To the editor,

Ridge Breeze's expansion poses clear and real risks to our clean water, air, roads, and more in Pierce County and beyond. The current rules in place in the DNR are not enough.

Current DNR rules don't ensure that our groundwater will not be polluted by Ridge Breeze's expansion.

Compliance relies upon self reporting and monitoring by the county and a thinly staffed DNR, which is why a volunteer citizen group, and not the DNR, has flagged serious errors in Ridge Breeze’s permit process, resulting in thousands of faulty acres being removed.

Nothing in the permitting process regulates disposal of dead animal carcasses. When there was a fire at a Mondovi factory farm in 2019, 4,000 hogs were burned to death. Their bodies were eventually transported in open-bed trucks to a landfill. Shouldn’t residents be protected from that kind of biohazard?

The permits don’t ask for odor or noise to be monitored. Good luck to those living in the neighborhood of one of these operations—property values may suffer, which leads to less tax revenue for the town and county. And if they go out of business—who pays for the cleanup? A surety bond is not part of the permitting process.

10,000+ truckloads of manure will be hauled on county and town roads per year, putting more wear and tear on our roads than ever before, but no road use plan is required.

We can protect our resources, but it will take updated rules and more staffing for the DNR. In the meantime, towns across western Wisconsin will continue to protect themselves with local ordinances. Our towns are the last line of defense.

Laura Robey

Ellsworth