Great Lakes Water Resources Connections Sought

The informative website and blogging resource GlueSpace is looking to further its internet/Great Lakes connections.

Let them know you are out there.

A little more about this collaborative is here.

Huge Hybrid SUV's: Why Detroit Automakers Fail

GM and Chrysler are promoting 5,500-pound eight-passenger hybrid-powered SUV's.

Which are not selling well.

$53,000 for a vehicle that still only gets 20 miles per gallon might just dampen some sales.

D'uh!

And you wonder why Toyota just keeps on growing?

Left And Right Agree: The North/South I-94 Expansion Plan Is Being Mishandled

I've lost count of the number of posts I've put up about the unneeded I-94 widening bring rushed to construction from Milwaukee's Mitchell Interchange south of the city to Illinois, adding $200 million to what is now an indefensible, $1.9 billion boondoggle.

On his WISN-AM 1130 radio show Friday afternoon, Mark Belling took off after transportation secretary Frank Busalacchi because the project calls for the elimination of the Mitchell Interchange's S. 27th northbound ramp, leaving some businesses there marooned, with customers and motorists inconvenienced.

Belling called Busalacchi "thuggish," and his staff "goons."

Name-calling won't change the eight-year project's schedule: today the federal government said construction can begin early next year.

Ohio's Anti-Compact Forces Still Delaying Adoption There

Ohio's stubborn reactionaries are still holding up the approval of the Great Lakes Compact.

These are the same Ohio legislators with whom Wisconsin's leading Compact opponent, State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), had been working with strategically as Wisconsin's legislature slowly worked its way to approving the Compact earlier this month.

If Lazich's allies succeed in blocking the Compact in Ohio, thus withholding the agreement's required eight-Great Lakes state approvals, and eventual Congressional ratification, diversions of water to Lazich's constituents in New Berlin and Waukesha could be in peril.

Go figure.

Tomah Journal Editorial Again Clears The Air

The Tomah Journal continues a string of great editorials about land use, energy and spending with a strong call for more efficient development and vehicle use.

The editorial doesn't mention it, (an earlier one did) but Tomah is a perfect example of a community whose taxpayers will be sending money to faraway southeastern Wisconsin to pay the hundreds of millions needed to add 120 miles of new regional freeway lanes.

These lanes are part of a $6.5 billion freeway rebuilding plan - - with the biggest piece, $1.9 billion from Milwaukee to the Illinois border being rushed to a beginning this year though state documentation shows no gain in commuting times provided by 70 miles of new lanes running north and south.

State gas taxes, vehicle registration fees and borrowings will be paying for segments of the regional plan for another 20 years, even though higher gas prices will probably dampen driving and thus gas tax collections.

Investments in transit and local road repairs are better uses of transportation spending than new highways and sweeping new interchanges, but the regional plan doesn't allocate any money for rail initiatives or bus improvements, let alone to fill the pothole down the street.

Wisconsin and its regional planners could use more of Tomah's commonsense.

Instead, we're locked into an old, one-dimensional highway-only mindset in state government and its Department of Transportation that sends Tomah tax dollars to new lanes from Milwaukee past Kenosha where there is no real need.

James Howard Kuntsler Addresses Energy Realities

The outspoken author James Howard Kuntsler produces a fine Washington Post op-ed, reprinted on the new electronic Madison Capital Times, about how to face up to the new energy realities.

Milwaukeans Leave Lighter Carbon Footprint Than Madisonians, Data Show

I hear you sputtering: "Say *@**! what?"

Read on...

The Brookings Institution has ranked 100 US cities and regions according to their respective per-capita carbon footprints - - 2000--2005 data here - - that offers to people, businesses and governments an intriguing, and, at times, shocking comparison when measuring two major producers of pollution - - energy use and highway transportation.

Overall, Metropolitan Madison ranks close to the bottom, at 81st out of 100, with a combined transportation and energy per-capita annual emission of 2.914 tons of carbon, the data show.

Metropolitan Milwaukee (including Waukesha and West Allis), ranks substantially higher and better, at 44th, with the combined per-capita emission of carbon of 2.436 tons.

The per-capita national carbon emission output average was 2.60 tons - - so Milwaukee-area residents do better than peers across the country, and Madisonians do not.

Let's face it, Madison: you folks are putting about an extra half-ton of carbon into the air than your Wisconsin city neighbors to the east who live in the heart of the state's industrial base.

It does turn a stereotype upside down, doesn't it?

When you get into the nitty-gritty details, most comparisons tilt heavily to Milwaukee against Madison - - certainly a city that prides itself on a green mentality.

When looking at highway transportation overall, the comparison was lopsided again in Milwaukee's favor:

Madison, 87th, Milwaukee, 34th.

Truck emissions per resident ran in Milwaukee's favor, and when it came to residents' per-capita auto emissions, something we drivers can relate to, again it was no contest.

Madisonians emitted 1.353 tons per capita from autos, ranking 94th worst - - just six from the very bottom.

The Milwaukee auto number - - 1.038 tons, # 43.

Again: big numbers across-the board.

We all should be working hard to conserve and high gas prices are sure to help.

The residential energy usage numbers and rankings were essentially a draw:

Madison ranked 63rd overall - - four spots better than Milwaukee at 67 - - with carbon tonnage output per capita from electricity at 49th, and fuels, 69th.

Milwaukee's residential energy usage was 67th overall, with electricity usage ranking 51st (two spots worse than Madison), and fuels 67th (two better than Madison).

Frankly, I'm not sure why the numbers come in the way they do, but imagine how much improved the numbers would be if both cities had modern light rail and commuter rail lines, too.

Brooking says "substantial variation exists among these "carbon footprints" of metro areas, due in part to their development patterns, rail transit, freight traffic, carbon content of electricity sources, electricity prices, and weather."

So conclusions are hard to come by. Madison is wealthier per-capita than Milwaukee, but so is Waukesha folded into the Milwaukee data.

Milwaukee does have some rail (Amtrak), but more trucking, I believe.

It may be that Madisonians have a heavier foot on the gas pedal, and that the reformulated gasoline mandated in Milwaukee does burn cleaner, yet Milwaukee is still in a federal, non-attainment air quality area.

Ideas?

Comments?

Wise cracks?

(Thanks to David Riemer for sending me to the Brookings charts today.)

Glenn Grothman Bottom-Feeds Again

Though the racially-tinged slur "welfare magnet" has been dead in Wisconsin for years, who else but State Sen. Glenn Grothman, (R-West Bend), could figure out a way to resurrect it?

Points of reference, here.

Statistic Of The Day: 1/4th Of GM's Workforce Took Buyout

General Motors announced today that 19,000 members, equaling 25% of its total US workforce, took the buyout offered in February, following falling sales.

An earlier buyout in 2006 was accepted by 34,000+ workers.

Imagine where the company and its workforce would be - - let alone the State of Michigan and communities like Janesville - - had GM moved a few years ago forcefully towards efficient vehicles and hybrid/alternative fuel engine technologies instead of to the short-term profitability of SUV's and so-called light trucks.

Driving Is Down Nationally, And In Wisconsin; Is Highway Expansion Justified?

I've raised questions repeatedly on this blog about the blind devotion to highway building in Wisconsin and our region - - as recently as yesterday - - even though, as sharped-eyed reader Joe Klein notes, current federal transportation data show that driving is going down.

Spiking gasoline prices and other inflationary pressures will have that result, and no one is predicting a return to the era of cheap gasoline.

Isn't this another reason right now to slow down and re-think the $1.9 billion I-94 rebuilding and widening project between Milwaukee and Illinois that regional planners dreamed up when gasoline cost $2.30-a-gallon, and which state highway officials are determined to launch this year - - deliberately leaving out a commuter rail line - - through 2016?

The Small Business Times Calls Out Mark Belling

Executive Editor Steve Jagler does not mince his words, with "lying" used often.

Chicago-Area Municipal, Industrial Water Pollution Is World-Class

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley took a shot this week at Wisconsin's Lake Michigan quality track record, an odd, off note for sure when you consider Chicago's long and continuing history of water pollution.

And despite the reversal of the Chicago River and a massive diversion of water away from the lake to carry Chicago sewerage downriver, seepage back to the lake still affects its quality, some experts say.

Here's the record, and it ain't pretty.

I'm a big fan of Daley's environmental record, but his criticisms of Wisconsin and Milwaukee have been gratuitous.

The Road To Sprawlville, Chapter XVI: Town Of Lisbon May Say "No"

The small rural Town of Lisbon in north-central Waukesha County is holding a public meeting tonight to decide whether to impose a six-month building moratorium while considering new codes to control development.

May The Road To Sprawlville bypass Lisbon.

Government Arrogance Could Lead To Regional Cooperation

Regional cooperation, rooted in citizen outrage, might just be the unintended consequence down the road as state and regional leaders keep telling the taxpaying public to drop dead.

You want the evidence?

Wisconsin's Department of Transportation keeps speeding towards a quick start to an unnecessary and wasteful expansion of I-94, pushing to add a new lane for 35 miles each way between Milwaukee and the Illinois border.

The new lane, which studies show not improving commuting times, adds another $200 million to an already-bloated reconstruction plan and runs the total to $1.9 billion - - the state's biggest highway project ever.

The City of Milwaukee has formally objected.

Even today, Ald. Bob Bauman notes that the state wants to spend billions on highways and can't even keep its promise to Milwaukee to get a food vendor in the new multi-modal train and bus depot downtown.

Again and again, WisDOT keeps saying "shove it"to Milwaukee," as it did when the overall regional highway plan first projected the loss of hundreds of homes, along with several businesses and millions of dollars in Milwaukee's tax base.

A group of attorneys recently sent highway planners a detailed analysis of the I-94 expansion's legal and environmental deficiencies - - something of a warning shot that WisDOT was 'planning' itself into a courtroom corner - - but on Tuesday, the highway bosses again said full speed ahead.

It looks like taxpayers, with their pockets being picked by WisDOT's slavish obeisance to their road-building pals, are about to start paying lawyers to defend an indefensible highway scheme.

Remember that the next time you hit a pothole, see a bus route close, or wonder why we can't get modern rail added to our transportation mix - - when other states and smaller cities have managed to figure it out.

The $1.9 billion, eight-year, north-south I-94 project is but a piece of a bigger, $6.5 billion Regional Highwaypalooza to add 120 miles of new lanes, along with repairs and generously-labeled "improvements" to the so-called freeway system in southeastern Wisconsin.

The plan was created by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission with a $1 million grant from...who else?...WisDOT itself.

Talk about a nice, closed loop.

WisDOT handed off the highway-only planning to SEWRPC because it didn't want to take the inevitable heat from outraged citizens - - many of whom had earlier beaten up WisDOT quite justifiably when it wimped out and dropped light rail from a regional transportation plan because talk radio bashed it.

SEWRPC's $6.5 billion highway-only/no-rail plan was based on traffic projections with gasoline costing $2.30-a-gallon.

That outdated guestimate is still anchoring the plan and its spending as gasoline prices are heading for $5-a-gallon, and while there is a commuter rail plan ready to be implemented parallel to the I-94 expansion corridor between Milwaukee to the Illinois border, yet neither WisDOT or SEWRPC will change one comma or penny in those plans.

All the SEWRPC planners and administrators' salaries are paid with tax dollars, the lion's share coming from Milwaukee County property owners - - and most of those county taxpayers live in the City of Milwaukee.

WisDOT's budgets hire people and pay contractors, too - - all with tax dollars.

So what do we have?

Spending without accountability.

Taxation without representation.

Leaders and planners use the public's money to a) dismiss the public from any real input into the planning process, then b) allocate the money in ways that sacrifice any transit-stimulated investment and economic development - - while c) knowingly exacerbating costly sprawl, irretrievable land loss, smoggier air and the intentional, racially-insensitive separation of workers from a real shot at jobs or affordable housing in the 'burbs.

And what will we end up with?

A region that keeps searching for a new competitive identity, but is becoming - - with the help of local, state and regional governmental bodies - - The Region Left Behind.

Deliberately.

How can Milwaukee attract workers and students, managers and professors, investors and tourists, when they are coming from cities where riding in from the airport on a train is the norm, as is getting around the downtown, to work and other destinations by modern rail transit?

We'll be left as a one-dimensional and backward region with more highways on the drawing boards - - paid for with gas taxes, vehicle registration fees and borrowings all sure to keep rising - - to serve sprawling subdivisions, on annexed farmland, with diverted Lake Michigan water.

It's Planning For Yesterday.

These public policies and subsidies promoted and implemented at SEWRPC and WisDOT are sucking dollars and resources to unsustainable and unaffordable distant regional edges at the very time that all best practices endorse investment where infrastructure exists already - - in cities like Milwaukee and Racine, and older suburbs like West Allis - - to better match and link workers and development using water, land and transit resources.

WisDOT, long operating with an arrogant corporate culture, will have none of it.

It has been shoving widened roads across dense urban areas and farming communities for decades - - at the expense of cities, downtowns and older suburbs - - but now the agency's approach is even more indefensible because gas costs are pricing motorists right off the pavement WisDOT is ready to pour.

It even wants to rush ahead with a $25-million new interchange in Western Waukesha to a stalled shopping mall development in the Pabst Farms project, where the mortgage crisis has suspended subdivision construction, and higher gas prices are making regional malls less attractive than built downtown commercial centers in nearby cities like Oconomowc, Fort Atkinson and Jefferson.

And SEWRPC?

It continues to be exposed as an unrepresentative tool of the road-builders and subdivides, shutting Milwaukee out of its decision-making (Milwaukee has no representation on its 21-member commission, though four heavily-rural counties - - Walworth, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha, with less people total than the City of Milwaukee, have a majority of the Commission's votes, with 12.).

You want to go to a SEWRPC committee meeting, where all the work gets done?

You'll need Google Earth and a good car to find SEWRPC out in an industrial park in Pewaukee, without a bus stop, of course.

But don't expect to speak at SEWRPC committee meetings. They rarely allow public comment.

The discussion,choreographed by SEWRPC staff, is among hand-picked experts and favored consultants that reflect the agency's suburban, sprawl-inducing biases, histories and agendas.

In fact, SEWRPC just named Ken Yunker, the agency long-time deputy director, as the new executive director-to-be in a closed, no-search process, because that's the way it has always done it, SEWRPC officials have said.

At a SEWRPC task force meeting yesterday in Kenosha, out-going executive director Phil Evenson, himself the former deputy to SEWRPC's first executive director. said the promote-from-within tradition was so locked-in at SEWRPC that bringing in outside candidates through a search wouldn't have been fair - - to them!

Give Evenson credit for honesty in explaining what he said had been his decision to recommend Yunker's promotion - - and for taking "affirmative" out of affirmative action.

Even Adelene Greene, a SEWRPC commissioner from Kenosha County who was chairing the Kenosha meeting (a session of the SEWRPC Environmental Justice Task Force, not a higher-rung, full-fledged committee), called the hiring "one missed opportunity."

Give her credit for honesty, too.

When rumors of Evenson's impending resignation percolated across the region, I posted a lengthy analysis in January about the need for a fresh start, and a new mindset at SEWRPC.

Missed opportunity...for sure - - and more will occur unless and until Milwaukee County can extricate itself from SEWRPC, and be reconstituted as a regional planning body with authority over one county only, just like the status Dane County has achieved with its single county planning body.

I've written about this before. Without control over its destiny and budgets, its land and water, Milwaukee County - - and the City of Milwaukee that, by law, cannot expand its borders one square-inch - - are doomed to second-or-third-class status relative to neighboring counties.

Which is fine with the outlying counties: they get to run SEWRPC with Milwaukee money, but keep Milwaukee land-locked, and locked-down.

When the water diversions are fully pumping Lake Michigan water to the many outlying communities already identified by SEWRPC as targets, and this round of highway expansion is finished in time for the next multi-billion-dollar round of scheduled rebuilding, people in Milwaukee will still be clamoring for affordable transit.

The only difference by then will be that the people lured by water and added lanes to Sprawlville, when gasoline is $15-per-gallon and/or rationed, will also wish that rail lines had been finished years earlier, too.

Maybe that will be the real basis of regional cooperation - - not among governments and agencies, but among real people, city and suburban folks alike - - the public wondering aloud, and together, where their tax dollars went in 2008, when the leaders and planners still pretended it was 1988.

Then demanding through recalls and elections that the will of the people be finally respected.

Mayor Daley Must Have Eaten Some Bad Fois Gras

Sometimes playing just to the base makes you look goofy to the rest of the folk.

Watering Restrictions Are A Must If Communities Want Lake Michigan Water

Suburbs are implementing restrictions on lawn sprinkling - - though Waukesha's ordinance is too weak because it levies a financial penalty after three warnings, and has yet to result in a single forfeiture - - are more than good water conservation policy.

Without these restrictions in place, and demonstrating real water savings, applications from these communities for Lake Michigan diversions are going to find little sympathy from regulators in other states that will have to approve the diversions.

With Spiking Gas Prices, Barrett's Transit Message Resonates

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett again makes the case for modern transit in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker remains the major local obstacle, but the logjam could be broken by Gov. Jim Doyle if he redirected to commuter rail, from Kenosha to Milwaukee, the $200 million ticketed for a new I-94 lane to and from Milwaukee south to Illinois.

I-94 would still get its reconstruction, but not the expansion - - a pure gift to the highway lobby that is not justified by the expansion plan's documentation.

The state should also connect the new Intermodal station downtown to the Connector local rail system proposed by Barrett, and to an upgraded network of hybrid buses and other improvements that both Barrett and Walker support.

That would elevate transit construction as a state priority - - not equaling what the state does for the highway industry, because that would be too much to expect - - but the state can genuinely making modern rail transit a significant transportation and economic development activity.

