Reading Time: 9 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Applying manure atop snow or frozen soil heightens the risk of runoff, which can contaminate water, spread pathogens, seed algae blooms and kill fish.
• Stanford University researchers are using aerial photographs — snapped by satellites orbiting the globe — to teach computers to recognize winter spreading. 
• Researchers say their model correctly spotted manure in half of the 121 cases that the Department of Natural Resources investigated last winter based upon satellite images researchers sent the DNR’s way. 
• Environmentalists say the DNR should use the technology to monitor spreading, but one DNR official says doing so would not be worth the effort.

After a fresh February snow, a satellite about the size of a shoebox, busy snapping photographs as it circuited the planet at 17,000 miles per hour, captured something dark in Wisconsin.

About 56 tons of livestock bedding and manure had been spread atop Mark Zinke’s frozen alfalfa field.

The image, beamed down to the surface, eventually appeared on the computers of Stanford University researchers, who relayed it to the offices of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

A staff member looked it over. He decided it was noteworthy and passed along the information to another employee in a nearby city.

Zinke, a Brownsville dairy farmer who cares for a herd of more than 1,300 cows, had forgotten about the whole thing until he later heard from the agency.

“Oh shit,” he recalled thinking at the time. “I mean, it’s just one of those things. I guess we fucked up. We gotta man up to it, right?”

Zinke wasn’t particularly surprised upon hearing that the witnesses to the manure application were Earth-orbiting satellites.

“This day and age,” he said of the government, “they watch us doing everything.”

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is, in fact, not a spacefaring agency.

But aerial imagery collected by a new generation of small, inexpensive satellites is ushering in an era of real-time monitoring. Some environmental advocates want the department to look to the heavens as it regulates earthly happenings. Large livestock farms, a potential water contamination source, could become a surveillance target.

With increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence, such a scenario is hardly a Jetsonian pipe dream.

Scientists from Stanford’s Regulation, Evaluation and Governance Lab are analyzing troves of aerial photographs to teach computers to recognize when farmers butter the land with livestock poop during the winter, a largely restricted but suspectedly pervasive practice in America’s Dairyland.

The research relies upon machine learning, a process in which computers identify patterns to make predictions and decisions, and constellations of commercial satellites that scan Earth’s surface daily. The orbiters photographed the large farms — known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs — during snowy Wisconsin winters. Policymakers consider a livestock farm a CAFO if it houses at least 1,000 “animal units,” the equivalent of 714 dairy cows or 2,500 pigs. 

Typically, the ground is frozen or snow-covered for 100 to 140 days each Wisconsin winter. Spreading manure atop it increases the chance the material will not fully absorb into the soil. This can lead to surface runoff, which can contaminate water, spread pathogens, seed algae blooms and kill fish.

The researchers selected Wisconsin, in large part, because the state documents CAFO locations and sets hard limits on manure spreading. The department generally curbs CAFO manure application during winter and prohibits the practice outright in February and March unless operators obtain an exemption.

Wisconsin often relies upon citizen watchfulness and self-reporting to protect the environment from illegal spreading, but fields are not always visible from roadsides or neighbors omniscient. Meanwhile, state agencies with limited staff time must prioritize enforcement.

The scientists propose bolstering regulators’ efforts to monitor large livestock farms with satellite imagery and AI — tools that could, advocates hope, be used in any snowy state.

Expanding satellite fleet offers new possibilities

Scientists have used satellites and machine learning to identify CAFOs in North Carolina, trace the expansion of livestock farms in Indiana and map cropland in Wisconsin.

But previous inquiries haven’t scrutinized livestock farms in near-real time.

RegLab researchers in a 2022 study obtained images of 330 CAFO locations across Wisconsin from Planet, a San Francisco-based satellite and data company that uses a fleet of more than 150 orbiters to photograph Earth’s entire land mass. Anyone with an annual subscription — starting at $10,000 — can track thousands of acres.

The Stanford scientists used near-daily images from three recent winter seasons — when manure stands out against the backdrop of snow-covered fields — to train their model to recognize spreading. The scientists also sought to identify farms that spread more frequently than others. 

