A Water Quality Trading Success Story
Baker Cheese is a fourth generation, family-owned, string
cheese manufacturer located in St. Cloud, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. This company prides themselves on utilizing
local milk sources to produce its all-natural, award winning string cheese,
within 48 hours of the milk leaving the farm. This company has been operating
for over 30 years in the community, but has historically hauled its process
wastewater to other wastewater treatment plants for ultimate disposal.
The
company worked with DNR to begin treating their own process wastewater to maximize
their economic efficiency. This included adopting Water Quality Trading and leveraging nonpoint source Phosphorus reductions as their permit compliance option. The EPA has formally approved Baker's Point Source Discharge Permit and issued the following statement:
"EPA is encouraged by the trading condition in this permit as it provides flexible options for complying with effluent limits in a cost effective manner and requires pollution reductions from nonpoint sources. This particular provision makes environmental progress by protecting land to offset the discharge of phosphorus and reduce the runoff of pollution to the Mullet River."
Sector Team
DNR nonpoint staff are working with counties to finalize the county template and nonpoint strategies for TMDL Implementation. The working group is meeting in January to follow up on tasks from last year and the October quarterly networking forum on Ag Producer solutions. Contact Mike Gilbertson for more information.
Visit the DNR Nonpoint Runoff website for a collection of resources for both Agricultural and Urban Stormwater nonpoint resources. These include explanations of rules, information on financial and grant resources, tools for estimating nonpoint pollution, and fact sheets, such as What Farmers Need to Know.
In the News
Check out this Wisconsin Farmer article on efforts by farmers in the Yahara Basin to lead stewardship initiatives and develop innovative farm solutions to minimize nonpoint runoff.
The Minneapolis Star/Tribune has a GREAT ARTICLE summarizing challenges that can hinder efforts to address nonpoint runoff from agricultural lands.
|
Water Condition Viewer
The WDNR Water Condition Viewer (WCV) is an interactive webmapping tool that focuses on water condition, monitoring and assessment data. Highlights include: Clean Water Act reporting datasets, Healthy Watersheds Assessments, Targeted Watershed Assesssments and Watershed Planning.
For example, the Clean Water Act Assessments Theme hightlights datasets that are used for the Clean Water Act Integrated Report. The interface will open in a new window with data showing 2016 results (zoom in to a local level to see data). When 2018 results are ready, those will replace the 2016 data. The DNR continuously updates its datasystems to reflect the most recent information
|
Sector Team
The E&O Sector team met in November and December to work on drafting the new Education and Outreach plan. Contact Joe Van Rossum if you are interested in participating.
Quarterly Forum
The Sector Team is currently planning the next quarterly networking forum. The focus of this forum will be on citizen groups and organizations, and roles/resources to support them in their efforts to improve water quality.
We are pleased to announce we've been able to make substantial updates to the Rock River Recovery Website. This includes additional information on TMDLs, a newsletter archive, and up-to-date information on TMDL implementation. We'd love to hear feedback and suggestions from the community.
|
NASECA-WI is hosting the 13th Annual Advancements in Stormwater and Erosion Control conference February 3, 4 in Madison, WI. This two-day conference will be divided into an erosion & sediment control focus (day 1) and a stormwater focus (day 2) so you can attend one day or both to suit your interests.
|
The Mutli-Discharger Variance Public Comment period closed on
December 16th, 2015. The Department is working on responding to
comments and making changes to the documentation before submittal to the EPA
for approval. At this time, the Department does not have an estimated timeline.
The Department is currently holding training throughout the state
for CMOM development (December through February) to help facilities develop
their CMOM program for the August 1, 2016 deadline.
Regional WWOA meetings will be held throughout the state in
February. Please see https://www.wwoa.org/ for more info.
|
|