The rail lines and stations would spur development and solidify the downtown, Third Ward, Pabst City project, King Dr., the Park East corridor and other neighborhoods that have seen growth but could stall if the auto-dependent economy stagnates.

Local Milwaukee business leaders have begun to step up their advocacy for rail, led by Michael Cudahy. Barrett has a logical plan, and the economic benefits associated with rail investments are ubiquitous.

With gas prices spiking, and suburban sprawl producing housing that is too expensive for auto-dependent commuters to afford, it makes overwhelming sense today for the state to begin to shift more public revenue investments to transit and road maintenance and steer away from new, costly and unsustainable highway expansions.

But without state leadership and policy initiatives, the paradigm will be slow to shift, and our one-dimensional transportation reality in Milwaukee will remain a bus system lurching towards collapse.

Cleveland Plain Dealer Calls Out, Again, A Mary Lazich Ally

The Cleveland Plain Dealer notes that the handful of state legislators who held up passage of the Great Lakes Compact in Ohio for years had subscribed to a "wacko conspiracy theory" that did not fit into 21st. century thinking.

Let the record show that State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), the sole State Senator to vote against the Compact in Wisconsin, touted Ohio State Sen. Tim Grendell, the acknowledged leader of the Ohio obstruction.

And when she brought to a legislative study committee, in writing, some of Grendell's argumentation, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources replied, in writing, that what Grendell was arguing for Ohio was incorrect for Wisconsin and irrelevant to our law.

Yet it is, and has always been, New Berlin, Mary Lazich's home city, that is first in line for a diversion of Lake Michigan water - - something that was blocked without the Compact's approval.

It never made much sense to me that Lazich would align herself with forces and argument in Ohio that stood in the way of New Berlin obtaining water that Jack Chiovatero, the city's Mayor, says New Berlin needs for health and safety reasons.

Water access for which New Berlin has formally applied - - through consultants that New Berlin water ratepayers have paid - - and to which the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has given some preliminary, positive reviews.

In fact, the DNR has been encouraging New Berlin and Milwaukee, in writing, to begin discussing the many technical, legal and financial details that would need to be ironed out if a water deal is ever approved.

Yet Lazich, on her blog, ripped into Chiovatero for even having the discussion, and, in response to earlier remarks that Chiovatero had made about her to the Shepherd-Express, called the New Berlin Mayor "simplistic and small-minded."

Her words, July 19, 2007.

"Chiovatero’s rationale and line of thinking is small-minded and simplistic," wrote Lazich on a blog - - "Conservatively Speaking" - - carried online through Journal Communication "CommunityNow" websites serving Lazich's Senate district.

"His criticism is misdirected. Instead of cozying up to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett who opposes access to Lake Michigan water for New Berlin and Waukesha, Chiovatero should be working with me, the state Senate representative of the area most affected by the Compact, to ensure our communities get the water they so desperately need. "

Amd Kevin Fischer, Lazich's staff aide, has recently demonstrated on his blog a lack of understanding of water issues.

Makes you wonder about that whole Lazich staff/blogging/office operation.

As I said, Lazich's approach to the Compact never made much sense to me.

Anybody out there in New Berlin, or in water-hungry Waukesha County, got an explanation for the Senator's actions?

Milwaukee Positioned To Lead On Urban Agriculture

A blog posting by The Compost Guy explains how Milwaukee can assert leadership on urban agriculture, and what's already happening with Growing Power and related activities. Definitely worth a read, here.

Philadelphia Phillies Make Major 'Green' Effort

From clean-energy purchases to recycling, the Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Club has become the 'greenest' sports franchise, according to a team release.

Pretty cool.

Why A Can Of Miller Beer Does Not Raise The Same Great Lakes Issues As A Bottle Of Nestle's Water

Author and blogger Dave Dempsey explains the difference, raised by Nestle's spin on behalf of its export of Great Lakes water under the faux-branded "Ice Mountain" bottling label.

Wetlands' Damage From Pipeline Unacceptable, But Predicted, Predictable

A pattern of harmful violations to the environment during the construction of an oil pipeline will lead to a significant financial penalty levied by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Sunday.

Wisconsin Wetlands Association had been monitoring the construction: the group's due diligence, and more, has raised public awareness and helped to make sure the pipeline builder is held accountable.

So while there will be enforcement action by the DNR, it's important also to ask three questions:

1) How did we get to this position?

2) How much money is enough to fix the damage and deter its repetition?

3) Why isn't there better goal-setting, management direction and field work by the pipeline companies on the front end, so the state wouldn't have to come in once the damage is done and make sure that things are repaired, as best as that can be done, after-the-fact?

Or have we reached the point where anything is acceptable as the price of 'progress?' Do we really want to go down that road, leaving for future generations a diminished and polluted landscape?

Wisconsin environmental organizations had been tracking pipeline construction and warned of its damage to wetlands - - some of which I catalogued here last September.

Midwest Environmental Advocates had been deeply involved, too, and some media had reported on the issues. You wonder where we'd be without these non-profit organizations that, armed with facts and energy, keep raising the alarm about dangers posed to our shared resources.

But unfortunately at a certain level - - and this attitude will become more prevalent and excused with the rush to find and sell more oil - - industry just does not care enough about the land and water they are tearing through to boost their bottom lines.

As pipelines fill with Canadian crude oil heading for several refineries in the Great Lakes region, including the Murphy Oil facility in Superior, construction flaws and operating errors will inevitably make stream and wetland damage, and other ecological problems, routine.

Kevin Fischer Does Not Understand Where Drinking Water Already Comes From

Kevin Fischer, inveterate righty blogger and staff aide to State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) is atwitter about what he calls "preposterous," and "horrible," and "icky" (now there's maturity, for ya) plans to use state-of-the-art water purification techniques to create potable water from waste water in parts of the county facing water shortages.

Isn't it an act of faith among conservatives that technology will bail us out of severe ecological difficulties, so why would people like Fischer get all upset and squeamish when advantageous technology gratefully comes along?

And Kevin: Though the technology is improving, the concept is hardly new.

What do you think certain communities along rivers downstream from cities like Waukesha, for example, have been doing for decades and decades - - with Waukesha being the city right next door to Mary Lazich's home base in New Berlin, and which is the dominant city in Waukesha County, where Lazich is a key policy-maker?

One of the region's pre-eminent water experts, UW-M hydrologist and professor Douglas Cherkauer, has been educating folks around here about this for years, and suggesting it to Waukesha as an alternative to piping in Lake Michigan water a good 20 miles away.

As Cherkauer has been saying, Waukesha could efficiently treat some its its effluent, then deposit it in the watershed above the city where it could then seep back into the Fox River, be removed by Waukesha, and used again.

Here is how Cherkauer described the process to the Freeman more than four years ago:

"I’m saying, take half of that [Waukesha discharge] flow and pipe it back somewhere up the river, north of Waukesha - removed from the Fox River but within the watershed. Then build big infiltration fields for it - with big, perforated pipes put underground - and let (the wastewater) soak in, after it’s been treated. Then the soaking infiltration process provides still more treatment.

"Then that (wastewater) would flow back to the Fox River and it literally increases that Fox River flow by that same 4.5 million gallons a day," he said.

"Cherkauer added, "If the stuff is treated correctly, then the river is still viable, it’s still a recreational site, and you’re just inducing it to flow from the river into shallow wells that are placed along the river. Those wells could be hooked up to the same water mains that the current deep wells are hooked up to.

"The difference between a groundwater source and a river source is that you absolutely have to treat a water source when it comes out of the river, unlike well water," he said.

"Cherkauer said the concept is not so outside the mainstream as it might sound. The Illinois communities of Elgin and Aurora are already drinking that water - the wastewater that Waukesha sends south down the Fox River past their communities." [Emphasis added]

In other words - - right now, Waukesha discharges its waste water, a valuable resource, into the Fox River below the city, where downstream communities in Northern Illinois pull that water out, treat it again to acceptable drinking standards, and - - here's the news - - Kevin:

Drink it.

If you visited Elgin, and had a glass of tapwater, you'd be drinking treated Waukesha waste water.

Then Elgin, or Aurora, treats their waste water, discharges it downstream, and the process can goes on again and again as the Fox River empties into the Mississippi River watershed, to the Gulf of Mexico.

It's nothing new, except that the technologies are getting better because water needs are growing and the market is responding with new science, and sheer ingenuity.

Not everyone's water originates in a well, Kevin.

Healthy Madison To Eat 200,000 Brats At One Sitting; That's Healthy?

Can Madison really claim its Healthy City motto and continue its annual Brat Fest, where the goal is to eat close to 200,000 sausages - - and yes, I know, a modest few are veggie?

But the emphasis on breaking the 190,000 barrier...setting a record...makes this nothing more than a glorified Coney Island hot dog eating contest.

Yes, it's a fundraiser. I know, I know, but in a world, and even a state where some people do not have enough to eat, and where heart disease is a major drain on the health care system, does a self-proclaimed Healthy City go out of its way to gorge itself on nearly 20 miles worth of sausages?

Ambulances and cardiologists are no doubt standing by.

Paul Soglin at Waxing America shines a different political light on the event, but I believe I have best gone to the heart of the matter.

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn Draws Back The Blue Curtain

I learned a lot reading the WisPolitics.com interview with Ed Flynn, Milwaukee's new police chief, about the historical internal dysfunction between the police department's detective, crime-solving personnel and the patrol services.

The everyday citizen probably knew nothing about this situation; I give Flynn credit not only for shaking things up within the department, but also for explaining why he is doing the things he is doing to improve services, particularly patrols, that are what the citizenry want and need.

I was at a recent neighborhood meeting where these changes were explained in real terms by the District Captain and other officers, so now it all makes sense.

Water And Milwaukee's Future: 4th St. Forum On Public TV Tonight

The final program in The 4th Street Forum's spring 2008 series was recorded yesterday at Turner Hall and will be aired twice this weekend on Milwaukee public television stations.

The topic was Milwaukee's future, water and regionalism; the panelists were State Rep. Pedro Colon, (D-Milwaukee), New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero, Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers Executive Director Lynn Broaddus, and myself.

Here is the schedule:

Friday at 10:00 pm on Channel 10; Sunday at 3:00 pm on Channel 36.

Ohio Compact Bill, Related Legislation, Are Separate Items

The Toledo Blade has published a useful article explaining the separation between Ohio's pending Compact approval - - becoming the 7th among the eight Great Lakes states - - and a related referendum effort this fall.

Details here.

Also see the comment section in this previous posting.

Sorry for adding confusion to the complicated debate.

Ohio's Approval Of The Great Lakes Compact Awaits A Referendum

Ohio opponents of the Great Lakes Compact have agreed that the agreement can become law in Ohio if a statewide referendum re-affirming some property rights is approved, and Compact supporters have figured out a way to live with it, according to the Chicago Tribune.

This issue was a minor problem in Wisconsin's deliberations, essentially governed already in state law and the Wisconsin constitution, and fine-tuned in the long, drawn-out hassle over the bill that implements the Compact here.

From a distance, the Ohio arrangement looks like face-saving for the opponents, who had minimal clout in the state legislature and were being regularly pounded and mocked by the state's editorial writers.

When Michigan resolves its pending disputes over competing implementing bills, and Pennsylvania's predicted approval also takes place, all eight Great Lakes states then would have ratified the agreement.

The two final steps are approval by the US Congress and Canadian parliament; some Canadians think the Compact gives too many US communities Great Lakes water access, and there could be opposition in the Congress from arid states, too.

With political power in the US shifting from the east and Midwest to the west and south, the Compact's final approval in the Congress is not a slam-dunk.

Discovery World, The Newest Lakefront Attraction, Has Discount Admissions

Admissions are $4 off per person at Discovery World through the end of May, including Memorial Day.

Details here.

Pretty good way to save a few bucks this weekend and help yourself to a better understanding of what that Great Lakes Compact is all about.

Wisconsin Ethanol Coalition: Who Are You Exactly?

The Wisconsin Ethanol Coalition is out with an ad touting the increasingly-controversial fuel additive - - website home page and ad access here - - but the link that is supposed to tell you who its members are only directs you to an email address and phone number for information, or as a route to join.

Maybe the Coalition can fix that?

My Gas Price Prediction Needed More Gloom/Realism

Five weeks ago, I predicted that gas prices around here would hit $4-a-gallon no later than June 30.

My friends who call me a pessimist can now laugh at that goofy, glass-half-full (tank-half-full?) optimism, as the price for regular gas at the Clark station (usually the cheapest around) not far from my house crossed the $4 barrier overnight to $4.19.

I should have known the bump would come right before people hit the road for Memorial Day travel - - such as it may be this year.

$12-$15/Gallon Gasoline "Inevitable;" Wisconsin Not Reacting

So says a credible expert.

As crude oil breaks the $135/barrel price.

Let's say he's wrong, on either side of the prediction, by 50%.

How well does the economy nationally, statewide, and in southeastern Wisconsin function with gasoline costing $6/gallon?

Or at $22.50?

Either way, as I pointed out in this posting, Wisconsin should be investing right now in transit and other city-friendly policies that mitigate sprawl, and not in ridiculous highway expansions and water diversion to subdivisions and strip malls that have no future, and will more quickly than you can imagine become unwanted, and blighted, as the price of gasoline keeps climbing.

There are mechanisms and individuals in place that could be focused on these issues - - if they had the political will to do it - - but that require boldness and vision, perhaps equivalent to a new Progressive Party of sorts, or the energy and devotion of a budding Gaylord Nelson or a crusading media figure like Bill Evjue.

Or a grand coalition that transcended partisanship, geography, vested interests and the other limitations of business-as-usual.

There are less earth-shaking opportunities and avenues to begin and to attain change, too.

For example, the Governor has a task force on global warming. It could re-direct some of its work right now, reorienting the effort it has put in already to the emerging realities and tensions and needs within the market, the environment and the state's budgeting.

All the state's regional planning commissions could do the same, and pressure to do so could be brought by any number of elected officials and grassroots organizations to shake out the commissions' cobwebs and get busy with the people's business.

But without a change in attitude and thinking, and a commitment to action - - to leadership from above and below - - we will be left with little more than inertia and the anxieties that take root in shared powerless, actual and real.

Let's call today, May 22, 2008, "Day One of The Post-Petroleum Paradigm" because we are all aware that a tipping point has been passed - - though warnings about peak oil and related issues have been discussed and ignored for years - - and I'm also going to call 5/22/2008 "Day One of Wisconsin's Deafeningly Silent Response."

I'll be relieved when leaders step forward to change the dynamic, and we can move from paralysis, to analysis, to action.

New Petroleum Costs Should Boost Wisconsin Transit, Shelve New Highways

Crude oil broke through the $132-per-barrel price today, which means at this pace, gasoline will be $5-a-gallon by the summer.

What's the peak?

$175-200-per-barrel crude? $8-$10-a-gallon gasoline at the pump?

And I don't mean in 20 years.

I mean by next year, but project these trends out 20 years or so, and you wonder if anyone will be driving anything bigger than a motorbike on all the new highway lanes planned for southeastern Wisconsin, and no doubt, in every municipality and state in the country, where road-builders routinely manage public highway planning.

It'll make your head spin to absorb all the consequences of crude oil and its products priced far beyond the capacity of households, businesses and entire governments to tolerate them (crude oil was as low as $8-a-barrel in 1999, and about half its current price a year or so ago), but put aside questions like, will you ever fly on an airplane again, or can farmers and truckers afford the fuel they need so you can eat, and ask yourself this:

Can the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) demonstrate that it is factoring in the new harsh realities facing our petro-economy into any rethinking to justify the massive highway spending it still wants to undertake in southeastern Wisconsin?

Got a task force working on it? One of its many consultants? Some sharp in-house wizard?

An intern?

I doubt it.

Look to what WisDOT is doing instead: it's hellbent to launch a $1.9 billion reconstruction, enhancment and widening of the north-south leg of I-94 this fall, from Milwaukee to Illinois, to run for the next eight years.

And its well into the preliminary work on yet a second costly, related project at the Zoo Interchange west of Milwaukee that was moved up to begin in 2012 - - a purely political decision by the state made just prior to the 2006 elections to satisfy one noisy Sprawlville legislator, State Sen. Ted Kanavas, (R-Brookfield) - - so unlike the Marquette Interchange piece of the regional freeway plan that has run from 2004-2008, there will be two segments of the plan underway at the same time.

Nothing like it has been undertaken by the state.

Ever.

And there's more highway-building on the drawing boards in the SE regional plan (other regions have their projects scheduled, too, but not quite at this scale) - - north on I-43 the length of Ozaukee County, west on I-94 in Waukesha County to the Jefferson County line, south into Walworth County, and on I-94 in the City of Milwaukee right past the Storyhill neighborhood and Miller Park, complete with 127 miles of new lanes, scores of widened ramps, plus resurfacings and other enhancements.

It's way beyond maintaining and fixing what we've got already - - which should always be Priority One and often isn't.

And all this was planned out in 2003, using a projected cost for gasoline at $2.30 a gallon, by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and then approved by WisDOT.

There was never any doubt that WisDOT would do anything but approve the plan.

That's because it paid the planning commission $1 million to write it, so it was "approving" something it had already bought and paid for from an agency with the word "planning" in its title.

But let's be honest:

It's hard to imagine that when all the new lanes are open, and the sweeping ramps are finished, and all the vaunted safety improvements are done, and the last ribbon is cut in about 20-25 years that gasoline will be anywhere near $2.30-a-gallon.

Or $3.30, $4.30, $5.30, $6.30, $7.30...just keep going.

Can WisDOT show us that with gas prices heading skyward, and worldwide demand also accelerating, there will be the traffic demand for such huge capacity increases on this highway system - - projected to cost $6.5 billion when it's over?

A bottom-line construction figure that is sure to jump and take more money from taxpayers because the costs for fuel to ship in the materials and run all the road-building equipment are soaring, too.

