Another fresh sign that President Barack Obama's election continues to bring about change: the administration, reversing the Bush administration position, has asked for a seat on the UN's Human Rights Council, allowing the US to re-engage on foreign affairs instead of stubbornly going it alone.
Jon Wolman, a former AP staffer who got his start in Madison, is quoted in today's New York Times as the editor and publisher of The Detroit News; that paper began its cost-saving planned reduction of daily deliveries coincidentally on the same day the city was overwhelmed with breaking news about Detroit's automakers.
Talk about bum luck, and a taste of what's in store for readers and consumers of news as newspapers go online, or disappear altogether.
I've known Jon for years: his dad J. Martin "Murph" Wolman was formerly publisher of The Wisconsin State Journal, Madison's morning paper.
These are sad, bad days in the newspaper business, and I suspect rough on someone like Jon who was born into the profession and is watching it spiral downwards.
The drum beat against New Berlin's water diversion plan - - and how its official review may be handled by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - - is getting louder.
In a nutshell, the DNR could mishandle this review and set off a chain reaction of disappointment and opposition across the Great Lakes, with subsequent applications, such as those coming from Waukesha, paying the price.
Here is what is going on:
Last week, the Alliance For The Great Lakes, and the National Wildlife Federation raised objections, which I posted, as the comment period on the application established by the DNR wound down.
The DNR has sole authority to approve this application because part of New Berlin is in the Great Lakes basin, but future applications from other communities that are completely outside of the Great Lakes basin will require a review and approval by eight states.
Then a dozen Wisconsin groups weighed in, too, citing deficiencies in the application ranging from inadequate conservation planning to confusing official maps suggesting where the diverted Lake Michigan water might be used.
These are required elements in an application, according to the in-place Great Lakes Compact, signed into law last year in Wisconsin, by the seven other Great Lakes states, and the US Congress and President, too.
Now I see that several groups from other states signed the objections filed by the Alliance, and the Wildlife Federation, so I will post below the text of that letter.
The authors of the critique call the New Berlin application "gravely deficient."
The DNR really needs to more carefully review New Berlin's plan, and approve rules prior to approving New Berlin's application.
Failing to get the horse before the cart would be a little like going to trial, but having jury instructions issued after a verdict.
Or playing the World Series, and having the umpires issue the ground rules after the games were over.
If the DNR alienates these influential, mainstream interests in the other states - - set aside that Wisconsin groups are raising similar objections - - the push back will come during the review of Waukesha's probable application because that one needs the approval of all eight Great Lakes states.
Message to DNR: think strategically, not short-term.
There is more on the table than New Berlin's plan, which, it seems, is inadequate and incomplete, and headed for DNR review without guiding rules in place.
The critics, with solid legal and conservation objections, are offering the DNR all the material and context it needs to slow down its review, write its rules first, and get the New Berlin review and the overall processes done right.
The DNR simply has to say it will put rule-making before application approval.
It's not a delay. It's basic Governance, and Water Stewardship, which are at the core of the DNR's mission.
Here is the text of the letter to the DNR from the Great Lakes regional groups:
March 27, 2008
VIA E-MAIL, FAX AND POSTAL MAIL
Deb Lyons-Roehl
DG-5
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
101 South Webster Street
P.O. Box 7921
Madison, WI 53707-7921
(608) 267-7650
dnrnewberlindiversion@wi.gov
Re: Application for a Diversion by a Straddling Community – New Berlin
Dear Ms. Lyons-Roehl:
The Alliance for the Great Lakes (Alliance) and National Wildlife Federation (NWF) thank the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) for this opportunity to comment on the first proposed Great Lakes water diversion by the City of New Berlin (City).
We urge the WDNR to ensure that the City’s application for a diversion as a straddling community is complete and is reviewed utilizing a thorough and publicly accessible process. In addition, any subsequent approval must fully support the sound implementation of the Compact and Wisconsin’s legislation.
Background: The Compact – A Forward-Looking Policy
On October 3, 2008, the President signed a joint resolution of Congress consenting to the Compact.
This followed nearly five years of negotiations between the States and three years of review and approval by the eight Great Lakes state legislatures. Our groups were actively engaged in Compact negotiations and worked with state and federal officials for Compact approval. The Compact is intended to provide a comprehensive management and legal framework for achieving sustainable water use and resource protection in the Great Lakes basin.