Later, the researchers selected a random sample of 30 winter manure-spreading events the model detected. They discovered state filings documented only four, raising questions about the comprehensiveness of the department’s winter spreading record-keeping.

Finally, the model predicted about 700 to 1,200 instances of manure spreading during February and March 2022 when it is “presumptively prohibited.” 

The study accused the state of “laxness of enforcement and monitoring,” which “has resulted in widespread winter land application.”

The researchers’ tone has since softened.

“The number itself is not super concrete,” study co-author and RegLab data scientist Nic Rothbacher said of the estimate. “Still, I agree the conclusion is right, that there is a lot more manure application happening than perhaps the state would like to see based on environmental risk.”

DNR investigates ground truth

In 2023, the RegLab researchers conducted a new assessment of the model’s accuracy by comparing it to a season of on-the-ground observations. 

They forwarded to the Department of Natural Resources a batch of 582 potential detections captured by satellites that monitored all Wisconsin CAFOs during the two prohibited months.

Employee Ben Uvaas, who then helped oversee CAFO compliance and enforcement, handled the detections like he would a complaint of spreading spotted from a kitchen window.

From hundreds of miles above, streaks of manure resemble skid marks on Mother Nature’s toilet paper, yet other scenery can lead aerial viewers astray.

The winter spreading of waste feed and tillage — both legal — duped the model, according to a spreadsheet of outcomes obtained through a public records request. So did solar panels. In some cases, snow melted, revealing manure from previous months.

Uvaas sifted out about 75% of the detections. Other staff contacted farmers, reviewed CAFO records and inspected fields.

Their inquiries unearthed 30 instances of manure spreading during February and March, nine of which were deemed noncompliant. A handful of applications were performed legally because the manure originated at a non-CAFO; unlike CAFOs, smaller livestock farms generally are exempt from winter spreading rules.

Staff did not determine whether illegal spreading transpired in an additional 22 cases.

“We definitely did find more noncompliant winter spreading than a normal or an average year,” Uvaas said, pinning a typical figure at two or three. “That wasn’t surprising to me, considering the amount of time staff spent looking for them.”

The 2022 RegLab study cannot be compared side-by-side to the latest outcomes because the researchers examined only detections in which they had greater confidence and didn’t seek to generate a statewide estimate of manure spreading. However, Uvaas thinks the new observations indicate unreported winter spreading happens in Wisconsin far less frequently than the researchers previously suggested.

He is glad the department participated; employees learned “valuable lessons,” such as the need to clarify frozen manure regulations.

Yet, for all the effort staff put into the project, Uvaas said, “I just don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze to pursue this kind of technology for winter spreading issues.”

The researchers had a different take. They considered the model’s ability to detect manure without respect to legality. It correctly spotted it in about half of the 121 cases the regulators investigated.

Broadly speaking, the greatest barrier to accuracy is a dearth of winter manure-spreading images with which to train the model. Popular AI like ChatGPT can feast on pre-existing language data, but the scientists could feed their model only a limited set of manually identified examples.

Understanding the phenomena that affect the ground’s appearance from miles on high also presents a challenge. Another obstacle: Light from reflective snow cover occasionally bleached the already low-resolution images. Clouds obscured the view.

Given the uncertainties, the RegLab researchers believe authorities should use detections to prioritize cases worthy of human investigation, not function as a judge and jury.

Drawing legal lines in the sand (and snow)

Agency staff informed at least some of the farmers who spread illegally that their complaints came from eyes in the sky.

“It was very difficult and time-consuming for me, specifically, to try and convince people, no, these are not DNR satellites,” Uvaas said. “No, DNR is not flying a satellite or a drone over your farm.”

Brad Krueger didn’t know about the aerial imaging.

He milks about 770 cows at MAM Farms in Markesan, Wisconsin. In February 2023, an employee spread manure when he wasn’t supposed to, and satellites caught the results on camera.

Krueger said the knowledge that sentinel satellites could be watching wouldn’t necessarily change the way he operates. “What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong,” he said.