Can WisDOT continue to deliberately leave transit out of transportation planning and implementation in the region, when killer gas costs will price many motorists out of their vehicles?

When many two-and-three car families will be forced to move to single-car arrangements, and many people with only one car will find it impossible to maintain it, or use it often - - and transit will become a much more widespread choice, and for many, a basic survival need?

When does all the agencies' one-dimensional spending and anti-transit decisions move from the fiscal sphere to the moral realm?

I'd say...yesterday.

Yet I see no urgency in state government to face up to a bigger picture and a new paradigm, let alone a willingness to ask and answer these questions - - questions that are being faced at every dinner table and in every business in the country.

Isn't now the time to begin to have the debate and make changes that we can live with next month, next year, and in the coming generations?

Instead, at the State Capitol, there is denial, adherence to the old, encrusted thinking, and a clinging to the familiar ways, lubricated by campaign cash from the highway lobby and its allies.

What's needed now is realism, and action - - the very first move of which could and should be the immediate tabling of the I-94 north-south plan in favor of much less-costly repaving, resurfacing, and the prompt financing transfer to the pending commuter rail line that runs roughly parallel to the interstate highway.

With that shift from new highway lanes to transit, the new model will take root, and its replication across the state can send a smart signal to the rest of the county, too.

For Wisconsin, for the southeastern region, and for every elected official, the transition is possible, the need imminent.

This is the moment.

Reasons For Minnesota Bridge Collapse Beginning To Emerge

Not surprisingly, deferred maintenance and inspections on the collapsed I-35 bridge are looking like the culprits.

Another reason to spend more transportation dollars fixing what we've got - - whether in Minnesota or Wisconsin or anywhere else - - rather than chasing after sexier new construction projects that then join the lower-priority inspection and maintenance list.

Moderates Are Leaving The Legislature

A dozen incumbents split between the two parties are not seeking re-election, this fall, and the harsh atmosphere at the State Capitol is taking its toll.

Polling suggests a Democratic sweep in November, but that's a long way off.

American Airlines Now Charging $15 For First Checked Bag; Are In-Flight Pay Toilets Next?

American Airlines today announced it was charging $15 for the first checked bag.

Don't be surprised if the next new fee charged by airlines is for in-flight bathroom use.

Entrance could be regulated by credit or debit card swiping - - maybe combined with an airline specific gift or credit card that could be used to buy meals, beverages, even magazines, pillows and those oversized handkerchiefs they call blankets.

Think about it. Each drink or meal purchased could include a prepaid visit to the bathroom, so they could get you coming or going.

Milwaukee County Kicks City Officials To The Curb

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker brought a fancy new hybrid bus to town to demonstrate the equipment he wants to buy with federal funds that can't spent on transit without the approval of the City of Milwaukee.

Then the county officials in charge of the demonstration ride fail to pick up the city officials, literally leaving them at the curb.

So if you are the city, does this sound like a group you'd want to partner with?

And do you think Walker really wants the city's cooperation on the transit plan, or is having more fun dissing city transportation officials?

20 Homes, Other Businesses, Could Fall to Zoo Interchange "Improvements"

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation, continuing to roll over Milwaukee officials, deny the reality of high gas prices and dismiss fiscal sanity, is embarking on the next unfunded phase of the region's $6.5 billion freeway rebuilding and expansion spending spree.

With our/your money.

The next segment that is being planned - - just as the $1.9 billion segment from Milwaukee to Illinois gets underway through 2106 - - is the reconstruction of the Zoo Interchange so motorists can zip through it a few seconds faster at rush hours.

At a cost of hundreds of millions of un-budgeted dollars, and now, according to state planners, at least 20 homes and some businesses that have been standing too long in progress's path.

Homes? Businesses? Tax base?

Ah - - who needs those trifles?

Not the Milwaukee area, especially in a recession. Just let those contracts and get some more concrete in the ground.

Step one? The ritualized informational public meeting-and-later-hearing process, and it's about to begin.

You know - - that dog-and-pony show at which planners and engineers from WisDOT, or perhaps from the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission - - the agency that spawned this entire regional highway plan with a $1 million DOT contract a few years ago - - are decked out in their Sunday best to stand at attention by glossy displays with leaflets to hand out, uncomfortably reminiscent of the judging session at the High School Science Fair.

But in this case, instead of winning a ribbon for nice charts and culture-filled petri dishes, the goal at the displays is to numb inquiring minds with jargon, data, and other palliative assurances about the project's design, need, and overall wisdom.

I'll reprint the public session schedule at the bottom (thanks to Tom Held for including it in his Journal Sentinel story), so you'll know where to go should you choose to torture yourself by attending, but trust me - - leave behind the expectation that, armed with new official information and materials gathered independently, you'll be able to submit comments or testimony that will actually reduce or alter this grandest of grand Wisconsin road-building schemes - - the biggest 25-to-30-year-ConcreteFest in state history - - and help get transit extensions introduced into the plan as a gesture towards a mere modicum of transportation system balance.

Or that the rising price of gasoline will someday, prayerfully soon, register with the well-connected highway building lobby and the enablers to which they are wired in government, and introduce into their insulated and self-interested world a little planning logic as the first real efficiency in this entire, multi-billion-dollar effort.

The public information sessions will be from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Tommy G. Thompson Youth Center at State Fair Park, 640 S. 84th St., and from 5 to 8 p.m. May 29 in the Wauwatosa West High School cafeteria, 11400 W. Center St., Wauwatosa.

Daily Reporter Poll On I-94 And Commuter Rail

Check out the Daily Reporter's online poll about the I-94 leg from Milwaukee-to-Illinois, and whether it should include commuter rail.

At midnight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, it was 50-50, and I have only voted once. I swear.

Get your vote in now (for the commuter rail inclusion), here.

Michael Savage Plays "Dead Kennedys" Song To Announce Sen. Ted Kennedy's Brain Cancer

Right-wing AM talker Michael Savage, the nationally-syndicated right-wing radio host carried by AM 620 WTMJ, used cuts from a song by the musical group "Dead Kennedys" Tuesday when announcing that Sen. Ted Kennedy, (D-MA), had been diagnosed with brain cancer, according to Media Matters.

Saying it was out of "some respect."

Nice.

When will WTMJ, owned by Journal Communications, replace the deliberately crude and offensive "Savage Nation" program with an alternative?

Thanks to Justin Cole for sending this over to me.

Former Tavern League Honcho Boards The Gravy Train

Gov. Jim Doyle, though in Canada on a trade mission, exercised his considerable powers and presto! - - the state's flamboyant, train-loving railroad commissioner was out of his job, and a Democratic state senator who used to run the Tavern League resigned, hopped into the chief train engineer's seat, and opened the door for the election of a new Democratic senator more to the liking of the Governor and the current senate majority leader.

The immediate effects include a hefty pay raise for the former-Senator-now-railroad commissioner that could also double his pension by 2012.

All Aboard!

The longer-term consequences: should the Democrats hold their senate majority and fill the now-vacant seat with yet another Dem, the Governor might get that statewide smoking ban and other legislative reforms he wants, but that the Senator-now-railroad commissioner had resisted.

If you like inside political baseball, here are the players, the scorecard and the pitch.

EPA Says Region's Air Needs To Be Cleaner Yet

President George W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency says southeastern Wisconsin still has a way to go to meet modest federal smog standards.

This turns back efforts by interests ranging from Gov. Jim Doyle to the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce who think the EPA standard is too tough.

So even though we have known unhealthy levels of smog and other air pollutants in the region, the feds say we need more anti-pollution efort done successfully before we can be removed from certain clean air requirements and regulation.

The ironies here are enough to make a grown person cry - - or at at least get their eyes watering.

Expanded Great Lakes Refineries To Be Fed By Massive New Pipelines

Expansion of refineries in the Great Lakes region at Superior, WI, Whiting, IN and near Detroit to process and ship Canadian tar sand oil will be linked to billions of dollars in new pipelines crisscrossing both countries, as shown here.

The exploitation of Canadian tar sand oil, itself demanding huge expenditures of water and energy, will have an impact on the North American continent, and on the atmosphere's quality, for decades.

Local Residents Raising Concerns About Oil Refinery Expansion in Superior

Some proponents of the much-discussed $6 billion expansion of the Murphy Oil Co. refinery at Superior have suggested that outsiders are raising concerns about the expansion's impact on Lake Superior, surrounding wetlands and the air quality.

So local residents are making it clear that they have the same concerns, too.

So much for the outside agitator theory.

Paul Krugman Might As Well Have Been Writing About Pabst Farms

The New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman writes succinctly about gas prices killing suburban development.

The higher that gas prices rise, the less appealing and affordable are the distant suburbs, and conversely, the more attractive are built cities, with transit and the other amenities provided by their density.

Which is why subdivision construction has been suspended at Pabst Farms, and why the state and Waukesha County should drop the idea of pouring millions into an I-94 interchange to serve a shopping mall at Pabst Farms that has less value as a destination with gas at $4-a-gallon, and rising.

There is a huge disconnect between events in the world and the macro-economy, and local budgets.

Public resources should be invested in transit, and to support cities, not to unnecessarily widen I-94 to Illinois and subsidize more suburban development with taxpayer-paid highways and Great Lakes diversions.

Yet the State of Wisconsin, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and annexation-happy local governments like the City of Waukesha and its water utility are spending millions on planning and billions on projects that push sprawl development farther from city centers and into exurban, rural areas.

And leaving transit out of these massive public investment schemes.

The marketplace, from China to India to American car-buyers' habits, is putting a big premium on the price of gasoline, yet Wisconsin governments, highway lobbyists, road-builders and other special interests are trying to engineer development through road and water projects and overcome the new realities of the costs of gasoline and auto commuting.

Where is the Krugman voice and philosophy in government at any level in Wisconsin - - in the State Capitol, the state Department of Transportation, SEWRPC, or in local offices - - that is not intimidated into silence by the road-builders and the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce?

What will it take for a breakthrough in Wisconsin?
$5-a-gallon gasoline.

$6?

$10?

Follow The Great Lakes Compact Process In Michigan At Dave Dempsey's Blog

Dave Dempsey provides continuing commentary about Great Lakes issues at his blog, with special regard to water legislation and the Great Lakes Compact.

And he sends along this fresh update, as things are happening with water regulation in the Michigan Senate that are disappointing, but not yet final.

We hope Michigan can be a leader, but there are forces at work there that, if not checked, will misuse the water riches in that state.

DNR Employee's Generosity Leads To Posthumous Honor

When conservancy becomes even more than a lifetime passion.

Disposing Of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs In Wisconsin Is Easy

Media continue to urge the proper disposal of compact fluorescent bulbs, pointing out that sales are booming, yet some people are unaware that the bulbs' mercury content means they cannot be tossed in the trash or land-filled.

What to do so they are properly recycled?

The City of Madison says that retailers selling them must take them back for proper disposal, and may charge a fee for the service, but what about the rest of the state?

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources provides an easy web search tool so consumers can find local retailers that have agreed to serve as approved drop-off sites.

Here's the link.

And the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has put up a web link showing Milwaukee city and county residents where they can drop off fluorescent bulbs.

Here is that information, too.

With government and private sector outlets making correct disposal easier, there are fewer reasons than ever for consumers to delay switching away from the less-efficient and more-costly (over their lifetime) incandescent bulbs to newer, energy-saving fluorescents.

Roadblocks To Rail Prove We Need A New Definition of "Region"

The Journal Sentinel editorial board makes the case for commuter rail in the Sunday Crossroads section.

The truth is that transit expansions in all their needed and connected forms - - light rail, commuter rail and better coordinated buses - - will not be realized or even coherently discussed in southeastern Wisconsin without strong, long-term pressure from the business community.

That is the best way to counter the local hostility to new transit-supporting revenue sources by Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and his right-wing talk radio boosters.

Real progress on rail investment may take place someday, though it will have to wait until Walker is gone from County Government and is neither Governor or successful in leaving behind an anti-transit and anti-urban clone.

But without basic changes about how planning and execution of plans is carried out in a region where Milwaukee is at the center, but is legally and politically kept in a secondary position, the prospects for real change in and around Milwaukee are dim.

Here's why.

The pending commuter rail plan linking Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha is crucial for regional development and for the betterment of the existing business and cultural connections to northern Illinois and Chicago.

But the regional debate in southeastern Wisconsin is typically about trying to pair up Milwaukee with Waukesha - - cities and counties that for cultural and economic reasons are antagonistic.

That's the truth, the cold, hard reality of the situation, and efforts to keep trying to arrange a marriage between them are going to meet with resistance on both sides.

Just watch what will happen when communities in Waukesha County begin serious talks with Milwaukee over Lake Michigan water sales, and the hysteria that will break out west of 124th St. if and when Milwaukee looks to link water sales to regional matters of transit, housing and economic development.

It happened before when the suburbs killed light rail, and fought putting a new Milwaukee Brewers stadium downtown.

I am not sure if the seismographs at UW-M will be able to register the reaction without breaking if water's value is correctly tied to larger issues and is defined as a regional development tool - - with Milwaukee being seen as an integral player and not just a city with water treatment capacity to contract out to the low bidders.

The bigger cities of Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha - - the heart of southeastern Wisconsin's urban base - - stand to gain far less from strengthened relationships with Waukesha than are awaiting the region from connections to northern Illinois and Chicago.

The dismissal of an urban agenda in the regional debate and territory defined by the seven-county Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee and Walworth) has repeatedly held back Milwaukee and the other urbanized areas, as the more rural out-counties have used their majority at SEWRPC to command resources and direct the work.

Waukesha County exercises a disproportionate share of the power at SEWRPC: it's where the key staffers live, where the headquarters have always been, and where its consulting partners operate, even selling them its headquarters (Ruekert & Mielke) in Pewaukee on a no-bid, 'we're all friends' basis.

Waukesha County wanted a water supply study carried out, and asked SEWRPC to write it.

So SEWRPC hired Ruekert & Mielke to manage it, and when the study is done, its recommendations for water diversions to Waukesha County and other suburban and exurban communities from Milwaukee will simply validate SEWRPC's long-standing land-use and highway plans - - the institutional trigger for decades of sprawl and growth away from Milwaukee, the only Wisconsin city land-locked by an anti-annexation state law.

For Milwaukee, and Racine and Kenosha to genuinely succeed with transit expansion to solidify and expand their urban economies - - and to take full advantage of their lakefront water assets - - those counties and their urban cores need a planning body that does not dilute or dismiss them in favor of a suburban and exurban bias.

As long as each county at SEWRPC has three seats on its commission, meaning that the city of Milwaukee has none, but smaller rural counties like Walworth, Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha have 12 of the 21 votes, Milwaukee city and county will continue their second-class status.

Dane County has a planning commission of one county. Madison got the legislature to keep its planning correctly focused.

Madison and Dane County, where Madison clearly dominate, didn't and doesn't have to turn decision-making control about its future to county politicians in Jefferson, Dodge or Columbia - - and why should they?

Milwaukee would benefit from the same arrangement, and if alliances were sought, a planning partnership with Racine and Kenosha, too.

With a regional planning commission that understands and values cities, the regional Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail line now held hostage by suburban interests would already have been underway.

Motorists facing $4-per-gallon gasoline would have had an alternative to the I-94 drive to the south, the bad air quality in the corridor that is unhealthy and stunting industry there would be on its way to actual remediation, and the state might not have been so hell-bent on jamming $1.9 billion it doesn't have into rebuilding I-94 from Milwaukee to Illinois with an additional lane, either.

Look no farther than the deliberate exclusion of the rail line from the I-94 corridor transportation plan, and the deliberate exclusion of any transit components to the $6.5 billion freeway plan that SEWRPC created for its region as proof positive that regionalism, as currently defined, does little for the cities in the region, their urban form, their transit riders or their economic development.

It's a good thing that the Journal Sentinel is solidly in favor of commuter rail in southeastern Wisconsin.

Better transit and balanced transportation in the area are much needed.

Getting past the region's inertia on that matter and many others - - no SEWRPC housing study since 1975, for example - - requires a redefinition of the region and the agendas on which planning dollars and public resources broadly-defined are spent.

Vehicle Seizure Is Already In Wisconsin Law For A 3rd OWI

Some of the talk about reformation of Wisconsin's OWI laws includes adding seizure of a vehicle for an offender's 3rd conviction - - but WisDOT documents about current Wisconsin law linked here indicate that judges already have that authority if the offender was caught driving his or her own car.

As was seen in the recent Oconomowoc triple-fatality, it wasn't a toothless statute that allowed the accused thrice-convicted OWI offender Dr. Mark Benson to remain free after sentencing and able to get behind the wheel of his Cadillac SUV prior to the crash.

It was the the failure of Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Lee S. Dreyfus, Jr., to take full advantage of the law at sentencing to a) send Benson to jail immediately to begin his 75-day sentence, and b) seize Benson's vehicle, since Benson's sentence included work release and Benson had a history of driving after revocation.

After the uproar over the Benson case, Dreyfus said he would begin sending convicted OWI offenders to jail immediately upon sentencing, adding he was not changing his practice because of the crash that Benson allegedly caused.

Benson remains jailed after failing to post $1 million bail and is facing more than 100 years in prison for OWI/homicide and related charges stemming from the crash.

The victims were Jennifer Bukosky, 39, her unborn six-month-old daughter, and another daughter, 10-year-old Courtney Bella.

McCain's Lobbying Cronies Flee The Campaign

Another senior McCain campaign leader pulls out because his lobbying work embarrasses the candidate.

The campaign is smart to clean house now, but you can bet all these hired guns and their ties to McCain will show up in Democratic ads this summer and fall.

Glenn Grothman's Record, For The Record

Clyde Winter at the Hearts and Minds blog reminds us just how reactionary is the voting record compiled this session by his State Senator, Glenn Grothman.