The Compact framework requires each state to create a management program for water withdrawals and consumptive uses within the Great Lakes basin, a program that Wisconsin created through Act 227.
While the Compact prohibits new or increased diversions of water outside of the basin, it includes exceptions for public water supply purposes to communities that straddle the Great Lakes basin divide and to communities located wholly within counties that straddle the basin divide.
The standards for approval of a diversion by a community located wholly within a county that straddles the basin divide, like Waukesha, are more stringent than those for a community that straddles the divide, like New Berlin. The most notable difference is that applications by communities that straddle the divide are approved at the state level, and do not require regional review.
However, there are very substantial similarities. It is vital to the sound implementation of the Compact that, in those aspects where the requirements are equivalent, the review, process and conditions of any subsequent approval of the City’s application set a high standard.
Absence of Rules & Regulations: A Hindrance to Determining Application’s Completeness
We commend the WDNR for initiating the March 12, 2009, public hearing on New Berlin’s application. However, we are concerned that the WDNR has initiated a review process after stating in the public notice that it has “…determined that the application materials submitted by the City of New Berlin constitute a complete application under Wis. Stat. § 281.346(9)(b)1.”
Whether the intent of the Compact is fulfilled depends in part on the states and provinces requiring complete applications. The City’s application is the first test of the Compact and, unfortunately, the application is incomplete, as detailed below. Because the application is incomplete, it appears that the City’s project would not fulfill the terms of the Compact.
It could be inferred from the language in the public notice that Wis. Stat. § 281.346(9)(b)1. governs the completeness of an application. That section of the statute is, however, limited to issues regarding public notice.
Requirements for a diversion application are found in Wis. Stat. § 281.346(4)(b). These requirements include the following: “A person who applies under subd. 1. shall provide information about the potential impacts of the diversion on the waters of the Great Lakes basin and water dependent natural resources and any other information required by the department by rule (emphasis added).”
Because the City’s diversion proposal would increase the withdrawal of water from Lake Michigan by a maximum 30-day average over one million gallons per day, that increased withdrawal requires approval not only under the "straddling community" exception, but also approval of an individual permit under Wis. Stat. § 281.346(5).
The withdrawal must meet the standards set forth in the state decision-making standard in Wis. Stat. § 281.346(5m), including use of conservation practices and an assessment of "other potential water sources for cost-effectiveness and environmental effects."
No diversion can proceed unless this individual permit is issued. Pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 281.346(5)(n), an applicant for this permit is required to submit "information required by the department by rule" (emphasis added). But it is unclear how the WDNR can determine whether an applicant has submitted the correct information if there is no rule in place.
An additional application requirement is found in Wis. Stat. § 281.346(4)(g). Under this paragraph, the WNDR is directed to "promulgate rules specifying the requirements for an applicant for a new or increased diversion subject to par. (f) to demonstrate the efficient use and conservation of existing water supplies for the purposes of pars. (d) 2. b. and 3. b., (e) 1. d., and (f) 1., including requiring the applicant to document the water conservation planning and analysis used to identify the water conservation and efficiency measures that the applicant determined were feasible."
In turn, under Wis. Stat. § 281.346(f)(1), the WDNR must decide if "[t]he need for the proposed diversion cannot reasonably be avoided through the efficient use and conservation of existing water supplies as determined under par. (g)" (emphasis added).
In the short time since the approval of the Compact, the WDNR has not developed approved rules as called for above. It is unclear whether New Berlin's application is complete because there are no rules specifying the documentation New Berlin is supposed to provide to WDNR, specifically on conservation and efficient use of supplies.
It is also unclear how the WDNR will decide whether New Berlin meets paragraph (f)(1) "as determined under par. (g)" when the rules called for under paragraph (g) have not been issued. The Alliance and NWF are concerned that WDNR is proceeding in the absence of these rules which makes it difficult to judge whether the City’s application is complete. Our concern is heightened by the absence of state drinking water conservation standards and in the absence of a meaningful water conservation program in the City’s application.
Application Fails To Meet Compact’s Water Conservation Requirements
While the City’s application has no State conservation rules or standards to comply with, it fails to fulfill the Compact’s intent for water conservation. Under Section 4.9 1 b. of the Compact, this applicant must meet the Exception Standard requirements found at Section 4.9 4 of the Compact.
