Snow Pack In US West Melting Due To Human-Caused Global Warming

More findings are in: the snow pack in the US West, crucial for agriculture, drinking water, power generation and irrigation, is disappearing due to human activity.

The report will be treated with disdain by climate change skeptics, but on the ground, people with commonsense will begin to push their governments for action.

The Bush administration recently blocked California's more aggressive regulations designed to minimize greenhouse gas emissions: another example of why this administration can't leave office fast enough, and why it has to be replaced with the complete opposite.

NFL Trying To Green The Super Bowl

The National Football League is implementing plans to make its Arizona Super Bowl Sunday as environmentally-positive as possible.

It's good that conservation consciousness has made its way into mainstream events and on to corporate agendas.

Bush Could Have Led The Nation Away From Alcohol Abuse

It was something of an undercovered story earlier this week - - Pres. George W. Bush using the term "addiction" for his past alcohol abuse.

But unlike other political leaders and opinion-makers who have used various personal problems to educate the public towards fuller disclosure and better health, Bush has been, until now, very closed-mouth on the subject.

He managed to keep his DUI conviction in Maine a secret until the closing days of his 2000 campaign when his campaign confirmed it.

There was no firm obligation on his part to talk more about his drinking problems, but many people who have dealt with addiction find it important to pass along their experiences, including their recoveries, as a way to help others.

For a President of the United States to do otherwise has certainly been a missed opportunity, a bully pulpit not seized.

Maybe in his last year as President, Bush will make alcohol education and sobriety more of a part of his public presidency.

Smoking Ban Snuffed

A delay to 2011 for the proposed Wisconsin smoking ban to cover taverns has apparently killed the entire workplace smoking ban in the state.

The Tavern League pushed the long delay for Wisconsin taverns knowing that it would be seen as unacceptable as other states are approving immediate, universal workplace bans.

This is a sad day for Wisconsin workers in settings where smoking is still allowed, and also for business owners who are likely to face litigation over the issue that they are bound to lose.

What a fiasco.

Senate Democrats Push Commuter Rail Spending

Senate Democrats want an economic stimulus plan adds more to highway budgets - - and also commits money to financce the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail line.

The plan has an unclear future.

The Governor has his own business-stimulation plan, and there is strong opposition to the commuter line in the GOP-controlled state assembly.

My guess is that the legislature will adopt some measures before its short session expires in March, but nothing major.

Details from the Journal Sentinel's newswatch blog are below:

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 30, 2008, 11:56 a.m.By Steven Walters
Senate Dems offer economic plan

Madison - Wisconsin Senate Democrats formally broke with Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Assembly Republicans on economic development today, recommending an immediate $50-million boost in highway spending and development of the KRM commuter rail line between Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee.

The Senate Democrats' package means the Legislature is not likely to pass any major economic development incentives before the session ends in mid-March.

"This is something that Senate Democrats want to push," said Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston).

The Democrats' package would also spend $5 million more to train welders and health-care workers, give vocational colleges $1.3 million more in state aid, and spend $15.1 million more to subsidize child-care costs for middle-income parents.

Decker said the new package would immediately let "Wisconsin companies hire Wisconsin workers," giving them jobs that "can't go to China."

Boosting highway spending by $50 million alone would result in 2,5000 new well-paying jobs, he said.Decker said he hasn't seen details of the Democratic governor's $15-million package of tax credits, breaks and exemptions.

Doyle has said his proposals, embraced by Republicans who control the state Assembly, would help create the next generation of jobs in technology and start-up companies.

Democratic Sens. John Lehman of Racine and Bob Wirch of Kenosha both said the KRM commuter rail line would be paid for a $13 increase in car rental costs in southeast Wisconsin and is backed by leaders from both parties.

Decker and Sen. Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls) estimated that their economic development package would cost about $180 million - $90 million in the year that ends June 30 and another $90 million the following year.

The money would be generated by ending a corporate tax loophole that allows businesses to create out-of-state companies that don't pay Wisconsin taxes.

Will The Right Call For The Recall Of Its Idol, Sheriff Clarke?

I've been too busy today to listen, but did the righty radio talkers and Citizens for Responsible Government - - the folks who righteously ran Tom Ament out of office - - urge the recall of Sheriff David Clarke?

He and his predecessor, Lev Baldwin, failed to abide by court-ordered jail reforms, opening the door to millions of dollars in payouts to people whose rights were violated while being held in the jail that is managed by the Sheriff.

The story is here: Clarke was Sheriff and jail manager for most of the period cited in what could be a financially ruinous ruling.

Ruinous for the county taxpayers, already shelling out millions in the pension scandal that cost Ament and many supervisors their jobs - - but which was supposed to usher reform into county procedures.

So to the CRG and talk radio. If you haven't begun the process, for consistency's sake, bring it on.

In This Cold Weather, Imagine Commuting On Modern Trains

Had the region's light rail system not been killed in the planning stages in 1997, Milwaukee workers, visiting conventioneers, and commuters from Waukesha County, including students from UW-M, could be riding modern trains instead of skating down slippery highways and icy sidewalks as they head for their destinations.

And had that system been built, the fight over the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter line would have been over long ago, with the line either operating or getting ready to go.

We'd have relearned the lessons lost when Milwaukee's trolleys and the great Inter-Urban system from Oconomowoc to Chicago were torn out to make way for the automobile only.

And both new systems would have worked together to funnel people to and from Mitchell airport, using the new Inter-Modal station downtown, then west through the Menonomee Valley, with service on the drawing board should UW-M get its research park built at the County grounds, not far from the Zoo and the hospital complex.

But:

There was no political will on the part of then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, which was followed by the pension-fund implosion of then-Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament, which was followed by the inspiration-free, risk-averse, talk radio-controlled anti-rail incumbent Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker...and voila! - - Milwaukee remains the largest rail-free (save for Amtrak to Chicago) community in the country.

And we wonder why urban sprawl still eats away at the Milwaukee job market?

Why housing proliferates on farm fields and suburban edges throughout the region?

Why those areas are pushing for Lake Michigan water diversions, along with more highways and interchanges - - even $25 million for an interchange to serve a privately-owned Pabst Farms shopping mall that still lacks local design approval?

Milwaukee is landlocked by a special, 1955 law, hemming in its population.

Without modern transit in the city, and with connections to its neighbors, Milwaukee's growth is stifled - - so a lack of rail is more than an inconvenience on a cold winter day.

McCain's Centrism, Though A Blow Against Extremism, Still Pales Against Obama's Inspiration

Sen. John McCain's victory in Florida indicates that the extreme right's hegemony in the GOP, especially laid down by its talk radio mouthpieces who have been bashing the Arizonan, is being extinguished by fairly traditional Republicans who don't want an ideologue (Mitt Romney), and a flip-flopper, at that.

McCain appeals to middle-of-the-road Republicans who are not anti-immigrant fanatics, flat-earthers or pre-Revolutionary War theocrats. Seems they are taking back their party. Or trying.

An interesting development.

In other words, McCain's got enough Republicanism in him to win at least a plurality against a Romney and a Huckabee, let alone Rudy Giuliani, who was a one-issue candidate with zero sense of timing.

And something like ten million bucks of other people's money down the drain.

Now we'll see how the Democrats respond, assuming it becomes also a two-person race, with former Sen. John Edwards bowing out, probably after Super-Duper Tuesday. (And without any Rudyesque embarrassment.)

A face-off between Sen. Barack Obama and McCain replays the 1960 John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon race. Youth and vigor against age and establishmentarianism.

Advantage, Obama.

If it's a contest between Sen. Hillary Clinton and McCain, it's a closer call, but Clinton still wins, because at the national level, after years of Bush-Cheney, change is in the air.

With his support of the Iraq War and surge, McCain won't be able to disengage himself from Bush on what it was that defined Bush's presidency and dragged the country through hell since 2003.

The Best Location For Density Is In Cities

This battle over a proposed rural subdivision in Dane County is a perfect illustration of why development and density are best concentrated in places where there already are services, infrastructure and amenities:

Cities.

By The Numbers: 1000 Friends Of Wisconsin, 10 Reasons To Oppose I-94 Expansion, 1 Succinct News Release

1000 Friends of Wisconsin...10 reasons to oppose expanding I-94...1 succinct news release: these are the only numbers that make any sense when considering how the state transportation department intends to spend $1.9 billion of your/our money from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line.

The group's listing of the Top Ten reasons it opposes the next segment of the region's probable highway expansion plan is here.

Spoiler alert:

Among some of the main reasons to oppose the plan: It will raise taxes.

Musings On The GOP Vote In Florida

I found it interesting that in the last 24 hours of GOP electioneering in Florida, the two favorites, US Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, accused each other of the worst of heresies: liberalism.

I mean, what could be worse than any hint of liberal thinking in a Presidential candidate's brain or background?

To me, liberalism has always connoted open-mindedness and tolerance.

And in the nation's history, liberal politics gave us Social Security, Medicare, The Clean Water Act, The Clean Air Act, The Civil Rights Act, Rural Electrification and a host of other programs that most Americans use, support and take for granted.

Liberals let conservatives like Rush Limbaugh demonize the term and substitute their own false definitions for liberal and liberalism.

Liberals need to reclaim the language, be in charge of defining it, never apologize for it and certainly not run from it.

The Green Side of New Berlin, On The Web

New Berlin is often in the news and associations with environmentalism there are not particularly strong.

Its State Senator, Mary Lazich (R), is leading the fight in the legislature against a strong Great Lakes Compact bill for Wisconsin, partnering with a states-rights ally in Ohio who is stalling the water conservation agreement there, too.

Lazich has been backed by the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, and its allies, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Metropolitan Builders Association.

And New Berlin is pushing for precedent-setting permission to obtain Lake Michigan water for acreage west of the subcontinental divide, where new development, along with a water park, could use an infusion of fresh water piped in from the Big Lake.

But there is a regular web presence posted by the Ecology Association of New Berlin that is raising awareness about the Compact, climate change and other pressing environmental issues.

Check it out.

Climate Change's Severe Storms Hit China

Wonder how many climate change deniers are left in China, where the worst snow storms in 50 years have caused massive problems.

What does 600,000 people stranded at one train station even look like? That's nearly equal to the entire population of Milwaukee!

Wisconsin Groups Reveal Deficiencies In Regional Highway And Water Plans

Four Wisconsin legal and environmental organizations filed extensive comments last week with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, noting substantial flaws with the department's plans to rebuild and expand I-94 south of Milwaukee.

You can read the comments through this link to the group 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, which is one of the four organizations making the joint filing.

In a nutshell, the comments document why the project should be redrafted.

The comments also provide another valuable analysis of how major project expenditures in our region exclude minority and low-income taxpayers.

The department's proposes spending $1.9 billion in a 38-mile corridor between Mitchell airport and the Illinois state line, but not a penny for rail or other transit components, and without regard to Environmental Justice issues spelled out in the comments.

The Milwaukee Common Council has also objected to the highway-only spending, so these criticisms have spread into mainstream political and governmental actions.

And this analysis has also been made clear in a related issue - - water supply planning - - where development, transportation, housing and land use also are arguably distorted by a lack of planners' fundamental fairness.

In November, a coalition of legal and environmental organizations - - some also supporting the highway critique - - wrote to the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and alleging a lack of compliance with key federal justice regulations in the structuring and planning of the water study committee's work.

The 32-member, all-white and heavily suburban committee is writing a set of recommendations for water distribution across the SEWRPC seven-county region.

The groups' letter was distributed with the committee's November 27, 2007 packet, but has not yet been posted on the commission's website.

The letter's opening paragraph was an attention-getter, much like the detail and import in the highway commentary, too.

So you'd think that savvy people at both SEWRPC and the transportation would take these legal missives to heart. Hard to know. Hard to tell. But here's how the letter began:

"We are writing," said the organizations to SEWRPC, "to express concern that the SEWRPC Water Supply Study appears to be operating in violation of federal civil rights regulations and environmental justice requirements.

"We are requesting that you immediately distribute copies of this letter to all Water Supply Study advisory committee members and to all Environmental Justice Task Force members.

"We do not believe this study can or should be completed until there is meaningful participation from, and the inclusion of meaningful outcomes for, minority and low-income communities in our region."

UW-M Prof., Conservative Columnist Debate Water, Race And Class

The debate over water sales to the suburbs continues to expand, and that's a good thing, because people need to be heard on the issue, and as UW-M Professor Bill Washabaugh tells the Journal Sentinel's Patrick McIllheran, it's all not as simple as McIllheran believes.

Their debate is included in a posting by McIllheran, who also reprints in full a response by Washabaugh to something McIllheran had written Sunday.

Washabaugh is a sociologist, and there is a deep reservoir of social attitudes and regional history that water sales - - just the latest spur to suburban growth - - have and will continue to influence.

Credit both of them with putting their arguments out there for the public to absorb.

Water Rate Reform Rises To The Surface In New Berlin

This is the pressure of the pending Great Lakes Compact, and some mixed feelings on the Milwaukee Common Council at work - - New Berlin is considering some charging large users of water higher rates to encourage water conservation.

The outcome of the planning will be instructive, as for every water conservationist in New Berlin politics, it seems there are two free-marketers who want less regulation, not more.

The City of Waukesha implemented a version of a rate alteration, but it affected few users. New Berlin may go beyond Waukesha.

Let's wait and see what the details are, but encourage New Berlin and others to stay on this path.

Barrett's Perspective On The Great Lakes Compact Is Crucial

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett joins the growing chorus of support for adoption of the Great Lakes Compact with an op-ed in Sunday's Journal Sentinel Crossroads section.

Of the political leaders in the state, Barrett is perhaps in the toughest spot when it comes to the Great Lakes Compact.

He has made clear his opposition to selling water to suburbs outside of the Great Lakes basin until the Compact is approved by the Wisconsin legislature.

That would provide some standards and guidelines for such water sales - - procedures that would make the diversion application and conservation measures within the Compact reasonable and rational - - and, importantly, bring the entire process into line with existing federal law.

But Barrett and the city have been jammed by pressures from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to begin those water sales negotiations now with the City of New Berlin, and then with the City of Waukesha sure to follow.

That is because the DNR either assumes that the Compact will get adopted by the Wisconsin legislature (a shaky proposition, given opposition to date in among an alliance in the State Assembly, the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, among others)... or the DNR believes that it has the power to approve water sales without either the Compact in place or the federal law being followed.

The history of that DNR belief, despite a detailed opinion to the contrary issued by the Wisconsin Attorney General in December, 2006, and continually unreported by the traditional news media, is here.

Those aggressive and risky DNR scenarios are fraught with political and legal pitfalls, so the cleanest thing to happen would be the adoption of the Compact - - which Barrett, many legislators, editorial writers, conservation groups and even some political leaders in Waukesha County say they also want - - and then diversion applications for water sales could follow the Compact procedures and be aligned with federal legal dictates, too.

As the Mayor of the largest city in the state, where the Common Council has also taken strong, pro-Compact positions - - for years - - and from which diversions might be had if terms can be negotiated within the language of the Compact and the law, Barrett's point-of-view is crucial to the debate.

With the Compact's introduction in the legislature a matter of days away, Milwaukee's position, as articulated by Barrett and the Common Council, should carry significant sway in the debate.

Murphy Oil Spill Victims In Louisiana Have A Website

As Murphy Oil moves towards applying for a permit to expand seven-fold its refinery on 400-500 acres of wetlands in Superior, WI, there is interesting reading embedded in a website created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's damage to the neighborhoods around its refinery there.