Todd Martens, Washington County DA And Tone-Deaf Politician Of The Year

The Journal Sentinel continues its page-one coverage of the drunk driving epidemic in Wisconsin with a Saturday story documenting that 10% of the state's license-holders have an OWI on their driving record.

This revelation comes in the wake of an horrific triple-fatality OWI crash in Waukesha County, and a spate of highly-publicized additional multiple-OWI offenses, including one in Washington County, where an allegedly drunken motorist with four previous OWI's on his record drove his truck into two parked cars and an apartment building.

Washington County shares a border with Waukesha County.

Yet Todd Martens, the Washington County District Attorney, manages to get himself quoted this way in that Saturday Journal Sentinel story about proposed changes to toughen Wisconsin's OWI laws:

""I don't think legislative decisions should be made in response to one case," said Washington County District Attorney Todd Martens. "I'm all for any legislation that will reduce the likelihood that third-offense drunk drivers will repeat their offenses. But just because someone is convicted of a felony, it doesn't mean they'd go to jail."

One case that tragically took place right next door to Martens' territory rightfully has people's attention right now, but the state totals - - nearly 480,000 OWI's still on the books in Wisconsin, indicate that the problem is severe and pervasive.

If I lived in Washington County, I think I'd want a new DA.

Bumper Sticker Writers Convene At Wisconsin GOP Convention

It looks like the nation's bumper sticker writers somehow got themselves all invited to the state GOP convention, and whatever they came up were rolled into our state Republican party's 2008 platform.

Their grab-bag of platitudinous sloganeering in full, is here.

My personal favorites?

You don't see deep thinking like this in the political environment too often, do you:

�� Our goal should be to provide long-term solutions instead of short-term fixes.

On the other hand, there are guaranteed hand-clappers like these about the importance of the English language...

�� English should be the official language of government, and all election ballots and other government documents should be printed in English.

�� Immigrants should be required to learn English.

...but are undercut by a no-account double negative a few slogans later...

�� Separation between Church and State does not mean there can be no references to God in government sanctioned activities or public buildings.

Get Tough On Repeat OWI Offenders? Here Comes The Pushback

And it's not from liquor interests.

It's coming from some District Attorneys.

WMC Dresses Up Toxic Mercury In A Sporting Outfit

To hear the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce tell it, the group is suing the state to block new anti-mercury pollution rules because it just wants the Department of Natural Resources to follow a reasonable process.

Nothing different than determining the length of the deer season or the amount of walleye you can take.

Wrap yourselves up, on behalf of mercury, in good old Wisconsin hunting and fishing sport.

Those WMC spinners are awesome!.

Waukesha Judge Will Now Immediately Jail Repeat OWI Convicts After Sentencing

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Lee S. Dreyfus Jr. says he will now send motorists immediately to jail when they are sentenced in his court of their second or greater OWI infraction.

Dreyfus was the judge who sentenced former Oconomowoc physician Mark Benson to a jail term of 75 days after his third OWI conviction, but gave Benson 16 days additional freedom before reporting to jail.

Two days later, Benson, allegedly high on prescription medication, rammed his SUV into a smaller vehicle, killing a 10-year-old girl and her pregnant mother.

According to The Freeman, Dreyfus said his change in policy was not a result of the Benson case.

Mary Lazich Is Still Fighting The Sovereignty Debate

Fighting a states' rights issue pretty much resolved by the US Civil War, and apparently forgetting that the same language she is belly-aching about is in a 23-year-old federal water rights law, State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) blogs to her constituents that she cast the lone Senate vote against the Great Lakes Compact because it gave up some of Wisconsin's sovereignty.

Still siding with her obstructionist, fringy allies in Ohio, Lazich grossly misinterprets the Compact and thus the federal law, and seems unaware that decisions of the Great Lakes Governors about water allocations can be appealed in court.

I think Lazich has another agenda:

If and when New Berlin strikes a deal to buy diverted Lake Michigan water from Milwaukee, Lazich will blast the terms if they include any premiums tied to regional, social or land use considerations.

Having already called some Milwaukee actions "extortion," (all these links to her blog are surely driving up her hit counts, so give me credit over there, Kevin), Lazich could point to her vote against the agreement and say, "bad idea, told you so."

It's mind-boggling that New Berlin is the only Great Lakes city in the nation with a diversion application pending, and the state senator representing that community is still out there opposing the very agreement that makes it likely that the diversion application will be approved.

I can't find one Lazich 2007 post on her blog where she expressed her outrage at Milwaukee's position on water transfers, but I did save it when she emailed it to me, so I can put it here, in text, below:


Subject: FYI-See column from 3/16/07
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:54:29 -0500
From: "Sen.Lazich" Sen.Lazich@legis.wisconsin.gov
To: jer45y@gmail.com

THE GREAT LAKES COMPACT IS FLAWED A legislative column by state Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin)

As a member of the Wisconsin Legislative Council Special Committee on the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact, I readily admit that I am not in a hurry to ratify the Great Lakes Compact. I cannot support a flawed document that is bad for public health, bad for the environment, bad for economic development, and generally bad public policy.

Mark Squillace, Director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado Law School has written a research paper titled Rethinking the Great Lakes Compact.

The Compact’s ideal goal is to protect, conserve, restore, improve and effectively manage the Great Lakes waters.

Squillace writes the prescription in the Compact is sorely inadequate for achieving the stated goal. The research paper to be published in the Michigan State Law Review can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=960574

With surgical precision, Squillace dissects the Compact components, illuminating the reasons the document is far from being ready for prime time. The Compact is so problematic that Squillace suggests chucking it entirely and starting from scratch.

Absent of any strict cap on overall use of water resources, the probability of overuse of water is high. Thus, the Compact fails to encourage conservation.

A critical Compact requirement is that states manage new or increased water withdrawals, a requirement Squillace calls cumbersome.

Concentrating on new uses of consumption ignores existing uses of the resources that have a far more significant impact. This edict will result in a failure to protect lake levels and a failure to promote the ecological health of the Great Lakes Basin.

Squillace also contends the Compact focuses too much on the place of the water use instead of the impact of the use on the overall water resources of the Basin. Far from simple and efficient, the Compact forces states to regulate in a heavy-handed fashion that will impair economic development.

In conclusion, Squillace says the Compact will not achieve its goal of protecting and conserving the Great Lakes.

I agree.

Riddled with too many problems, the Compact is bad public policy.

Meanwhile, the need for New Berlin and Waukesha to obtain Lake Michigan water remains serious.

Because both communities must reduce the concentration of radium levels in their drinking water, their need for increased access to Lake Michigan water is in the interest of public health.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has made it clear he is going to stand in the way. Barrett is threatening the ability of New Berlin and Waukesha to gain access to Lake Michigan water, resulting in requiring those communities to spend millions of dollars to drill new wells and treat existing wells.

I am very concerned about allegations James Rowen posted on his blog, The Political Environment, on February 28, 2007.

http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2007/02/barrett-takes-hit-over-regionalism-and.html

Barrett is threatening not only to delay Waukesha’s access to Lake Michigan water but also to impose a tax on access to water.

The need for Lake Michigan water in New Berlin and Waukesha is critical and undeniable. It is unconscionable that Barrett would attempt to profit from this public health crisis by extorting these communities to pay a huge new tax.

Withholding water will endanger public health and will damage economic development. Barrett needs to reconsider his ill-conceived notion to take economic advantage of the public health plight in our communities.

If you have comments on this or any other issue, please contact me at Sen.Lazich@legis.wi.gov, Senator Mary Lazich, State Capitol, P.O. Box 7882 Madison, WI 53707 or 1-800-334-1442.

GOP Legislators Haul Out Hackneyed Ideas

A sure sign elections are brewing: A group of GOP legislators trotted out some tired old partisan ideas about reformulated gas to try and appear thoughtful and progressive on energy and conservation.

Here. too.

Stop it.

Why? A friend sends a 2000 news story about the same old partisan bilge. (text below)

And suggests that if Republicans want to do something useful about energy costs in our region, they could support transit and other clean air initiatives.

*****

Wisconsin Lawmakers Sue E.P.A. Over Gas
Published: June 30, 2000
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A group of Republican state legislators in Wisconsin sued the Environmental Protection Agency today over clean-air regulations that they said had brought high gasoline prices to southern Wisconsin.
The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court here, asserts that the agency failed to consider the price consequences of requirements for a new formulation for cleaner-burning gasoline.

The suit seeks suspension of the rules, which went into effect on June 1 in areas with particularly bad air quality. The lawmakers said the air quality problems in Wisconsin that had been the basis for imposing the rules had significantly improved.

Scott R. Jensen, speaker of the State Assembly, said the reformulated gasoline was costing consumers in some areas of the state 25 to 50 cents more per gallon.

Officials of the environmental agency had calculated the additional cost of the ethanol-blended gas at 1.2 cents a gallon.

The Wisconsin lawmakers said temporary waivers to the reformulated gasoline had been granted to St. Louis, the home of Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, while southern Wisconsin had not had its needs addressed.

A spokesman for the E.P.A., Dave Cohen, said the agency was ''very concerned'' about gasoline prices in Milwaukee and Chicago, but was hesitant to grant a waiver.

Gasoline prices in the Milwaukee area reached more that $2 a gallon but have fallen in recent days. The average price on Wednesday for unleaded regular was $1.86 a gallon.

In His Own Words, Why Pres. Bush Is Not The "Cool Guy"

Jon Stewart at "The Daily Show" used clips Thursday from Politico.com's online interview with President Bush to let "W" tell us in his own words why he isn't cool.

As you listen, keep remembering that yes, this is The President of these United States, elected twice.

Here's the link, with audio and video after the commercial. Be patient.

Update: Another satirical voice is added to the video's golfing theme, here.

Status Quo Rules State Transportation Policies

Gov. Jim Doyle used his veto pen on the budget repair bill and, predictably, Republicans are focusing their fake outrage over a "raid" on transportation funds.

Republican State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R- Juneau), framed it in the prototypical, partisan news release, even though it was former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson who set the modern standard for East Wing veto activity - - 1,900 times, by his own boastful count - - and Republicans at the time couldn't get enough of it.

As legislators and road-builders know full well, the net loss to the state transportation fund will be negligible because borrowing will fill in the gap, and none of those sacred highway contracts that the highway lobby's equally fake "Doomsday Option" PR campaign earlier this month will or was ever going to take place.

Road-building is the only statewide economic planning we have in Wisconsin. It keeps a complex set of industries and labor pools engaged annually and seasonally, and regardless of party, Governors and legislators do nothing to tamper with it.

Road-building will continue this year and this budget cycle as it did the previous year and the cycle before it, and the process will be repeated and financed in the future with the same combination of user fees, gasoline taxes, local property taxes, and state income tax payments to pay off borrowings.

If legislators really wanted to do something beyond sending their aides to crank out election-year posturings, they could examine the true transportation spending shortfall - - the continuing starvation of transit expansion that would make economic sense as gasoline breaks the $4-a-gallon barrier.

But state government in Wisconsin is slow to embrace new ideas and practices that have been in place elsewhere for a long time.

As a "progressive state," Wisconsin is living off its reputation, and the inertia in its transportation policies, along with a lack of reformist spirit and leaders, are the proof.

Whether it's adding rail lines to the I-94 expansion, following through on citizen clamor for transit and transparent planning, or reforming the state's failed drunk-driving law, Wisconsin leads only in lethargy.

Change in Wisconsin is obstructed by powerful and wealthy lobbies - - the tavern, beer and liquor interests, and the various arms of the highway lobby, too - - but overly-cautious politicians who benefit from the status quo share a lot of the blame.

But those, like Fitzgerald, who play the crocodile tear game, are entitled to claim the greater share of deserved hypocrisy.

Milwaukee Addressing Beach Needs, Madison's Need Work, Too

It was just a few years ago that Milwaukee County was discovered dumping dangerous, polluted storm water runoff right on to Bradford Beach at Lake Park on Lake Michigan.

I am proud to say I had a hand in getting the word out about this outrageous and unacceptable situation, but the real credit goes to diligent scientists at UW-Milwaukee who were tracking the sources of e. Coli bacteria on the beach.

Right where people sunbathe, play volleyball, and watch their kids wade in the shallow water.

Today, there are rain gardens being built on the beach and lakefront - - you can see the construction underway just off Lincoln Memorial Drive - - to capture and naturally treat and filter that polluted runoff before it hits the sand and swimming areas.

Madison's lakes and beaches need upgrades, too, lest they be formally listed as "impaired."

I can't imagine that would sit well with capital city taxpayers.

It took years of pressure through inter-governmental cooperation and public embarrassment before Milwaukee County government moved to restore the lakefront, and had it not been for resources from philanthropists and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, the region's premier public beach might still be a disgusting dumping ground for Milwaukee County pollution..

Let's hope Madison gets its act together faster.

Games Selling Fast; Not So Great For Us in US

In a country where big cities are only graduating half their students, it's not reassuring that game sales are up 47%.

Can you spell "misplaced priorities?"

Jauch: GOP Leaders Should Undo Their Negative Alliance With Ohio's Compact Killers

State Sen. Bob Jauch, (D-Poplar), having seen his efforts to pass Great Lakes legislation succeed in the Senate in March, but die in the Assembly last month, rightfully reminds GOP legislators that they played an unnecessary and dangerously ideological political game with the Compact and its opponents in Ohio.

And while the Wisconsin legislature finally did pass a Compact bill yesterday that was somewhat weaker than what Jauch had helped guide through the Senate, Ohio's measure is still blocked there by the same fringe elements that Wisconsin legislators emboldened.

The Compact does not move to its final ratification step in the Congress until all eight of the Great Lakes states approve it, and Ohio remains a major stumbling block, with Michigan and Pennsylvania also without final legislation.

Good for Jauch. Memorializing who did and said what in this long legislative struggle is important.

I Agree With Mark Belling; His Column Is "Essentially Pointless"

He said it, I didn't.

And the Freeman's headline writer needs a session in racial sensitivity.

Great Lakes Water Issues - - Lots Of Work Ahead In Wisconsin

Now that the Great Lakes Compact has whistled through the Wisconsin legislature, what's next on the agenda?

Trust me: the work is just beginning.

1. New Berlin and Milwaukee will expand their quiet discussions about a deal to move Lake Michigan water to that portion of New Berlin that is outside of the subcontinental divide.

The Compact establishes a process for New Berlin's pending water application to be reviewed by Wisconsin only, and because that permission is a given, the main issues left to open the spigot are principally financial and technical: how much will New Berlin pay per gallon, will Milwaukee have certain economic needs addressed in the payment schedules, how much will new pumps and pipes cost, and who will pay for them?

That could be quite the negotiation.

It will also be interesting to see if Wisconsin recognizes guiding federal water law and sends New Berlin's application, amended with a water sales agreement with Milwaukee, to the other Great Lakes states for their review.

That would be more than prudent.

2. Waukesha will spend $300,000 this year to produce a diversion application that will require approval from all the Great Lakes states - - a higher standard than faces New Berlin because all of Waukesha is across the subcontinental divide and is outside the Great Lakes basin.

Whereas New Berlin can easily return water to Lake Michigan through Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District infrastructure, Waukesha faces a return flow regimen that is more technicality challenging and more expensive than New Berlin's, given Waukesha's distance from Lake Michigan and current use of the Fox River for the discharge of its treated waste water.

The Department of Natural Resources will have to sign off on that return flow regimen, and since it could involve the Root River or the Menomonee River; new flows of waste water would have an impact there on river levels, flooding, water quality and community sentiment along the route.

Conversely, those return flow regimens would have impacts on the Fox River and communities downstream into Illinois., so for several reasons, Waukesha's completed application, let alone the others states' reviews, are farther off than New Berlin's.

And Waukesha will have to convince Michigan that the application is justifiable, something that is not a sure thing, which is why Waukesha is still pursuing water through a controversial condemnation in the neighboring Town of Waukesha.

3. Both New Berlin and Waukesha will have to demonstrate significant water conservation plans and results for their diversion applications to be justified and approved.

4. Attention will also shift to a regional water supply study being written by the seven-county Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

It is expected to recommend widespread use of Lake Michigan water through multiple diversions, and the DNR will turn to SEWRPC for technical advice when applications are created.

So look for an expansion of SEWRPC power and control: everything SEWRPC does conforms with its decades-old land use plan, a document and governing philosophy that has enabled sprawl through rampant farmland conversion and development, widespread annexations to the City of Waukesha and highway building to which it has given its official blessing.

Fresh water to already-over-developed portions of Waukesha County are a natural fit for SEWRPC thinking and the work of a favored consulting firm, Ruekert & Mielke, which wrote the New Berlin water diversion application, has contracted with Waukesha in the past on water supply issues, and is managing the overall SEWRPC water supply study.

5. SEWRPC's expanded role in regional water planning for a seven-county area could conflict with the new, watershed approach to water planning initiated by the MMSD.

The MMSD's water quality efforts reach into 10 counties because its territory is defined by river watersheds that empty into Lake Michigan, while SEWRPC's authority stops at county lines.

In other words, what SEWRPC might recommend as a diversion program in its territory could help or hurt the watershed approach initiated by the MMSD.

The MMSD is interested in water conservation, shoreline preservation and stormwater management because ultimately, it has to pay for all the downstream movement of water, its treatment, and its quality.

Water access and storm-and-waste water issues are intricately tied to land use, municipal growth and development.

What SEWRPC recommends and what the MMSD recommends could easily be in conflict.

It's all about balancing water quality and quantity, supply and demand, resource exploitation and resource preservation, short-term thinking and long-term goals, private gain and the public interest.

The Compact and implementing bill approvals are good first steps that address and resolve water policy questions, but accelerate or ignore others.

For Wisconsin, the focus should be on resource management, stewardship and sustainability, not just about how to get water in the short-term for tax base growth.

