May 23, 2024 The Midwest Center For Investigative Reporting
Environmentalists to DNR: It's time to use 'eyes in the sky' to pinpoint this costly and damaging practice
Industrial animal farming produces a lot of waste, and one way of disposing of it is to spread it on crop fields as fertilizer. But its application risks runoff, which can have harmful downstream effects. In recent years, applicators in Wisconsin and Iowa have faced scrutiny for allegedly overspreading.
Another wrinkle is a practice that some states have banned: applying manure during winter. Manure easily runs off of frozen soil.
But that hasn't stopped some applicators in Wisconsin, according to Wisconsin Watch. Using satellite imaging, researchers have identified illegal winter spreading of manure.
— Sky Chadde, assistant editor/senior reporter
Satellite imagery ushers in real-time era monitoring of manure-spreading practices at big farms
By Bennet Goldstein, Wisconsin Watch
After a fresh February snow, a satellite about the size of a shoebox, busy snapping photographs as it circuited the planet at 17,000 miles per hour, captured something dark in Wisconsin.
About 56 tons of livestock bedding and manure had been spread atop Mark Zinke’s frozen alfalfa field.
The image, beamed down to the surface, eventually appeared on the computers of Stanford University researchers, who relayed it to the offices of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Zinke, a Brownsville dairy farmer who cares for a herd of more than 1,300 cows, had forgotten about the whole thing until he later heard from the agency.
Read more.
GRAPHIC: Highly pathogenic avian influenza spreads to dairy cows, humans for first time in US
By Jennifer Bamberg, Investigate Midwest
Highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H5N1, has been circulating the globe since 1996. The virus has grown more deadly to birds since it started spreading in North America in 2021. The disease spreads quickly among birds, and is nearly always fatal for poultry raised on large commercial farms.
In late March of this year, federal authorities recorded the first ever cases of H5N1 in dairy cows in Texas. It has since spread to 51 herds in nine states, leading to new regulations for testing and transporting cattle. The virus has also spread among wildlife.
A dairy worker in Texas tested positive for H5N1 in March, the second confirmed case in humans in the U.S. and the first cow-to-human transmission.
View the graphic.
OPINION: US Supreme Court hands win to some property owners; remains silent on larger issue
By Dave Dickey, Columnist
When we last visited Texas’ claim that several of the state’s property owners didn’t have the right to sue for damages to their property under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, the case surrounding a 32-inch high concrete retaining wall had arrived in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Texas had built the wall right down the middle of I-10 between Houston and Beaumont. The wall then became a dam during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019, creating a miles-wide lake north of the highway that flooded houses and farms.
Homeowner Richie Devillier sued. The state said it was his farm and his problem. The case ultimately ended up in the lap of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read more.
Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public as a watchdog over influential corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism.
