PIERCE COUNTY — After Pierce County residents spent more than three years fighting for meaningful groundwater protections – and won – Ridge Breeze Dairy is now asking a circuit court to overturn the decision. The ruling directed the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to amend the factory farm’s permit to include mechanisms for verifying whether it is following clean-water requirements. Residents say they will not back down in the face of Ridge Breeze’s petition for judicial review.
“We organized because we believe our families, our farms, and our water deserve to be protected,” said Kay Kashian, a Pierce County resident, GROWW member, and one of the residents represented in the legal challenge. “We won an important decision because people stood together, and we’ll keep standing together as this case moves forward.”
That organizing produced a major legal victory in August. Administrative Law Judge Angela Chaput Foy found that Ridge Breeze’s permit gave the DNR no meaningful way to determine whether the dairy was complying with Wisconsin’s groundwater-quality standards.
“By omitting a mechanism to verify actual compliance, the Department has issued a mandate while simultaneously denying itself the tools or data necessary to know whether that mandate is broken,” Judge Chaput Foy wrote.
She declared the permit unreasonable and sent it back to the DNR to be strengthened with safeguards capable of determining whether Ridge Breeze is complying with groundwater protections.
The DNR is not seeking judicial review of the decision, and residents say the agency must not delay in implementing it. Meanwhile, they say they will continue organizing to protect their land and water and win meaningful accountability for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) farms like Ridge Breeze.
The case will move forward to Outagamie County Circuit Court. The timeline and immediate next steps will be decided in the coming weeks.
“We fought for three years to make sure the state has a way to determine whether Ridge Breeze is contaminating our groundwater, and the judge agreed with us,” said Danny Akenson, an organizer with GROWW. “Factory farm special interests care more about protecting corporate profits than protecting the groundwater Wisconsin families rely on. Ridge Breeze may have deep pockets for legal fees, but we’re organized, and we’re not going to let them off the hook.
“GROWW members have put forward a state legislative agenda that would establish stronger rules for Wisconsin’s largest factory farms, require neighbors to be notified when manure spills threaten their land and water, and give the DNR the tools it needs to protect our communities,” Akenson continued. “We’ll keep fighting in court, in our communities, and at the state Capitol for clean water and real accountability.”
The case began when Midwest Environmental Advocates filed a legal challenge on behalf of GROWW and five Pierce County residents after the DNR issued a permit allowing Ridge Breeze to nearly quadruple its herd – from approximately 1,700 cows to 6,500 – and spread roughly 80 million gallons of manure and process wastewater on surrounding farmland each year.
Local residents have long raised concerns about the risks posed by such a large volume of manure in a region vulnerable to groundwater contamination. Judge Chaput Foy’s decision affirmed that simply directing a factory farm as large as Ridge Breeze to follow Wisconsin’s groundwater standards was not enough: the DNR must also have a meaningful way to verify whether those requirements are being followed.
For residents and members of GROWW, the Ridge Breeze fight has always been about more than one dairy. Residents say Wisconsin communities should not have to organize for years and take state regulators to court simply to secure basic tools for protecting their drinking water.
“We'll know more in the coming weeks how this case will proceed,” said Adam Voskuil, senior staff attorney at Midwest Environmental Advocates. “Whatever happens next, MEA is committed to standing with Pierce County residents to defend the protections they fought so hard to win.”
GROWW (GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin) is a grassroots organization based in Western Wisconsin. Together, we work toward a future where we all make ends meet, live with dignity, and have a voice in shaping the decisions that impact us. To get connected or learn more about GROWW, visit us at GRO-WW.org, on Instagram at @GrowWisconsin, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/GROWWisconsin.
Midwest Environmental Advocates is a nonprofit law center that combines the power of law with the resolve of communities facing environmental injustice to secure and protect the rights of all people to healthy water, land, and air. Learn more at www.midwestadvocates.org or www.facebook.com/midwestadvocates.
