

Federal and state law prohibits discharges from these facilities from the day they start operating with 700 or more dairy cows, yet the DNR has given this facility over one year before they need to stop polluted runoff and seepage from their manure lagoons from entering public waters.

In violation of state water laws, the facility in question also failed to produce a manure management plan prior to receiving a permit.  "DNR's failure to require nutrient management plans for factory farms is not only a violation of law, it is a violation of common sense," said David Zaber, Director of Water Quality Programs at Wisconsin's Environmental Decade.

"A proper waste management plan provides critical information on potential pollution of lakes, rivers and groundwater resources," Zaber added.  "Without a plan, the DNR and the public have no way of judging the potential for pollution and thus, cannot make an informed decision on issuance of a permit.  DNR should never have issued this permit."

"DNR's failure to require nutrient management plans for factory farms is not only a violation of law, it is a violation of common sense." - David Zaber

Ivan Klosterman, a petitioner and fourth generation family dairy farmer who lives and farms near the Tauchen Facility sees the DNR's action as a direct threat to his business.  "We small dairy farmers are struggling to survive in this marketplace and when our state agencies turn the other way and fail to require the large facilities to follow the law, they are failing the small family farmer," said Klosterman.

"The influx of these large animal facilities is not the invisible hand of the market at work, but the intentional policy of our government agencies.  The DNR's actions provide yet another environmental subsidy that boosts large dairy facilities' ability to compete in the marketplace," said Scanlan.

"This is nothing more than pollution-based prosperity.  It is a threat to our environment, our small, family farming heritage, and rural economic development," said Rebecca Leighton Katers, Executive Director of Clean Water Action Council and a petitioner in the case.