High Court Approves New Factory Farm
Factory farm had backing from large GOP contributors.
Manure is spread during a demonstration. Photo by Carolyn Betz of the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.
Owners of a proposed factory farm who are generous contributors to GOP legislative and statewide candidates can go ahead with their controversial project in Wood County, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The decision by the high court, which is controlled by conservatives, involves the Golden Sands Dairy sought by the Wysocki Family of Companies. The new factory farm would hold up to 5,300 cows and produce an estimated 55 million gallons of manure a year. The farm would also need 32 high-capacity wells for irrigation. The controversial wells, which have been blamed for depleting lakes and streams, would pump up to 2 billion gallons of water each year for the new farm.
Wysocki family members and other owners of the Wysocki Family of Companies contributed about $92,500 between January 2010 and December 2017 to legislative and statewide candidates and fundraising committees, and all but $4,300 went to Republicans:
$21,052 by James and Sharon Wysocki, of Custer;
$16,000 from Wysocki Produce Farm (corporation);
$10,075 from Kirk and Jacqueline Wille, of Custer;
$8,925 from Jeff Sommers, of Bancroft;
$7,950 from Louis Wysocki, of Custer;
$6,925 from Gary and Elizabeth Wysocki, of Bancroft;
$6,925 from Bill and Marla Wysocki, of Plover;
$6,925 from Russell and Diane Wysocki, of Custer;
$6,600 from Francis and Harriet Wysocki, of Custer;
$1,100 from Gregory Wysocki, of Stevens Point.
The biggest recipient of contributions from the Wysockis and other owners was Walker, who accepted about $39,125. One justice, conservative Rebecca Bradley, received two $100 contributions in 2016 from Louis Wysocki and Harriet Wysocki.
Powerful business lobbies that also donate heavily to Republican candidates and to conservative state supreme court justices filed amicus briefs backing Wysocki. These groups included: the Wisconsin Builders Association, the Wisconsin Realtors Association, and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Wisconsin’s Attorney General, Brad Schimel, also filed an amicus brief on behalf of Wysocki.
In addition to the campaign contributions, the Wysocki Produce Farm, which is one of the family’s large potato farms, spent $209,000 on lobbying state policymakers from January 2015 through last December on groundwater legislation and zoning issues.
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I remember seeing an article in the Milwaukee Journal entitled “As dairy crisis crushes farmers, Wisconsin’s rural identity in jeopardy”. It stated that Wisconsin “lost” 500 dairy farms in 2017 and that another 150 have stopped milking so far this year. I don’t remember the article mentioning these factory farms at all so I don’t know if these big farms are also struggling or are actually causing some of the pricing problems driving family farms into BK.
You gotta Pay to Play in Career Politician Scott Walker’s Wississippi! The Big Corporate farms get the Republican’s “approval” ($ cha-ching!! $) meanwhile all the family farms by me up north have all gobe out of business and the young people have been forced to flee Walker’s Wississippi and move out west to thrive and prosper in the booming cannabis industry. Who can blame them when in Wisconsin the land lies fallow and the tractors sit idle thanks to Walker and republican’s ignorant, backwards, Big Corporate sell-out policies. Go west and prosper young people! All that is left for you in rural Wisconsin is poverty, hopelessness, unemployment and alcoholism thanks to Walker and Republlicans. These corrupt GOP charlatans have killed rural Wisconsin. No farm or other agri-business opportunities anymore. No high speed internet. No paved roads.The schools go unfunded and thus are deteriorating. No good jobs. Nothing but poverty and hopelessness and handing over 4.5 Billion of our tax dollars in Corporate Welfare to a Chinese compant for crappy taxpayer subsidized slave wage “jobs” doesn’t help us up north AT ALL! Go west and prosper people.
Get out of Wisconsin as soon as you can! You won’t regret it!
Dump Walker
Legalize cannabis
Pave the damn roads and fill the Scottholes everywhere
Fund our schools and then let’s build a real economy not just try to buy one for 4.5 Billion of taxpayer money from China
Thanks Terry, more and more people are finding out how corrupt Wisconsin really is. Wisconsin future is water and WMC, Koch owned Walker and the nasty Realtors Association are destroying our way of life. Republicans are destroying rural Wisconsin in so many ways.