Paragraph e. of that Standard states: “The Exception will be implemented so as to incorporate Environmentally Sound and Economically Feasible Water Conservation Measures to minimize Water Withdrawals or Consumptive Use.”
The Compact defines these measures in Section 1.2 to include "those measures, methods, technologies or practices for efficient water use and for reduction of water loss and waste or for reducing a Withdrawal, Consumptive Use or Diversion that i) are environmentally sound, ii) reflect best practices applicable to the water use sector, iii) are technically feasible and available, iv) are economically feasible and cost effective based on an analysis that considers direct and avoided economic and environmental costs and v) consider the particular facilities and processes involved, taking into account the environmental impact, age of equipment and facilities involved, the processes employed, energy impacts and other appropriate factors."
Under Wis. Stat. § 281.346(f)(6), "[t]he applicant [must] commit[] to implementing the applicable water conservation measures under sub. (8)(d) that are environmentally sound and economically feasible for the applicant."
There are additional conservation requirements required under Wis. Stat. § 281.346(5m). Wis. Stat. § 281.346(8)(d) directs the WDNR to issue rules "specifying water conservation and efficiency measures for the purposes of implementing [the statewide program]."
Once again, it is unclear how WDNR can decide whether New Berlin has committed to implementing such measures when the agency has not issued rules.
The City’s application does not incorporate reasonable environmentally sound and economically feasible water conservation measures to minimize water withdrawal. Water conservation is hardly mentioned in the application materials. While addressing most significant issues, an application document titled The Water Supply
Service Area Plan contains neither existing nor proposed water conservation practices.
No Demonstration That A Portion Of Diversion Can Be Avoided
Because the City’s water conservation plans have not been fully developed – and in fact are still in the planning stages – it is probable that part of the demand for Lake Michigan water might be reasonably avoided. Compact provision 4.9(4)(a) states that an exception (allowing a diversion) can be granted to a straddling community “only when…the need for all or part of the proposed Exception cannot be reasonably avoided (emphasis added).” It is probable that some portion of the Lake Michigan diversion request might reasonably be avoided because the City has implemented few basic water conservation best practices.
Switch To Lake Water in 2005 Does Not Constitute Water Conservation
A 3/9/09 letter from Steven Schultz of Ruekert/Mielke addresses questions raised by Eric Ebersberger of the WDNR. Question #2 raises the water conservation issue. The reply includes a graph of per capita water use from 2000 through 2007, citing a decline of about 10 percent.
This decline is attributed to several factors, including some outdoor limitations on watering and a water conservation education program. Also listed, and more pertinent, is the reduction in water softener use in the eastern portion of the City since the 2005 switch to Lake Michigan water. The chart reveals that most improvement in per capita use occurred since 2005, and the reply admits it is probably largely due to the reduction in the use of water softeners.
A declining use in water softener backwashing will lead to significant water savings and a decline in per capita use. But it is a one-time savings that is not a water conservation program practice.
Reliance On Unspecified SEWRPC Water Conservation Assumptions
The City cites the Southeast Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) regional water supply plan and its alternatives analysis, which assumes increasing levels of water conservation that could reduce consumption by up to 10 percent. The City indicates that it will consider implementation of water conservation practices in keeping with the SEWRPC plan.
But the SEWRPC plan recently presented for public comment does not include information on best management practices that might achieve that level of reduction.
Stormwater Management Practices Are Not Exception Standard Conservation Practices
Attached to the 3/9/09 letter is a copy of a draft water conservation plan prepared by City staff. It includes a recitation of many water conservation practices undertaken in the City.
While these programs are commendable, and improve the water quality and hydrologic health of water in the environment, they are primarily storm water management practices that do not impact potable water consumption and water withdrawal.
Water Conservation Plan Must Precede Diversion
The 3/9/09 letter also cites the on-going efforts of the City to develop a water conservation plan, starting with their staff’s draft. Mr. Schultz’s reply includes minutes of a New Berlin Utility Committee meeting from September, 2008 and notes that this: “…shows the Committee’s willingness to deal with conservation issues in a more aggressive manner following completion of the Lake Michigan water project (emphasis added).”
The City has the sequence backwards and must define a meaningful water conservation program as a part of its application and must commit to its implementation as a condition of approval to satisfy the requirement of Compact section 4.9(4)(a).