Washington Post Highlights Economic Losses Tied To Lowered Great Lake Levels

The Washington Post does an excellent job cataloguing the economic hardships that have come with falling water levels in the Great Lakes.

Other than one off-note about the falling levels perhaps being appreciated by beachgoers, the story adds information to the explanations for why the levels are falling, as well as journalistic weight to the need for the approval of the pending Great Lakes Compact.

Briggs & Stratton CEO Urges "Positive" Tone, Then Has A Counter-Productive Meltown Himself

John Shiely, Briggs & Stratton's CEO, adds to the uproar over Milwaukee's business climate with an op-ed in Sunday's Journal Sentinel Crossroads section.

Some people just don't know when to quit.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an outbreak of debate over the business climate in these parts that began with a column by Steve Jagler, editor of The Small Business Times.

Jagler criticized Shiely and other business leaders for negativity about Milwaukee expressed at a Public Policy Forum discussion - - and then others weighed in, including this blog.

In Part, Jagler wrote:

"Shiely criticized the collective mindset of Milwaukee, saying the region is more likely to have a great-grandson of "one of Milwaukee's socialist mayors" denounce the gap in salaries between CEOs and front-line workers than it is to encourage the creation of wealth.

"That shouldn't be … You just don't hear the 'two Americas' rhetoric (down South)," Shiely said."

There are two strange thing about Shiely's Crossroads piece.

First, there is the repetition of that irrelevant, old-timey anti-socialist rhetoric.

The second is how much space is devoted to a personal and family attack on Michael Rosen, blogger and economics teacher at MATC.

Rosen had responded to the business leaders remarks at the Forum meeting with an op-ed that the Journal Sentinel ran in the Crossroads section January 18th.

It comes just a few sentences after Shiely bemoans the lack of "positive" attitudes towards corporate leaders and their roles in the economy.

Seems Shiely is out to settle some old scores, reprising decades-old company history in which Rosen's sister played a role as a union leader.

Shiely complains about how politicians and media behaved - - back when Henry Maier was Mayor.

It's information about which an entire generation of Crossroads readers probably knows nothing, and from which everyone else has moved on.

Or should move past, since harboring such resentments is unhealthy, and airing them doesn't do much for the community's spirit, either.

In his Crossroads piece, Shiely explains what it was that so upsets him about Milwaukee that led to his remarks at the Public Policy Forum event.

"I suggested that the most important thing Milwaukee community leaders could do to improve our prospects for economic development in this region was to bury the vestiges of the old Milwaukee socialist ethic by abandoning the local zero-sum culture that views all wealth creation as coming at someone's expense and embrace an integrative, pie-expanding view. "

Later, he labels the piece Rosen had written previously for the same Sunday section as a "neosocialist rant."

As the Milwaukee Journal Labor Reporter in the early 1980's, I covered the situation at Briggs & Stratton, and other businesses and unions which were going through difficult times.

There had been a severe downturn in the US, Wisconsin and Milwaukee-area economies in the late 70's and early 80's.

There were structural changes foisted on companies and workers alike. There were strikes, layoffs, concessions.

And at Briggs & Stratton, as I remember it, there was a hard line on both sides. The strike went on for several months, then was settled.

It was contentious, and there was fallout everywhere, but my goodness, it was 25 years ago.

And as the newspaper itself points out Sunday in an editorial not aimed at either Shiely, or Rosen, there are plenty of things that business leaders can do to help grow the area, like the push for commuter rail.

As the paper says, and the boldfaced type is just below the headline:

"Business leaders need to make their political counterparts understand that a transportation system including commuter rail is essential to the region's economic health."

Now there's something positive to do - - today.

Journal Sentinel Gets On Board The KRM

The Journal Sentinel editorial board makes a strong case for commuter rail, and urges business leaders to twist a few arms in the legislature to move it forward.

What's Wrong With A Bigger Oil Refinery In Superior?

On The Fighting Bob Blog, the reasons are enumerated.

And isn't it ironic, perhaps lamentable is a better word, that the permit applications to ramp up refining at the Murphy Oil facility in Superior seven-fold are being formulated just as the Great Lakes Compact is to be debated in Wisconsin?

The Compact is an effort to preserve the Great Lakes: other efforts are underway to address invasive species and other water quality issues, as consciousness grows nationally and internationally about the many threats to the planet's fresh water - - and 20% of the world's supply of fresh surface water are the Great Lakes.

So on the one hand in Wisconsin, which is getting into the game late there will be in a week or two a full-court legislative press to adopt the Compact and help secure water conservation in the Great Lakes.

On the other hand, there will be a push to bring the big refinery expansion online, on hundreds of acres of filled-in Lake Superior wetlands, using Lake Superior water by the millions of gallons daily in production, with inevitable airborne pollutants or straight-up toxic seepage finding their way into Lake Superior - - still the cleanest of the five Great Lakes.

Suggests something of a disconnect in Great Lakes stewardship in our state, doesn't it?

Here We Go Again: Dirty Air Statewide

Bad air quality forecast for the entire state Sunday, according to the
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Remember that the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce wants air quality standards relaxed in southeastern Wisconsin.

Here's how the DNR put it in an email alert late Saturday:

Air Quality Watch for Particle Pollution effective Sunday, January 27, 2008 12:01:00 AM through Sunday, January 27, 2008 11:59:59 PM for all counties.

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and outdoor fires
.
The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities during the watch period.

People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms.

Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.

To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.

There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this regional air quality problem.

Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.
Postpone activities that use small gasoline and diesel engines.
Minimize outdoor wood fires.
Conserve electricity.
For more ideas on how you can reduce your emissions t oday and every day visit: Do a little, save a lot!

For more information:
Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov/
DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards
For local DNR air management program contacts, http://dnr.wi.gov/air/about/regions.htm

Public And Private Sector Leaders Note Job Growth In Milwaukee

It was refreshing to see local Milwaukee leaders join state Workforce Development Secretary Roberta Gassman in highlighting job growth in Milwaukee's central city.

With the myriad difficulties pairing central city job-seekers to employment in distant suburbs, nurturing work as close as possible to the heart of the employment pool makes the most sense.

When A Blogger Should Stop Typing

Oh, dear.

From The Grassroots, Climate Change Solutions Reach The Governor's Task Force

The Madison Capital Times publishes proposals designed to advance the proposals put forth by Gov. Jim Doyle to address climate change.

Good to see momentum. If government and a range of organizations like Wisconsin Environment can merge their ideas and resources with a sense of urgency, good things can happen for which our children and grandchildren will be grateful.

Guest Posting On A $1.9 Billion Boondoggle

Steve Filmanowicz, communications director for the Congress for the New Urbanism, sent thoughtful and informed comments to the state transportation department on its plan to spend $1.9 billion to rebuild I-94 from Mitchell airport south to Illinois.

The CNU is directed by former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, for whom Steve and I worked: Steve was kind enough to send me a copy of what he wrote while on Amtrak (try that in your car!) and to allow its posting:

By Stephen Filmanowicz

Although the costs involved are enormous, the planning for the rebuilding of I-94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line has completely lacked any rigorous cost-benefit analysis and has resulted in a deeply flawed conclusion to extensively re-engineer and expand this stretch of freeway.

The planning is based on outdated assumptions about low-priced gasoline (projecting years of sub-$2.50 per gallon gasoline, even though prices like that are a thing of the past).

Now and in the future, our country depends on oil from the Canadian tar sands, which is expensive to extract. SEWRPC and the DOT function too much like creaky old bureaucracies -- they need to synthesize new information like this much more efficiently.

The plan is based on equally outdated assumptions about the acceptability of Vehicle Miles Traveled growth and resulting growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

Since our governor has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state to levels at or below 1990, this plan to improve freeways must be tested to determine its effect on greenhouse gas emissions, factoring in the VMT growth anticipated in this highway plan and expected improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency under current laws.

The latest research, including the Growing Cooler report issued by the Urban Land Institute and its lead researcher from the University of Maryland, concludes that status quo planning of this type will result in rising -- not falling greenhouse gas emissions -- even after fuel efficiency gains take effect.

Instead, we need coordinated transportation and land-use planning to encourage clustered development that is more conducive to transit use.

This type of planning and development is succeeding in regions such as Washington DC, which is seeing a flurry of high-value development around its Metro rail stations and a weakening market for housing in far-off exurbs where residents face long commutes.

Denver and other communities are making plans to intensively develop around rail and it's high time such progressive comprehensive transportation and land-use planning comes to Wisconsin.

For these reasons, I strongly oppose this overpriced and counterproductive plan.

The latest report from the Texas Transportation shows that the Milwaukee region ranks 52nd in highway congestion. Without any structural changes to the highway system, the length of the Milwaukee commute has been falling, along with hours lost to congestion.

The continuing high price of gas obviously is playing a role in reducing highway driving. So what is the justification for driving up the price of this project by hundreds of millions of dollars with extensive re-engineering (on-ramp lengthenings and lane widenings) as well as the addition of lanes along the entire length of the project?

SE Wisconsin is growing modestly and its residents are looking for transportation options including rail and improvements to local roads, not more of our tax dollars poured into overbuilt highways.

When there are clear signs that these highways are straining from too much congestion -- is there even a daily rush hour visible on I-94 near Racine or Kenosha?? -- then it's time for us to consider spending hundreds of millions of our gas tax dollars on these projects.

Until then, do the responsible thing and rebuild I-94 at its current width with modest safety-related improvements.

And one final message: Do not seek to raise the gas tax or license fees by one penny to pay for this bloated project or others like it around the state.

Sincerely,

Stephen Filmanowicz

Both National Parties' Dynastic Figures Are Torching Their Bases

I hate to admit it, but former President Bill Clinton is a negative force out there on the campaign trail, and the Democratic Party, seeing its best chance to win the White House in eight years, is being fractured by the Democrats' once-most effective ex-President.

And Pres. George W. Bush?

He's destroyed the GOP, says a party insider, Peggy Noonan, who crafted the Reagan message so effectively.

I figure the party that puts forward the freshest face, with the least connections to older administrations, is the one that wins the White House and Congress.

Get Involved In Online Anti Gun-Violence Effort

The Wisconsin Anti-Violence Educational Effort is mounting an online campaign to broaden gun registration in the state at the time of sales.

Read and join, here.

Pabst Farms Mall, Modified, Is Still Big-Box Heaven On The Road to Sprawlville

Chapter XI on The Road To Sprawlville finds a new pond planned for Lake Country:

Developers of the proposed upscale shopping mall at Pabst Farms, anxious to preserve $25 million in financing pledges to build the full-bore "Diamond" interchange at I-94 and State Highway 67,, have made some changes to the mall's design, and the City of Oconomowoc will probably mute its criticisms and keep the project moving forward.

The City of Oconomowoc already has sunk $24 million in tax increment financing into the Pabst Farms development for roads and other infrastructure, and only has to put up $400,000 to get the interchange into the ground (a sweet deal, as the state is the big donor at $21.9 million), so the city is unlikely to demand any more concessions from the mall's designers.

The next stages of home building on the 1,500-acre site have been delayed a year because of the housing market downturn; killing off or side-tracking the mall might devalue the subdivisions and retail business now in the development, so my guess is that the mall will gets its city approvals.

And the interchange planning, now a major activity at the state transportation department's District Two offices in Waukesha, will continue to stay on the fast track.

Regional cooperation, west of 124th St., is when the County, a municipality, the transportation department, the regional planning commission (SEWRPC is facilitating the addition of the interchange to the area's highway spending priorities) and private businesses come together to spend money and lay concrete.

(No rail or bus connection into and out of Pabst Farms, even to nearby by downtown Waukesha, fyi.)

The modifications to the sit plan to accommodate the mall include a pond at the interchange (in what used to be genuinely known as Lake Country, this gesture to the past, as an ornament, is pathetically paradoxical).

Other aesthetic tweaks slightly reorient the location of the big box stores, though they will still show their backs to motorists - - a throwback away from modern city planning principles, and a victory for the developers who said that's the way it has to be.

Waukesha County residents are on the hook for a $1.75 million contribution to the interchange (as is the mall developer), and even though the region is at the heart of the anti-taxing rebellion, my guess is that most taxpayers won't object to a spiffy new shortcut off the interstate to a new brace of big box stores and the kind of stores you see at Mayfair.

Patrick McIlheran Post On Water Issues Makes Little Sense

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's in-house conservative blogger and columnist casts aspersions everywhere in a fear-driven posting about the Great Lakes Compact and an opinion poll which his newspaper apparently covered too neutrally for his tastes.

Darn that fact-based reporting! It's so...so...objective!

Anti-Compact forces must be really see storm warnings on the horizon, if McIlheran is their barometer.

You can read his posting here.

Milwaukee Council Moves On Water Deserve Praise

Milwaukee aldermen deserve the thanks of every resident of the entire region for committee actions they took Wednesday on water sales to the suburbs:

They lauded Elm Grove for endorsing better transit links to Milwaukee, indicating a water deal to that suburb could be easily worked out.

And the committee delayed renewing an existing arrangement to sell water to Menomonee Falls.

That suburb showed no inclination to support affordable housing and a county bus line through Menomonee Falls for Milwaukee workers - - Route 9 - - that was allowed to die January 1 without the suburb's help.

I say: good for the aldermen, led by westsider Michael Murphy, who has worked hard for years to put substance into the rhetoric about regional cooperation.

That's why I said at the outset that the Council committee's action was important for the region, because without substance, real planning that involves all the people of the region, without genuine coordination of services and opportunities, regionalism will be nothing but an empty shell, a bumper sticker, and little more.

If the cities of New Berlin and Waukesha, which are seeking diversions of Lake Michigan water through Milwaukee are not grasping the import of the Council committee's action, they better hire new lobbyists that understand the Council committee is speaking directly to them.

To date, those suburbs have been anything but welcoming to the idea of sharing development gains based on water sales, or generally to the idea of tying water to larger growth and infrastructure issues.

State Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin), has called those ideas "extortion," and the Waukesha Water Utility ran for cover when a legal consultant suggested, in writing, that so-called "tax sharing" arrangements were the key to water sales with Milwaukee.

All that history is here.

The death of Route 9, as I wrote on this blog several times in December, and in an op-ed in the Journal Sentinel Crossroads section a couple of weeks ago, had tremendous symbolic and real meaning across Milwaukee.

It was dismissive of low-income workers - - representing a large chunk of the population in the city - - who are walled off from housing and jobs in the suburbs by zoning that bars modest-sized homes, or affordable lots, as well as multi-family residences.

Workers making $9-an-hour cannot afford to build a house in a community where lots have to be two-to-five acres. They look for apartments, but many suburbs have few or none - - by design.

If you cut off the bus service to their jobs, you are doing more than putting their survival on the line - - you are completely eliminating the suburbs from low-income Milwaukeans' experience.

Are the suburbs in favor of cooperation, of interaction, of truly open borders, or are they enforcing a sneaky kind of economic apartheid?

Think about it.

It's hardly the way to win a water deal from Milwaukee elected officials.

And the collapse of Route 9 came just as Waukesha County officials who couldn't find $100,000 for the bus line quickly located $1.75 million to help pay for a new ramp off I-94 to bring shoppers to an upscale mall at Pabst Farms - - for a mall that has yet to be designed, let alone approved.

In a development of 1,200 upper-income homes with zero apartments.

And the state transportation department blundered into this political thicket, and further reinforced the one-dimensionality of the highways/transit imbalance in the region, by announcing it planned to spend $1.9 billion on I-94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois line.

