Adopt the ‘Manure Storage Facilities’ Ordinance

Note: The St. Croix County Board of Supervisors passed the Manure Storage Facility Ordinance on January 7, 2024. See related news blog.

This letter to the editor, by Joyce Santo, appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on December 12, 2024.

Groundwater is the primary residential drinking water source for people in St. Croix County. Almost all the water flowing from St. Croix County kitchen faucets is groundwater, drawn from either a municipal or private well. Now, about half the St. Croix County population, or about 45,000 people, relies on about 17,000 private wells for drinking water.

We all need clean groundwater. But our St. Croix County groundwater is becoming more and more contaminated by chemicals that leach down from the land surface above.

The 2024 report of the St. Croix County Citizen Groundwater Monitoring Program (CGMP) found that nitrate-nitrogen was a prevalent and increasing health-related contaminant in our groundwater. Approximately 2,000 private wells in St. Croix County, or 12% of private wells, now exceed the safe drinking water standard for nitrate-nitrogen, and the percentage of wells exceeding that standard is climbing.

The 2024 CGMP report also found that the primary source of nitrate-nitrogen groundwater contamination was agricultural activates. More intensive agricultural land uses positively correlated with higher nitrate-nitrogen contamination levels in wells located nearer to intensive agricultural land uses. 

Manure and/or bio-solids spread onto farm fields are a source of nitrate-nitrogen that may leach down to contaminate our groundwater when greater quantities of nutrients than crops can use are applied to the fields.

To better protect our groundwater, our St. Croix County Board of Supervisors should adopt the proposed “Manure Storage Facilities” ordinance. An important provision would require a Nutrient Management Plan (NMP) for a new or expanded manure storage facility to demonstrate either no increase in or reduction of total nitrogen and phosphorous applied to farm fields within the NMP.

Learn more about what the proposed “Manure Storage Facilities” ordinance would accomplish at the Public Open House on Thursday December 12, 2024, at 5PM, at the Government Center in Hudson, 1101 Carmichael Road.

Then comment in favor of adopting the “Manure Storage Facilities” ordinance at the Community Development Committee’s continued Public Hearing on Thursday January 16, 2025, at 5PM.