The only meaningful conservation measures in the application are existing limitations on outdoor water use and an education program.
The application commits to the implementation of no additional specific practices. While the staff’s draft water conservation program suggests many demand-side practices, the only mention of supply-side practices is a brief suggestion for a leak detection program. Supply-side conservation practices can have a significant impact on reducing water use, as well as enhancing City revenues.
It is important for the City to proceed with and complete the current public process for developing a water conservation program that includes demand-side management practices. A participative process will lead to better implementation.
However, the City can define and commit to numerous supply-side water conservation best management practices immediately.
These can be unilaterally implemented by the City’s water utility without the active participation of the public, and include but are not limited to: conducting annual water audits to determine the amount of unbilled water; an on-going water meter testing and replacement program that specifies the replacement interval for water meters; a leak detection program that is on-going and specifies the time interval for incrementally testing the entire distribution system; and a water main replacement program tied to the leak detection program as well as to a commitment to replace the distribution system over a specified time period.
It is a serious deficiency in the City’s application that the water conservation program is not in place so it can be reviewed for its adequacy as a part of the City’s diversion application.
Ecological Improvement (Restoration) Measures Are Insufficient
In approving the Compact, the states agreed to protect, conserve, restore, improve and effectively manage Great Lakes resources (emphasis added).
In considering this first application for a diversion, and to meet that obligation, it is critical to establish that approvals for diversions be accompanied by a restorative action that is in addition to those that are unavoidable consequences of receiving and returning Great Lakes water.
All environmental benefits cited by the City are such unavoidable consequences.
The City should be required to make an affirmative restorative commitment to a resource in the basin.
Conclusion
The City of New Berlin’s application is gravely deficient in meeting the water efficiency and conservation requirements of the Exception Standard.
And it provides no restorative effect other than unavoidable consequences. All of those who worked to draft and approve the Compact, all of those who worked to pass implementing legislation in Wisconsin, and all of those anticipating the benefits of Compact implementation deserve better.
We request that the WDNR, before further consideration of the application, 1) require the submission of a meaningful water conservation program and a commitment for program implementation, 2) ensure that the applicant meets the requirements under Wis. Stat. § 281.346(5) for an individual permit, and 3) require a commitment to an affirmative restorative action to a resource in the basin. We also think it is a mistake to proceed with the review and approval of diversion applications without developing related rules and regulations called for in Wisconsin’s implementing legislation.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments. Should you have any questions about our comments, please contact Ed Glatfelter at 312-939-0838 x235 or eglatfelter@greatlakes.org.
Sincerely,
F. Edward Glatfelter
Water Conservation Program Director
Alliance for the Great Lakes
Marc Smith
Great Lakes State Policy Manager
National Wildlife Federation
And on behalf of the following:
James Clift
Policy Director
Michigan Environmental Council
Virginia has decided that suburban cul-de-sacs waste money, and that road-building drains budgets.
This is New Urbanism And Policy Sanity 101.
Records for ridiculous rhetoric were set Tuesday, as right-wing radio ranters blasted Barack Obama in the wake of changes at General Motors and Chrysler forced by the government that has rescued the companies with billions of tax dollars.
Sean Hannity, professional demagogue, yelled "shut up, shut up" as he overrode an Obama sound bite Hannity had ordered his producers to play, then twice called Obama "an idiot," and declared the President "the Mussolini of our times."
No doubt many listeners under the age of 60 had no clue to the reference.
Mark Belling, bemoaning the fate of GM investors, tried to draw an analogy between what he sees as the US public's acquiescence to Obama's decisions and the passivity of the German public as Hitler rose to power.
And there is a steady drumbeat on right-wing talk radio as talkers and callers repeatedly call Obama a socialist, a communist, a dictator, an American Hugo Chavez, and so forth.
Obama has been President for less than 100 days, and talk radio is already in full campaign mode.
How are the talkers going to survive four-to-eight years of an Obama presidency?
Actually, I know the answer: swimmingly, as Obama is great for their ratings.
A relatively obscure but important advisory committee of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) offers a tantalizing road map to get Milwaukee and an urban agenda to the center of regional planning in this area.
As things stand today, SEWRPC is composed of seven counties - - Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth - - with each county holding thres unelected commissioner seats on the SEWRPC governing board.
SEWRPC's direction is heavily suburban and exurban.
