Ribble aims to launch phosphorus dialogue

• Two farmers with 5%2C000-cow dairy operations were among panelists
• Summit likely will be repeated%2C with different expertise%2C Ribble says

As owner of one of the largest dairy farms in a county with the highest density of cows in the state of Wisconsin, John Pagel recognizes he's part of the reason for phosphorus runoff and groundwater contamination problems in Kewaunee County.

"I'm part of the problem, but I'm also part of the solution," Pagel told about 150 people gathered for the Save the Bay/Phosphorus Summit at the Neville Public Museum Wednesday.

Pagel was one of a panel of experts compiled by Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Sherwood, to talk about best practices for phosphorus reduction. Members of the audience included other farmers, water utility staff, government officials and environmental activities.

Phosphorus, found in the manure that farmers spread on their fields as fertilizer, "is not a pollutant, it's a nutrient," Russ Rasmussen of the state Department of Natural Resources told the audience.

But in excess amounts, it causes out-of-control algae growth that ends up depleting water bodies of oxygen. A large section of Green Bay has been identified as a "dead zone," an area where oxygen has been depleted beyond the point of supporting fish and plants. Experts have blamed phosphorus runoff.

Pagel's 5,000-cow farm uses a variety of fertilizer management techniques, including biodigesters, ground cover and drainage tiles, to reduce phosphorus runoff from his property.

He also chairs the county's soil and water conservation commission. Pagel said the county worked on an April 7 referendum to ban of manure spreading at certain times of the year. The plan is have all of the towns pass something similar, to provide a uniform restriction, he said.

John Jacobs, who has a 5,000-cow dairy farm in Shawano County, told the group his farm operates under the theory that phosphorus is a commodity and that allowing it to run off is just bad business.

His operation produces electricity and animal bedding from waste and uses ground cover, drainage tiles and vertical tilling to reduce runoff.

Some members of the audience were unimpressed.

"What I've heard so far is what got us to where we're at," said Lynn Utesch, who produces grass-fed beef and lamb on his Kewaunee County farm. "I've yet to hear a solution."

Drainage tiles protect the ground immediately below them, but end up directing runoff elsewhere, where it gets into groundwater or streams, Utesch said. Production of electricity from waste does nothing to cut the phosphorus runoff, he said.

Utesch said the problem is an over-concentration of cows in too small an area, especially in Kewaunee County, which has shallow soil and a porous rock foundation called "Karst" that allows seepage into the ground water.

Still, he and others praised Ribble for putting the summit together.

"This topic is very important, and a summit like this is maybe overdue," said Dean Hoegger of the Clean Water Action Council.

Ribble said the summit was not intended to provide all answers but to launch discussion.

"Certainly, there's a role that big dairy and small dairy play" in the phosphorus over-load problem in Wisconsin waters, "but we need to move away from pointing fingers at each other and start pointing fingers at solutions," Ribble said. "That's what this is about today."

Agencies like NEW Water, which participated in the day's discussions, are seeking solutions, Ribble said. The Green Bay-based wastewater treatment facility itself is responsible for an estimated 2 percent of the phosphorus in the lower Green Bay. To avoid a $200 million expenditure to cut that small amount, NEW Water instead has gotten permission to launch a program to reduce phosphorus runoff on mostly agricultural land on Silver Creek.

With the cooperation of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, NEW Water has launched a pilot program to study a variety of phosphorus abatement techniques on the creek, which feeds into Duck Creek that empties into the bay.

NEW Water last month got a $140,000 grant from Ducks Unlimited for the project and another $100,000 from an agency charged with distributing money collected from penalties imposed by the federal government on area paper companies responsible for releasing polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Fox River and bay decades ago.

This week, NEW Water got an additional $1.6 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the project, which is expected to take five years to complete.

— psrubas@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter @PGpaulsrubas

Correction

The last name of Kewaunee County farmer Lynn Utesch was misspelled in an earlier version of this report.