Town of Pepin board supervisors illegally disbanded a citizen study group at their July 2025 meeting, according to a Nov. 17 complaint filed with the Pepin County District Attorney by five town residents. The complaint lays out two violations of Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law.
According to a news item in the Nov. 20, 2025 issue of the Durand Courier–Wedge:
First, board members failed to provide legal notice on the July agenda that they would be voting to disband the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) Study Group. Under Wisconsin’s Open Meeting Law, agendas must provide the public with notice of pending decisions. In addition, board members illegally discussed their decision to disband the CAFO Study Group outside of a public meeting.
Town residents face a nearby proposal by Appleton-based Ridge Breeze Dairy to build a mega-dairy with an 11.5-acre cows. This dairy operation will produce millions of gallons of untreated liquid waste.
In light of residents’ concerns about water pollution, well contamination, and road damage caused by spreading the waste, Pepin Board members unanimously voted to form the CAFO Study Group at their April 2025 meeting.
The group was tasked with studying the consequences of CAFOs using the Town of Maiden Rock’s CAFO Ordinance as a guide. Study Group members had been reporting on progress at monthly board meetings. The town supervisors did not raise concerns about the Study Group when those reports were given.
“We had no idea town supervisors had concerns,” said Marcie Forsberg, study group chair, in the news item. “There was nothing on the July agenda to indicate they were going to forbid further investigation into this huge threat to our health and property.”
The board’s July decision to end any more study came after a presentation by Kim Bremmer, Executive Director of Venture Dairy. Bremmer’s group was founded by Wisconsin’s biggest dairy CAFOs including Milk Source with 27,300 cows and Tuls Dairy with 24,000 cows. Venture Dairy opposes local control of huge livestock operations and recently lost a legal attempt to end state regulation of CAFOs by the DNR.