‘The water doesn’t know or care where the poo came from.’

attorney Katie Garvey

But Krueger would prefer that a human verify all detections, a point on which he, Uvaas and the RegLab researchers agree.

“I have a problem with people sitting in an office and telling me what I should or should not do either,” Krueger added. “Because they’re not out here, 14 degrees below zero, trying to take care of animals.”

Krueger, like several farmers, said his “beef” lies more with the fairness of Wisconsin’s manure-spreading rules than the technology with which it enforces them. Some producers said it’s unfair to single out CAFOs when operators of smaller farms can apply manure with seeming impunity.

The model wasn’t designed to identify such circumstances, and it lacks a law degree.

Yet, the model’s spotting of at least 21 verified instances of permitted application during the prohibited months raises a question about the logic of state rules. Should Wisconsin lawmakers delineate legal and illegal spreading based on farm size and timing if the potential harms are the same?

The Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center, which assisted RegLab in the research, calls the law’s distinctions arbitrary.

“The water doesn’t know or care where the poo came from,” staff attorney Katie Garvey said.

Will AI swamp the DNR with complaints?

The Department of Natural Resources has for years used satellite imagery to map things, but Uvaas doesn’t foresee adding AI to the agency’s CAFO enforcement tool belt.

Instead, he anticipates other consequential changes. Accessible satellite imaging could “swamp” the agency with citizen complaints — potentially thousands.

“I would be really surprised if this is the last time DNR is responding to complaints identified by technology that’s similar to this,” he said. “It doesn’t require DNR to pick up the technology ourselves. It’s coming to us.”

Garvey called it “unfortunate” that AI wouldn’t be used in-house.

“What I hope that DNR will be able to see is that it never has been, and never should have been, citizens’ responsibility to be monitoring what polluters are doing,” she said. “Citizens are already having to pay the price.”

The Stanford scientists don’t know if regulators in other states have tried using the technology. Doing so in Wisconsin, Uvaas said, would require cash and political appetite. However, lawmakers are just starting to grapple with AI’s impacts on elections, government administration and the workforce.

The Environmental Law & Policy Center plans to continue investigating how the model could be adopted by governments and non-government watchdog groups (acquiring aerial imagery is likely cost-prohibitive for residents, Garvey said).

Regulators could consider using the technology for goals beyond enforcement, she noted, including data collection or water quality standards development.

Some see privacy ‘gray area’

Don Weiss, of Weiss Family Farms in Durand, feels ambivalent about satellite surveillance. 

A Department of Natural Resources employee contacted Weiss in February 2023 after his dairy operation spread solid manure on a field the week prior. 

Aerial imaging seems like a violation of his privacy, Weiss said, but farmers also must comply with regulations.

“It’s such a gray area that it’s so hard to tell what is the right or wrong thing to do,” he said. “I know they need to monitor people because people try to get away with murder.”

Stanford researchers have likewise pondered privacy implications.

The initial RegLab study noted that CAFO operators already must report spreading. State and federal officials could arrive at any time to inspect a farm, and operations often sit in public view. RegLab Research Director Kit Rodolfa said that any use of satellite imagery must balance potential harms and benefits.

“We need to be thoughtful about where we think that line is,” he said. “I don’t think that’s just a decision for us as researchers to be making unilaterally.”

Zinke, the Brownsville farmer, laughed about his encounter with satellites.

In one respect, the surveillance doesn’t bother him. He, too, uses satellite technology on his farm.

But Zinke resigns himself to the scrutiny. If not a satellite, he said, something else would watch — perhaps a trespassing neighbor on a four-wheeler.

“If they want to take a picture of my field,” Zinke said, “I ain’t got nothing to hide.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Poopspotting: How AI and satellites can detect illegal manure spreading in Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review Wireless customers across the country including communities in the Wausau area lost service overnight, prompting concern about disruption to 911 calls. Widespread outages were reported beginning at around 2:30 a.m. and continued to rise throughout the morning hours. AT&T, in a statement, acknowledged the outage and said […]

The post Massive cell service outage prompts caution from local police agencies appeared first on Wausau Pilot & Review.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to remove a link to an anti-Semitic website and its quoted content. This change was made after receiving feedback from a member of Wausau’s Jewish community. Comments and suggestions are always welcome at editor@wausaupilotandreview.com. By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review Residents in Wausau say they received […]

The post Anti-Semitic propaganda distributed again in Wausau appeared first on Wausau Pilot & Review.

