KEWAUNEE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Charges have been filed against the owner of a Kewaunee County farm and two others for allegedly underreporting the amount of manure spread on several fields, leading to illegal pollution.
According to prosecutors, Johannes Wakker owned a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) and needed to get rid of excess manure in late 2019. Wakker hired Gregory Stodola to spread the manure on Wakker’s land, the complaint reads.
The amount of manure spread exceeded Wakker’s permit allowed so much that it resulted in pollution discharges into tributaries leading to Lake Michigan with E. Coli bacteria readings as much as 100 times those that would result in the closure of a public beach, prosecutors say.
Because the large amount of manure spread on the Wakker farm exceeded the amount allowed by Wakker’s DNR permit, the complaint alleges that Stodola created a document that grossly underreported the manure actually spread—by over 1.9 million gallons. Stodola then gave this document to Wakker, the complaint alleges, who in turn gave it to defendant Benjamin Koss, a consultant hired by Wakker to file a required report about the manure spreading with DNR. According to the complaint, knowing that the information was false, Koss manipulated the numbers even further to “calibrate the books” such that the reported numbers would fit within DNR regulations before filing a report with the false information with DNR.
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