Complaint Filed Over Closed Meetings In Waukesha

Waukesha blogger and citizen activist Jim Bouman has filed a formal complaint with the Waukesha County District Attorney over repeated closed sessions of Waukesha city agencies planning that city's water supply strategy.

You can read the first account of this complaint in the Daily Reporter, a regional legal and business daily and online paper, here.

The heart of the Daily Reporter story:

"Jim Bouman, a Waukesha resident, filed a complaint (PDF) with the county district attorney last week alleging the water utility’s commission is violating open-meeting statutes when it goes into closed session to discuss planning for a new water source. He said he has no problem with taking Lake Michigan water, but he wants more details before planning is so far along it can’t be changed.

“'I want to know what it’s going to cost,” he said. “I want to see the engineering estimates of the gain we’re going to get versus doing other things.'”

Kudos to Bouman, who blogs as 'Water Blogged In Waukesha," and to Sean Ryan of the Daily Reporter, for undertaking, separately, the action and its publication.

Compact Wins Final Approval; Some Observations, And A Reassurance From The DNR

The Great Lakes Compact was approved by the Assembly late Wednesday on a 92-1 vote, meaning it passed both houses with only single "no" votes in each, and will be signed by Gov. Jim Doyle.

Some observations:

Wisconsin becomes the 5th of the eight Great Lakes states to approve the Compact.

Bottom line: That's a good thing.

Lots of people worked long and hard to get it done, and I congratulate them all.

I had said often on this blog and in op-eds that there should have been a public hearing on the final bill because there's no contradiction in a democracy between good legislative process and good legislative content.

That said, it's good that Wisconsin now formally endorses the compact because it essentially puts into place a uniform legal process governing withdrawals and diversions from five lakes, in eight states and two Canadian provinces, thus protecting these bodies of freshwater from capricious uses and water removal without guarantees of its return.

So the Compact establishes Great Lakes sustainability, and puts Wisconsin behind that principle and plan.

Wisconsin's implementing bill is an extremely-detailed piece of legislation, that, at first glance (and a hearing could have elucidated a great deal of useful information for the public), does some important things - - principally establishing first-time permitting and reporting procedures that will track and inventory water use in the state, and requiring water conservation planning.

All good and important things. The other states when they pass their implementing bill should look to these as model steps.

Yet one of the reasons that Republicans, especially in the Assembly, turned from opposition to the Senate's previously-approved bill to near-unanimous support for the second bill - - the final compromise - - is that the water conservation planning statewide (and not in communities seeking diversions) can now be voluntary instead of mandatory.

And GOP leaders have been touting voluntary over mandatory - - their laissez-faire prediliction in full force.

Still - - it's a start, an important start.

GOP leaders won a couple of other concessions, notably state legislative oversight of some Great Lakes regional water administrative or policy-making activities that had previously been solely assigned to the Wisconsin Governor.

That's not a big deal.

And a few communities that have quirky, two-county geographies will be eligible in Wisconsin to apply for a Great Lakes diversion.

As I read it, this could turn out to be a bigger deal.

Those are communities...follow me here...that are wholly outside of the Great Lakes basin - - but are split between two counties, one of which has some territory that is in the Great Lakes basin.

Examples are Mukwonago, Burlington and Watertown, because they are divided between two counties, one of which is Waukesha County, which, at its eastern edge, is in the Great Lakes basin. The basin line does not follow the political boundaries, yet the basin line is what establishes Great Lakes water eligibility.

The Compact had assigned two categories of communities that were outside of the Great Lakes basin as eligible for an out-of-basin diversion, and limited them to these two categories to limit the amount of water that could be shipped away from the Great Lakes.

If you are not in one of those categories - - say, Madison, or Phoenix - - no water for you.

The first category included New Berlin - - a community itself divided by, or straddling, the boundary of the Great Lakes basin.

The second category included Waukesha - - a community outside of the boundary of the Great Lakes basin, but wholly within a county that somewhere straddled the boundary.

The Mukwonago/Watertown/Burlington examples constitute a new category sorta stretched out of the straddling concept in the other two categories - - and it is no surprise that this area is represented in part by State Rep. Scott Gunderson, (R-Watertown), an opponent of the first Compact bill that did not contain the new third category of diversion-eligible communities.

There's your legislative process at work. He's also chairman of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, so it was something for the hometown guy and a legislative leader immersed in the process, too.

As to water volumes in Lake Michigan, or whether these communities eventually need a diversion, this is not a major, major deal - - but it will be interesting to whether the other states object to Wisconsin moving the "straddling" category to another level, or whether they will also adopt it, and apply to move Great Lakes water to their Burlingtons, Watertowns and Mukwonagos.

Keep an eye on that.

Finally: A few days ago, I had posted an item on this blog suggesting that language would be inserted into the final bill - - though no one would verify it on the record - - about so-called historical practices in Wisconsin that could be cited as precedents that could make it easier for a community like the City of Waukesha to receive a diversion of Lake Michigan water, thusly:

1. The historical application language could be used as a reference in a diversion application to earlier movements of water outside of the Great Lakes basin in Wisconsin that had been green-lighted without fully complying with the eight-state approval provisions in federal law.

The law is known as WRDA - - the Water Resources Development Act. It mandates, without exception, that all eight states approve all diversions of water out of the Great Lakes basin.

2. Historic application could also be used as a reference to earlier movements of water outside of the Great Lakes basin that did not pledge a return of the water to the Great Lakes basin.

The Compact will mandate such return flow when it is fully and finally ratified by all the states and the Congress, but what about during the interim between Wisconsin's legislative approval and that final ratification, a period that could be years?

The Legislative Reference Bureau's summary of the bill says (see p. 16) that "the Department of Natural Resources may not change its historic interpretation or application of the federal law [WRDA]..."

We do know that in the past, that included letting a community like Menomonee Falls begin diverting water in 1999 without requiring its return to Lake Michigan, and without getting the other states' approvals.

And we know that in 1989, Wisconsin gave Pleasant Prairie the go-ahead to begin diverting water even though some Great Lakes states never approved it, and Pleasant Prairie was given 20 years to complete its return flow regimen - - an exception not specified in WRDA.

And we know that the DNR has taken the position publicly that it had the authority to allow such diversions - - a reflection of its bureaucratic hubris.

As a lay person, I cannot say what that reference to "historic" means precisely in the new, post-Compact world.

Like so many terms in the bill and the Compact, like "reasonable" when it comes to legally defining a community's need for a diversion, and "conservation" plans, or "environmentally sound and economically efficient" when it comes to compliance with certain standards, lawyers and legislators and regulators could skirmish for years over just what these oh-so flexible terms mean now, might have meant when approved, or might mean someday.

So while we will wait for the details in diversion applications sure to come, and everyone pledges that the implementation of the Compact in Wisconsin will be high-minded through eternal vigilance, I'll let Todd Ambs, administrator of the water division of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, have the last word as to whether the "historic" language did anything special for Waukesha or any other Wisconsin community - - what I had called the "Waukesha Loophole."

He told me this by email Monday:

"Don't worry, there is no "loophole" for any community in the Compact bill. All applicants for the exception to the ban on diversions must meet the decision and exception standards of the Compact. And communities in straddling counties must still comply with WRDA until federal law changes," Ambs wrote.

Polar Bears Get US Protections Thanks To UW-Madison Prof.

Though oil companies fought it, polar bears now get federal protection through climate change research led by a UW-Madison professor.

Score one for Bucky.

State Senate Approves Compact 32-1; Lazich Still Says "No."

The vote on the Great Lakes Compact today: 32-1 in the State Senate.

And though her home town of New Berlin will be the first community in the entire eight-state Great Lakes region to win a diversion of water under the Compact's newly-defined rules, State Sen. Mary Lazich cast the Senate's only "no" vote.

She had earlier called the plan dictatorial when the Senate initially approved it in March, 26-6.

Today's more lopsided vote approved an amended version with changes crafted primarily by her party.

A link to her high-decibel floor speech in opposition, prior to the earlier Senate vote, is here.

Her anti-Compact allies in Ohio - - state's righters, Ron Paul/anti-UN extremists and others - - are still carrying on this losing fight.

Lazich even fought New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero on the bill, and ripped Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, even though Milwaukee is the likely seller of the water that Chiovatero says his community needs.

Yeah - - let's not take this regional cooperation thing too far, right?

New Berlin voters: Do you give Lazich points for consistency or demerits for obstinacy and sheer, self-destructive ideological blindness?

I'll bet you, however, that she shows up at the ribbon cutting when New Berlin opens the spigot and fresh, Lake Michigan water flows across the subcontinental divide to make the city's major new water park and convention center hotel a success.

And feeds more development and tax base growth in her own backyard.

Why GOP True Believers Hate McCain

Republicans who get their 'news' from talk radio and the Fox News Channel are not going to like John McCain's views on global warming, and his explicit criticism of Pres. George W. Bush on the issue.

McCain is betting that he can peel some independents and moderates away from the Democrats in the presidential election, but I think it's a doomed strategy.

It's dizzying to see McCain dart between progressive views on the environment and much farther positions to the fiscal right on taxes and the cultural right on abortion.

Continuing Publicity On Repeat OWI Offenders Is A Good Thing

A Washington County motorist smashes his truck into an apartment and is arrested for his 5th OWI.

Big story in the Journal Sentinel. Good.

Wisconsin media are finally publicizing repeat OWI offenders' cases and should do so until legislators move to criminalize an offender's 1st offense and make a second a felony.

A repeat offense should not be treated as a misdemeanor.

Get these menaces and their unguided missiles off the highways - - and out of our living rooms.

And take the vehicles from repeat offenders. States and the federal government confiscate the firearms and vehicles used by those hunting illegally, as I pointed out in this blog post, here.

Why do they carry out these seizures? Because it's a punishment that helps prevent repeat offenses and scares the dickins out of others thinking they might do a little illegal shooting, too.

"What? Lose my gun? My vehicle?"

Now you're talking deterrence. And the protection of the public.

But back to media. They need to keep up the pressure.

If media lose interest in these stories, so will lawmakers. An election is approaching, special interest money will flow, and without the bright glare of publicity, we might end up this year and legislative session with only some sort of fig-leaf study about jail space and treatment dollars.

Look what the legislature did the last time it addressed (sic) this issue: as I pointed out on this blog in March, our spineless legislators ramped up the penalties on 7th, 8th, and 9th time offenders, and continued to give 1st-and-other-offenders the continuing pass.

Citizens and media have to push the legislature to act, or more people will die needlessly on the highways at the hands of impaired motorists who need treatment and separation from driving until their sobriety is reliable.

This week's legislative special session is still a reality. If legislators care as much as some claim, and as all should, they'd change the laws right now.

Bob Barr, Libertarian, Could Hurt McCain And Help Obama

Ross Perot's third-party candidacy in 1992 helped Bill Clinton win his first term against Pres. George H. W. Bush, and Libertarian Bob Barr could also drain enough votes from John McCain to enable Barack Obama to win in November.

And Obama would need that help if Ralph Nader gets in again.

Yeah, I know it's early to make these predictions, so just call them observations.

Rep. Gunderson: Waukesha/New Berlin Diversion Plans "Inadvertently" Confused

Several days ago, State Rep. Scott Gunderson wrote a Muskego constituent about the probable Great Lakes Compact bill, saying, in part, that Waukesha was a worthy candidate for a diversion of water from Lake Michigan because that city would be returning 102% of any diverted water.

That was newsworthy, because Waukesha is facing substantial challenges to creating a sustainable, workable return flow regimen, and has not yet announced just what that plan might look like if it were to apply for a Lake Michigan diversion.

The probable Great Lakes Compact and implementing bill likely to be voted on tomorrow in the state legislature would require return flow that is economically and environmentally feasible, but 102% of diverted water?

That's more than a tall order.

I had speculated that Gunderson was confusing New Berlin's diversion application's return flow plan with Waukesha's yet-to-be-defined return flow regimen - - something confirmed by Waukesha officials yesterday, and now, in an email to me, by Gunderson.

Here is a link both to Gunderson's constituent email exchange, and the Waukesha water utility's clarification.

(Here, as an update, is a shot from Jim Widgerson, the conservative blogger from Waukesha, with his own explanation.)

And below is the text of Gunderson's explanation to me, received Tuesday afternoon:

"I received your two emails this afternoon, when I came into Madison to attend a briefing on the budget repair bill. I, also, read both of your blog posts from the past two days. I believe you may have taken my reply to a constituent a little out of context. I never made a “102%” guarantee. In my talks with various communities like New Berlin and Waukesha, as well as, Waukesha County the 102% figure has been used as the possible return flow baselines. In my haste to personally reply to one of my constituents, I inadvertently used the return flow figure that has been used by the media for New Berlin . As you know, the City of Waukesha has not made an application with the Department of Natural Resources for any diversion, yet. The city is still in the evaluation period and has not gotten to the details on the exact return flow at this time. It is important to note that when Waukesha first talked to me about the Compact, they did not even want to discuss the issue of return flow. It is truly a great statement on how far they have come that we are discussing what the exact amount their return flow will be, instead of having to discuss if there will be return flow."

Scott Gunderson

Illegal Hunters Forfeit Guns, Vehicles; Why Not Treat Repeat OWI Offenders The Same Way?

Here's a nifty little index that lists some hunting violations across the country in recent years, and among them you will find states that confiscate weapons and even snowmobiles (Alaska) as part of the offender's punishment.

The federal government also confiscates firearms for some illegal hunting. Shoot a Bald Eagle, and you lose your gun, for example.

So there is ample precedent for property seizure should Wisconsin legislators decide to finally strengthen state OWI laws.

Let's make a first OWI a misdemeanor instead of a ticket, and move a second OWI from misdemeanor to felony - - and add mandatory vehicle seizure for a repeat offender, too.

I think having to watch your vehicle confiscated, sold or compacted before your eyes would be a stiff inducement to help put a repeat offender into serious rehab, and serve as a definite deterrent to others still disinterested in driving while sober.

And let the state auction off the seized vehicles to finance better law enforcement against drunk driving, from new equipment to overtime for sobriety checkpoints near known, problem taverns or on holidays.

Draft Compact Legislation Released; Vote Possible Tomorrow; Environmental Groups Announce Support

Calling it a "strong Compact," a coalition of Wisconsin environmental groups hail the landmark water conservation agreement, a summary of which is here.

More later.

NPR Events And Programs On Environmental Topics In Milwaukee, May 15-16

Local and national environmental experts, with a focus on the Great Lakes and water issues, will participate in a two-day series of National Public Radio events in Milwaukee on May 15-16.

Details here and here.

Oil Companies To Pay Millions For MTBE Contamination

Once mandated as a gasoline additive in several Wisconsin counties, and replaced nationally, after substantial controversy, by ethanol, MTBE and its subsequent groundwater contamination will be the subject of a multi-million cleanup effort paid for by some major oil companies, according to The New York Times.

Compact Bill, Written In Secret, Will Get Even Shorter Shrift This Week

After state legislators stagger through adopting a messy budget repair bill this week, they will approve in a relative nanosecond the Great Lakes Compact bill - - with majorities arranged in secret.

The People are being treated with disdain in this so-called process - - and it's a bipartisan dismissal.

Get Him A Map And A Briefing: Rep. Gunderson Thought Waukesha Was New Berlin

Does a key state legislator who represents part of Waukesha County know the difference between New Berlin and Waukesha?

You'd hope so, but apparently he has gotten them confused when it comes to a very basic difference in water policy and Great Lakes water diversion procedures that differentiate those neighboring - - but separate and stand-alone - - cities.

And if that legislator is one of the key figures behind-the-scenes drafting statewide water legislation, isn't this yet another reason for that legislation to be disclosed prior to the quick, hearing-free process that legislators have said is going to be how that legislation gets adopted?

Read on...

State Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford), has a portion of Waukesha County in his district, and also serves as Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources.

It's an important position from which Gunderson has helped table Great Lakes water legislation until it was rewritten to make Lake Michigan water more readily available in Southeast Wisconsin.

But both communities are in different stages of application for diversions of Lake Michigan water, and have to meet different rules, and follow different procedures, to apply for and obtain Great Lakes water.

Sort of like the differences between slow-pitch sandlot softball (New Berlin) and Major League baseball (Waukesha): yes, both are played with bats and balls, but the game and rules are verrrrrry different, and an umpire who is also teaching them to other umpires needs to know the differences.

On Monday, I posted the text of an email exchange between Gunderson and Kurt Barikmo, a Muskego resident, who asked for an explanation about legislation Gunderson was helping craft to implement the pending Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin.

Gunderson told Barikmo that he was comfortable helping line up Waukesha as a likely recipient of diverted Lake Michigan water - - the most controversial issue in the legislation and lengthy Compact debate - - because Waukesha intended to return 102% of diverted water to the lake.

His words were:

"The City of Waukesha has already started a water conservation plan that will be the model for the United States, while at the same time projecting a return of 102% of the water used back to the basin if a transfer is necessary."

I opined that Waukesha had not ever indicated such a commitment, but, in fact, for a variety of reasons, New Berlin already had.

I wrote that despite all the publicity about the two communities differing circumstances, Gunderson was confusing them.

So I asked Gunderson twice Monday by email for an explanation, and got no reply.

I asked Waukesha Water Utility general manager Dan Duchniak for an explanation, and Monday night, Duchniak, who knows which city's water planning he directs, sent this response:

"I believe Representative Gunderson is referring to New Berlin . Waukesha is still investigating return flow and has not evaluated to that level of detail yet.

"Waukesha intends to meet the compact which I believe states that “All water withdrawn shall be returned, either naturally or after use, to the source watershed less an allowance for consumptive use.'”

So there you have it: Gunderson is confusing its community, and its water policy planning, with New Berlin, according to Duchniak. As I said, Duchniak is in charge of Waukesha's water planning.