Wausau Pilot & Review Nine candidates have submitted their candidacy papers to run for the office of Village Board trustee, the highest number of trustee candidates that the village has ever received. A spring primary will be held Feb. 20 to narrow the field. “We anticipate an exciting year for elections,” said Kronenwetter Village Clerk […]

The post Record number of candidates vying for Kronenwetter board seats appeared first on Wausau Pilot & Review.

Over the past few months, a group called Concerned Citizens of Iron River, a mostly anonymous group on Facebook, have started calling for books to be removed from my local library, the Evelyn Goldberg Briggs Memorial Library in Iron River, Wisconsin (population 1,100). Most of these books being challenged are about LGBTQ+, and specifically trans, […]

The post Wisconsin locals rally around small town library appeared first on Barn Raiser.

When Jenny Van Sickle was elected to the Superior, Wisconsin, City Council in 2017, she joked that the first two calls she got were from her mother and representatives of the Nemadji Trail Energy Center, a proposed 625-megawatt combined-cycle gas-fired power plant planned for a site on the Nemadji River adjacent to her neighborhood, East End.

A social worker by training, she sought office to fight for things like mental health resources and accessible childcare. The nuances of a massive power plant proposal were beyond her expertise, and like other civic leaders, she was open to promises that it would provide jobs, a bridge to clean energy and grid reliability.

Heavy industry was nothing new in the port town; an Enbridge Energy oil terminal is also located in the neighborhood. In 2019, the council unanimously passed a resolution supporting the project.

But the more Van Sickle learned, the more she had doubts about the plant. She began asking more questions and felt like she was getting “misinformation and disinformation” from its developers — Dairyland Power Cooperative and Minnesota Power.

She was especially concerned to learn that the proposal included the possibility of burning heavily polluting diesel if natural gas wasn’t available.

“When you finally build up the courage to talk about it, it’s like a dam breaking,” she recounted, and other residents also began to share their fears.

Changing landscape

Now, Van Sickle devotes much of her life to opposing the $700 million power plant, which received crucial approval from the state Public Service Commission in January 2020 and is scheduled to go online by 2027 — if it receives permits still needed from agencies including the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Construction could reportedly start next year.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club and Clean Wisconsin are demanding the Public Service Commission reconsider and reopen the process around the crucial certificate of public convenience and necessity that was issued in January 2020.

That’s because two major factors have changed since the commission granted the certificate.

Wisconsin utilities have launched plans to install 480 MW of battery storage by 2025. That’s enough storage to work in tandem with renewables to provide reliable power, advocates argue.

And the Inflation Reduction Act offers direct-pay incentives for renewables, replacing tax credits and making renewable development much more financially viable for nonprofit entities, including rural electric cooperatives like Dairyland, that don’t pay taxes.

Clean Wisconsin and Sierra Club filed a lawsuit challenging the Public Service Commission’s certificate. A district court backed the commission, and they are now awaiting an appellate court decision.

Clean Wisconsin staff attorney Brett Korte noted that the Public Service Commission has the authority to reopen a case when it chooses.

One of the three public service commissioners, Rebecca Valcq, argued against granting the certificate. Her dissent cited environmental impacts including erosion and the effect on wetlands, and she questioned the availability of water — to be drawn from an aquifer — to cool the plant. She also stated the plant was not needed for a reliable electric supply.

Advocates are hopeful the commission would decide differently if the case is reopened.

“It’s just a shame it got approved when it did, before a lot of other opportunities were there,” Korte said. “Ultimately it’s still an opportunity for Dairyland to make a different decision. They haven’t started construction; they could still make the right call here. There are all kinds of advocates and partners who would love to talk to them about other opportunities.”

