03/17/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18Yv7qF3KK/
Ty Fisher has a 120-acre farm in Pierce County near Nugget Lake County Park that he’s run for the last 43 years. His family has been on it for six generations.
If you ask him what he loves about the area, he’ll tell you it’s the “beautiful and unique landscape—especially the bluffs off of the great Mississippi River.”
Ty’s son and daughter plan to take over the farm when he retires.
But Ty is worried about the future of his rural community.
He’s one of the petitioners against a farm called Ridge Breeze, that wants to expand—to make that farm the largest factory farm in western Wisconsin, with 6,500 cows.
Petitioners say there are risks to private wells, the Rush River watershed, local roads, small farms, and rural quality of life.
Their petition against the Department of Natural Resource’s (DNR) permit asks that at the very least it be modified to make sure the DNR is monitoring the local water so the farm is held accountable if the state’s groundwater pollution rules are violated.
✏️: Salina Heller