Its management and staffing is overwhelmingly white; its offices are located in an upscale Waukesha County suburb, and recent SEWRPC planning and hiring decisions have led frustrated organizations and others to file two separate discrimination complaints against the agency.
The City of Milwaukee, with a population greater than each of Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Walworth Counties, has no commissioners, and thus is in a taxation-without-representation relationship with SEWRPC because City of Milwaukee taxpayers provide about $400,000 annually for SEWRPC operations through their Milwaukee County taxes.
Last June, I proposed in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sunday Crossroads op-ed that Milwaukee - - the city, or County, or both - - use available processes in state statutes to leave SEWRPC and create a more urban-focused planning body.
Dane County and the City of Madison share planning activities, for example, in a planning commission that performs all the tasks that SEWRPC is empowered to do, but in a more equitable structure.
And the legislature changed the Dane County format a few years ago, so there is precedent for reworking the shape of a state-authorized planning commission when there is the will to get it done.
There was the predictably dismissive response to my op-ed in a subsequent Crossroads op-ed signed by several regional county officials, but the City of Milwaukee Common Council approved unanimously a resolution that asked the state legislature to approve basic representational changes to SEWRPC's structure, and if that did not occur, requests the creation of a new planning organization with Milwaukee and urban priorities front-and-center.
Though the exact mechanics and details of a new entity have yet to be formally debated, and you could configure it in many different ways, it's important to note that one powerful SEWRPC advisory committee - - in structure and function - - already provides some important clues about how to better organize planning and public spending with Milwaukee and an urban agenda as the core.
The endlessly-titled "Intergovernmental Coordinating And Advisory Committee On Transportation System Planning And Programming For The Milwaukee Urbanized Area" does just that.
Let's call it for the purposes of this argument the Committee.
And it's an important Committee, because it has the power to authorize how federal transit and highway money, and now, stimulus money also, are spent in the Milwaukee area.
Here is the map that reflects where the transportation stimulus funds should go.
Clearly, Milwaukee is its appropriate focus.
With transportation being a key element in true, comprehensive regional planning because of its linkages to land-use, housing, development and other planning basics, why not use the Committee as a model for the creation of a new regional planning body?
It has 19 members - - this link to its structure does not account for three current vacancies - - but unlike the SEWRPC governing body, is based on population, including these representatives:
Five from Milwaukee County;
Two from Milwaukee County's Western Suburbs;
Two from Milwaukee County's North Shore communities;
One from Milwaukee County's South Shore communities;
Five from the City of Milwaukee;
One from Waukesha County;
Two from Waukesha County cities, villages and towns;
One from Ozaukee and Washington Counties.
A Milwaukee area planning commission that is based on the Committee model provides a reasonable basis upon which to provide planning and related spending in the area - - the Milwaukee area - - because it improves upon the arbitrarily-drawn seven-county SEWRPC map that disenfranchises urban populations, and Milwaukee residents, but takes their money.
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission is closer to hiring an outreach/public relations manager, but in its reliably ironic and tone-deaf manner, has not included in the process any input from...its existing outreach advisory group known as the Environmental Justice Task Force.
The Task Force was formed in 2007 to help the agency overcome outreach deficiencies noted by federal reviewers during the agency's contentious 2004 public certification hearing.
SEWRPC prefers these closed-door, in-house hiring procedures; its 2008 closed-loop hiring of Deputy Director Ken Yunker as Executive Director was a perfect example, and it looks like the agency is going down the same, self-defeating path as it hires an outreach manager without reaching out to its outreach advisory committee.
A coalition of statewide conservation and environmental groups documented deficiencies in New Berlin's application for a Lake Michigan diversion, but the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - - the agency reviewing what is the first such application under the new Great Lakes Compact - - signalled Tuesday that it could review New Berlin's plan without first writing administrative rules covering the diversion approval process.
This would be a severe blow to Great Lakes regional cooperation, as the other states are looking to Wisconsin to handle the New Berlin application, and Waukesha's probable request later this year, with the highest level of resource management, legal and scientific skills imaginable.
A rush to approval is unnecessary, and a dreadful precedent.
Let's hope the DNR comes to its senses, requires New Berlin to clean up the deficiencies catalogued in the groups' comments, and takes the time to have rules and procedures in place for New Berlin's application and those to follow.