Here is what Gunderson needs to get straight:

If and when the Compact is approved, New Berlin's application will only need the approval of the State of Wisconsin because it straddles the Great Lakes basin boundary.

And the state has already essentially given its approval.

Waukesha, on the other hand, is farther to the west and is entirely outside the Great Lakes basin.

So its eventual diversion application has to meet a different, and more rigorous review standard. It will need the approval of all eight Great States.

That application could get hung up on the very return flow total that Gunderson has wildly overstated - - because Waukesha is farther from Lake Michigan and currently sends its waste water to the Fox River, which does not flow to Lake Michigan.

And the Fox River, by Waukesha's repeated assessment, needs that waste water flow to maintain the Fox River and Vernon Marsh. So it's a dilemma, not yet resolved, despite Gunderson's assurance to Barikmo, a constituent.

Additionally, the Waukesha application could be for as much as 24 million gallons a day, or more if other communities sign on as co-applicants - - a total that could dwarf New Berlin's total by ten or 15 times.

It's important that Gunderson understand that the two different cities fall under different diversion application review standards, and while New Berlin has an application pending, Waukesha does not.

Gunderson is helping write behind closed doors the bill that will implement the Compact in Wisconsin, and he chairs the Assembly committee that will be pivotal in the bill's creation and approval.

Certainly in the GOP Assembly majority caucus, Gunderson is a key voice and influential communicator.

Making sure that there is an accurate basis for the bill is among the many reasons why it needs a public vetting and hearing - - to let the public see what is being prepared, and to let media and the public ask questions of legislators who are preparing it.

If Gunderson doesn't know the difference between New Berlin and Waukesha's diversion plans, what else is he getting wrong?

State's Number-One Priority Re-Affirmed: Road Projects Saved!

Break out the cigars - - well, not in the Capitol - - because a budget repair deal has been struck, the highway lobby has been served and legislators can be campaigning for re-election by mid-week..

Which means things are pretty much back to normal in the legislature.

From Madison To Waukesha To Crandon, Government Secrecy Disrespects The People

Seems like everywhere you look - - or should I say everywhere you try and look - - media and citizens are being told by government censors that they they know what's best, so public information will stay private.

Examples abound:

State and local officials continue to dribble out all it knows about the shootings in Crandon last October, where an off-duty officer murdered six young people, and then died from what is now said to be a self-inflicted gunshot.

Why have both local and state law enforcement handed out this information piecemeal?

Also take the drafting of a very important piece of state legislation - - the bill that will put into effect the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin, and thus determine water access and communities' growth patterns for years.
After the bill passed the State Senate 26-6 in March, State Assembly leaders would not bring it to a vote, but worked behind the scenes with both Democrats and the state Department of Natural Resources to write a so-called compromise, while:

A) All parties are refusing to disclose significant amending language, and;

B) Declaring their intention to bring the bill to a vote without a public hearing. Details here.

The draft was released Tuesday, with a likely vote Wednesday, and no hearing. Not a strong case on behalf of public participation.

The same pattern has unfolded in Waukesha, where the city council and water utility regularly go into closed session to discuss various aspects of that city's water planning.

Details from Jim Bouman, a Waukesha blogger and community activist, are here.

And let's not forget that New Berlin's application for a Lake Michigan diversion was reviewed and distributed to the other Great Lakes in secrecy - - disclosed by Michigan officials first, then in Wisconsin - - and that Waukesha twice sent confidential applications for Lake Michigan water to Gov. Jim Doyle in 2006.

Those I disclosed on WisPolitics.com when I found them through Open Records at the offices of the Waukesha Water Utility - - hardly the preferred method of introducing major policy plans into the public square.

And it was confidentiality that ruled the so-called process at the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC), which recently hired a new executive director for the Pewaukee-based, public agency without a job search, hearing or any intentional publicity.

It's an agency that receives 100% of its funding from taxpayers, but shut them out of any role in the process to find a new leader.

So hearings. No solicitation of candidates. No opportunity to interview the candidates - - well, the hand-picked candidate who was moved from Deputy Director to Executive Director by a SEWRPC committee.

Not even any help writing a job description for the 21st century from the people who pay all the agency's bills.

Zip. Nada. Nothing.

And finally, there has been a growing tendency in Madison to withhold information about high-profile crimes.

Bill Lueders at Isthmus had a particularly strong piece about this, with the Brittany Zimmerman homicide as the context.

WISC-TV, which is Madison's CBS affiliate Channel 3 and the Capital city's biggest station, recently condensed into an editorial why a government's penchant for keeping things confidential creates more problems than it solves.

Here is the text, and it should be required reading for state legislators and local officials outside of Madison, too:

PUBLIC SAFETY – LOSING CONFIDENCE, JEOPARDIZING TRUST

5/11/08

The Brittany Zimmerman murder investigation is profoundly troubling on many levels. Certainly the fact it is the third of a string of recent unsolved murders apparently involving strangers is disconcerting as it should be.

Let us never be blase about murders in our community.

But the Zimmerman case has shed further light on a significant trend in the Madison Police Department – secrecy. And this policy of secrecy is causing the public to lose confidence in a police department that is risking its credibility.

Increasingly, the public and the news media serving as the voice of the public, finds the Madison Police department divided into camps – those who think no information at all should be made public, and those who think as little as possible should be made public.

The results include questions, rumors, fears, misinformation and the risk of an eventual loss of trust.

What a price.

There are legal, ethical and limited public safety considerations. We understand all of them.

But the current position of the Madison Police Department, and by extension the city, is that open records, the public's right to know, and open government are no longer important.

We'll have more to say in editorials to come, but suffice to say for now – we disagree.

A Good Summary Posting On The I-94 Planning Failures

Gretchen Schuldt continues her outstanding coverage of regional transportation issues with an excellent summary of the flaws in what the state transportation department officially has thrown out there to justify its gargantuan I-94 rebuilding and expansion plan from Milwaukee to Illinois.

$1.9 billion in projected, taxpayer-paid spending, through valuable real estate and wetlands, without a dime for the commuter rail line awaiting its seed money.

Rep. Scott Gunderson: Waukesha To Return 102% of Diverted Water

You may remember that Kurt Barikmo, a Muskego resident and conservation activist, wrote State Rep. Scott Gunderson a few days ago - - posted here. - - and asked for Gunderson's thinking on the Great Lakes Compact.

The chairman of the Assembly Energy and Environment committee, and a GOP leader holding up the Compact and its implementing bill, Gunderson (R-Watertown) sent Barikmo the following reassuring and most fascinating email response - - fascinating because it tells Barikmo that Waukesha intends to return all water it might divert from Lake Michigan and more - - something I don't recall Waukesha even hinting at.
Says Gunderson to Barikmo:

"The City of Waukesha has already started a water conservation plan that will be the model for the United States, while at the same time projecting a return of 102% of the water used back to the basin if a transfer is necessary."

102%!

That's a big number.

Now I could be wrong, and will be the first to say so if I am - - but I don't think Waukesha has yet resolved or announced how it might return diverted water to Lake Michigan and still keep a sustainable water flow in and through the Vernon Marsh and the Fox River, especially in warm weather.

Right now, Waukesha discharges its treated waste water into the Fox River, and eventually into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico - - not into the Great Lakes or its basin - - and there, as they say, is the rub.

What I've heard is that Waukesha is trying to persuade the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to accept a partial, and seasonal return flow regimen and help convince the other Great Lakes states on Waukesha's behalf that such a plan would meet the requirements of the Great Lakes Compact.

Which is why, I believe, Waukesha and Waukesha County's legislators are now lined up to approve a Great Lakes Compact implementing bill that doesn't put the Compact's return flow standard and requirement into operation until the Compact get its final approval in all the states and the US Congress - - years into the future, at the soonest.

Details of that strategy, which I call the Waukesha Loophole, are here.

But back to Gunderson and the 102% guarantee:

Is it possible that Gunderson has confused Waukesha with New Berlin, a neighbor of Waukesha's, but a separate municipality, that indeed has said it would return a surplus of water if its Lake Michigan diversion application is approved?

Maybe Gunderson has some documentation from Waukesha about this, and they can all sort it out by releasing it.

(Update: Two emails sent twice Monday to Gunderson seeking clarification have yet to be answered, but Waukesha Water Utility general manager Dan Duchniak said by email Monday evening that he believes Gunderson is confusing Waukesha with New Berlin. Not a confidence builder, eh?)

Gunderson's original email response to Barikmo, in full, and Barikmo's, are below:

----- Original Message -----
From: Gunderson, Scott
To: kbarikmo: Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 3:49 PM
Subject: RE: Great Lakes Water
Mr.. Barikmo,

The Great Lakes Compact is a vital piece to the preservation of the great resource known as the Great Lakes. Members on both sides of the aisle have worked very hard to put together a piece of legislation that will preserve the water in the Great Lakes for generations to come. The Great Lakes Compact that we will vote on very soon is a win for all the citizens of Wisconsin.

It was important to many folks in Southeast Wisconsin that they had access to Great Lakes water if needed, while at the same time understanding that treated waste water had to be returned to the basin if they were a straddling community or a community in a straddling county.
They also understand that if any community is to apply for a permit, they must have a water conservation plan that works.

That is a part of this bill that everyone agrees with.

Waukesha County is in a tough spot as we speak. The aquifer that supplies the City of Waukesha and other communities is being depleted at an alarming rate. As this happens radium is released from the stone and contaminates the water.

The City of New Berlin has been told by the DNR that it has to somehow filter its water or find a new source because of radium.

The City of Waukesha knows that it has to find a new water source in the next few years, that source sits only 25 miles away. The City of Waukesha has already started a water conservation plan that will be the model for the United States, while at the same time projecting a return of 102% of the water used back to the basin if a transfer is necessary.

This is also a good thing for the other communities that are pulling water out of the same aquifer because the aquifer should begin to fill back up if the City of Waukesha is not depleting that source. And it should help communities that have been looking at groundwater wells as new sources of water to not have to exercise that option.

The Great Lakes Compact has had a hearing in both the Senate and the Assembly. The changes being made to the Senate version are no different from what we do on any other piece of legislation. We have worked in a bi-partisan fashion to reach agreement on needed changes. And to be very clear, myself, Senator Mark Miller, DNR Sec. Matt Frank and Governor Jim Doyle are all in agreement with this final version of the Great Lakes Compact.

This is truly historic legislation and I take my position in the State Legislature very seriously. We believe that this legislation will work to protect this valuable resource for many generations.

Representative Scott Gunderson

*****

From: kbarikmo Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 7:12 PMTo: Rep.GundersonSubject: Great Lakes Water

Dear Representative Gunderson,

I am writing to you today to express my concern with the potential language in the Great Lakes Pact and the State of Wisconsin Legislation related to it. I am also asking for specific information with regard to the Waukesha County or areas straddling the great lakes basin line.

As I understood the language to this point, there were different provisions for areas in the basin, communities straddling the basin and communities within straddling counties, but completely outside the basin. I have a reasonable understanding of that. I also understood that there was specific language that required a conservation component that shall be implemented before an area is granted access to Lake Michigan Water, assuming they request it.

I am very concerned that the conservation component might be eliminated or compromised to the point were it is no longer effective.

I find it disturbing that many of the people who participated in this matter to this point have been restricted due to the heightened level of political participation at this point.

I am requesting that you insist on a public hearing on this matter before this comes to a vote in the Assembly. This is critical to maintain transparency in our democracy and will serve to protect the meritorious concerns of all parties concerned.

I am also concerned that all of your constituents may not be equally represented in this matter. While you claim victory for republicans, you must not forget that you also represent a very offended person that often votes as a democrat in some elections.

Please remember that our environment is the only one we have and it is our duty to serve as its stewards. Unsustainable growth should not be fed water from a source that is demanding protection. More intelligent and tenable solutions are available. Please work to maintain the protections that the conservation component in the Great Lakes Pact were intended to provide.

Sincerely,

Kurt Barikmo
Muskego, WI 53150

McCain's Ties To Lobbyists A Growing Issue

Another McCain lobbyist pal bites the dust.

Turns out Doug Davenport, the guy McCain had picked to run the 2008 GOP convention, is a paid flack for the Myanmar dictatorship - - the generals who won't let the world help save cyclone victims.

Ooooooh - - bad timimg.

Davenport has quit the convention post, but I'm betting this won't be the last such embarrassment for the Arizona Republican Senator/presidential candidate.

Dave Dempsey Provides Important Great Lakes Updates

Whether it's a link to an important editorial in the Muskegon Chronicle about the firing of Regional EPA administrator Mary Gade, or contact information for a new blog at that same paper, Dave Dempsey continues to be a must-read for people in the region who want to keep abreast of environmental news.

Millions For Infrastructure Could Tilt UW-M Away From Wauwatosa Research Site

One of the advantages offered by development in a city's downtown is the existence of infrastructure - - streets, utilities and so forth - - that you have to pay for from scratch at today's prices if you build on undeveloped land.

Advocates for locating a new UW-Milwaukee School of Engineering - - , along with whatever else that development spins off - - are beginning to point out that a downtown Milwaukee location for the project vastly reduces infrastructure costs, but the proposed suburban location on vacant county land in Wauwatosa that UW-M says it likes only increases them.

Should taxpayers bear the cost of duplicating in Wauwatosa what already exists downtown?
Food for thought, here.

Sierra Club Nails WMC, Alliant, On Mercury Policies

The Sierra Club calls out the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce on its retrograde legal action to block toughened needed rules against mercury pollution in the state, and highlights the double-talk coming from Alliant Energy, the Madison-based utility, that is trying to have it both ways.

I noted WMC's outrageous role in the mercury matter earlier: the WMC is always on the wrong side when it comes to public policy, public health or health-care policies in Wisconsin.

Thoughtful Op-Ed On Sensible Business Development

Corporate exec and former Milwaukee Sentinel business editor John Torinus offers a useful piece about the nitty-gritty of job creation.

The lesson: better to play smart and consistent small ball than pray for the grand slam homerun.

Great Lakes Compact Zanies Are At It Again

State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), had been singing the praises of Tim Grendell, one of her Ohio legislative counterparts, as they together hauled out state rights' cliches and rhetorical bombast to try and kill the Great Lakes Compact.

After calling the eight-state agreement dictatorial, Lazich has backed off, grasping finally that the Compact will help her home town of New Berlin get Lake Michigan water faster than under an existing set of rules in federal law that could block it forever.

And the rest of the Waukesha GOP delegation is now on board with a bill to implement the Compact because it will create an interim period of indefinite length during which other diversions in Wisconsin could get a less-stringent review.

But Grendell is still at it in Ohio, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which reported Friday that the Compact is still stalled there, in part, because Grendell has yet to introduce his state constitutional amendment he says is needed to ensure that the state will not somehow use the Compact to steal water on private property.

Grendell was also scheduled to address an Ohio citizens group today.

The group's leader, according to the Plain Dealer, believes that since God makes it rain, the state can't control how water is regulated once it hits the ground.

That makes Wisconsin's Compact opponents look downright reasonable by comparison.

Crafting The Waukesha Water Loophole

Still unable to agree how to get the state’s budget back into mandatory balance, legislators have put off until next week any effort to pass a budget repair plan and a separate bill to implement the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin.

The word for weeks around the State Capitol about the Compact bill has been pretty consistent: legislators know how they want the bill to read (technically, they will pass it as an amended version of State Senate Bill 523, approved 26-6 - - a bill that was too strong for the GOP-dominated State Assembly, leading to an impasse).

When they take up the bill, legislators will not honor calls from Milwaukee city officials, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and this blog, too, for a hearing prior to what will be a quick, pre-arranged approval.

The no-hearing policy is part of the deal-making: pesky citizens and questioning reporters are just the combination that can unravel a deal.

Approving the pending Great Lakes Compact is a good thing, but central to the amendments, as I have reported previously, is the addition to SB 523 of language designed to lower potential barriers to approvals of diversions of Lake Michigan water to certain Wisconsin communities- - lowered and eased until the final ratification of the Compact by all the eight Great Lakes states, and the US Congress.

This is the crucial, so-called interim period that could last for years, as only half the eight Great States have approved the Compact since its drafting was completed three-and-a-half years ago.

The delay, this interim period, between Wisconsin's approval and final ratification could even be indefinite, should the Congress table or defeat it. No one knows for sure, but the Wisconsin strategy is to take advantage of it with amendments to SB 523 that I suggest be called “The Waukesha Loophole.”

That's because Waukesha is the out-of-basin Great Lakes community most likely to benefit from the loophole, and the city’s Water Utility commission is already employing a brace of consultants readying yet another Great Lakes water application.

(Three earlier applications were ignored by the administration of Gov. Jim Doyle, citing years of ongoing Compact drafting negotiations that were not yet completed.)

It should also be known as the Waukesha Loophole because, from the beginning of Compact discussion legislating in Wisconsin, Waukesha business and political interests in that annexation-and-sprawling city and surrounding county of the same name have been driving the process, looking for openings that would help get Lake Michigan water as quickly and as easily as possible across the subcontinental divide, about 20 miles away.

Two of the earlier diversion applications were made confidentially to Gov. Doyle, and were only made public when I found them in the files of the Waukesha Water Utility through the state Open Records law.

Those applications sought immediate approval for diversions of 24 million gallons of water daily, greatly in excess of the city’s average daily use of about nine million gallons, and without being required to return a single drop to the lake - - a key requirement of any diversion application made when the Compact is in full force at the end of the interim period.

Waukesha-related interests also scored the largest bloc of seats - - six of 19 slots - - on the state’s Great Lakes Compact legislative study committee that laid some groundwork between 2006-'07 for SB 523 and the subsequent draft amendments now in play.

Those members included State Sen. Neal Kedzie, (R-Elkhorn), the committee chairman, plus two other legislators (Sen. Mary Lazich and Rep. Scott Newcomer), plus Matt Moroney, Executive Director of the Waukesha-based Metropolitan Builders Association, Dan Duchniak, general manager of the Waukesha Water Utility, and William Mielke, President and CEO of Ruekert & Mielke, Inc., the Waukesha-based land-use and water uber consulting company.