Federal funding 

Dairyland describes the Nemadji Trail Energy Center, or NTEC, as key to its investment in renewables, to provide power when they aren’t available.

Dairyland spokesperson Katie Thomson said Dairyland has submitted a letter of intent to apply for funding for 1,700 megawatts of wind and solar from the New ERA (Empowering Rural America) program created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which makes $9.7 billion available for rural electric cooperatives to transition to clean energy, administered by the USDA.

Dairyland spokesperson Deb Mirasola said that the Nemadji plant would not be included in that application, but “as we have noted all along NTEC is critical to supporting the new renewable additions. The Nemadji Trail Energy Center is key to the clean energy transition, as a reliable, low-emissions natural gas power plant which will ramp up and down quickly to support renewable energy.”

Thomson said Dairyland will likely apply for funding for the Nemadji plant through the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service program.

Korte said seeking federal funding for natural gas is “ironic and sad especially now with the new federal funding for renewables. We don’t think it’s a good investment at all. They would be better off investing in renewable energy including battery storage if they feel like they need that kind of peaking capacity.”

Indigenous and community issues

Van Sickle was the first person of color and Indigenous person elected to the Superior City Council. She is an Alaskan Native of Tlingit and Athabaskan descent. Meanwhile Superior sits amid ceded Indigenous lands on the edge of Lake Superior, which Ojibwe refer to as Gitchi-Gami.

The gas plant would pose a threat to the natural ecology that tribal members hold sacred, including the St. Louis estuary, critics say. Advocates are demanding a more stringent environmental impact study than the developers have already submitted, as part of the process to secure federal funding. Almost 10,000 letters have been sent to the USDA asking the federal agency to deny loans for the gas plant in order to protect Gitchi-Gami.

Additionally, the plant would be very near a cemetery where almost 200 Ojibwe ancestors were buried, after they were disinterred from a traditional burial ground in 1918 for U.S. Steel to build ore docks, which were never actually constructed.

The Nemadji application to the Public Service Commission acknowledges that it is within half a mile of three residential neighborhoods. Van Sickle described it as an environmental justice issue, with residents put at risk from the pollution and any accidents. Many residents still remember having to evacuate during a nearby refinery fire in 2018, and a benzene spill in 1992, at other local industrial facilities.

“I know what it’s like for my neighbors to live amongst these giants,” she said.

Van Sickle, who is known as an ally of labor unions, said the 350 jobs promised at the plant do not compensate for all the risks and concerns.

“In the last few years we have worked so hard to invest in East End,” she said, including by raising money to revamp Carl Gullo Park named for a local World War II veteran and educator. “If a local official is not going to protect their most sacred spaces, who will? Sometimes progress is saying no.”

Bigger picture 

Along with the gas plant, the proposal calls for a new 345-kilovolt transmission line, relocation of an existing gas pipeline, and construction of a new gas pipeline to tap an existing gas supply network.

Van Sickle and other opponents argue that not only is the gas plant problematic in its own right, but it will also drive more investment in gas infrastructure and fracking, which has already had devastating environmental consequences for the larger Great Lakes region.

Dairyland says the plant could be retrofitted to run on up to 30% hydrogen, which is being promoted as an industrial energy source by the Department of Energy including with the establishment of hydrogen hubs nationwide.

The plant would be a merchant generator selling power on the open market in the MISO regional transmission organization territory.

“The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) has affirmed the need for NTEC to support additional renewable energy resources, while ensuring reliability is not compromised,” Mirasola said. “Dairyland is dedicated to providing sustainable, reliable and affordable power for our member cooperatives. NTEC will be a critical capacity resource to ensure reliable power for our members at a time when resource adequacy in the MISO region is declining significantly.”

Dairyland is made up of 24 member electric co-ops in southern Minnesota, western Wisconsin, northern Iowa, and northern Illinois, and also serves 17 municipal utilities. Rural cooperatives in theory provide their members more say in decisions than an investor-owned utility, but critics say that cooperative members that oppose more fossil fuel generation have not been heard.

