Dairy farms, other polluters pay $226,000 in fines in first quarter
Attorney General Brad Schimel reported penalties on environmental cases totaled $226,770 in the first quarter of the year.
The Justice Department in 2017 prosecuted cases totaling $1.45 million — the highest in Schimel’s first three years in office, but lower than the average of recent attorneys general.
Schimel, a Republican, is running for reelection this year.
The penalties in the first three months involved 12 cases related to polluting waterways and wetlands; air pollution and solid waste violations; and pollution problems related to underground storage tanks. Three of the cases involved dairy farms. In one case, Thistle Dairy in Winnebago County is paying $30,000 in penalties after a contractor spread manure in 2016 that then ran on to a neighbor’s property after a rain, killing fish in a pond.
In addition to the financial sanctions, the farm’s owners have agreed to implement a number of management practices to improve handling of animal waste.
This was the second case with Thistle Dairy in recent years that the Department of Natural Resources had found environmental violations and referred findings to the Justice Department.
The farm was ordered to pay $80,000 in 2013 under then-Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen for failing to properly manage manure.
In another case, Kinnamon Ridge Dairy in Sauk County is paying $25,000, in five payments spaced over two years after DNR personnel saw animal waste spilling out of manure storage lagoon, contaminating a tributary of the Little Baraboo River. The DNR said a small number of fish died afterward.
Under Schimel, penalties have totaled $734,127 in 2015, $449,253 in 2016 and $1.45 million in 2017. Last year, the agency handled 48 environmental cases.
Financial penalties have averaged less under Schimel than under Van Hollen — also a Republican — and the two previous attorneys general who were Democrats. Schimel’s office has emphasized that, in addition to financial penalties, the agency is prodding parties to spend money on upgrades to their operations.