When the final Congressional and Great Lakes states’ ratifications eventually occur, the Compact’s very specific diversion provisions, standards and rules will apply to Waukesha and all other communities.

Those provisions include conservation plans, mandatory return of diverted water to maintain the lake volume, a needs’ assessment and other standards.

But until final ratification happens, a community like Waukesha does not have to meet them - - but would, if the state puts compliance now into its bill.

Instead, pro-diversion elements in the legislative process will go in the opposite direction - - compliance later.

In the interim period, the diversion process being crafted in Wisconsin law will be far easier because the implementing bill amendments are said to include specific language to give legal, precedent status to certain earlier diversions - - and this is the key point - - by inserting phrases like any “past practice…historical application…Wisconsin custom,” into SB 523.

That will incorporate diversions from Lake Michigan that were allowed in Wisconsin but failed to meet some of the requirements that are in the Compact and which will eventually be mandatory, or that are in an existing federal law, the Water Development Resources Act of 1986.

The Waukesha Loophole would sink the good faith opportunity available and reasonably assumedwhen the Great Lakes governors signed the draft Compact in Milwaukee in December, 2005:

Treating the Compact’s diversion procedures and conservation standards as if they were in force from that point forward, until the final ratification, without the so-called interim period that Wisconsin intends to exploit.

Here’s how the amended SB 523 will function vis-a-vis the Compact and federal law if it survives its addition into the bill:

The Compact mandates the return flow of diverted water back to its source.

And the federal law, WRDA, mandates that a diversion of any Great Lakes’ water outside of the Great Lakes basin boundary be approved by all eight Great Lakes states.

But in Wisconsin, a 1989 diversion to Pleasant Prairie was allowed and green-lighted by the state Department of Natural Resources even though some Great Lakes states failed to give it their approval - - something WRDA was supposed to prohibit - - and the diversion included a 20-year grace period to complete the return flow - - a benefit not included in the Compact.

A second diversion in 1999 to a portion of Menomonee Falls outside of the Great Lakes basin also did not receive the approval of the other Great Lakes states, and did not come with mandated return flow.

For reasons that are unclear, these diversions were allowed and people just looked the other way, or believed that they were little different from diversions approved prior to WRDA's creation in 1986 and the first Great Lakes Compact in 1985.

Which is hardly a reason to lift them up now and etch them formally into state law.

But that is the very goal of key legislators drafting amendments to SB 523 - - elevate those flawed diversions to the level of precedent, as viable Wisconsin practice/historical application/custom - - until the Compact is finally and fully ratified, and its rules and procedures and standards kick in across all eight Great Lakes states.

Which is why the states and two Canadian provinces wanted a mutual, cooperative Compact in the first place - - a single set of standards and procedures for everyone, on behalf of the Great Lakes.

A shared resource.

What Wisconsin legislators are doing - - with the encouragement of the Department of Natural Resources which has continually advocated for the past practice/historical application/custom power - - is creating a new exception in an interim period that is not in the Compact, and which undermines it.

If Wisconsin goes ahead and weakens SB 523 - - by opening the door to Waukesha and others - - it is inviting other states a) to cite the Waukesha Loophole and use it to justify moving Great Lakes water out of the basin in their states, or b) to challenge the Waukesha Loophole in court.

And why not, if what you want is Great Lakes water? you just say, 'Well, we only want that Wisconsin past practice, like they gave Pleasant Prairie and Menomonee Falls.'

Litigation or hurried diversions would be bad for Wisconsin and the rest of the states, for the Great Lakes, and for cooperative efforts to manage these waters with conservation and stewardship as the goals.

Even worse would be a court ruling that could sink the entire Compact and its first-ever set of rules and standards, or overturn WRDA, with its the eight-state diversion approval procedure.

Either legal blow could open the Great Lakes to wholesale withdrawals far from the Great Lakes basin without any return flow requirements - - something ultimately destructive even for those who thought that monkeying with Great Lakes management was a good thing for Waukesha developers and their legislative water-carriers.

Gas Taxes For Rail? Opponents Say Never

Former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist had a good one-liner about balanced transportation in Wisconsin: "Half concrete, half asphalt."

In other words, nothing for rail.

Tar Sands Duck Kill Gives Canadian Oil A Black Eye

A major Canadian oil company is facing a $1 million fine over the death of 500 ducks in a waste pond left over from the extraction of thick tar sand oil.

For many people, the news about the ducks that had the misfortune to land in toxic water is the first visible, and visceral account of the tar sand project.

The area in northern Alberta, Canada, where tar sand oil is being scooped from beneath forest and other virgin lands is often called North America's Saudi Arabia, given the possible recoverable oil there - - but the environmental and energy costs to remove it, and the greenhouse gases produced along the way, show just how desperately addicted we are to petroleum.

And how unwilling we are to look for alternatives, or to achieve genuine gains through conservation.

Instead, the search and craze for oil continues, regardless of the costs.

And some people have even gone so far as declaring the death of the ducks "insignificant," and the oil company's apology for causing it a"grovel."

Some people just don't see the big picture.

Canadian tar sand crude is scheduled to be piped to refineries in the US Great Lakes area, including the Murphy Oil facility set for a big expansion in Superior, WI, and the BP facility in Whiting, IN, where a permitting battle over added pollutants to Lake Michigan caused an uproar in nearby Chicago.

Murphy Oil owns 5% of the Canadian business that is leading the tar sand extraction, according to a Q&A on the business's website.

As oil prices keep rising, tar sand crude extraction becomes more economically feasible, even as the Canadians are using huge amounts of fresh water in the process and may build a nuclear reactor at the edge of the tar sand pits to keep giant shovels running.

Tomah Journal Rips I-94 Expansion

Kudos to the Tomah Journal for telling the truth about adding lanes to I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois line.

The paper says the project drains transportation budgets and encourages sprawl.

This is the second recent Tomah Journal editorial about sprawl that I have posted about. If you missed the first one, here it is.

Highway And Budget Logjam Creating Hysteria

One blogger thinks Gov. Jim Doyle should go to prison for moving gas tax revenues to other programs.

The blogger also wants those darned social programs for seniors and kids eliminated so state road projects can be constructed.

Also a news state sales tax. Yeah, right.

The road-builders, ginning up fears with their "doomsday" scenario news releases - - one from their repetitive list is here - - have found their appropriate outlet.

UPDATE: Four Days To Black Tuesday, The Day The Sky Will Fall.

McCain Says No Great Lakes Diversions To States Like His Own

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain said in Michigan that he would not support diverting Great Lakes water to dry states, like Arizona.

That's certainly the right answer, especially in Michigan, a state nearly entirely in the Great Lakes basin.

Common Sense At Schneider Trucking

Schneider, the Wisconsin-based national trucking company, is fighting fuel cost increases by slowing its high-visibility orange fleet of trucks from 63 mph to 60 mph and producing a projected saving of 3.75 million gallons of fuel annually.

Airlines are taking similar steps, too.

Pretty smart, so hat's off to Schneider. I imagine at a 5% slower speed, those rigs would also be easier to stop in an emergency, too.

J.B Van Hollen Continuing To Prosecute Environmental Lawbreakers

It's good to see that GOP Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen is continuing that office's traditional role as chief state environmental prosecutor.

These recent settlements here and here total $225,000 in court-approved settlements and include various remedial actions on the part of the defendant companies.

Water And Concrete: Same Advocates, Same Biases

Isn't it interesting that the State of Wisconsin and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission are writing recommendations and rules enabling water diversions from Lake Michigan into the same areas that they already are pushing more highway-building?

A coincidence?

Hardly.

Both highway expansion and water diversions feed the same sprawl machine - - the very collection of developers, road and home builders that contribute heavily to elected officials in both parties, and are key players in state business associations lobbying legislators and regulators - - as we speak - - for quick access to Lake Michigan, more road-building and eased air pollution regulations.

It's all about sprawl development, and it has social, economic and partisan consequences.

The political disconnect in this dynamic, however, falls at the feet of the Democrats and others who can't or won't acknowledge the self-destructive electoral folly rampant around the State Capitol these days, and which has been a routine part of the burdensome political daily grind Milwaukee for years as regional political clout moves into the suburbs.

Most of the areas of population gain in Southeastern Wisconsin - - fueled by taxpayer spending on roads and regional planning that enables sprawl construction into open space and farmland - - is Republican:

Waukesha County, Washington County, Ozaukee County and portions of once-reliably Democratic Kenosha County.

These trends will accelerate as the $6.5 billion freeway plan extends throughout Southeastern Wisconsin, and as the Great Lakes Compact is implemented by Wisconsin legislation in the wake of the continually rumored deal-making designed to move Lake Michigan water quickly across the subcontinental divide.

These water resources, and highway expansions that intentionally leave out any transit upgrades, will continue to attract people, services, commerce and wealth away from Milwaukee, the state's only big city and leading source of Democratic voters.

No wonder that several Republican state legislators were heard declaring victory when the Great Lakes Compact agreement was announced last month.

And why they are unified in Madison during ongoing efforts to craft a state budget repair plan that will, first-and-foremost, protect highway spending.

For Republicans, highways and water are political and electoral necessities that add to their base.

Those people get it.

Wisconsin Groups, Legal Experts, Question I-94 Plan

State and local transportation officials have a predictably arrogant mentality when it comes to reviewing the written comments they are forced to seek and review before major projects move to the construction stage.

The comments are solicited, perfunctorily reviewed and dismissed so that the project can proceed.

Look no farther than the fight over Highway J (164) in Waukesha and Washington Counties, moved from planning to construction despite an initial submission of 7,000 signatures (now up to 15,000) in opposition to the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

And with which WisDOT is still playing the anti-citizen game, going consultant-shopping to find someone to justify a high speed limit on the widened highway past residential neighborhoods.

Or take the 50 comments that SEWRPC brushed off - - without a single one in support - - it received from citizens against spending $25 million on the I-94 interchange proposed for the once-cancelled, and still-tenuously planned Pabst Farms shopping mall.

I could go on and on and on with examples:

The overwhelmingly positive support at hearings on behalf of light rail: dismissed.

A City of Milwaukee study to save $400 million to rebuild the Marquette Interchange: dismissed.

Comments against the $6.5 billion regional freeway plan, including formal opposition to adding lanes on valuable land in the City of Milwaukee: dismissed.

But here is a new and substantial wrinkle on this desultory dance where the public says one thing and the planners and contracting agencies do the opposite with the public's money:

Several Wisconsin groups and veteran attorneys have joined forces to question, in written comments submitted May 5th, the validity of a key environmental review carried out by state and federal officials who are rushing to begin spending $1.9 billion to rebuild and expand a 38-mile stretch of I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois line.

The groups are Midwest Environmental Advocates, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, The Sierra Club Great Water Group, The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, and The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - Milwaukee Branch.

A link to the groups comments is here. It is a 13-page document, footnoted, and is extremely readable though it contains legal argument.

I recommend you read it.

I can guarantee that attorneys at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, along with federal highway and environmental officials, will have to give it more than their standard review and dismiss SOP because it alleges and backs up claims that federal laws and procedures have been violated to get the $1.9 billion, transit-free project underway.

Those would include the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act, and the Federal Aid Highway Act.

The comments document eight categories of scientific, analytical, procedural and substantive flaws in the environmental review and analysis that is pushing the project closer to ground-breaking.

The groups urge that a new environmental review be carried out.

WisDOT and the feds have scores of attorneys who will understand the import of this collective comment.

This is more the beginning of something than a concluding comment on what the project's planners believe is a fait accompli.

Gov. Doyle Calls For Tougher 3rd Offense OWI Sentences, But...

The good news is that the Governor and some legislators are moving quickly to turn a third OWI conviction into a felony, which will speed up those offenders' incarcerations and get them off the streets.

But no Wisconsin state official wants to do the necessary first step when it comes to amending Wisconsin law by changing the first offense from a civil ticket into a criminal misdemeanor.

Wisconsin is ridiculously lenient when it comes to first OWI's arrests, meaning that serious legal consequences don't start until an offender becomes a repeater.

Let's praise Doyle and the others for taking a step in the right direction following the outrageous triple-OWI-related homicide case arising in Oconomowoc by an alleged 4th-time offender.

But let's get the first offenses treated for what they are - - reckless endangerment, pure and simple.

Let's put the state on the side of innocent motorists, not on the side of drunken drivers who finally got pulled over.

More Than Just The State Budget Out Of Balance

Yes, the state budget is out of balance, but what is more out of whack is the way transportation - - read: highway - - projects are considered sacrosanct in discussions involving both parties, both houses of the legislature and the Doyle administration.

A budget repair bill with just a few months to go until the primary and general election: could there be a more propitious time for the highway lobby to squeeze legislators and protect their contracts?

Yet the $1.9 billion rebuilding and expansion of I-94 from Milwaukee to Illinois is to begin later this year - - perhaps with symbolic shovels in the ground timed for campaign literature printing this summer - - despite documentation that shows the plan's 76 miles of new lanes, at a cost of at least $200 million, will solve only phantom congestion.

Many more millions could be saved with more repaving and fewer bells-and-whistles, but the highway lobby wants none of it, and no cuts anywhere, meaning there will be plenty of other programs taking hits and taxpayer-paid borrowings to fill in some holes.

It is you/we taxpayers that are going to get the shaft when this budget repair deal is announced - - and don't be surprised if the same cast of characters is right back at it in 2009, making fresh cuts, borrowing more money, but protecting the highway lobby and forging ahead with the eight-year I-94 project 'modernization' to Illinois.

And the Zoo Interchange segment of the so-called regional freeway plan that got fast-tracked and green-lighted without a financing plan, too.

Superior Daily Paper Frames Murphy Oil Debate As Us v. Them

Head's up, Madison: Your outside agitation is being noted, geographically.

Budget Logjam Shows Power Of State's Addiction To Road Building

Note that the state budget paralysis is over how to finance road building, not whether or when, or why.

It is by borrowing? Is it by again tapping tobacco settlement capital?

Despite the need for a major intervention, the old models are still in force.

And that's why addiction is a good descriptor. The situation reminds me of a man I knew who was deeply in debt, was going to lose his job, but wouldn't cut one costly part of his monthly expenses - - what he called his "wine budget."

Draw your own conclusion...

The debate at the Capitol over spending and revenues is so one-dimensional that no one dares suggest that some huge and unjustifiable highway projects take trims or come off the list, like this year's start to the $1.9 billion rebuilding and expansion of I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois line.

The highway lobby and all its subsidiaries are bombarding legislators with releases and pleas too numerous to list - - which in an election year are clear-cut ballot-box and campaign-financing threats.

And as legislators figure out a way to keep the road builders happy, I wouldn't put it past leaders in both parties to offer up Great Lakes Compact implementing bill language as budgeting bargaining chips, since water, transportation and other big items are key elements to be resolved in the legislative Special Session.

When there's a logjam, the logrollers are in charge.

.

On-Again, Off-Again Swan Shootings A DNR Self-Inflicted Wound

As I've noted in this blog on other occasions, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is sometimes its own worst enemy.

Like withholding from the public that New Berlin had applied for a Lake Michigan water diversion, then declining to submit the application for a public hearing.

The agency is already a lightning rod, with conservatives thinking it goes too far regulating private properties, and liberals feeling that the agency is afraid to assertively protect the environment.

So it's baffling when it seems to be unable to make up its mind or just plain drops the ball.

Latest case in point: going ahead with an already-controversial plan to shoot troublesome mute swans in several southeastern Wisconsin communities, then suspending the program after it sparked...more controversy...and finally resorting to other forms of mute swan control it could have pursued before implementing the bird shootings.

Final tally: 14 dead swans, plenty of angry bird-lovers, lots of bad publicity, and one possible lawsuit.

The Road To Sprawlville, Chapter XV: WisDOT Goes Consultant Shopping, Shafts Citizens Group

The latest installment in this blog's continuing series "The Road To Sprawlville" takes us across two Southeastern Wisconsin counties, misguided, as is often the case, by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's Madison-based Central Office.

And just when you think that WisDOT and its Central Office (should that read, "Central Committee?") couldn't out-spend or out-shame itself, it carries out a stealthy, breathtakingly arrogant double-cross to show a citizens group in the southeastern Wisconsin heartland who's the boss.

Read on...

For several years, WisDOT and thousands of people living on or near Highway J (State Highway 164) have been locked in a dispute about widening a stretch of two-lane blacktop to four lanes, with limited access and a wide median, for about 18 miles.

The disputed segment begins at I-94 in Waukesha County, past multiplying subdivisions, and runs north into more rural Washington County.

The project has continued despite citizens petitions with more than 15,000 signatures in opposition, their land-use and safety concerns, and a lawsuit.

Little slows WisDOT, or the traffic its planning (sic) induces, or pares its spending.

Several sources, including the Highway J Coalition, and State Rep. Don Pridemore, (R-Hartford), said they had received pledges from WisDOT that the speed limit on the highway would be lowered from 55 mph to 45 mph, and a WisDOT-paid consultant recommended the lowering after a study.

But then, WisDOT quietly went out and found a second consultant to overrule the first. The second consultant - - and isn't it nice to have so much consulting money lying around that you can just keep on shopping and spending until you get the one you like? - - suggested raising the speed limit to 60 mph, so the final decision is a compromise to leave it at 55, and not lower it.

Shouldn't the good citizens along the route be grateful?

Pridemore, in response to an email question, confirmed these details Tuesday:

"DOT, the Washington County Highway Committee, the Washington County Sheriff and county supervisors were told that the first study recommended a 45 mph speed limit all along Hwy 164.

