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Corporate Dairy Supersizes E. coli Threat

By PritzkerLaw

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has approved a plan for a 4,000-cow dairy operation that some residents of Fond du Lac County opposed on grounds that liquified manure from the cows could pollute groundwater and cause sickness.1

In other words, the risk of E. coli O157:H7 in that area of the Midwest has just been supersized.

The owners of Rosendale Dairy in Rosendale, Wisconsin, received a wastewater discharge permit under a plan that calls for the manure to be systematically spread over 5,600 surrounding acres. The dairy itself is 2,500 acres.

One of the concerns raised by opponents was E. coli. Spills of dairy cow manure have polluted lakes and water wells in the past. In 2004, for example, the Wisconsin DNR received a report that three children near Luxemburg in Kewaunee County became infected with E. coli bacteria after a farmer with a dairy operation of more than 700 cows spread manure near their home.2

E. coli O157:H7, a deadly pathogen, lives in the hindguts of cows without threatening the health of the animals. The bacteria is discharged in manure and can spread into well water supplies or contaminate fields of produce. Currently in Oklahoma, experts are investigating whether manure from large poultry operations caused a major outbreak last year of E coli 0111 that killed one man and sickened more than 300 others. The chicken manure is spread on fields around Locust Grove, Oklahoma, home of the restaurant where the disease spread.

Traditionally, dairy cow manure was scattered in clumps over fields. Today, large operators liquify it for easier handling. Besides being more odorous, the waste can more easily reach waterways and groundwater when it's in liquid form.

Todd Ambs, water division administrator for the Wisconsin DNR, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the Rosendale Dairy situation is a classic case of the agency getting pulled in two directions.

"Agriculture is be far our most important industry, and good water quality undergirds much of our quality of life and our economic health,'' Ambs said.

Part of the winning argument in the case of Rosendale Dairy was the owners' assertion that the farm will create 70 permanent jobs. The company ultimately wants to expand to 8,000 cows.

In that configuration, the operation would fill 11 tanker trucks of milk a day and produce more waste than the City of Green Bay.

References:1 The Business Journal of Milwaukee, March 2, 2009; 2 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 1, 2009.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on March 02, 2009 (boomark / email).