True to all its institutional biases, the department didn't commit a penny to funding a commuter rail line in the same corridor that is ready to go and could relieve the looming decade of congestion when the I-94 work begins later this year.

Transit? Transportation options?

The conventional regional wisdom about that, once you get out of Milwaukee (exception: Elm Grove, so get them the water ASAP) is:

Fuggetaboutit.

Buy yourself a car.

That was, in fact, the Scott Walker solution when he helped kill the Downtown (electric bus) Connector in 2007 - - and that was from the official purportedly in charge of the region's largest bus service.

Milwaukee and the suburbs need each other for their mutual success, and for the region to be healthy.

Tone-deaf, politically-insensitive suburban leaders are constricting Milwaukee's already hard-pressed workers (also a heavily-minority population), after having stuck a stick in their collective eye again and again (defeat of regional light rail in 1997, don't forget) - - so now there is gutsy pushback at the Milwaukee Common Council.

In December, there was a simple, relatively inexpensive solution on the table. For $100,000, state officials, Waukesha County and suburban leaders could have reinforced an important link among the communities and residents along the two counties' borders.

And showed their good faith in,and commitment to regionalism.

Now there is a lot more work to do to repair the breach.

Anybody out in New Berlin and Waukesha City and County even listening?

Whole Foods To Drop Plastic Bags

Good plan, as described in the Madison Capital Times.

Better than having Big Guvmint mandate it, some readers will argue.

I don't care which way it happens. Just get on with it.

1/25 Public Comment Deadline About I-94 Expansion To IL Approaching

Less than 48 hours remaining to tell the Wisconsin Department of Transportation that spending $1.9 billion to rebuild and expand I-94 from Mitchell airport to the Illinois line - - without launching a parallel commuter train system, too - - is a wasteful, short-sighted one-sided boondoggle.

But use your own words, and send your comments to:
dotsefreeways94nsc@dot.state.wi.us

The comment period closes at the end of the day, Friday, January 25 - - and thanks to our good friends in the Bush administration's Federal Highway Administration for telling the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to extend the comment deadline past the '07 end-of-the-year busy holiday season.

Doyle Touts Energy Initiatives, Impending Great Lakes Compact Legislation

In his State of the Street address Wednesday night (full text here), Gov. Jim Doyle had this to say about the Great Lakes Compact, the pending and controversial water management agreement dormant in the state legislature since its preliminary approval by the Great Lakes Governors in December, 2005:

"Protecting the Great Lakes

"To build a bright future for Wisconsin we must continue to reach across the aisle, put partisanship aside, and focus on the incredible assets we have in this state.

"From the majestic shores of Lake Michigan to the brutal and beautiful waters of Lake Superior, the Great Lakes are Wisconsin’s most precious natural resource.

"But the Great Lakes face many new challenges. Regions of the country that have overbuilt look at our freshwater with an envious eye.

"As Chair of the Council of Great Lakes Governors I along with my fellow Governors have taken aggressive action, signing the Great Lakes Compact to preserve and protect our fresh water for generations.

"In the coming weeks, leaders in the Legislature will introduce a bipartisan plan to approve the Great Lakes Compact.

"I want to thank Democrats and Republicans for helping to move the compact forward.

"Let’s continue to work together to ratify and implement this historic agreement and ensure that our Great Lakes remain protected forever."

He gave no details. The bill may be introduced in a few days.

Doyle also announced renewable energy initiatives that take advantage of the state's agricultural and manufacturing industries, attract investment, and which could help Wisconsin contribute solutions to global warming.

Here is what the prepared text had to say about these matters and several related proposals:

Creating Renewable Energy

"We have set Wisconsin on the right course to seize new economic opportunities and lead our nation’s response to one of the most critical challenges of our time.

"Our addiction to foreign oil is compromising our national security, paralyzing our economy, and melting the polar ice caps. The global threat of climate change is undeniable. Temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere have reached their warmest point in over two thousand years.

"A barrel of oil has topped $100… and just look at the price of gasoline at the pump – nearly double what it was just five years ago. The oil companies don’t care. They’re making the biggest profits in history. Our country is sending over a billion dollars a week in oil payments to the Middle East.

"Just imagine if we were investing that kind of money right here in Wisconsin.

Energy Accomplishments

"I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we should depend more on the Midwest and less on the Mideast, and today we are. Since I became Governor, we’ve worked together to increase production of Wisconsin-made ethanol from zero gallons to half a billion gallons per year.

"Last fall, I brought governors from across the Midwest together in Milwaukee to chart a new energy direction for our region and our world.

"At the University of Wisconsin-Madison we are launching the Great Lakes BioEnergy Research Center bringing together researchers from five other universities across the country. Our nation’s dependence on foreign oil must end, but drilling our way out of this crisis is not the answer.

"We must invent and innovate our way to a cleaner, safer energy future. …and tonight, from generating wind power in Fond du Lac to harnessing the power of biomass in Rice Lake, Wisconsin is ready to lead the way.

Energy Independence Fund

Tonight we’ll launch an aggressive new strategy to reduce the pollution that causes global warming and grow Wisconsin’s economy – the Wisconsin Energy Independence Fund – a major new investment to make Wisconsin a world leader in renewable energy and homegrown power.

"Over the next 10 years Wisconsin will invest $150 million to help our businesses, our farmers, our foresters, and our manufacturers produce and promote renewable energy.

"Our strong manufacturing base and rich agricultural industries, along with the wealth of resources in our vast northern forests and world-leading research universities, position Wisconsin to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.

"From manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels to retro-fitting fuel pumps and exploring the latest clean technologies, we will seize green opportunities and create good jobs for our citizens.

"But we won’t stop there.

Renewable Fuel Initiative

"Tonight we’ll launch a new campaign to increase the availability of renewable fuel by 1 billion gallons.

"First we’ll provide new tax credits for biodiesel fuel producers and add 400 new renewable fuel pumps to our roads.

"Second let’s pass a renewable fuel standard sponsored by Senator Kreitlow and Representative Suder to require oil companies to provide renewable fuel for our consumers.

Energy Efficiency

"Energy costs continue to rise and Wisconsin families deserve relief. Over the next 18 months, we will make another historic investment – $95 million – to help save families and businesses over half a billion dollars over the next decade."

The Road To Sprawlville Is, Well, A Private Road: Chapter IX

This installment of our ongoing series, The Road To Sprawlville, is about the unintended consequences of plopping a house here, and a house there, on large lot.

The opposite of that curse, urban density!

Turns out over in Germantown that when you restrict lots size to five acres, so few properties are built and so few tax dollars collected that private roads to the houses are the only way to provide them.

Interesting story in the Daily Reporter.

Milwaukee Aldermen, Tired Of Being Kicked In The Teeth, Fight Back On The Water And Transit Issues

Good for Milwaukee aldermen who are showing more spine in their struggles to link water, transit and employment in something approaching substantive regional cooperation.

I was especially pleased to see the Aldermen citing the disgraceful elimination of County Bus Route 9, which served low-income city residents with a transit line to their jobs in Waukesha County - - where low-income housing is virtually non-existent.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel News Watch blog Wednesday afternoon:

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 23, 2008, 4:39 p.m.

By Larry Sandler
City panel holds up water deal

After pointed comments about lack of cooperation on public transit and affordable housing, a Milwaukee Common Council committee delayed action today on renewing a 10-year, $1.3-million-a-year deal to sell water to Menomonee Falls.

By contrast, a study of selling water to Elm Grove easily sailed through the same panel after Elm Grove Village President Neil Palmer voiced enthusiastic support for regional cooperation and said he wished his community could be connected to downtown Milwaukee by a light rail line.

The debate before the council's Public Works Committee was the latest example of Milwaukee aldermen trying to use water as a tool to pull the suburbs into talks on other regional issues.

Similar questions were raised last year, when the city agreed to start negotiations on boosting water sales to New Berlin.

Suburban officials see access to clean water as a key factor in their communities' development. Urban leaders generally want to see more compact development and believe suburbs should share the city's social costs if they benefit from their proximity to the city.

"When we talk about regional cooperation in this community, it's very much a one-sided approach," Ald. Michael Murphy complained.

Menomonee Falls benefits from Milwaukee water, but municipal governments and businesses in Menomonee Falls and Butler refused to help Waukesha County pay for a Milwaukee County Transit System bus route that carried some 70 Milwaukee residents each day to Waukesha County jobs, said Murphy and Ald. Bob Bauman.

Some of those Milwaukeeans likely lost their jobs when Route 9 shut down a few weeks ago, Murphy said.

Those low-income workers also couldn't move closer to their jobs, because the suburbs have little affordable housing, noted Murphy and Ald. Willie Wade.

"Having decent, family-supporting jobs does more to fight crime than having armies of police," Murphy said.

Root River Communities Want A River For Recreation...

...But it's also where Waukesha is aiming to send treated, diverted water back to Lake Michigan, not necessarily year-around, should it win a diversion.

Which means, should the Department of Natural Resources approve, a) there will be more water in the river, b) a lot more water during storm events, c) possible water out of the banks, effecting the shoreline and banks, and d), of course, the water will have to be cleaned scrupulously prior to its discharge.

After all, as the river passes through Racine, there's a DNR fish hatchery on the route.

These are big issues - - environmentally, and fiscally - - perhaps contradictory.

Are the Root River communities downstream from Waukesha talking to the DNR about the Waukesha discharge plan?

Poll Indicates 80% Support For Great Lakes Compact

A poll commissioned by Wisconsin conservation groups, conducted by the UW Survey Center and released Monday, indicates 80% support statewide for adoption of the Great Lakes Compact.

That's good news for advocates of the Compact, and for backers of strong water conservation policy in Wisconsin and across the Great Lakes.

Details provided by the environmental group Clean Wisconsin to the Superior Daily Telegram indicate widespread bi-partisan support for a strong version of the Compact, with pro-Compact sentiment also measured both near the Great Lakes, and in communities far from the Great Lakes basin in Wisconsin, too.

Among the poll findings, as reported by the Daily Telegram:

"• 86 percent say it is important to provide further oversight and regulation before bottling and selling Great Lakes water.

"• 86 percent say it is important to prevent local communities from changing boundaries to qualify to take water from the Great Lakes.

"• 94 percent say it is important to require local communities to use water conservation programs before increasing use of Great Lakes water.

"The vast majority of those surveyed indicated they favor programs in their communities to help conserve water, and think dropping water levels in Wisconsin’s lakes, streams and groundwater is a serious problem."

The Journal Sentinel's coverage is here.

Legislation to approve the Compact has been stalled in Wisconsin since the eight-state agreement was approved by the Great Lakes states' governors in December, 2005.

A Wisconsin bill is expected to be introduced within ten days, but its specific language is apparently still being tweaked at the State Capitol, as proponents of various versions of the legislation with differing water conservation and diversion management measures are being pushed by Compact supporters or opponents.

The poll should inform legislators that Wisconsinites want a strong bill, not one shot through with loopholes and exemptions that weaken, not strengthen, the Compact's water preservation goals.

It took more than four years to negotiate the draft Compact: exceptions for the bottled water industry and diversion standards for communities outside of the Great Lakes basin remain key points of contention among Compact supporters and foes.

Wisconsin is the only state without a bill under review. Illinois and Minnesota have approved the Compact, and other states have versions under debate, or through one legislative house.

Cuprisin Tracks Conservative Talkers' Delicious Cat Fight

Tim Cuprisin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel TV and Radio critic, has been blogging about the intriguing internecine war among righty talkers over which Republican candidates are the most politically correct.

Michael Medved, a conservative pundit whom Cuprisin quotes, suggests that the radio war led by Rush Limbaugh and other talkers against GOP candidates like Mike Huckabee and John McCain could kill the medium because those talkers were offending the base.

Said Medved, after Huckabee and McCain ran 1-2 in the South Carolina primary, while the national talkers' candidates were losers:

"The talk radio jihad against Mac and Huck hasn’t destroyed or even visibly damaged those candidates. But it has damaged, and may help destroy, talk radio"

Kill talk radio?

Led over the political cliff by Rush Limbaugh and his minions?

Be still, my heart.

Congress, The Fed And The President

Why are they all scrambling to head off a recession, prop up the stock market and infuse some capital into the housing market?

It's an election year.

More Double-Standards To Defeat Rail Transit, Wreck Regional Cooperation

I have often written about the imbalances in transportation planning and implementation in our region.

Billions for highways, zip for rail, with the $6.5 billion for rebuilt highways and 120 new miles of regional lanes, $0 dollars for rail or transit upgrades or additions as exhibit #1.

Now there's more.

State Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine), signing onto legislation to allow binding referenda on rail transit systems and their funding - - but nothing equivalent on highway expansion.

His bill would give small communities the ability to block rail systems in nearby cities, and in Milwaukee, require the referendums to be county-wide, thus diminishing the voting power in the City of Milwaukee.

This anti-urban, anti-rail phobia is reminiscent of a provision added to the state budget some years ago by then Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, (R-Town of Brookfield), to ban any state spending on light rail planning, period.

So much for regional cooperation, or balanced transportation.

If Real Estate Values Fall Across The Board...

And municipal budgets across Wisconsin are based on property tax collections levied on devalued properties, and levy increases are limited by law:

What happens to municipal budgets and services, debt obligations, pension payouts and a host of other responsibilities?

I have posed this question before on this blog, dating back to September, when I said the biggest threat to municipal budgets was not the stalled state budget - - it was the threat wrapped up in a housing market decline, and a recession.

Paul Soglin comes at this general subject with some useful historical perspective, too. This is George W. Bush's Iraq War recession.

I don't have an answer, or a ten-point plan to bring about fiscal stability - - except having nerer begun the $250-million-a-day war in Iraq would have kept us out of it in the first place..

But I do know the obvious: most public budgets are made up of salaries and benefits to pay for the delivery of services.

So a municipality would have to have one heck of a rainy day fund, or massive new development solidly in the ground, or plenty of unused borrowing authority in hand to avoid layoffs and profound service cuts.

For an entity like Milwaukee County, already facing severe problems due to years of pension scandals, the results could devastating.

Environmental Advocates Endorse Sam McGovern-Rowen For Milwaukee Alderman

I have mentioned on my blog that our son Sam is running for Alderman in Milwaukee's Third District - -the district where Susan and I also live.

His campaign has posted a statement of support from several leading environmental, Smart Growth and land use advocates who cite his coordinated sustainable work in the District, opposition to Great Lakes diversions and Milwaukee River protections.

You can read the statement here. My wife and I, both with experience in various environmental causes and campaigns, are happy to identify ourselves with the people signing the statement, and of course, support Sam for the same reasons...and others.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's Role In Environmental Justice

A program underway at Yale University is exploring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's role in environmental justice.

Dr. King had an agenda that was broadening beyond the Civil Rights movement prior to his assassination, making it all the more tragic.

Gaps in SEWRPC Mindset, Performance, Require An Overhaul

Thanks to the Internet, you can read the extensive, detailed comments the Sierra Club made recently to several agencies and officials on regional transportation issues.

It's really well-done, a first-rate collection of finely written and researched commentaries by a few people, particularly about state transportation policy and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's (SEWRPC) work on some transportation plans.

Which got me thinking:

If local, state and regional agencies would put the same time and energy into comprehensive planning that is reflected in the Sierra Club's analyses of important issues, we'd have something reflecting comprehensive planning coming out of SEWRPC, for example.

But stodgy SEWRPC's model - - its practice, if you will - - is the repetitive creation of separate studies and plans on major themes as if they were isolated, and not integrated.

Each in its silo, so to speak.

