From Kriss Marion
Circle M. Market Farm, County Board Supervisor District 8 Blanchardville
To the editor:
In 2015, every tax dollar spent on tourism returned $7 to our state economy. But in Lafayette County, visitor spending shrank in 2015, according to Sen. Howard Marklein's May newsletter, while Iowa County's increased $1 million. Both Yellowstone Lake and River were added to the "impaired" or polluted waterway list by the DNR, as was the Pecatonica and several local streams.
Lafayette is one of the prettiest counties in the state, but we must protect, improve, and promote our natural resources for recreational activities like fishing, boating, biking, hiking, swimming, and ATV-ing, all of which bring revenue to bars, restaurants, hotels, grocers and gift shops; and which attract young families and entrepreneurs to live here (combined with fast internet, of course).
Lafayette should remain agricultural, but protect our landscape and local farms from take-over by industrial models from California, Nebraska and Iowa - where so much prime farmland has been covered by concrete and so much water polluted by manure that their ag corporations are now flooding Wisconsin. In Kewaunee County, where over 30 percent of private wells are undrinkable because of manure from such farms, shrinking housing values and reduced quality of life have families and businesses moving away. Lakes are polluted, tourism fading.
At the county board next Tuesday, May 17, supervisors will vote on a Livestock Licensing ordinance to require new or expanding large livestock operations - those with more than 750 animal units - to register, pay a fee of $750, observe minimum set-backs from roads and neighboring properties, and report plans at public hearings. This would help balance the interests of large farms - which have the potential to be very large polluters of water, land and air - with the interests of smaller farms and businesses, as well as residents and visitors.
Circle M. Market Farm, County Board Supervisor District 8 Blanchardville
To the editor:
In 2015, every tax dollar spent on tourism returned $7 to our state economy. But in Lafayette County, visitor spending shrank in 2015, according to Sen. Howard Marklein's May newsletter, while Iowa County's increased $1 million. Both Yellowstone Lake and River were added to the "impaired" or polluted waterway list by the DNR, as was the Pecatonica and several local streams.
Lafayette is one of the prettiest counties in the state, but we must protect, improve, and promote our natural resources for recreational activities like fishing, boating, biking, hiking, swimming, and ATV-ing, all of which bring revenue to bars, restaurants, hotels, grocers and gift shops; and which attract young families and entrepreneurs to live here (combined with fast internet, of course).
Lafayette should remain agricultural, but protect our landscape and local farms from take-over by industrial models from California, Nebraska and Iowa - where so much prime farmland has been covered by concrete and so much water polluted by manure that their ag corporations are now flooding Wisconsin. In Kewaunee County, where over 30 percent of private wells are undrinkable because of manure from such farms, shrinking housing values and reduced quality of life have families and businesses moving away. Lakes are polluted, tourism fading.
At the county board next Tuesday, May 17, supervisors will vote on a Livestock Licensing ordinance to require new or expanding large livestock operations - those with more than 750 animal units - to register, pay a fee of $750, observe minimum set-backs from roads and neighboring properties, and report plans at public hearings. This would help balance the interests of large farms - which have the potential to be very large polluters of water, land and air - with the interests of smaller farms and businesses, as well as residents and visitors.
