Power vacuum - the dairyland dump is a collective cry for help

My head is spinning with all the major local problems and
controversial issues buzzing around our county these days.

Dairyland Power Cooperative’s proposed waste dump is just the latest. I sympathize
with the folks around the 600-acre site, should this plan be approved. I can
understand Dairyland’s dilemma as well, being mandated to clean up and dispose
of smokestack pollution.

But the bigger picture needs a look. This situation is just the latest result of
unplanned, unresolved, and unconsidered effects of our local, state, and national
energy decisions.

Our county is in desperate need of a visionary development plan. How can we
expect to preserve the special qualities of this area if we don’t fully comprehend—or
even appreciate—just what those qualities are? As outside pressures push in, without
a common vision our community will inevitably succumb to unwelcome change
and unforeseen disasters. Without a plan, we’ll default to the winds of market forces,
commercial exploitation, and broad state and federal regulations. Unless we take
responsibility for our own choices, they will—unequivocally—be made for us.

For instance, Dairyland estimates there may be as much as 225,000 cubic yards of
waste to be landfilled at the Harmony site each year. How much of that total is due
to our own waste, our personal squandering of energy use? Probably more than any
of us would be willing to admit. As long as we can dispose of the refuse in someone
else’s backyard, we are not overly concerned about adjusting our habits—until it
becomes our own backyard.

Well, it is our own backyard, and anyone missing that point shows a lack of vision.
What if we were willing to pay a little extra for our electricity so more resources
could be put into renewable energy projects, or into funding another viable way
of disposing of those sulfur wastes from Dairyland’s plants? That’s not a fantasy—
that’s just being thoughtful about how we spend our money. The fantasy is the belief
that we can go on using energy resources in the way we currently do, forever.

Dairyland will be investing $250 million in the sulfur dioxide scrubber and
the waste burial project. Part of this money will go into buying productive farmland,
affecting at least 18 family farms. Wouldn’t it be better to put that $250
million into more inspiring projects that would help solve the problem? That’s not
being naive, that’s being visionary. Being naive is not taking energy conservation
seriously enough to be willing to support those kinds of efforts. Carl Volden, one of
the neighbors out by the proposed Dairyland site, stated it clearly when he said
that farmers would rather have wind turbines in their fields than waste dumps.

The Vernon County board has shown an embarrassing lack of vision of late: defeating
the bike trail and voting down the moratorium on large-scale feeding operations.
We need to restrain our bias and fears and work with one another, whether we are
farmers, teachers, doctors, deli workers, natives, or transplants. We need to make sure
that our current decisions leave our children with a community with the simple
beauty, valued rural qualities, culturally vibrant opportunities, and economic vitality
that we wish to have for ourselves. We need to elect representatives with vision, who
do the careful work of creating an effective, long-term, visionary county development
plan that takes into account our common values, our diverse interests, and the
unique qualities of our natural environment.

We also need the rest of us to be involved in local government and community
planning, and to stay informed about the issues. Many of us have chosen to live
here, while others have been here all their lives. Some of us have experienced elsewhere
what can happen to a place like this when there is no local planning. Let’s not throw up
our hands and let outside pressures ravage this precious region.

Rick LaMartina is a local nature photographer and part-time activist.