That explains how SEWRPC could commit to a three-year regional water supply study without regard to fundamental environmental justice considerations for groups excluded from the process.

Or an awareness of how recommending diversions of Lake Michigan water to fast-growing suburbs might have impacts on the region's employment, transportation and housing patters.

That is why SEWRPC could write a highway reconstruction and rebuilding plan for the region, and recommend it enthusiastically to the even-more enthusiastic state transportation department that paid for and received it - - without any transit component or upgrade or addition.

It's mind-boggling to pretend that transit and highways have no relationship, and that all the other planning issues for the region are not influenced by the continuing imbalance in spending that favors highways over buses, and certainly rail options.

That's also why SEWRPC is busy working on various transportation, land use and water supply studies - - but no housing plan - - and has not written one for the region since 1975.

Yes, that's right. 1975. A nice, neat, one-third of a century ago.

The year the Vietnam War ended. When Gerald Ford was President and the Milwaukee Brewers were still seven years away from their only World Series appearance, usually seen as a marker for something around here that happened a long, long, long time ago.

Since 1975, we've had the condo boom, advances in green building, the emergence of the home office and telecommunications revolutions, a wave of sprawl development across the region, skyrocketing gasoline prices, the emergence of New Urbanism, the resurgence of downtown and urban preferences, growth of an across-the-board conservation ethic, early Boomer retirements and now the prime-lending fiasco - - and no regional housing plan predicting, reacting to or acknowledging any of these developments and trends.

People in the seven-county SEWRPC region (Milwaukee, Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha, Kenosha, Racine, Walworth) fund the agency every year with millions in property tax dollars, peeled off every tax bill with virtually no debate.

Are we getting our money's worth?

Is there a big-picture focus at the top of the SEWRPC directory, and does that approach infuse all the work there, govern its hiring practices, its communications and interactions with media, agencies, customers?

I don't see it.

It's time that taxpayers demand a better product from SEWRPC's top managers and Commission members, and from the Governor and county boards and county executives that share Commission appointment powers.

What we need in our region of modest growth, but real environmental and economic problems, is bolder, cutting-edge, inclusive thinking that is matched up intentionally with aggressive outreach and an unlimited intellectual horizon.

A good start would be an outside, performance-based audit of the agency, with genuine citizen input from the get-go.

That could be required by any of the seven counties as a condition of making its annual property tax contribution.

2008 is a big year for the region. Huge decisions are pending with regard to water supply policy and transportation spending that will push land use and housing and job-creation - - all intertwined even if SEWRPC's current leadership does not endorse or embrace that reality - - for decades.

SEWRPC could be at the head of this effort. It could position itself as the authoritative regional source for data as well as vision, for comprehensive solutions, for energetic and inclusive outreach - - all to deal with the region's daily realities and needs.

That would mean remaking itself, and if SEWRPC won't or can't, then everyone - - Smart Growth advocates and tax reformers, Republicans and Democrats, low-income workers and business owners, suburbanites and city-dwellers - - should demand, and oversee, the overhaul that SEWRPC needs and that they/we all deserve.

If not, the region will remain where it is: often uncompetitive, closed-off and closed-minded, exclusionary to minority and low-income residents, the perpetual "C" student when "A's" are attainable, and absolutely vital to the region and its residents' success.

Without fundamental and strategic and willful changes to many of the levels of business-as-usual around here - - with SEWRPC being a major example - - that agency will remain where and what it is:

Cloistered in Pewaukee, inaccessible by transit, densely bureaucratic, opaque, muted, even without audio taping, let alone video streaming, of its meetings, hidden behind an unexciting, anachronistic website (news flash: http://www.sewrpc.org/ did recently add something really cool, a breakthrough - - something called a "search" function!), being quietly powerful when it chooses (more highways), but more often than not, remote, and irrelevant.

Lobby Legislators For A Strong Great Lakes Compact Jan. 30

The annual Conservation Lobby Day - - when citizen-lobbyists swarm the State Capitol on behalf of progressive energy, environmental and conservation issues - - takes place this year on Wednesday, January 30th.
Here is a link to the best approach to take with legislators on the Great Lakes Compact, along with other information about the day and how to participate.

And another link from the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, with additional registration information, is here.

Firings Continue At The LA Times: More Evidence That Print Media Is In Trouble

For the second time in less than a year-and-a-half, the editor of the Los Angeles Times has been fired over cuts ordered from on high to the operating budget.

These are hard times for newspapers, and other traditional media,as the Internet draws surfers and readers, particularly younger people not inclined to pay for, or plow through, a hard-copy newspaper.

The new media keeps on providing more choices, and while the older media has had success in merging its offerings with Internet options, the trend is favor of electronic over paper.

So the editor at the LA Times went out in a blaze of glory, proving again that everyone has a boss.

And like Dylan said, everyone's "gonna have to serve somebody."

"Greener Oconomowoc" Group Is In The Right Place

Given the heavy presence of Pabst Farms in the new Oconomowoc, it's good to know that there is a "Greener Oconomowoc" meeting around the principles of The Natural Step, a guide to sustainability.

Details here.

Milwaukee Business Editor Reacts To The Full Belling Treatment

Steve Jagler, editor of the Small Business Times, reprises how it feels to endure Mark Belling's wrath.

And gives as good as he got.

Climate Change Talk Scheduled For Waukesha Public Library, 1/23

Take in the evening program at the Waukesha Public Library on Wednesday, 1/23.

Details here.

Big Legal Win Keeps ATV's Off Hiking, Biking Trails

A Polk County Circuit Court judge ruled last week that certain trails are off-limits to all-terrain-vehicles.

It was a win for commonsense and good for the environment.

There are plenty of trails where motorized vehicles can move logically without tearing through land where people are moving more slowly and quietly.

2008 Likely To Be Hot, But Not The Record-Breaker

As you settle in to watch the Green Bay Packers defeat The New York Giants on a brutally cold field - - and no doubt the announcers will make the requisite 'bring on global warming' wisecracks - - keep in mind that predictions for the 2008 climate are for a year among the hottest, but not a record-breaker.

That's because it's time for the cyclical La Nina, which produces cooling from tropical water.

The climate change deniers will probably say this means that global warming is a hoax.

Unfortunately, they are wrong, but expect them to demagogue a bit, courtesy of the La Nina phenomenon.

Sharing Taxes From Development Could Help New Berlin Win A Water Deal, Waukesha Consultant Wrote

A few years ago, an attorney working for the City of Waukesha Water Utility said in a memo that sharing tax revenues from new development could be a factor in convincing the City of Milwaukee to sell Lake Michigan water.

I have blogged about this memo more than once, and now I can finally post an online link to the memo, and in the same file, the written response from the water utility distancing itself from the memo, all of which is here.

Ultimately, the water utility declined to pay the bill for the memo's preparation, then settled for a small portion of the total.

All that history is here - - along with State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), suggesting that Milwaukee is interested in extorting money from the suburbs for water.

(Expect that kind of opposition from the suburbs to become even hotter, since it gets to the nub of what a lot of that opposition is all about: moolah.)

Many observers believe that if water deals are approved to the suburbs under the regional, cooperative eight-state Great Lakes Compact - - deals that would include return of water to the lake and conservation measures, too - - payment for the water will have to include money more than a simple, per-gallon charge, and will have to bring in housing, transportation and other related regional issues, too.

That's because as the memo points out, and it's common knowledge, too, development has moved from the city to the suburbs, and along with it, jobs and tax-base expansion.

Taxable property is the revenue life-blood of Wisconsin municipalities, so a water-selling community could end up damaging its ability to provide basic services to its citizens, visitors, commercial properties and infrastructure if it made a deal for water that chipped away at the city's tax base.

And those losses would happen regardless of the income that might come in on the supply, much of which would be eaten up meeting the fixed costs of the selling city's water utility.

Selling what is essentially a priceless resource requires the creation of an entirely new balance sheet to make sure that the liability to the seller does not overwhelm whatever income is derived.

Tax-base sharing, or as the memo calls it, "tax sharing," are methods to share the fruits of new development and help protect the seller while providing the resource the buyer wants.

With Lake Michigan water certainly believed to be an asset that would fuel the creation of new industry and the building of residential properties that could tout access to the new, fresh water supply, tax sharing of some sort becomes logical.

Finding the documents as I did through Open Records law procedures in the files of the Waukesha Water Utility about a year-and-a-half ago was a surprise.

Publicizing it then and again now continues to genuinely inform the diversion debate, especially as Compact legislation is poised for introduction into the Wisconsin legislature before the end of the month, and the rules and ramifications of diversions can finally be comprehensively addressed.

No Bill Yet, But First Hearing On Compact Is Set For 2/5

Buried at the bottom of this story about getting invasive species out of ships' ballast tanks is word from State Sen. Robert Cowles, (R-Allouez), a probable Great Lakes Compact bill co-sponsor, that a hearing is scheduled on February 5th at the Capitol.

That would suggest something of a fast-track for the bill, since it has not yet been introduced.

Highway Systems Take Their Toll

While Wisconsin continues to spend itself towards highway budget ruin - - a torrent of un-budgeted commitments, including $5.7 billion is being poured into more lanes and modifications to the misnamed 'freeway' system in Southeastern Wisconsin - - other states are turning their existing, taxpayer-paid interstates into toll roads under new federal rules.

Used to be you could do that, but the feds have eased the rules, so expect other states to do the same, with corporations, even foreign entities building and managing the systems, and collecting the tolls in some cases.

Wisconsin hasn't asked for that permission yet, instead forging ahead as it has for decades, building and expanding roads and adding to expensive maintenance, patrolling, plowing, debt-service and other recurring costs.

The highway lobby in Wisconsin is the Badger State equivalent of the national Military-Industrial Complex - - an interconnected, self-serving web of lobbyists, contractors and government officials keeping one hand in our pockets and the other on the revenue spigot.

It's much the same in other states, except in Wisconsin, the lobby is monomanically focused on only one form of transportation spending - - roads - - while excluding rail innovation from the mix.

There's plenty of money to be made building, maintaining and operating transit lines, but in Wisconsin, change comes slowly. What the Government-Contractor Highway Complex knows is only one thing.

More roads.

The lack of choices keeps city, suburban and rural populations heavily auto-dependant, artificially fueling the demand for more road-building, the unsustainable spending it requires, and the additionally unsustainable development sprawl it creates.

In southeastern Wisconsin, this distortion has been aided and abetted by the regional planning commission, SEWRPC, which gives lip service to transit recommendations and enthusiastic support for highway planning.

The regional 'freeway' plan - - zero funding for any transit components- - that began its 25-30 year implementation in 2004 - - was drafted by SEWRPC with a million-dollar grant from the state transportation department.

An unintended consequence, perhaps?

The need for new funding sources to pay for and maintain all these new roads and lanes - - so it may be the specter of tolls on the horizon that causes some road warriors to think twice about this unrestrained highway construction.

Toll road advocates, like former Milwaukee State Rep. Kevin Soucie, have said that tolling to pay for projects like those in the Southeastern Wisconsin plan is the only way to continue to support the size major highway projects.

I used to think: No Way - - that anti-tolling, anti-Illinois sentiment would help keep tolls out of Wisconsin, but with public budgets getting thinner and thinner, and the highway lobby continuing to lobby for, get and spend fresh billions here each year, maybe Soucie will turn out to be right.

The burden would fall heaviest on the poor, and on business people who could not afford to risk taking non-tolled, more circuitous routes to their destinations.

Some special toll lanes, or those with tolls rising and falling with the time of day, or level of congestion, are called "Lexus lanes," and not without justification.

Much of this entire debate would be different if rail were in the mix, if there were balance in the transportation plan, and if there was some semblance of reason or limits in the highway lobby's dreams.

There there are no such restraints, making toll roads in Wisconsin more likely in our lifetimes, and sooner that you might think.

Waukesha Continues To Shell Out Big Bucks For Water Consultants

Another year, another quarter of a million bucks+ for public relations and technical advisors contracted by the Waukesha Water Utility, its general manager reports.

The City of Waukesha, already having unsuccessfully tried twice to obtain a back-door diversion of Lake Michigan water, could insert its next application under the rules and guidelines of the Great Lakes Compact - - if that regional water management agreement is adopted by the Wisconsin legislature this year.

(To date, Illinois and Minnesota have approved the Compact; several of the other states have bills under review, and only Wisconsin has not yet considered a bill.)

A Wisconsin bill is expected later this month after more than two years of delay.

Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson is on record favoring the Compact, as is Jack Chiovatero, Mayor of New Berlin - - a city partially within the Great Lakes basin, and whose application for an out-of-basin diversion has been forwarded to the other states by Wisconsin officials.

But it is not yet clear which among several versions of Compact bills might advance in our state's legislature, especially in the State Assembly.

There has been strong resistance among Waukesha-area business leaders and legislators to Compact procedures that require the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors to a diversion of water to a city like Waukesha which is entirely outside of the boundaries of the Great Lakes basin.

Among the opponents to that provision are the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce, the Wisconsin Builders Association, and State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin).

Historical Site Damage At Pabst Farms Echos Earlier Destruction

Call this chapter IX in our continuing series, The Road To Sprawlville:

Rare Native American effigy mounds, some in the shape of panthers, have been damaged at Pabst Farms, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Turns out it's not the first time this has happened out Waukesha way. More on that in a few paragraphs.

In the march towards Progress that has moved the economy west on the Interstate Highway across the region - - and in the case of Pabst Farms, turned 1,500 acres of prime agricultural land into big homes, on large lots, surrounded by businesses and a hospital - - degradation of the land has been among the outcomes.

That these 800-1,400-year-old Native American mounds were there is a known fact.

Pabst Farm's website contains this information:

"Our vision is to carry on the Pabst family’s love of the land through protection of important natural resources including wetlands, woodland areas, and historically significant Indian mounds. And what we build to the Pabst Farms land must also be a tribute to the rich heritage handed down from generation to generation. "

The irony is that Pabst Farms is constantly referred to as a "planned community."

Except that the planners a) forgot to pencil in an interstate interchange so motorists could get to the fancy shopping mall still under consideration, and b) didn't get the word to employees in vehicles clearing brush that rare effigy mounds were on the site and had to be protected.

Those are exhibit a) and b), to date.

Maybe we should have a contest to name what c) and d) will be?

Planners and experts say the damage to the mounds can be fixed. Depends on what you mean by fixed.

Is a rare painting slashed by a vandal in a museum, or an icon or relic broken in one of our major religious shrines or temples, really restored after the damage is done?

For cultures that built and used these mounds for spiritual ceremonies, does adding fresh dirt in tire ruts repair the physical and psychic insult?

How long will it take someone to leave a comment on this posting essentially saying, 'who cares, those cultures are long gone, and roads and subdivisions are good for the regional economy?'

Repairing the damage done is moot argument, however, when it comes to other mounds in - - well, that were once in the area.

Officials and others were discussing the Native American mounds, and a pit in the Pabst Farm site, during the December 6, 2005 meeting of the Waukesha County Land Use, Planning and Environment Committee.

The minutes say:

"At one point there were close to 30 Indian mounds in this area. The I-94 construction wiped out the lion's share along with the [pit]."

Looks like the mound-builders were bad planners, too. Imagine putting these structures where an Interstate Highway, the road to Sprawlville, had to run.

New York Governor Spitzer Calls For Adoption Of The Great Lakes Compact

In his State of the State message delivered Wednesday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer called on his legislature to approve the Great Lakes Compact.

The full text to the lengthy speech is here, but the portion relating to the Compact is below:

'We also must do all we can to protect Upstate's environment, so we can pass on cleaner air, cleaner water and beautiful landscapes to our children and grandchildren.

