Pierce County, Wis. — On Monday, members of the Maiden Rock Town Board in Pierce County voted unanimously to pass a local Operations Ordinance ensuring local oversight for expanding livestock agribusiness operations. Residents say the new legislation creates more of the tools they need to maintain their local roads, small farms, and clean water and air by working with factory farms to put plans in place and cover community costs. In recent years, the towns of Eureka, Bone Lake, and others passed similar ordinances and helped pave the way for the research Maiden Rock officials put in over the last 9 months.

Local concerns across Pierce County have been growing louder for over a year, ever since one such operation, Ridge Breeze Dairy in the town of Salem, announced plans to expand from 1,700 to 6,500 cows. 

In March, the Maiden Rock town board set up a 7-person ordinance study committee made up of local residents. Earlier that month, nearly 100 people had turned out to a special meeting to learn about ordinances like those passed by towns in Polk and Burnett County. The committee presented their findings and draft ordinance at a public hearing in November. Again, nearly 100 locals attended, and everyone who testified spoke in favor of the ordinance.

As Wisconsin’s agriculture industry has become more consolidated, larger and larger operations have put pressure on rural communities like Maiden Rock. Right now, many of the impacts residents fear are unregulated by their county or state, Local roads and infrastructure bear the wear and tear of increased heavy truck traffic. Residential wells and local lakes and rivers suffer from nitrate contamination due to more manure and other animal waste. Small farms shutter and leave holes in community economies in the face of corporate competitors; between 2017 and 2022, every single day at least one Wisconsin dairy farmer was forced out of business.

When the drafted ordinance in Maiden Rock passed public hearing hurdles, industry representatives started to air their concerns in paid ads to try to intimidate the town board, but following the vote many small farmers are seeing this as a win.

Tom Manley, a farmer in nearby Spring Valley, hopes more communities will follow suit. “We need CAFO ordinances in our towns,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of dairy farms close. Drive around Pierce County and all the silos that you can see  used to supply small dairy herds. They made our schools better and our communities better. The biggest threat to our farms and rural communities’ livelihood, the thing that will prevent the milk truck from showing up in our driveways, is these factories.”

Organizers and members of GrassRoots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW) joined those celebrating the decision in Maiden Rock this week. Local GROWW members have spent more than a year organizing with their neighbors to put local guardrails around livestock operations like Ridge Breeze Dairy.

“I think the town board heard loud and clear that the residents of the town wanted the ordinance,” said Danny Akenson, a field organizer for GROWW. “It’s a result of the community banding together and sharing their stories and fears. We’ve heard it all. Landowners have had their land used for manure spreading without permission. Residents have had to call the Sheriff’s Department to escort them out of their own driveway due to heavy truck traffic on country roads. Families have had to live with poisoned water that causes sickness and cancer.”

Still, Akenson says there’s more work to be done. “We know that one town standing up and protecting themselves isn’t enough,”  he said. “Everyone deserves to have access to clean water and safe roads. Across Wisconsin, whether you’re in Maiden Rock or Milwaukee, corporate greed gets in the way of that dream becoming reality. In 2025, we hope to see even more towns stand up and pass ordinances of their own.”