MILWAUKEE (AP) — The pioneering Hoard’s Dairyman Farm is encountering manure problems and has agreed to drain a 5 million gallon lagoon in hopes of keeping the animal waste from leaking into groundwater. It’s the latest development in a longstanding struggle by the farm to keep its manure from infiltrating the water table beneath a football field-sized concrete containment system. The farm is just outside Fort Atkinson in Jefferson County. It has long been a laboratory and editorial resource for Hoard’s Dairyman, a national dairy farming magazine. The lagoon has been shut down and repaired several times. Brian Knox, CEO of W.D. Hoard & Sons Co., says it’s been a very unhappy experience. He estimates that Hoard has spent “well into seven figures” for construction and repairs.