"When it comes to the environment, there are so many priorities, so let me just outline one. In recent years, many New Yorkers near the Great Lakes have been troubled to hear that water levels have been dropping. This poses a threat to shipping, to our fisheries, and to our ecosystems-in other words, to the economy and quality of life in Great Lakes communities.

"That's why, today, I call upon the Legislature to pass the Great Lakes Compact, so we can join a multi-state effort to regulate water levels and maintain a strong, sustainable Great Lakes ecosystem and economy. "

'Stuck' Ship, Partially-Submerged in Duluth-Superior Harbor: Did Lowered Lake Level Contribute?

One of the bigger Great Lakes freighters is partially underwater in the Duluth-Superior harbor, having struck something underwater as it was docking, according to news reports.

The back, or stern section of the ship is submerged; the front end afloat and efforts are being made to refloat the entire vessel.

Lowered levels in Lake Superior had been increasing the risk to ships this summer: we'll have to see what caused this mishap. So stay tuned.

Conservatives Like Less Voting

Conservatives in the GOP are pushing for voter ID to limit votes among lower-income citizens, presumably Democrats.

Now the Wisconsin Assembly Republicans want to limit the topics that can come before residents through referenda.

Like resolutions calling for the end to the Iraq War.

Yeah, all this democracy-stuff is just too, well, democratic.

Zilber Implementing Green Standards At Pabst Redevelopment Site Downtown

Props to Joe Zilber for making the Pabst complex a green model of redevelopment, and to Avrum Lank at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for bringing the information to readers.

Pretty soon, green building, engine design, energy generation - - all this and more will become routine, and the only remaining question will be: "What took so long?"

No One Wants The Pabst Farms Mall Interchange Built, Records Show

People had their chance to urge public funding for a highway interchange to a privately-owned shopping mall owner in Western Waukesha County, and no one raised a hand in support, records show.

Here's the story:

Kenneth Yunker, SEWRPC's Deputy Director, made available what he described as the sum total of about 50 comments mailed or emailed to the agency to help planners decide whether the proposed I-94 interchange to an upscale shopping mall planned at Pabst Farms should move forward.

In order for the interchange to be funded and built, a regional transportation plan covering 2007-2010 projects would have to be amended; advisory public comments on such amendments are part of the process.

SEWRPC - - the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission - - is the agency delegated to accept such comments.

The interchange would cost $25 million, most of it state money, and is on a planning fast-track because officials had failed to include it in the overall Pabst Farms scheme.

Some background is here.

Pabst Farms is a mini-city on 1,500 acres of former farmland that now is the gateway from I-94, north along state highway 67 to the City of Oconomowoc.

Some of the parcels are on the south side of the interstate, too.

The overall development is set to contain 1,200 houses and condos (no apartments, no transit service), plus a hospital, offices, light manufacturing, a school, a YMCA, stores and shops - - and the retail centerpiece: a regional, upscale mall, first designed to mimic Mayfair Mall, but now to look more like the open-air Bayshore Town Center mall.

The initial mall plan fell through some months ago, and the replacement design is even more controversial because it's larger, places unsightly store backs, even Dumpsters facing the road leading to Oconomowoc, and raises the profile of adjacent proposed big-box stores, too.

Waukesha County, the City of Oconomowoc and the mall developer are to pay a total of $3.9 million of the cost, while $21.1 million would come from the state - - you and me and other taxpayers - - though some highway extensions to service private developments, or local communities, require much higher shares.

So I went out to SEWRPC today to read the comment file - - and found that the backers of the interchange completely whiffed: there was not one comment of support for the project in the file.

People from River Hills, Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, Brown Deer, Oconomowoc, Mequon, Summit, Madison and Racine registered objections.

Remarks like "oppose...strongly oppose...huge waste of tax dollars...travesty...poor public policy...height of irresponsibility...and outrage" were sprinkled throughout the letters and emails.

Commenters, some on form letters, said they preferred more transit spending, didn't want more road-building to contribute to air pollution, opposed private development receiving a public highway subsidy and wanted farmland preserved.

Four non-profit organizations and one unit of government sent in comments of opposition, too.

They organizations were the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin Foundation, (ACLU-WI), Midwest Environmental Advocates (a public interest law firm), NAACP Milwaukee Branch and 1000 Friends of Wisconsin.

Additionally, the City of Milwaukee opposed amending the 2007-2010 regional highway plan and funding the interchange, but supported including it in a future transportation plan for the region "as necessary when the schedule and traffic demand associated with the proposed regional shopping mall have been defined."

That letter was signed by four Milwaukee officials: Jeffrey Mantes, Commissioner of Public Works, Jeffrey Polenske, City Engineer, Paul Vornholt, Intergovernmental Relations and Michael Maierle, Long Range Planning, Department of City Development.

Battle Over Diversions, Conservation In Florida Has Familiar Ring

Thanks to the Daily Reporter for this story about water supply struggles in Florida, where population and development growth has led certain areas to look to their neighbors for a water bailout, while others say it's time to manage the water more wisely first.

Conservancy Deal For Ozaukee County Golf Course Vanishes

The Ozaukee Washington County Land Trust (OWLT) thought it was closing in on a plan to acquire the Squires Country Club, a 142-acre golf course on Lake Michigan in the Town of Belgium - - only to learn that a development group had swooped in with a higher and accepted offer of $2.6 million that keeps the property a golf course.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the deal came together quickly after "a casual conservation" between Ozaukee County Board Chairman Bob Brooks and Harm Modder, a development partner.

The Squires Country Club is owned by Bruce and Bonnie Bloemer.

The paper said this about the sale, which took place as the Land Trust was awaiting a counter-offer from Bruce Bloemer to its offer of something more than $2 million.

"Brooks, himself a real estate investor, said it [the property] was [on the market] and set up a Jan. 5 meeting between Modder and Bloemer, who negotiated the deal and signed an agreement on Friday, the three men said Monday.

"Brooks drew up the paperwork but was not involved in the price negotiations. He is not taking a commission on the deal, they said."

So the golf course remains a golf course and the Ozaukee County Board will not further pursue grant funding that was crucial to the conservancy plan.

Soglin Finds Appreciation For Wisconsin Business Climate - - in Illinois!

Wisconsin business leaders routinely bash Gov. Doyle as anti-business, and look longingly to Illinois, where tax incentives and other inducements supposedly give the private sector there everything they are denied in Wisconsin.

Paul Soglin finds that some Illinois movers-and-shakers are complaining that they are losing out to...Doyle and Wisconsin.

Can't our business leaders get anything right?

Dave Dempsey, Great Lakes Expert, Skewers Waukesha Opinion

Dave Dempsey, as others have tried, too, explains that business leaders quoted in a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about the Great Lakes compact misunderstand how the Compact would work and how it relates to existing federal law.

I reminded readers in a recent posting that Waukesha business and political leaders have been trying to evade or water down (sorry, bad pun) the Compact for years.

And suggesting, as they did at the forum to which Dempsey is referring, that they could support the Compact with its so-called "single-state veto" provision governing diversions removed is just another way of killing it altogether.

Which, as Dempsey and others keep saying, leaves everyone with the existing federal law where the single-state veto is chiseled in stone.

But would lead to the next logical/illogical step - - challenging the law in court, and losing control of the Great Lakes if the case were won.

George McGovern, James Hightower On Restoring Our Democracy

Former US Ambassador and Senator George McGovern (D-SD) gave the Washington Post an op-ed published January 8th that summarized the case for impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney.

Here is a link to what I think is the most compelling case yet written to justify removing Bush and Cheney from office.

The political commentator Jim Hightower posted six days later a related approach on his website, which requires a paid registration.

Here is the key paragraph:

"There should be a barrage of investigative hearings, a proliferation of exposes on war profiteering, a surge of subpoenas, a hailstorm of contempt citations, a thousand specific cuts (none harming the troops) in Bush's war budget, an unleashing of Congress's "inherent contempt" power--in other words, a strategic, unrelenting antiwar offensive using all of the unique powers of the legislative branch to march right in the face of BushCheney executive arrogance, reframe the debate, and rally the people."

The progressive news aggregator, Alternet, posted the entire Hightower essay, here.

Hightower noted that he had worked with Sen. McGovern in 1970 as a volunteer organizing members of Congress, and public opinion, against the Vietnam War.

(Disclosure: Sen. McGovern is my father-in-law.)

National Academy of Science Touts Grasses As Ethanol Source

Not corn. Grasses.

More evidence that Wisconsin and other agricultural and wooded states can pursue alternatives to corn-based ethanol and save water and energy in the process.

If Ethanol Is Good For GM, It Must Be Good For The Country, Too

Since that's a paraphrase of what its infamous CEO "Engine" Charlie Wilson is purported to have said years ago about the relationship of General Motors to the country.

So let's get farmers back to growing corn for food, not fuel, as cellulosic, fibrous plants offer companies like GM an alternative for ethanol production that saves energy and water in the processing,

I Make A Few Suggestions About Building Equity Into Regionalism

From where I sit, it's all about water and transportation, written in an op-ed in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sunday Crossroads Section of January 13th.

Wisconsin's Bad Air Finally Makes Major Media News

Sunday's Journal Sentinel carried an article about the unhealthy alerts that had become numerous in recent weeks, when we usually see them on humid hot days.

I had begun noticing the number of such alerts issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and posted blog items about them on January 5th, 2008, December 30th, 21st, 19th and 11th of 2007.

A sample is here.

And let's not forget that it is the position of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce that air quality standards in Southeastern Wisconsin should be relaxed.

I've also posted more than once about this, too, with one example here.

On Water, John McCain Is No Bill Richardson

Republican presidential candidate John McCain tells a Michigan audience that the Great Lakes belongs to residents of the states that border them, and he wouldn't divert "a drop."

When in Michigan, and actually, in any state, that's the right thing to say.

Smaller Lakes Need Great Effort, Too

There's a pressing need to preserve the Great Lakes, with much crucial time wasted for the last two years as a state study committee capitulated to Waukesha County business interests and deferred Wisconsin efforts to ratify the pending Great Lakes Compact.

But as the Capital Times' Rob Zaleski has been writing, Dane County's lakes have troubles of their own, and the need is urgent to take better, long-term care of southcentral Wisconsin's premier bodies of water.

The Capital Times has joined the call for adopting the Great Lakes Compact, though its readership territory does not touch the Great Lakes basin.

That's because the CT has a broad perspective.

People around the state similarly need to weigh in and support Dane County regional efforts to do the same for the lakes there.

Great Lakes Water Resources Index, Amended

From time to time, I post a list of online sites that offer information about Great Lakes water issues.

Here's the updated list.

As before, please send me suggestions.

1. Loon Commons Environmental Blog in Minnesota.

2. Michigan Liberal Blog. More politics than environment.

3. Dave Dempsey Blog, in Minnesota, via Michigan.

4. The Political Environment Blog, in Wisconsin.

5. Energetich20 Blog- - A UW-Madison engineering student's effort.

6. Dale Olen Blog - - Wisconsin activist, writer.


Online news and information sites:



1.Great Lakes United.org: All-purpose informational site.

2.Great Lakes Information Network, GLIN, collecting traditional media, daily (but no blog items).

3. Great Lakes Town Hall, an arm of the Biodiversity Project, Madison.

4. The environmental engineering firm Brown and Caldwell has an excellent newsletter and roundup (free registration required here).
Great Lakes For All.

5. University of Wisconsin-Miwaukee's WATER Institute: Numerous experts, papers, other resources.

6. Peter Annin's Great Lakes Water Wars: Comprehensive listing of Great Lakes resources, diversion applications and responses, and more.

7. Good variety of sources at Great Lakes Shipwatchers.

8. Oregon State University's Water and Watersheds.

9. Wisconsin Association of Lakes e-newsletter and additional resources.

10. Midwest Lakes Policy Center. Water issues, generally.

Blogs and Media Following Pabst Farms 'Modifications'

Pabst Farms 'planning' is a great example of what can happen when a new city is plopped down on a farm field, and the Sprawled Out blog has followed similar matters in Franklin, so I begin with that.

It's a good blog. I'm glad to plug it, so check it out.

Back to Pabst Farms, where the upscale mall is getting bigger, but not necessarily better.

And as The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Amy Rinard notes, the redesigned mall site at the northern convergence of Highway 67 and I-94 in Western Waukesha County has a new developer who has added a string of big-box stores backing up to what could become the entry way to the City of Oconomowoc - - welcoming motorists to Lake Country with a panorama of store backs, parking and Dumpsters.

That ain't New Urbanism. It's more like Old Urbanwasism, where everything serving the car separated retail and pedestrians from the street, and the visual environment got trashed.

It's a dead model, but that's what the mall planners say their client stores want, and have told Oconomowoc officials they know more about retail needs than does the city.

Strange strategy, since Oconomowoc put $24 million in public tax dollars into Pabst Farms to citify the rural land, and still has mall design and construction approvals, and another cash payment to make on the interchange plan to make it go forward.

Speaking of the interchange, state and local governments in Waukesha County are hell-bent to begin work on that fast-tracked, $25 million I-94 interchange to the site, even as the design is changing and getting iffier by the minute.

Here's another good account of the issues from the Daily Reporter.

Business Leaders Risk Killing The Compact: Maybe That Is The Plan?

Again, prominent Wisconsin and Waukesha-area business leaders ventilate loudly in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the proposed Great Lakes Compact will hurt them.

Man, did they get a lot of ink.

They just will not grasp and acknowledge that the Compact is an eight-state, two Canadian province cooperative agreement.

It is not the Greater Waukesha Guaranteed Prosperity Compact - - to convey special status for an area that has over-used its ground water through hyper-development, yet wants to paper over its profligacy by inserting into an international stewardship agreement permission for its very own, dedicated spigot - - county-wide.

Ironically, current federal law is more restrictive than the proposed Compact.

There is no logical reason for these business leaders to prefer living under the more stringent federal diversion restrictions unless their next card is litigation to void the federal law.

None of these business leaders' pronouncements are rooted in Great Lakes stewardship. Their perspective is all about self-interest, and it is not out of the question that the Compact, years in the making, could be unraveled by Wisconsin's non-approval.

Remember that after the Compact was initialed by all the Governors and provincial premiers, and while Wisconsin officials were beginning to set up a process to approve the Compact in our state, the City of Waukesha twice confidentially asked Gov. Jim Doyle to approve perpetual diversions from Lake Michigan in direct contravention of the procedures and goals laid out in the pending Compact.

It was and remains an undercovered story. Here is an account.

A Waukesha Water Utility lobbyist, Bill McClenahan, has complained on this blog (see the comment section there) that I have unfairly cast Waukesha as being anti-Compact. I disagree.

I think the record to date shows that Waukesha is making strides in conservation planning, and I have praised Waukesha for that on this blog.

But Waukesha also continues to heavily use closed sessions of both the water utility and common council to formulate diversion planning, raising suspicion that the diversion scheme being formulated will not fully return diverted water back to Lake Michigan.

Also keep in mind that the Southeastern Regional Planning Commission, as it finishes work on major regional water supply study recommendations, may propose the creation of a new regional water authority to more easily move Lake Michigan diverted water to a growing number of communities across the entire region.

Michigan will surely try and block some or all of those moves, thus further jeopardizing the Compact and again setting the stages for the federal law to be challenged.

I wouldn't put anything past the Compact opponents, especially some in Waukesha County that have listened too hypnotically to their talk radio,and self-generated publicity and now truly believe they are entitled to exceptional treatment.