"The study was done late last year. Everyone seemed satisfied, DOT started installing the [speed limit sign] posts, then everything stopped.

"Someone authorized a second study be conducted by a Canadian company that recommended in many places, an even higher speed limit than currently posted, all because the first study apparently didn't take adequate steps to insure safety.

"The study results were kept quite for 3 months while everyone was still thinking the 45 mph signs would soon be installed. I am currently investigating the situation."

Outraged, the Highway J Coalition has called a meeting a public Saturday to protest the WisDOT consultant shopping.

Details about the 10 a.m. meeting at the Freiss Lake School, along the route at the intersection of State Highway 164 and State Highway 167 in the Village of Richfield, are here.

Sources report that meetings are underway involving local and state officials today - - doing something between last-minute study and damage-control, no doubt.

Meanwhile, the state is forging ahead with a plan to spend $1.9 billion to add so-called improvements and another 76 miles of new lanes to I-94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line.

Other pieces of the $6.5 billion regional highway rebuilding and expansion plan will spread across seven counties for the next 25 years - - with the Highway J expansion just a small piece of that bigger puzzle.

John Norquist: I-94 Expansion From Milwaukee-To-Illinois, at $1.9 Billion, Is Misconceived And Wasteful

Former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist, now President of a Chicago-based planning organization, sent a comment to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation about its $1.9 billion plan to rebuild and expand I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois border.

The comment period closed Monday. Here is Mayor Norquist's comment:
*****

"WisDOT's proposal to widen I-94 from six lanes to eight lanes from Mitchell Interchange to the Illinois border should be rejected.

"Instead, the State of Wisconsin should resurface the existing facility, thus extending its use for many additional years and saving a billion or more of taxpayers dollars.

"The stated reason for the widening is to accommodate projected traffic growth and to "modernize" the ramps and interchanges to correct what WisDOT calls"functional deficiencies.'"

"As for the widening, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) states "existing travel times within the corridor are not currently encumbered by congestion - reductions in travel time will be minimal.'"

"The functional deficiency of the ramps is expensive and is unlikely to increase safety. Traffic deaths, for example, result largely from two factors, speed and alcohol consumption.

"Spending hundreds of millions of tax dollars to widen turning radii and lengthening ramps will encourage faster drive speeds and increasing the chance of fatal accidents."

"The waste of resources of scarce tax money on functional conditions can actually be tragic if those resources could be spent to alleviate dangerous structural deficiencies. This may have been the case in Minnesota where resources were invested in "modernizing" ramps on an interchange on I- 35 not far from the deadly collapse of the structurally deficient bridge in downtown Minneapolis.

"Lane widening and ramp lengthening are less complicated projects and likely more profitable than fixing structural deficiencies which contain the risk of cost overruns.

"If the state commits the exorbitant amount of tax money proposed for I-94, less money will be available to repair the many structurally-deficient bridges in Wisconsin.

"If a tragedy resulted it would, in my opinion, not be unreasonable to hold WISDOT, and ultimately the Governor, responsible.

"As a former member of the Wisconsin Legislature and the Mayor of Milwaukee from 1988 to 2004, I appreciate the opportunity to comment."

John Norquist
President of the Congress for the New Urbanism
140 S Dearborn
Chicago, Il 60603

Industrial Health Hazards In Great Lakes Region? Too Soon To Know

After seven years of study, a controversial federal study that critics claimed was being suppressed for political reasons has concluded...with a call for more study.

Why Gas Tax Pandering Policies - - Even The Rhetoric - - Won't Catch On Here

Wisconsin's gas tax is 32.9 cents a gallon, a bigger bite each gallon than the 18.4 cents the Feds take and which Candidates McCain and Clinton are dangling in front of we beleaguered motorists as this summer's financial salvation.

So you'd think that pandering state politicians would jump onto the low-wattage bandwagon and suggest that we get the whole half-buck back in Badger land this summer, right?

I mean - - 50+ cents a gallon: more than $15 bucks back every time you fill up that 37-gallon tank on your popular Ford 150, right?

Don't bet on it. Those gas taxes are the bread-and-butter of the state's most powerful lobby - - the road-builders, and their allies in both parties, in both wings of the State Capitol, and there is no way that the already over-committed highway budget is going to take a self-inflicted hit this close to an election.

There isn't going to be a gas tax collection holiday this summer, at either the state and federal level.

There is a way we can save ourselves a few dollars each tank full: drive less and drive slower.

The airlines are slowing down their planes a few miles per hour and they are burning appreciably less fuel.

Changes in practices go farther than gimmicks, and these changes will become more than routine when gasoline crosses the $4 barrier and the price keeps on rising.

Milwaukee Again Wants Commuter Rail Added To Highway-Only Transportation Plan

Milwaukee city leaders have again asked highway planners to shift $200 million in state I-94 expansion funding to launch the pending Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail line.

That would leave $1.7 billion intact to repair and rebuild I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois, but would begin to balance somewhat the one-sided transportation spending formula in southeastern Wisconsin with some rail investment.

And would focus on bringing people into these cities, instead of emphasizing driving through and past them.

Do not expect the state to comply with the city's request: the state and the regional planning commission (SEWRPC) remain wedded to a 50-year, highway-only transportation template.

These agencies, serving the road-building industry, will not change even as gasoline approaches the $4-per-gallon barrier, close to double the price used in the planners' projections when the overall $6.5 billion freeway expansion and rebuilding scheme was conceived a few year ago.

The state is forging ahead with these expenditures even as state budgets are shrinking, but the politics of incumbency are so strong, and so self-interested, that most elected officials, regardless of party, will keep handing the road-builders what they want.

And these days, the road-builders are telling us the sky will fall if full highway funding isn't approved at the Capitol - - in just eight days!

And as this is an election year, don't look for office-holders at the State Capitol to come out in favor of transit.

2008 could easily go down as the Year Of The Missed Opportunity, when gasoline prices spiked, but politicians - - other than Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and his aldermanic allies - - still didn't have the courage to tell their constituents the truth about energy costs, putting off the tough decisions to yet another year, and another election cycle.

Ousted EPA Regional Chief Given Recent "Outstanding" Rating

The Chicago Tribune continues its strong reporting on the ousting of EPA Chicago regional chief Mary Gade, noting that she was pushed out just five months after receiving an evaluation of "outstanding," according to Tribune environmental reporter Michael Hawthorne.

Sounds like those political firings of US Attorneys by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, doesn't it?

Her forced resignation came after Dow Chemical Co. officials complained to her bosses in Washington, DC that she was too aggressively pushing the company to clean up toxic Dioxin contamination.

She also took on US Steel and British Petroleum over water quality issues in Lake Michigan, something that every Great Lakes resident should applaud.

I still see no coverage of this story in the Wisconsin media, though the Chicago regional office includes our state.

Dave Dempsey, writer and former Michigan environmental regulator familiar with Gade's work, is on the case.

Wisconsin Businesses Say "Eat Your Mercury."

Hey, Wisconsin anglers and all those who love a good fish fry:

Many of the same people who want state water conservation laws weakened, oppose wider affordable health care coverages and want to block Federal rules to ensure better, breathable air have a new cause that breaks new ground for greed and inhumanity:

Stopping proposed state rules that would further limit airborne mercury pollution - - with a lawsuit.

Mercury is a known, fatal pollutant that finds its way into the food chain by traveling from coal-burning furnaces to fish in nearby waters.

A small amount is toxic, but the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and eight allied groups want to block the state Department of Natural Resources from adopting tougher rules to prevent mercury from leaving Wisconsin smokestacks and polluting local waters.

Several Wisconsin environmental organizations support the stronger rules.

Their statement is here, and the information is appreciated.

In the last paragraph of the release before the "fast facts," the date 201o should read 2012, according to a corrected statement Monday from Midwest Environmental Advocates, Wisconsin Environment, Sierra Club, Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers, Mercury Free Wisconsin and Clean Wisconsin.

Here are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who obviously represent a wide swath of Wisconsin business through trade association.

(And thanks to the Daily Reporter for the news and listing) :

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (How will their two, newly-minted State Supreme Court justices votes when the inevitable challenge lands on their desks)

Wisconsin Builders Association

Wisconsin Paper Council

Wisconsin Utility Investors Association, Inc.

Wisconsin Independent Energy Group, Inc.

Wisconsin Cast Metals Association, Inc.

Midwest Food Producers Association, Inc.

Aggregate Producers of Wisconsin, Inc.

Wisconsin Economic Development Association, Inc.

Waukesha Church Taking Land Stewardship To New Level

A Waukesha church is proposing to use its yard as a food garden. What a great idea.

Monday update: The Board of Zoning Appeals has said OK, leaving it up to the Plan Commission in a couple of weeks.

My Capital Times Op-Ed On The Oconomowoc OWI Crash

In my first op-ed put up by the new online Capital Times, I continue to argue that weak laws and sentencings contribute to the OWI carnage on Wisconsin highways.

(apologizes for an initial spelling mistake in the headline here)

New Approach To Water Management Holds Great Promise

It may strike some people as inside baseball, and others will find it hard to get used to another entity with pieces of names that sound somewhat familiar, but the Southeastern Wisconsin Watershed Trust rolled out last week after more than a year of inclusive planning holds great promise for sane water management across the Watershed region.

And not an artificial region drawn on a map by politicians the way the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission was roped together across seven counties 50 years ago.

SEWRPC could have been four counties. Could have been one or two or six or ten, or none.

Little wonder, then, that SEWRPC is busy writing water, transportation and land-use plans that distort its region's growth in ways that have aided developers, but have also put unstainable pressures on water supplies, farmland and open space at the expense of the environment as defined by the region's rivers and watersheds.

This is why the watershed model is so promising.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Watershed Trust arises within a region defined by Mother Nature's creeks and rivers that flow across political boundaries naturally to Lake Michigan.

How eminently logical, and promising.

Based on an Illinois model, the Watershed Trust will bring together many stakeholders that start out with something in common: they/we are all residents within one of the watersheds in our region, already with a seat in the same boat who need and want the same things - - clean, plentiful water for mutual satisfaction, sustainability, progress.

That's the beauty of the watershed approach. It will redefine and refine the debate, with the operant question being, repeatedly: What's good for the Watershed?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel correctly offered a lengthy Sunday editorial on the Watershed Trust concept and goals, and gave credit where credit was due to a long list of serious folks who have been working to change the conversation and also to make a new, and much needed initative succeed.

The paper had earlier last week published a fine piece by Don Behm that laid out the Trust's definition and ambitious goals, and its promise of a much less-polluted watershed, from Fond du Lac to Racine, as a legacy for later generations.

No doubt the Watershed Trust's educational efforts will be coming to a neighborhood association, church group, hearing, planning meeting or other venue near you for your thoughts and participation.

Don't miss it.

Lest We Forget The Intemperate Rev. Billy Graham

Thanks to Pundit Nation for posting a snippet from the Nixon Tapes, via The Daily Show, wherein The Rev. Billy Graham proves that intemperate preachers have been hanging around politicians for a lonnnnnng time.

Roadbuilders Go Over The Top: Transit Goes Begging

You wonder if the PR staff at the Transportation Development Association ate some bad mushrooms before issuing their hysteria-filled news release Friday about highway contracts and the state's budget problems.

They warn of a "Doomsday Option," and "Black Tuesday" if a state budget repair plan deadline passes that might delay some highway spending in the state.

Update: The release is blasted out again: ONLY EIGHT DAYS UNTIL DOOMSDAY!

The highway lobby is trying to jam the Governor and certain legislative leaders, looking to get as much money as possible from state coffers during a time when belt-tightening is already underway.

It tells you something basic about the road-builders and their allies' overbearing sense of entitlement: any possible reduction in the largesse they count on, and which they feel has been essentially promised to them by politicians in both parties, is a sign that The End Is Near.

The really pathetic piece of this synthetic, greedy little drama, the opportunity lost in part because of the TDA and others benefiting from the status quo, is that now is the absolutely right moment time to seriously launch the transition from reflexive highway building to transit expansion because vehicle fuel costs are heading permanently into the stratosphere.

The old ways inherent in the petroleum paradigm are fading right before our eyes.

A genuine "deal" on state spending would begin by honestly including transit in transportation. A good first step:

Transferring $200 million for the pending commuter rail plan from the excrescent $1.9 billion ticketed for the north-south leg of I-94 from Milwaukee to Illinois, as the City of Milwaukee has sought.

There's your model: repair and modernize what you've got, trim back expansions and invest in transit.

The $6.5 billion southeastern Wisconsin regional transportation (sic) plan, with $2.7 billion already committed to the Marquette Interchange and north-south leg according to traffic patterns predicted when gasoline was $2.30/gallon, could be reduced by additional tens of millions of public dollars if we could trade up to transit expansion and jettison the approximately 90 miles of unnecessary new lane additions remaining in the plan.

Then you follow that with coordinated, intentional state transportation spending shifts to city, village and town street and road repairs, better maintenance, expanded patrolling, and investments in urban transit - - where the people live.

For cities like Milwaukee, that means more money invested in the services that people use within the municipal limits, and less money spent simply moving people through and around population centers to destinations that are becoming too expensive to reach and are financially unsustainable.

Smoggy Air = Free Bus Rides

Here's one region cleverly utilizing its transit to tamp down hazardous, polluting emissions on dirty air days.

If we had creative people running our transit systems, or succeeding in expanding them along the I-94 corridor instead of adding more lanes and air pollution right there in a known bad air zone, we could be doing the same useful things linking transit to air quality right here in Wisconsin.

Key word there: "If."

Thanks to Downtown UWM advocate Dave Reid.

Raid On Federal Transit Funds For More Roads Sought By Bush Administration

Some state politicians have yelped when Gov. Jim Doyle moved some state transportation dollars to fill other budget needs.

Much of that whining has been couched in oh-so principled gripes about "raiding segregated funds," but have you heard any of those folks raising the same objections to the Bush administration's plan to take gobs of money from federal transit accounts and shift it to... highway spending?

In fact, have you heard anything about the plan at all?

Michael Horne has.

No One Wants To Be Madison's Development Manager

When I lived in Madison and worked in City Hall, there was a department head in charge of city planning and it was a plum job.

Now it's more complex, and no one wants it. Wow.

OK, Wisconsin Media, Let's Localize This Story

House of Representative members are allowed to lease cars, with all the expenses added to the taxpayers' tab, and some choose Cadillac, Lexus and Lincoln Town Car.

Don't these public servants have a smidgen of shame, or good political sense?

The New York Times has the story, too, and I see in that piece that some House members also lease cars for their key staffers, too.

Of course, let's remember that the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission goes the next step, buying gas-guzzling cars for the use of top staffers and even a consultant.

"Public Enemies" And The Public As Enemies

Plenty of giddiness around the State Capitol over filming by the crew producing "Public Enemies," the Johnny Depp/Billy Crudup movie.

Still plenty of "The Public As Enemies" in those same quarters, as legislators and bureaucrats figure out how to approve historic water policy legislation - - years in the making - - without disclosing the legislation's wording, or scheduling a public hearing.

Editorial Omits Smoggy Fact

The Wisconsin State Journal editorially highlights the poor air quality in Dane County.

It wouldn't have hurt to mention that both the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and the Doyle administration are arguing against US Environmental Protection Agency rule changes to require cleaner air in large areas of Wisconsin.

It speaks volumes that an arm of the Bush administration is proposing higher environmental standards for clean and healthy air than Wisconsin leaders will endorse.

Wisconsinites Want Mandatory Water Conservation - - Legislators Apparently Know Better

The recently-released Badger Poll on the environment is full of interesting data, especially the finding that statewide water conservation requirements have strong support.

77% of respondents favor it - - but as Assembly GOP leaders have said publicly, willing to leak what they consider a clear victory in the so-called deal on the pending Great Lakes Compact implementation bill - - requirements for statewide water conservation are being removed from the implementation bill that the State Senate had approved, but which is stalled in the Assembly.

From the Racine Times, April 10th, which I have quoted on this blog more than once:

"According to Mike Bruhn, spokesman for Gunderson, the compromise contains some important alterations. The state would not gain new authority over groundwater, which he said would have been a huge change in property rights. The altered version also removed the requirement for a mandatory statewide water conservation program (my highlighting) and gave a legislature committee oversight of the governor’s vote on the council."

So Gunderson, et al, are out of touch with public sentiment on conservation, it turns out.

Nothing much new there, but if the public is denied a hearing on the bill, few will know the details before a quick vote makes it too late to undo what Gunderson and his allies cooked up.

Bush Administration Fires Its Chief Great Lakes EPA Regulator

Mary Gade, the EPA's Chicago regional administrator, was too aggressive about forcing Dow Chemical Co. to clean up toxic dioxin, according to a story in today's Chicago Tribune.

And she showed too much leadership on other Lake Michigan quality matters, including last summer's wacky Indiana plan to allow British Petroleum to add pollutants at an expanded, Whiting, IN, refinery.

The Bush administration doesn't even have room for its own, moderate expert appointees.

Unbelievable. And depressing.

Thanks to Dave Dempsey for the tip.

Take Waukesha Blogger Jim Bouman's Visual Tour Of Pabst Farms

Mr. Water Blogged In Waukesha takes us on an eye-opening tour of Pabst Farms.

Making $25 million about to be thrown into the special I-94 Interchange to funnel customers to the Pabst Farms' mall a lot of money being throw down the rat hole.

Fascinating that the push for the interchange is coming from the cash-strapped DOT, and in allegedly spending-conscious, fiscally-conservative Waukesha County.

Thanks For The Blog Traffic

Sometime Wednesday afternoon, some lucky reader became the 150,000th to hit a posting on this blog since I turned on a counter on February 4th, 2007.

The trends are pretty good, 81,000 hits in just the last four months, so I'm satisfied with that and hope to keep bettering the numbers and the posts' quality, too.

Suggestions welcome, but keep 'em clean.