A dozen environmental and conservation groups told the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in written comments that New Berlin's proposal to divert water from Lake Michigan had poor documentation, insufficient water conservation measures and other major deficiencies.
A copy of the groups' statement is here. Similar comments were submitted separately by two national groups.
Even more unsettling: the DNR has yet to say whether it will carryout rule-making to guide the application review, and the review of subsequent applications, or will rely instead on case-by-case analyses without over-arching rules.
I reported on this blog last week - - and I have yet to see followup in the mainstream media - - that Milwaukee's comptroller is advertising for a contractor to take over the management of Milwaukee's Water Works.
There is very readable and accessible expert opinion out there suggesting that such initiatives can prove costly, which is exactly the opposite of the goals of the Milwaukee comptroller.
I also reported on this blog two weeks ago - - and, again, I see nothing in the way of reporting on this by traditional media - - that Waukesha is pursuing $87 million in federal grants and earmarks to finance its eventual diversion of water from Lake Michigan, and perhaps on some additional water projects elsewhere in Waukesha County, and in Milwaukee County, too.
Taken together, these are significant developments involving tens of millions of dollars that could determine the use and cost of water in Southeastern Wisconsin for the next 100 years.
And the direction of economic development throughout the region.
Sunlight, not darkness, is needed from the media about these fundamental issues.
Peruse this worldwide listing of OWI standards and note that 0.05 BAC is a pretty common standard for operating while intoxicated.
And what happened to that big crackdown the legislature was going to approve after some high-profile fatal OWI wrecks last year?
So far, nothing, and the stories about repeat offenders and OWI homicides keep pouring in.
For the record: in Wisconsin, you need five OWI convictions before you are looking at felony punishment, and we are alone in the country treating a first offense as a non-criminal ticketing-only offense.
While first offenders have to pay a fine and deal with some troublesome financial and administrative hassles, Wisconsin law coddles first-time-caught drunk drivers with inadequate penalties, education and treatment requirements - - an enabling, official tap on the wrist that makes repeat offending more likely.
The result: an endangered motoring public, and ridiculously high death toll. 42% of all fatal car crashes in Wisconsin are alcohol-related.
Here is one Wisconsin website dedicated to OWI legal reforms, in memory of Jennifer Bukosky, one of the state's most high-profile victims.
Bukosky, her daughter, and unborn child were killed in a Waukesha County crash last spring by a repeat offender, allegedly high on drugs, who was out on bail awaiting incarceration for a previous OWI conviction.
The problem with the proposed site at the County Grounds is that once you are there, there's no there there.
The Journal Sentinel documents the perverse relationship between usage and spending when it comes to stimulus-funded bridge repairs.
New Berlin's application to divert Lake Michigan water to a portion of the city outside of the Great Lakes basin has yet to receive final approval by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; the first set of detailed comments rolling in from two major environmental organizations that helped create the governing Great Lakes Compact find fundamental problems with New Berlin's application.
Details here.
The groups filing the critical comments are the Alliance for the Great Lakes, and the National Wildlife Federation.
The critique echoes earlier comments filed by a number of groups when New Berlin first began drafting its plan - - insufficient conservation measures, for example - -a serious matter since conservation is a requisite for diversion approvals under the 2008, eight-state Compact.
New Berlin's application - - the first under review since the Compact was approved - - needs only Wisconsin's approval because part of the municipality is within the Great Lakes basin.
An application for a significantly larger amount of water that is expected later this year from Waukesha would require the approval of all the Great Lakes states because the entire municipality is outside the basin.
That application will generate more controversy because, to date, Waukesha has indicated it wants to discharge some treated wastewater from Lake Michigan to a creek in Wauwatosa, while also sending some of that discharge away from the Great Lakes basin via the Fox River.
The Wauwatosa discharge could raise the creek's level and change its biochemistry; the discharge into the Fox River appears to violate a basic tenet of the Compact, which is that minus a factor for consumption, all water removed from the Great Lakes must be returned to its basin.
The Fox River flows into the Mississippi River, then into the Gulf of Mexico.
In addition to these legal and environmental issues, Waukesha will have to convince the City of Milwaukee - - the most likely seller - - that a diversion will not speed up economic activity in Waukesha, thus adding to sprawl and the transfer of jobs and capital away from land-locked Milwaukee.
Wow.
Xoff has the story.
Don't think there isn't a plan to get nukes back in construction here.