The talk about making deep changes to the Compact, knowing that such amending, including eliminating the embedded principle of eight-state approvals for out-of-basin diversions, will kill the Compact.

There was a time that environmental policy for the state and nation were given birth here by legends like Aldo Leopold and Gaylord Nelson.

The stance and work and intentions were pro-active and assertive to protect the ecosystem for generations to come - - because we share these resources as a state, region, nation and planet.

Now the conventional wisdom is more and more about selfishness and money and perceived advantage, not the common good.

How far from our legacy and position as the region's ecological leader could we fall?

Increased Cigarette Tax Drives Smoking Down

It's been long known that as the cigarette tax goes up, usage goes down, especially among young smokers with the least earning power - - and that's all to the good.

Smoking cessation programs, whether hotlines or access to medication and counseling are also important to include with the coercive power of taxation.

Smoking is responsible for billions of dollars in social costs and many premature illnesses and deaths. Government needs to use its powers to reduce smoking - - not just taxation, but therapeutic programs, too.

Interesting Link Between Tar Sand Oils and US Airlines

Great Lakes refineries in Superior, WI, Indiana and Detroit are ticketed to receive heavy tar sand crude oil piped in from hugely destructive extraction in Alberta, Canada.

Now we learn that US airlines are among the major users of this costly oil, and there is a movement afoot to turn the airlines away from that source.

Details and edification, here.

Blog Goes Over The Line: We Don't Need This

Watchdog Milwaukee, the blog put up by former Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Jim McGuigan, has posted a deeply personal attack on Lynne DeBruin, an incumbent Supervisor.

The link is here.

I do this with some ambivalence, as I will be responsible for spreading access to this unpleasantness, which could not sit well with Supv. DeBruin, a Westsider.

Both McGuigan and DeBruin generally support issues that are in line with my opinions, so it all baffles me.

I do not know what interpersonal or political dynamics or histories have taken place between them, but I know an unnecessarily personal attack when I see it.

Politicians have personal lives and roles as spouses and parents. Those need to be off-limits, certainly in public forums, and you'd think that no where would that be better appreciated than among politicians' colleagues.

Apparently not.

I tried to post a comment yesterday about this on McGuigan's blog, but it has not been approved. In it, I urged McGuigan to confine himself to political criticisms and remove the personal stuff.

It's his blog, and his call. I understand that.

But as I have said in other circumstances, there is nothing gained from incivility, regardless from where on the political spectrum it is launched.

And hey: I'm not perfect on this score, either, but I think McGuigan's posting is so far over the top or across the line that it stands out and thus needs to be called out.

As an aside, it sure seems like there is a lot of this intense in-fighting and personal battling in County politics: that arena could use more leadership, less internal warfare, and maybe one huge timeout.

Gov. Doyle Is Right: We Need A Statewide Smoking Ban

Like Illinois. Minnesota. And much of the rest of the world, including even Ireland and France, where smoking was deeply ingrained into popular, national culture.

Gov. Doyle is right to worry that Wisconsin will become the region's ashtray, where foul inside air leads employees and other state residents residents to contract lung cancer and other costly diseases.

Wisconsin can be a healthier state, with fewer demands on the already-overpriced health care system here, if cigarette smoke is removed from the common air supply.

There is an imperfect smoking-ban bill moving through the State Senate that needs to be strengthened by closing loopholes that delay its application in bars and restaurants.

The time for coordinated, uniform state action is now - - before more people are tipped towards cancers, heart disease, or asthma.

Milwaukee Business Leaders Meet Their Worst Enemy - - Themselves

Our hometown business leaders, in love with China, rip their city, and in the process, probably help Colorado win the Coors/Miller merged headquarters.

Nice work, fellas.

It's that old story: Milwaukeans just can't stop beating themselves up, but those guys do it in print. Go figure - - especially since there's more than enough data and reporting around that indicates China may not be the most attractive production model for American business leaders to follow.

I've added some contextual updates about that below, but first - - want to see how a progressive business leader can sound when addressing a business audience with a fully open mind, about issues which, again, other Wisconsin business leaders have been negative?

Give this a read. It's about the need to preserve the Great Lakes, differing substantially from the isolationist and self-interested propaganda about Great Lakes water coming out of the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Metropolitan Home Builders Association and the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce.

Update:

The Journal Sentinel carries its own version of the business leaders' anti-Milwaukee complaints, wherein we learn that when our CEO's fly to China they love being met at airports in escorted limousines, like potentates, emergency lights flashing.

Turns out that visiting business bigwigs just love the fawning attention they receive in a Communist dictatorship.

Oh, the ironies.

Yes, the Chinese government and its tightly-controlled corporate infrastructure can provide what our business leaders most crave: low costs.

That's because China runs on minuscule wages, crappy environmental standards, laws against unions, and other favors that can only be guaranteed in a one-party, military state.

NPR recently carried an interview with experts who monitor plants in China that produce goods, including popular brand name shoes and clothing, for US retailers.

It turns out that many Chinese workers make 55-60 cents an hour and must work mandatory overtime - - pay that is often withheld from female workers who also are harassed, even sexually assaulted on the job.

And without a union to take up their cases.

Further Update:

Chinese officials beat a blogger to death, according to CNN.

OK, so not every country enshrines free speech to the extent of the US Constitution, but where's the outrage about this event. Note that the report says "officials," or what we here call "under the color of law."

And remember a few months ago that the Chinese government executed the head of their Food and Drug Administration equivalent for poorly regulating the sale of lead-tainted toys?

If we imitate that model, a lot of the top people at our Consumer Products Safety Commission and other agencies and manufacturers would have relocated to Brazil by now.

Further, Further Update:

The death toll in Chinese coal mines last year was nearly 3,800 miners, according to official sources. That's more than ten dead miners a day. Any US business leaders want to step up and endorse that lovely safety record as worth emulating?

Based on tons of coal mined, China's death toll annually is about 100 times higher than the US miner's fatality toll. In some recent years, that data shows the number of Chinese miners killed above 5,000, when the number in the US was under 25.

China is the model for how we should do business here?

I hope not.

Midwest Governors Tout Renewable Energy, Great Lakes Compact

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was joined by our Gov. Jim Doyle this week, charting out renewable energy plans for the Upper Midwest.

No mention by either in news reports of the probable application for a huge petroleum refinery expansion in Superior by Murphy Oil, based a definitely non-renewable energy source - - dense crude oil extracted at great energy and water expense, and piped in, from the tar sand fields of Alberta, Canada.

But back to the renewables: both the governors recognize that their states have plenty of forest and agricultural lands that can be used to produce cheaper forms of ethanol than what's found in today's preferred source - - corn.

And that's a good development, because producing ethanol from wood-products or grasses uses far less water and energy to make than corn-based ethanol.

The outlines of Wisconsin's approach to renewable energy production are contained in a lengthy briefing book prepared this summer for Matt Frank, the new secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.

I posted excerpts on my blog, here, drawing attention to wind and wave-generating schemes along with the agricultural and forest-based industrial opportunities.

It's anybody's guess if these plans will ever produce a kilowatt of electricity or a gallon of ethanol, but it's good to see government and industry at least talking to eachother about how to save money, energy and reduce carbon emissions, too.

It was interesting to see that Doyle and Pawlenty both calling for the approval of the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement that would implement in the eight Great Lakes states a cooperative plan to limit diversions of water away from the lakes and bring about conservation, too.

Minnesota has already approved the Compact: Wisconsin is the only state without a bill even under review, in large measure due to fierce opposition from Waukesha County business interests.

This is what the Governors had to say about the Compact, noting that Minnesota had already approved it:

“'It’s my hope that Wisconsin and all others will join us in that regard,” Pawlenty said.

"Doyle said a fight over water issues in southeastern Wisconsin’s Waukesha County should not delay his state’s participation in the Great Lakes compact.

“'This is about how we preserve the quantity and quality of Great Lakes water,” he said, adding it’s a way to protect the lakes from invasive species.

“'If there ever has been an issue where we have to look at the big picture, this is it.'”

We'll see just which big picture that is, should the Governor support a Great Lakes Compact bill rolled out by legislators later this month, as rumored.

There's more than one version of the Compact under discussion around the State Capitol, thus more than one rendition of a big picture under consideration.

Milwaukee's New Multi-Purpose Transit Center Is Stunning

John Gurda gives us the history of the rise, fall and resurrection of grand train stations in Milwaukee, and how right he is to sing the praises of the gorgeous Amtrak and inter-city bus station that has replaced the eyesore that used to stain St. Paul Ave. downtown.

We met out-of-town friends there last weekend, and all of us could bately believe our eyes.

I'm convinced that this so-called multi-modal station will add light and commuter rail lines in the next few years.

When that happens, passengers with good long-term memories will wonder why it took so long to replace the ugly building and also to add the most modern of rail upgrades.

In Chicago, Recycle Your Christmas Tree, Get Cool Free Stuff

Interesting and creative plan, don't you think?

Even The Onion Weighs In On Water Issues

A typical Onionesque list of city conservation programs includes one from Madison.

Send your suggestions for Waukesha and New Berlin to the comment section, and join the fun.

Madison Urban Environmental Group Upgrades, Goes National

It's a tribute to the hard work of Urban Open Spaces Foundation creator Heather Mann.

The group's new name: Center for Resilient Cities.

Storm Warnings? Mary Lazich Forecasts On The Weather Channel

But not about the local weather. Sounds like "lake effects" would be more accurate (with apologizes to WUWM's Jane Hampden), according to information Sen. Lazich, (R-New Berlin), has posted on the Internet.

Lazich has a blog, "Conservatively Speaking," that is carried on suburban online news sites, and there is always something interesting on it.

In recent weeks, she's posted safe winter driving tips, support for smokers' rights, angst about Wisconsin taxes, and suggestions that you carry holiday gift cards in your wallet so you don't forget them.

Another thought-provoking posting began this way:

The true meaning of Thanksgiving

"By Mary Lazich

"Wednesday, Nov 21 2007, 06:28 PM

"Thanksgiving has become more secularized than Christmas."

The link is there for the rest of the story.

Anyway, on Wednesday she wrote on her blog that she will be appearing on the Weather Channel program, "Forecast Earth," based on her participation on the Great Lakes Compact legislative study committee.

That got my attention.

That's because a legislative/citizen committee failed after a year's meetings to draft a bill to approve the Compact - - an eight-state, cooperative Great Lakes water conservation and diversion management agreement - - in part due to Lazich's objections.

She balked at several Compact provisions, including diversion procedures and restrictions, as did the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

Another Lazich ally opposing the Compact is Ohio State Sen. Tim Grendell, a conservative property-rights advocate.

Lazich brought his arguments to the study committee where they were dismissed as irrelevant to Wisconsin law by state Department of Natural Resources experts.

Here's her "Forecast Earth" publicity announcement:

I'm on the Weather Channel

By Mary Lazich
Wednesday, Jan 9 2008, 09:29 AM

Recently, a crew from the cable TV channel, The Weather Channel came to the state capitol to produce a segment on the Great Lakes. Because I served on the Legislative Council’s special study committee on the Great Lakes Compact, the crew interviewed me for the program, “Forecast Earth.”

The segment airs this Saturday at 4:00 p.m.

Entitled, "The Great Lakes Water Battle," the segment is being promoted on the Weather Channel website:

“Lake levels drop, revealing miles of rocky beaches, and cargo freighters begin to run aground. It's not the future, it's happening now to the world's largest freshwater lake system. We take you into the heart of the "Great Lakes Water Battle."

The segment airs this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. with a repeat at 4:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon."

Thanks to the good folks at the Sprawled Out blog for this information.

Add The Wisconsin State Journal To Great Lakes Compact Supporters

Madison's morning paper joins the long list of media calling for adoption of the Great Lakes Compact.

And the paper correctly notes the drop in Lake Michigan water levels as an example of why there is urgency underlying the need for the Compact.

The Compact is essentially a conservation and management agreement to protect a shared resource - - 95% of the country's fresh surface water.

If and when the State Journal revisits the issue, it could add that the Compact, as drafted, needs some tightening.

Loopholes permitting large water bottling business to send water away from the Great Lakes basin, one bottle at a time - - and in fleets of trucks every day - - undermines the Compact's goal of minimizing diversions of water, especially at a time of falling levels and greater evaporation from warming temperatures.

The Compact also has to guarantee that communities seeking piped diversions, such as New Berlin, or Waukesha, return water as close to the source of diversion as possible.

And in quantities also as close as feasible to what was diverted, too, lest communities be tempted to send only a fraction of the water back, and not necessarily directly to the lake.

Diversions have to be a matter of last resort, not to fuel development and accelerate sprawl.

New Berlin and Waukesha have both sought diversions from Lake Michigan knowing that the Compact has stalled in the legislature.

There should be no diversion approvals by Wisconsin officials, nor efforts to secure the required agreements for diversions from the other Great Lakes states as called for in current federal law, until Wisconsin approves and implements the Compact.

Let's not put the cart before the horse: Compact approval first, then diversion application consideration by Wisconsin and the other states as the Compact lays out.

Iraqi Estimate: 151,000 Violent Deaths Since 2003 US Invasion

To the Bush administration, no doubt, 151,000 post-invasion deaths, and a huge jump in related, non-violent deaths, is just collateral damage.

Bruce Murphy's Strong Analyses Of UW-M Crime, Ziegler Ethics Issues

Murphy, editor-in-chief at Milwaukee Magazine, offers on his blog a thoughtful discussion on the Annette Ziegler judicial ethics case, and a separate item, with statistics, that puts the UW-Milwaukee crime picture into clearer perspective.

Both worth reading, here.

Ozaukee County Supports Compact, Shows It Is Not Waukesha

The Ozaukee County Board votes 28-1 to urge adoption of the Great Lakes Compact.

Pretty impressive - - and a genuine act of regionalism, both within the state and across the Great Lakes.

Maybe the Waukesha Water Utility could direct its cadre of paid consultants, lawyers, public relations lobbyists and scientists who are busy crafting Lake Michigan diversion plans to press instead for the County Board to approve the Compact.

That would be even more impressive.

Smoking Cessation Stumbling In State Senate

Compromise and indecision characterize the State Senate's efforts to implement a smoking ban in Wisconsin workplaces - - now pushed to 2010, maybe.

Gov. Jim Doyle, who has warned that Wisconsin could become the "ashtray of the upper Midwest" through continued inaction relative to neighboring states, may sadly be proved correct.

Still: this is an important fight. Someday Wisconsin will see the light and stop lighting up, at least around people who do not want to breathe airborne carcinogens.

New Berlin Diversion Proposal Being Monitored Across The Great Lakes

Minnesota-based author and environmental organizer Dave Dempsey, with his Michigan political background and regional contacts, is obviously watching the water diversion drama playing out in Wisconsin around the Great Lakes Compact.

That's the stalled eight-state cooperative agreement to better manage the Great Lakes that is stalled in Wisconsin, might get legislative consideration later this month, but faces an uncertain future.

If any Great Lakes state won't ratify and implement the Compact ( Minnesota and Illinois have, the other six have not), it fails to go into effect, and its standards'-based focus on Great Lakes water conservation and management goes by the wayside after years of US-Canadian effort.

The Badger State is also where a Wisconsin Attorney General opinion from December 2006 about limited state authority to approve diversions from the Great Lakes is being discounted as relevant at the Department of Natural Resources.

You can read an analysis of the DNR's philosophy, here.