Dairyland’s current power mix is about 52% natural gas and 48% coal, according to an analysis by the Sierra Club, which also found Dairyland could save members $55 million by retiring two coal plants and replacing them with renewables, without adding any new gas-fired generation.

“There’s a lot of hesitancy around clean energy because of misinformation from fossil fuel industry and lobbyists,” said Cassie Steiner, Wisconsin Sierra Club senior campaign coordinator. “Definitely we see some cooperative members bringing up those pieces of misinformation or viewing clean energy as a very politicized dichotomy, rather than something that is accessible, affordable, reliable. The frustrations we’re hearing are the member cooperatives maybe aren’t listening to clean energy advocates who are their members.”

One of those frustrated cooperative members is Dena Eakles, a writer and activist who runs organic Echo Valley Farm and a sustainability nonprofit in western Wisconsin. She is a member of Vernon Electric Cooperative, part of Dairyland, and she is upset that Vernon board members have not opposed the Nemadji Trail plan.

“To me, any kind of fossil fuel energy is not clean energy,” she said. “People just see the end result, my lights go on, my stove runs — everything’s hunky dory. We need more people to understand and put pressure on their own board. We just need to help each other understand the peril of this time.”

Advocates press Wisconsin regulators to reconsider natural gas plant need is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Tony Leys FORT DODGE, Iowa — Allison Roderick has a warning and a pledge for rural residents of her county: The water from their wells could be contaminated, but the government can help make it safe. Roderick is the environmental health officer for Webster County in north-central Iowa, where a few thousand rural residents live […]

The post Millions of rural Americans rely on private wells. Few regularly test their water. appeared first on Wausau Pilot & Review.

The state DOJ tracks police who leave employment with law enforcement agencies under negative circumstances. The Badger Project found these officers analyzing that database.

By Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT

Wandering officers, problem police who get fired or forced out from one department, then go work at another, are a problem across the country.

To help prevent these officers from bouncing between agencies, the Wisconsin Department of Justice maintains a database where law enforcement agencies can flag officers they fired or forced out. Police and sheriff’s departments can check the database when considering hiring a new officer.

Also, the Wisconsin State Legislature passed a law in 2021 that requires law enforcement agencies to maintain a work history file for each employee and creates a procedure for law enforcement agencies, jails, and juvenile detention facilities to receive and review an officer candidate’s file from previous employers.

Previously, some law enforcement agencies had agreed to seal a fired officer’s personnel file in exchange for leaving quietly, so potential law enforcement employers couldn’t see why the officer had left their last job.

Nearly 300 officers currently employed in the state were fired or forced out from previous jobs in law enforcement, according to data from the state DOJ that The Badger Project obtained through a records request.

The state of Wisconsin currently has about 15,000 certified active law enforcement officers, including jail officers, according to the state DOJ, so fired or forced-out officers make up nearly 2 percent of the total.

Some of those flagged officers were simply novices who didn’t perform at an acceptable level during their initial probationary period, when the bar to fire them is very low, experts say. Sometimes the bosses simply don’t like a new hire and want them gone. Or the officer couldn’t handle the high pressure of working in a busy urban area, and do better in slower-paced positions and agencies, says Steve Wagner, a longtime police officer in Racine who is now an administrator for the state DOJ.

But others lost their jobs for more negative reasons.

The Badger Project looked at the state DOJ’s database and found four officers working in northwestern Wisconsin who had been fired or forced out from another law enforcement agency. A fifth officer was forced out from a police department in the area and moved one county over to continue work in law enforcement.

All the officers were given the chance to comment for this story. Those who provided them were included.

Noah Bunt

• Shawano Police Department – May 2006 to November 2018
• Resigned prior to completion of internal investigation
• Now employed by Hurley Police Department

Bunt was accused of having a sexual relationship with another officer’s wife, and of communicating with her in a “sexual nature” while on duty with the Shawano Police Department, according to text messages collected from their phones.

Bunt was placed on administrative leave and resigned before the investigation concluded.

The Hurley Police Department hired Bunt on Nov. 30, 2018, 11 days after his last official day at the Shawano Police Department.

Hurley Police Chief Chris Colassaco and Bunt did not respond to messages seeking comment.

