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The following fact sheet from the new coalition outlines their concerns.
1. General Overview: Cranberry Basics
The cranberry is a fruit native to the sphagnum bogs of northern and eastern United States, including Wisconsin. Cranberries have been harvested by Native Americans and European immigrants for centuries, and cultivated in Wisconsin for almost 140 years. Today, approximately 200 individual cranberry growers maintain over 40,000 acres of cranberry fields and associated reservoirs, and harvest over 2.4 million barrels (120,000 tons) of cranberries annually. Production has been increasing at a considerable rate. For five years in a row, Wisconsin has been the largest producer of cranberries in the nation and there was a surplus of cranberries following the 1999 harvest.
Cranberry production entails flooding cranberry fields several times
a year to eliminate weeds, to aid in harvest, and to protect the plants
from freezing through the winter. Large amounts of water are needed
in the fall and winter, when ground water levels may be at their lowest.
This water is discharged into waterways in the spring, when there may be
potential flooding. Irrigation is common for cranberry cultivation.
Most cranberry operations construct wells and/or excavate reservoirs and
extensive ditches to withdraw, hold and move water to and from their fields.
2. Cranberries and wetlands.
Cranberries are plants that are found naturally associated with wetland habitats. Cultivated cranberries grow best in former wetlands or areas where water is at or near the surface. At the least, abundant water is necessary at regular intervals throughout the year for the cultivation of this crop. Cranberry “marshes” or “bogs” have historically been developed in former wetlands, where the original wetland vegetation is removed and replaced with perennial cranberry varieties.
Historically, approximately 15,000 acres of wetland have been converted to cranberries in the state, and 23,000 acres of reservoirs were constructed (mostly in wetlands) to provide water for the cranberry beds. Over the past two decades alone, approximately 5,200 acres of wetland have been lost for direct conversion to cranberry beds, and additional wetland acreage has been altered for the construction of reservoirs, ditches and dikes to hold and circulate large volumes of water for the cranberry fields.
The cranberry industry has been the primary cause of wetland losses
in Wisconsin during this twenty year period. Although wetland loss
due to conversion to cranberry beds has slowed considerably in recent years,
many acres are still lost every year to this industry.
3. Cranberries and environmental impacts.
In addition to direct losses of natural habitat due to cranberry bed and reservoir construction, cranberry production has other environmental impacts, as well. Trout streams are impacted when water drawdowns result in lower stream depths, and when water released from cranberry beds raises temperatures of trout-bearing waters. Phosphorus from fertilizers applied to cranberry farms upstream from lakes will impact lake water quality, according to a study undertaken in Lac Courte Oreilles (Barr Engineering, 1998).
Studies done several years ago by the DNR implicated the cranberry industry
in pesticide contamination of public waters. The impacts of pesticides
used by cranberry growers have not been carefully studied recently due
in part to a lack of cooperation by the industry. Natural waterways
have been ditched, diked and dammed to accommodate expanding cranberry
production and hundreds of miles of such ditches can be found in the state.
There are growing signs of competition among farmers and the cranberry
industry for available surface water during periods of low precipitation.
4. Cranberry Law of 1867
A law was passed in 1867, now referred to as the “Cranberry Law”, that was, “an Act to encourage the cultivation of cranberries.” This Act expressly conferred upon cranberry growers the right to “build and erect, keep up and maintain such dam or dams upon and across any stream, ditch, sluice, slough or any body of water, as shall be necessary for the purpose of flooding said marshland.” The Cranberry Law has allowed cranberry growers the right to utilize public waters for their own needs, and exempts the industry from the state regulatory processes pertaining to navigable waters.
Cranberry growers do not need to obtain permits under Chapters 30 and 31 to divert water from public waterways, based on a State Supreme Court decision made after the powerful Cranberry Law was challenged (State vs. Zawistowski 1980). This is now interpreted to mean the DNR has no Ch. 30 or 31 jurisdiction over the cranberry industry. A “Cooperative Agreement” reached in 1982 between the DNR and the cranberry industry defers to the industry to solve any “issues” that may come up, and further weakens the DNR’s regulatory oversight of the industry. Wisconsin Statutes 94.26 furthermore gives cranberry growers the liberty to construct ditches and dams across another’s property to facilitate their operations.
Cranberry growers still need to comply with federal laws that pertain
to filling waterways and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. A grower
must obtain a “Section 404” permit from the Army Corps of Engineers for
filling a wetland. However, the Army Corps of Engineers rarely enforces
the laws. The Corps, furthermore, has historically issued any permit requested
and has a poor history of resource protection in Wisconsin.
Attachment to Fact Sheet
Wisconsin Statutes, 94.26. “Cranberry culture, maintenance of dams, etc.” (Commonly known as the Cranberry Law)
Any person owning lands adapted to the culture of cranberries may build and maintain on any land owned by the person such dams upon any water course or ditch as shall be necessary for the purpose of flowing such lands, and construct and keep open upon, across and through any lands such drains and ditches as shall be necessary for the purpose of bringing and flooding or draining and carrying off the water from such cranberry growing lands, or for the purpose of irrigation, fertilization, and drainage of any other lands owned by the person; provided, that no such dams or ditches shall injure any other dams or ditches theretofore lawfully constructed and maintained for a like purpose by any other person.