Sometimes I wonder if politicos and bureaucrats at our State Capitol, and especially in anti-Great Lakes Compact Waukesha County, fully understand the breadth and depth of interest in their political and legal maneuverings across the Great Lakes region.

Time will tell, aina.

Clorox Buys Burt's Bees, And Corporate America Gets Greener

There's green in green, whether in businesses along the river in the Menomonee Valley, or in the state's renewable energy future, or in corporate buyouts, such as Clorox's $913 million acquisition of the cult company Burt's Bees that makes all those natural soaps and balms.

My New Hampshire Two Cents Worth Two Cents

Well, hats off to Hillary Clinton. Quite an impressive turnaround to defeat the favored Barack Obama.

Though my GOP predictions were generally on point, I should have listened to my earlier advice about long campaigns being fluid, and comebacks being routine.

What happens next is anyone's guess, though I am happy to see such a large Democratic turnout.

If you are a Republican and following the turnout disparities relative to the Democratic vote totals, these first two states do not bode well for the November outcome.

Final note: Gloria Steinem's op-ed in the New York Times on the campaign is a definite must-read, here.

NH Could Doom Romney and Clinton; Giuliani Will Look Bad Compared to Huckabee

All those independenly-minded voters will give a lift to Obama, McCain, Huckabee and yes, even Ron Paul, the antiwar Republican.

That's my two cents worth.

Keep 'Off-Road' Vehcles On The Roads, Out Of Wilderness Areas

Let's hope there are enough roadblocks available to block a stupid Bush administration plan to allow off-road enthusiasts to rip up the wilderness.

How about some reverence for Mother Earth?

Commuter Rail Plan Takes Another Hit

Squabbles over funding have pushed the always-tenuous starting date for the Milwaukee-area commuter rail plan to 2012 from 2010.

Readers of this blog will not be taken by surprise: repeatedly, I have highlighted the imbalance in this region between highway funding - - automatic, expanding, without real public input, let alone a vote - - and rail funding, which, while less expensive than highway projects, is virtually non-existent.

And is being held hostage by demands from opponents that implementation occur through referenda, new agencies, and higher taxes.

The $6.5 billion freeway modernization and expansion plan, on the other hand, got launched and in the ground for a 25-30-year run. without referenda, the creation of any new bureaucracies or added taxes.

The state transportation department simply gave the regional planning commission a $1 million planning grant (tax money, by the way) and said, 'go draw up a new highway plan.'

Not a transportation plan, since the plan is highways only - - including 120 miles of new lanes, plus some new interchanges and other upgrades.

Then the transportation department accepted the plan - - since it paid for it - - and after a few community meetings where the fancy new designs were displayed, which is always among the final steps in this fake dance of public input, the checks were cut and the bulldozers started running.

First the Marquette Interchange: $810 million. Later this year, $1.9 billion starts to flow south from Milwaukee to the Illinois line while more millions are being spent on a faster-track to re-design the Zoo Interchange west of Milwaukee.

But to get the commuter rail line moved forward from Milwaukee to Racine to Kenosha, with connections to Chicago's METRA line - - well...we need new laws, new agencies, new taxes, and some referenda, to boot.

Right.

I worked in government for many years.

And I covered government for some more years, too, as a reporter, and I know that these tactics...calling for new laws, agencies, taxes, referenda - - are all bureaucratic strategies to make sure things don't happen.

They are stalling and obstruction tactics, and with the long-discussed commuter rail plan now completely entangled in them, the opponents are succeeding.

For the highway lobby, and their allies in state government, it's a big win, even though they could get just as rich building, maintaining and operating trains as the do building and rebuilding highways.

The losers will be the motorists caught in orange-barrel lane closures from Milwaukee south to Illinois from this year to 2016, idling their pricey gasoline into the atmosphere.

Like the rest of us in southeastern Wisconsin, the state offers no choices, choices.

For the region, it's a big loss.

Christian Science Monitor Covers Great Lakes Compact Issues

It's getting hard to keep up with all the stories about the Great Lakes Compact - - the pending regional plan to control diversions and encourage conservation to preserve Great Lakes water supplies.

This time, it's the august Christian Science Monitor, with a dateline from Waukesha, arguably at ground zero, with neighboring New Berlin, in the diversion debate.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson probably pushed the issue past a tipping point this fall when he suggested, in a Nevada speech, the transfer of Great Lakes water from Wisconsin to the US Southwest.

Politicians, editorial writers and assignment editors reacted both to Richardson's political pandering and the backlash to it across the Great Lakes region, generally agreeing that Richardson had a bad idea and that the Great Lakes states better get serious about ratifying the Compact.

Wisconsin, as has been repeatedly observed, is the only one of the eight Great Lakes without any legislation considered to implement the Compact since it was signed in draft form by the Great Lakes governors in December, 2005.

A bi-partisan Wisconsin bill is said to be ready for introduction.

But its fate in the Wisconsin Assembly is unclear, because that is where Waukesha's conservative legislators are controlled by anti-Compact forces in the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce.

These groups are certainly playing with fire, because if the Compact is weakened, or fails to win unanimous approval from all eight Great Lakes states, the likelihood grows that pro-diversion forces in the south and west could lower existing legal barriers and encourage water movement away from the Great Lakes basin.

In winning their short-sighted and narrowly-focused effort to gain easy access to Lake Michigan, Waukesha County business interests might open the floodgates for water movement a lot farther away, inexorably reducing the amount of water in the Great Lakes basin, including what they could have won by applying for it under the Compact's first-ever, region-wide, cooperative checklists and procedures.

Great Lakes Water Issues Summary at Salon.Com

Salon.com provides a good summary of the issues for a national audience.

The message to the arid Southwest, or parched Atlanta: You want Great Lakes water - - just move here.

Aldermanic Candidate Supports Commuter Rail Plan

Milwaukee Third District Aldermanic candidate Sam McGovern-Rowen calls for citizen comment supporting the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter train line.

Good to see that support for this strategy is into the election process in Milwaukee, as candidates make greater use of internet resources.

(Disclosure: Sam is my son).

Surprise, Surprise: Highway Boondoggle Has Unanticipated Local Costs

When Tax-and-Spend Tommy Thompson was Governor, his transportation planners ordered up a highway-lobby lovin' plan to widen most highways around the state, which is one reason the state highway budget is still about $5 billion short of identified funds.

One key element in his spending spree, embraced by irresponsible legislators who saw it as a way to bring home some bacon paid for by everyone else, was schedule bypasses of many small communities.

In 2005, I wrote a Capital Times column about this bypass binge, noting that there was even a community of 355 people - - Pound, in Marinette County - - on the list of cities, towns and villages targeted for a four-lane bypass.

Want to see what these over-engineered monstrosities looks like? Here's what now bypasses little Mineral Point - - that noted highway congestion nightmare that needed somewhere around $70 million of tax dollars to get 'improved.'

Aside from damaging downtowns, the bypasses eat up farmland and leave locals with new headaches, like more patrolling and maintenance costs.

And accident clean-up, too.

This is what officials in Burlington are now discovering - - this town of about 10,000 people, which has costly and troubling new responsibilities attributable to their new $100 million bypass.

Yes, you read that right. A $100 million gob of public funds - - translated into concrete and recurring costs.

Created by the same folks who are busy doling out $6.5 billion on the modernization (sic) of the so-called 'freeway' (not so free!) system in southeastern Wisconsin, but in which there is not an allocated dime for any transit.

Keep the Burlington bypass in mind when you read that there is no state transportation financing for, say, a Milwaukee-to-Madison train link, or commuter trains from from Milwaukee-to-Racine-to-Kenosha, or even a paltry $100,000 to keep a bus line running to bring low-income workers from Milwaukee to their Waukesha County jobs.

Once set in motion, highway planning is very hard to detour or shift to transit, or to pare back on behalf of over-taxed motorists and residents.

Highway overspending has been a bi-partisan scandal in Wisconsin, regardless of the party in power.

But let's not forget that Tommy Thompson, governor from 1986-2001, is the politician who put the state onto the Road to Red Ink and who cemented the highway lobby's power as a permanent overlay onto the ever-burgeoning state transportation, bonding and vehicle operating fee obligations.

Wisconsin Smoking Ban, Still Stalled, Could Get Initial Vote Tuesday

It's scheduled for a Tuesday airing in a State Senate Committee, but powerful lobbies are still trying to keep Wisconsin from joining neighboring states, and much of the world, from a ban on smoking in public places.

Give Madison State Senator credit for continuing this long legislative struggle.

Another Dangerous, Dirty Air Alert For Wisconsin

Here we go again: 22 Wisconsin counties are under a warning for tomorrow, Sunday, due to dangerous levels of particulate matter in the air.

What a way to enjoy (not!) the first thaw in weeks:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Watch for Particle Pollution effective Sunday, January 06, 2008 12:00:01 AM through Sunday, January 06, 2008 11:59:59 PM for Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Buffalo, Burnett, Chippewa, Clark, Douglas, Dunn, Eau Claire, Iron, Jackson, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Price, Rusk, Sawyer, St. Croix, Taylor, Trempealeau and Washburn counties.

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller.

These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and outdoor fires.

The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children.

When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities during the watch period.

People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms.

Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.

To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.

Bars' Responsibility In Alcohol-Related Deaths Finally Gets Attention

It's about time.

For too long - - forever, probably - - law enforcement has given bar owners and employees a pass when it comes to assigning legal responsibilities after a drunken patron has left the premises and committed mayhem.

Two Christmas-day homicides in Franklin allegedly caused by a suspected drunken driver after leaving a bar could lead to criminal charges, authorities say.

This is an investigation that could produce precedent-setting charges, and would fairly shift some - - note I am saying some - - of the legal responsibility for drunken behavior to the servers and their bosses.

It is certainly the responsibility of patrons to drink responsibly.

But in the real world, we all know that alcohol impairs judgement, and an inebriated person almost by definition loses the ability to make good decisions.

Servers and establishments that continue to sell drinks to such a patron are a) using poor judgement while presumably sober themselves, and b) fueling the disappearance of the patron's decision-making abilities by serving more alcohol.

Servers may say it's too hard to tell which patrons are drunk and which are not, or who are concealing it. My answer is: that is part of their job. And if they can't make that judgment, there's no way that patrons under the influence will be able to do it either.

The Franklin case, which is a terrible tragedy, and one that happens under sadly similar circumstances hundreds of time a year in Wisconsin, and thousands of times nationally each year, too, seems to have struck a chord and could have an important legal outcome.

So hat's off to the authorities who are looking into the case with a broader view.

Let's hope they have the fortitude to fend off pressures from the tavern industry's vested interests who will argue that a drunken patron's responsibilities are 100% personal.

Hans Noeldner, Guest Post

Noeldner is a Village of Oregon, WI trustee, energy and environmental activist and member of Gov. Jim Doyle's Task Force On Global Warming.

In the spirit of the New Year and all those resolutions, he produced this commentary:

What is your environmental “footprint” on Earth? You can find calculators online and worksheets in study guides, but there is a far more direct way to comprehend it: just look at what is below you during your day.

Do you see your feet striding through the grasses and forbs of a meadow, or wending their way along a woodland trail, or pacing rows of crops in a farm field?

Do you see the floor of a building? Is the building yours alone, or do you share it with others?

Does it rise upwards with multiple stories to minimize the area of Earth that is denied natural life by its foundation?

Or does it sprawl laterally to suffocate a square foot of soil for every square foot of interior space?

Do you see a sidewalk or a bike path? Are you alone or amidst a bustling throng? Will fifty paces bring you to your next destination? Will 100 revolutions of the pedals fetch you home?

Do you see the footrest of a bus or train? Are the other seats mostly full or mostly empty? How many miles of track or lane do you travel on your daily and weekly errands?

Do you see a runway, and then the whole landscape below wincing from the deafening blast of the engines that thrust you skyward? Can you envision thousands of miles of carbon dioxide contrails in your wake?

Do you see a gas pedal beneath your foot? Do you sit alone or share your car with others? Is it a small vehicle, or a big one whose menacing footprint extends far beyond its bumpers? How much pavement do you pass over as you go?

Do you see your destinations scattered over many blocks and miles, isolated from one another in congealed lakes of asphalt parking? Can you see how this arrangement makes it convenient for you to drive, but difficult or impossible for others to walk?

If you are going often, going far, and most importantly, going so fast that everything in your way seems an obstacle, stop and ask yourself, “MUST I go to all these places?

Can I choose fewer, shorter, and narrower paths? Can I walk in the modest footprints of others, and can others walk in mine?”

How might we live so that far more often we find ourselves already where we want to be?

Wisconsin Network For Peace & Justice Blog Launched

Peace activists have a new website to participate in and read.

George W. Bush would like us to forget about the war in Iraq and the possibility of aerial bombings against Iran before the January 20, 2009 end of our failed experiment in Neo-Con arrogance.

The organizers of the Network For Peace & Freedom Blog say, "Not so fast."

You can join and support the network here.

Huckabee, Obama Won Iowa Votes By Presenting Themselves As Real People

I said it about a month ago, which I will reprint below just for the record: Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama are strong candidates because they strike voters as fresh, and authentic.

In other words, not programmed or superficial, like Mitt Romney, or - - fair or not - - too much a reminder of an earlier Presidency, even one popular with Democrats, as was Bill Clinton's.

Huckabee and Obama can correctly claim more independent status within their own parties than their rivals, and if change is in the air, you want to be able to claim separation from the past or the status quo.

It remains to be seen if first impressions from Iowa get validated in the other states.

Voters are fickle. Things change. Huckabee laid off McCain in Iowa to focus on their common enemy - - Romney - - and the Clinton machine is still formidable, as is Hillary's Clinton's experience and appeal.

And powerful establishment forces in both parties will do their best to push the newer, less controllable front-runners to the sidelines.

Here's what I wrote about these matters earlier, with the focus on Huckabee having being slapped around by AM radio 620 WTMJ's Charlie Sykes, a GOP traditionalist:

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Righty Talkers Miss The Point When Sniping at Huckabee

Some of our local talkers are lining up against former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the blended pro-life, sorta populist Republican who has sinned against GOP doctrine by raising some taxes.

The talkers are slamming Huckabee's rise in some Iowa polls, and believe that when real Republicans find out Huckabee isn't a real Republican, they'll turn to a real Republican - - Romney, perhaps, or Guiliani, neither of whom, to the talkers secret dismay, are really real Republicans.

Like George W. Bush, or Ronald Reagan.

Here's what our talkers don't understand, because they spend too much time in locked studios, away from real people.

Huckabee strikes people as authentic. He's not a stiff. He doesn't appear scripted. He seems likable.He's being read as genuine, relative to other candidates, so his numbers are up.

It's similar to Barack Obama's popularity. Even Ron Paul's.

People like fresh faces. It's more than being, as one of the talkers said, "the flavor of the week."

Not every voter is obsessed as are some of the talkers with the microscopic details of tax policy, or their version of Conservative Truth, or the other deadly vagaries of Republican doctrine.

Thank goodness.

Posted by James Rowen at 12:32 AM

Leading Michigan Businessman Urges Strong Great Lakes Preservation

James Hettinger, a major Michigan industrial park developer (profile here) writes a powerful essay for a business audience about the urgent need for leadership for conservation and against diversions of Great Lakes water.

Hettinger describes falling lake levels and the threat to the Great Lakes from within the region - - indifference - - and outside of the region - - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's suggestion this fall that Great Lakes water could be piped to the dry Southwest.

Contrast Hettinger's public stance, eloquence and comprehensive view to those expressed by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce.