---

Brittany Letica

• Superior Police Department – January 2021 until April 2022
• Resigned in lieu of termination
• Now employed by Bayfield County Sheriff’s Department

Letica “was released from probation” from the Superior Police Department because she was not meeting the standards of our department, said Assistant Police Chief John Kiel.

In an email to The Badger Project, Letica said she was “set up to fail from the beginning without any help from the department.”

“I was not treated fairly at this department and I realized, is this what I really want anyway?” she continued.

The Bayfield County Sheriff’s Office hired Letica in October 2022 as a full-time sheriff’s deputy.

Bayfield County Sheriff Tony Williams noted that Letica was hired before he became sheriff, but said she has “been doing great for us.”

The administration was aware of her exit from the Superior Police Department, and an “extensive background check” is conducted by the department’s investigator lieutenant before anyone is hired, Williams said.

“Deputy Letica is performing outstanding,” Williams said. “Deputy Letica is very professional and is fair with people, levelheaded and quick to respond to calls.”

---

Damen Rankin

• Superior Police Department – April 2018 to January 2019
• Resigned in lieu of termination
• Now employed by UW-Superior Police Department

Rankin briefly worked for the Superior Police Department but “was released from probation because he was not meeting the standards of our department,” said Assistant Police Chief John Kiel.

The UW-Superior Police Department hired him to their five-officer staff in November 2020.

Jordan Milan, a spokesperson for UW-Superior, said she was not able to discuss “information gathered through the interview process,” but noted all applicants go through the same process of application review, interviews and reference checks.

“We conduct extensive background checks on all police officers, including physical and psychological assessments,” Milan said.

“Officer Rankin has met job performance expectations during his employment at UW-Superior,” she added.

---

Jay Thums

• Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources – May 2016 to February 2022
• Terminated for Cause
• Currently employed by the Price County Sheriff’s Office

Thums started working for both the Wisconsin DNR and the Price County Sheriff’s Office in 2016. In February 2022, he was terminated from his limited-term position as a conservation officer with the DNR due to “failure to follow supervisory directive related to the use and parking of the department squad (vehicle) that you are assigned to use during your shift,” according to a letter he received from his supervisor that The Badger Project obtained through a records request.

Thums told The Badger Project in an email that the DNR supervisor had allowed several full-time officers to take their squad vehicles home, an exception to the department’s rules. He also said supervisors told him they terminated him because he continued to take his squad home after a warning, but Thums said he never received a warning.

Thums remains employed as a deputy with the Price County Sheriff’s Office.

About Thums, Sheriff Brian Schmidt said “his performance is good. He’s doing what we ask and doing his job. What’s expected of him.”

---

Schuenemann, who is now working outside Price County, did not complete his probationary period with the Park Falls Police Department. In records obtained from the department in a records request, Schuenemann was reprimanded for not completing some reports, not completing reports in a timely manner, submitting reports with misspellings and other errors, missing a scheduled training session, and misusing department property.

Regarding the property issues, he lost control of a patrol vehicle and it slid off the road, taking him out of service until it could be towed back onto the road, according to the records, which note he may have been violating the law by driving too fast for conditions.. He also closed an automatic garage door on a vehicle, damaging the door.

The Three Lakes Police Department hired him in November of 2022.

“The Three Lakes Police Department is pleased that Officer Schuenemann has chosen to join the Three Lakes Police Department and look forward to his opportunity to join the Three Lakes community,” Police Chief Scott Lea said in an email to The Badger Project.

“Applicants that choose to apply to our agency are evaluated and vetted through the hiring process and determining the reasons for an officer leaving an agency are evaluated as part of the process,” the chief added.

In response to a question about Schuenemann’s job performance, Lea said his department “does not comment on employees.”

This story was funded in part by the Wirtanen Fund at the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

The post Four officers fired, forced out from law enforcement back on the job in NW Wisconsin first appeared on The Badger Project.

---

Four officers fired, forced out from law enforcement back on the job in NW Wisconsin was first posted on October 17, 2023 at 10:03 am.