These Wisconsin groups want to weaken the pending Great Lakes Compact - - a regional water management, conservation and diversion-limiting agreement designed to do exactly what Hettinger is says can help to save the Great Lakes.

The Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, in its posted opposition to the Compact, has had months to correct its statement that two Canadian provinces would need to approve a diversion request by Waukesha communities - - a flat-out error that only serves to stir up unneeded anger against our national neighbors to the North.

In fact, is there one noted Wisconsin business leader who could have written what Hettinger has?

None of the business leaders on the state's failed legislative committee that was supposed to draft Wisconsin's Compact enabling bill said or did anything approaching Hettinger's attitude.

Excerpts from his commentary are below, which I have italicized, though the full essay linked at his name at the top is worth reading and saving:

"There can be little doubt but that lake levels are declining.

Compounding the situation is the emerging question as to whether or not fresh-water bottling operations are contributing to the diminishing water levels by sucking the groundwater out of the earth.

It may well be that the decline of the lake levels is part of a great natural cycle occurring over long periods of time and that nature will eventually seek equilibrium. That is not so difficult to accept because a mere 20 years ago we were concerned with high water levels.

It may well be that the industrialization of the earth has laid the basis for a warming that exceeds the natural cycle, through even warmer temperatures and less rain and snow that cause greater evaporation of lake waters without the usual replenishment.

The preceding paragraphs, however inadvertently, still illustrate the complex relationship between our great state of Michigan and 20 percent of the world's freshwater supplies. Be it boating, fishing or the bottling of fresh water, the relationship is intricate, and should it ever unravel we will be more than amazed at the impacts...

If I have a dream for the year 2008, it would be the year we in Michigan formed a strong consensus that we are going to become aggressively proactive with respect to our Great Lakes.

And I do not care what Gov. Bill Richardson says, they are our Great Lakes.

We are the ones who brave winter snow, summer mosquitoes and no-see-ums, highway reconstruction zones, and strange state government to enjoy these lakes.

Increasingly our role becomes something beyond an aggressive proactive approach to the management of the Great Lakes -- we should seize the reins of leadership and act by example.

It is going to be much more difficult for Gov. Richardson to advocate for water diversion if he sees residents of the Great Lakes region engaging in leading-edge water-management practices."

A New Energy Future, With Details, In DNR Report

Because Wisconsin has the resources to create a world-class "bioeconomy," and also could become a major site of renewal wind and wave energy generation, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has begun to review some paradigm-shifting Badger State opportunities, according to documents obtained from the DNR under the Wisconsin Open Records law.

The documents are among almost 500 pages released to this blog in December, and are compiled in a transition briefing book prepared by DNR staffers for Matt Frank, the department's new Secretary.

Here are some highlights:

In Section 9, "Climate Change/Energy Independence," staffers say:"We have met with a developer who is in the early stages of proposing to put 610 wind turbines in Lake Michigan, from Kewaunee to Kenosha. While a great idea, there are legal issues that will need to be addressed and we have done an issue paper on the idea. (Attachment 2)."

That attachment, dated July 23, 2007, lays out a lengthy list of state and federal regulatory, ownership and related issues that could affect the placement of such a large number of wind turbine structures in the Great Lakes, on the lakebeds.

Additionally, similar issues could arise because "demands for renewable energy sources" will likely produce "several proposals in the immediate future for the placement of electrical generating structures on lakebeds."

Allowing either so-called "wave turbines," or wind turbines on the lakebeds would require statutory changes, federal reviews and other substantive and jurisdictional actions, records show.

In Northern Wisconsin, where wood resources abound, there has been "an increase in the number of inquiries about the permitting for alternative fuel sources," with financial stumbling blocks preventing potential applicants from moving forward, the briefing book discloses.

Potential fuel sources at 11 additional plants include [wood] pellet manufacturing, bio diesel and something referred to as "Plasma technology?"

In a separate discussion of the DNR's forested Southern Region, (11 counties: Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Lafayette, Richland, Rock and Sauk), staff briefers note that "there has been a big boom in the ethanol industry...the region has the potential to serve as a major producer of Bio-based fuels.'

The region is working "to promote the development of a biofuels industry in an environmentally sustainable way," the records indicate.

Additionally, briefers say that the region is studying "the use of biomass from state lands," working with utilities to ensure that new power generating plants "are capable of burning alternative sustainable fuels," and is seeking "opportunities to champion the conversion of seed-based ethanol production to cellulosic ethanol production."

That changeover could save huge amounts of water and energy used to grow corn that is used for ethanol production - - the very boom in the ethanol business so popular with farmers and ethanol-refining corporations state-and-nationwide.

On the 48th and 49th pages of the briefing book's "Current Issues" section, DNR staff spell out the potential value of the state's "Emerging Bioeconomy," given the state's forest and wood-products industries:

"The emerging bioeconomy offers the most significant economic opportunity for Wisconsin in our generation. If Wisconsin can move to claim a significant share of the emerging bioeconomic market, we will have created billions of dollars worth of new business in our state."

The briefers discuss education, research, development and other investments "needed for success," and close by saying a comprehensive Wisconsin strategy could reduce "greenhouse gases and other air and water pollutants in Wisconsin and around the world."

Heady stuff - - and perhaps, as the briefers write - - the key to a new Wisconsin economy that recreates the state's agricultural heritage and turns Wisconsin into a renewable energy leader.

Academics and policy-makers have been assembling pieces of this strategy, some at the behest of Governor Doyle, but it appears a number of businesses have taken the next step with DNR personnel.

Petroleum fuels are getting ridiculously expensive, and greenhouse gas emissions are influencing climate change.

If the DNR is working this hard behind-the-scenes on a Wisconsin solution and contribution, let's hear more.

Forget Iowa: I'm Going To Post Information About Wisconsin Friday, Using Open Records

Let the online election junkies thrash it out tomorrow about the election results in Iowa.

While I'm as interested in those caucus numbers as the next immodest blogging pundit, I've tried to make this blog more about certain issues, so tomorrow I'll quote from some fresh documents, courtesy of our state's wonderful Open Records law.

Stay tuned.

Why GOP Elitists Hate Huckabee

Sharp analysis, here. Seems it's all about class.

When A Talker Writes

Those of us who have written columns know it when we see it: a columnist tossing out some disconnected items because, let's face, there are days you just can't write Great Commentary.

And columnists are rarely edited, so what you see is what you get.

Mark Belling's January 2, 2008 Freeman column is quite the example:

Here's a piece of it, with the whole deal here:

"Terrorists, specifically Islamist extremists, need a base of power. Al-Qaida, in particular, needs a country. That’s why it tried to move into Iraq after being run out of Afghanistan. Iraq is especially important to al-Qaida because the greatest threat to terrorism is democracy. Terrorists need a scapegoat; a bogeyman. The jihad movement made Israel the Fake Oppressor and has since moved on to make the United States The Great Satan. But when a country democratically chooses its own leaders, how do terrorists rail against that? It’s hard to build a popular movement by killing popularly elected leaders.

"Al-Qaida is moving on. Having lost Iraq, it is now trying to claim Pakistan. The murder of Benazir Bhutto, with the likely acquiescence of the ruling Pakistani government, may lead to the civil war the terrorists need to grab power. This threat is scarier than Iraq because Pakistan is armed with nuclear weapons. The bottom line for the United States is that Pakistan is the latest place we will have to confront terror.

"Naive liberals don’t understand this. Fake conservatives - the disgusting Ron Paul and his ilk - don’t get it either. The terrible reality is that there is a strong jihad movement that wants to slaughter infidels by the billions and it will have to be confronted everywhere it rears its head. The alternative is the end of civilization. The good news is that the battle is winnable. It must, however, be fought. The fight will not end in our lifetime.

* * *

"Disruptive technologies are the ones that change the world and destroy industries while creating new ones. The automobile was one of them, TV was another and the Internet may be the most profound. The transition can be painful.

"The industry I work in, radio, is the site right now of mass carnage. People are being fired all over the place, including at my own employer. The Internet, the iPod and other technologies are creating competition that is forcing radio executives to slash costs and people are the only real cost they have. I predict by the end of the year, there won’t be more than three music radio stations in Milwaukee with live announcers outside of morning drive. They’ll still need hosts like me on talk stations, but computers will be playing the music and canned inserts will read the call letters. Many believe this is a disastrous mistake by radio executives who are cheapening their product by totally dehumanizing it.

"In the meantime, local photography studios are shutting down all over the place. Digital technology allows amateurs to take hundreds of images at virtually no cost. With all those chances to get it right themselves, many see no need for a pro.

"There are zillions of other examples. The new technologies are creating new industries and new opportunities even as they crush existing businesses and their workers. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to watch."

Remembering Lee Sherman Dreyfus

Sad to hear that former Republican Gov. Dreyfus passed away.

I found him reasonable, thoughtful, welcoming - - and something of a risk-taker when he agreed to help progressives in the other party to defeat a flawed lousy piece of tax-restricting legislation known as TABOR - - only to earn the wrath of local talk radio hosts who disrespectfully mocked their successful elder as King of the RINOS (Republicans in Name Only).

I seem to remember the Sykes show having silly radio fun by playing at the mention of Dreyfus' name a sound effect of a bellowing rhino, getting back at Dreyfus for having had the temerity to break ranks with his narrow-minded and defeatist GOP brethren.

Dreyfus and I ran into each other at a downtown meeting a few years ago, and we kept up a discussion started there about European history, ethnicities and countries of origin.

He was a nice guy, something unusual in politics, and I suspect I'm just one of many who will miss his brand of joyful, non-partisan statesmanship.

Dale Olen On Water: Eloquence And Commonsense

Dale Olen on water: an excellent blog item.

Legislators Again Call For Great Lakes Compact Approval

Bi-partisan legislators from key districts are again calling for Wisconsin to approve the Great Lakes Compact.

It appears as if there is a probable draft to be introduced this month - - with two big questions surrounding its chances for success:

1. Will it be strong enough to be effective on the major issues, including diversion standards?

2. Will those essentially anti-regulatory libertarian business interests at the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce continue to oppose Compact provisions requiring all eight Great Lakes states to work in unison on water stewardship?

This is the basic collision of power-brokers and attitude (read: politics) in Wisconsin over the Compact: Will people, groups and alliances want to go their separate ways - - thus also releasing their counterparts in the other states to do the same - - or will they agree to work together across an eight-state, two-nation with Great Lakes protection as the highest, common goal?

Journal Sentinel Calls For Coordinated Action On Great Lakes Health

Your attention is directed to an excellent editorial in the Thursday, Jan 3rd Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the need for private sector, state and federal urgent attention to Great Lakes' water issues.

The editorial title says it all:

"Make it a priority: Protecting the Great Lakes from threats such as diversions, invasive species and falling lake levels needs to be part of the presidential election debate."

(Bold-face in the original.)


The editorial was sparked by a frontpage story Wednesday by reporter Dan Egan on water level declines in Lake Michigan having reached recorded lows.

A Waukesha Water Utility lobbyist didn't like my interpretation of that story. You can read my blog posting ,and his comments just as he sent to them for posting, among others pro-and-con, online here.

Plummeting Lake Levels Should Slam The Door On Diversion Talk

Though today's lead story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the continuing drop in Lake Michigan water levels is not an entirely new development, it should set off some alarm bells in Waukesha, where city officials have downplayed the impact a Waukesha diversion would have on the lake's health.

As lake levels fall, so does Waukesha's chance of winning a diversion, given media like today's front-page Journal Sentinel piece.

Yet imagine how embarrassed state officials would be if they had approved last year the secret appeal Waukesha made twice in writing for 24 million gallons of Lake Michigan water diverted daily and without a drop being returned ?

Governor Doyle made the right call when he sent those requests to bureaucratic limbo.

The likelihood that communities like Waukesha, or others in Ohio, for example, might stick their pipes and pumps into the Great Lakes without regard to the bigger picture is the very reason that negotiators from the US and Canada took four years to draft the pending Great Lakes Compact.

That is a cooperative plan to better manage the Great Lakes, establish conservation requirements and make diversion-seeking cities and new large users demonstrate both need, and return-flow procedures.

Anything less is bad stewardship and will contribute to the lakes' quantity and quality problems.

Wisconsin needs to approve the Compact, with some changes that will close bottled-water sales' loopholes and clearly require that diverted water - - in the rare cases that a diversion is approved - - be returned close to the source of its removal,, and in the largest amount feasible.

That mans, for instance, that diverted water can't be discharged after treatment onto an open field somewhere technically in the Great Lakes basin, but inappropriately far away from the lake where it originated.

As the Great Lakes levels fall, and the air temperatures continue to cause more lake evaporation, conservation and water recycling in all the region's communities becomes even more important.

The priority has to be on water management, not water acquisition, and planners need to integrate this mindset when they are looking at land-use and transportation issues, too.

The regional planning commission is more than half finished with its area-wide water supply study, and it seems to be headed towards the creation of a regional water authority that would seek water supplies that reinforce the existing regional land use plan.

That plan has enabled movement of people, jobs and transportation assets away from the region's biggest city - - Milwaukee - - where lake water access is simpler, legal and available.

Until the regional planning commissions tackles this major contradiction, much of which is ts own making, the region is poised to recommend diverting water far from Lake Michigan, turning falling lake levels into a continuing, self-fulfilling prophecy.

Refinery Expansion On Lake Superior Coming Into Focus

More evidence that Superior, WI is going to be ground zero in a tremendous political and ecological conflict:

The Superior Daily Telegram has tracked Murphy Oil's land acquisition in advance of a probable and massive expansion of the refinery there - - property acquisitions that undermine the company's public position that 'everything is tentative' when it comes to adding refining capacity there by 200,000 barrels a day.

Why assemble parcels? Just to be in the real estate business?

The Daily Telegram provides a solid, watchdog role when it comes to monitoring government regulators and development up north, making the paper a must-read, bookmarked online site for activists and policy-makers statewide.

For example, the paper's editorial page sharply criticized the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources over what it said were flaws in a DNR study on cargo ships' release of invasive species into the Great Lakes,

Records obtained by this blog from the DNlR and posted late this fall indicate that key players know the expansion has been green-lighted.

Lake Superior is the cleanest of the Great Lakes; the existing refinery sits on nearby wetlands.

In recent years, Murphy has agreed to pay record, Wisconsin fines for violating air pollution permits, and has partnered with government agencies to clean up a creek polluted with petroleum byproducts that flows past the refinery and eventually into Lake Superior..

That was all when the refinery's capacity was at a mere 35,000 barrels a day, or 15% of the expanded refinery's projected output.

So get ready for the battle - especially whether the company can persuade the DNR and federal authorities that the expansion can be accomplished without putting unacceptable amounts of toxins into the environment.

Illinois Rings In New Year Smoke-Free

Chalk up another piece of real estate where you don't have to inhale others' cigarette smoke: Illinois.

Minnesota...Ireland...France...and now the Flatlands to the south. Were it not for the choke hold applied by The Tavern League in Wisconsin on this issue, we'd have caught up with our neighbors and foreign countries on this basic public health matter.

Someday.

Huckabee Election-Eve Gaffe Gives Opponents A Happier New Year

GOP presidential hopeful and now-champion gaffemeister Mike Huckabee scores a 10 on the eve of the Iowa caucuses by attacking negative ads, announcing he was pulling his to set a better, higher standard - - then showing it to a stunned media.

Now there are political gaffes and there are media gaffes and there are good-taste gaffes, but this hits the Trifecta, and probably turns off enough Iowans to vault either McCain and Romney to a 1-2 finish.

Finishing off Huckabee.