The Pabst Farms Mall groundbreaking isn't happening - - there isn't even a development plan filed with the City of Oconomowoc yet - - so tell me again why the state Department of Transportation already shoveled $9 million for land acquisition and other costs for an Interchange to the suspended mall project?
Was this a way to get some money to Pabst Farms, where subdivisions have been suspended, too?
People the world over, including right here in Milwaukee, are agreeing to shut off their electricity for an hour to demonstrate energy savings through collective action.
Details here.
Talk radio has been mocking this now-annual event, but they seem to forget that the air we will make cleaner and the fuels we will save - - in what is clearly a symbolic gesture - - benefits them, too.
Inquiring readers of this blog have asked: who exactly is on the committee managed by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that has the power to distribute $83 million in federal stimulus funding:
A list is here.
Some highlights:
Scott Walker, who has twisted himself into knots explaining if, and when, and under what circumstances, he might accept stimulus funds, has put himself on the committee as one of five Milwaukee County reps.
But there are two County vacancies, according to a paper handout distributed at the 3/20 meeting, SEWRPC records show.
The City of Milwaukee has one of its five seats unfilled.
The committee has 19 members, a number chosen to represent the Milwaukee urbanized area by population.
Final Question: If population is the way to run a SEWRPC committee that distributes federal funding, why isn't the same formula used to manage the entire commission, rather than the three-votes per county formula.
More about that later.
All the suburban and out-county seats are filled.
So in the end, Milwaukee's County Board has the votes to override Scott Walker's opposition to federal stimulus funding.
As I urged on this blog weeks ago.
Some endgame you were playing there, Mr. County Executive - - taking a drubbing from the County Board after embracing a variety of shifting, made-up-as-it-went-along positions against stimulus funding - - sorta - - that were internally and politically illogical, and as we see now: self-defeating.
As I have said on this blog - - in this farcical exercise, Walker has wounded himself through ideological rigidity and an addictive allegiance to talk radio.
Here is the truth about the talkers.
They just talk. They do not govern, or make decisions, or shoulder responsibility for policy and for voters - - especially the elderly, the poor and the unemployed - - who need action and leadership and judgement to help them live their lives.
County government has enough problems without self-inflicted, willful, mean-spirited penury, which is the position Walker was willing to take to curry favor with a few conservative talk show hosts.
And to move forward his increasingly dazed goal of unseating Jim Doyle.
After this charade, are you kidding me?
The stimulus money will come to Milwaukee County, as it should, though probably delayed, and perhaps, like the federal transit money that was 10% and $9 million less through similar Walker inaction, in smaller amounts.
All in all, not Walker's finest hour politically, but certainly one of his most revealing.
Forget dollar and fuel wasting cul-de-sacs and city-splitting Interstates: it's the street grid that works.
I had noted yesterday that for reasons know only to people at the Federal Highway Administration, its data indicated that there was no poverty in Southeastern Wisconsin, and since such numbers are in the process for determining where stimulus dollars are headed, the bad data were not helping get money into the Milwaukee area's economically-troubled communities.
A commenter on that blog posting copied two US Department of Labor sites with more accurate data, so I am posting them here - -
http://www.doleta.gov/Programs/lsa.cfm
http://www.doleta.gov/Programs/pdf/lsajurisdictions09.pdf
- - to help get the data and an awareness of where to find the numbers into the decision-making processes.
Nice piece by Dustin Block.
Basically, the rules are being misinterpreted and low-income areas like Milwaukee are getting shafted in stimulus decisions.
Yeah, parking meter rates are up in downtown and the Third Ward. I got nailed twice recently by meter readers who must have been equipped with cloaking devices.
A quarter gets you ten minutes now - - and I sympathize with recession-plagued merchants who are trying to woo customers in the front doors - - but in Chicago, that quarter gets you five minutes, and people there are dealing with it via sledgehammers.
The climate change report should be analyzed and understood, not politicized, but I'm betting that talk radio and the righty bloggers will distort it.
When there were no new-fangled ideas, like zoning and planning.
Scott Walker explains for the umteenth time while he won't ask for stimulus funds.
We'll, maybe some.
If they meet some conditions.
Why the need to keep saying what he really meant?
An old maxim in politics: when you are explaining what you really really really meant, you are losing.
I dropped the word "management" from the title in the original posting a few hours ago, and corrected that title, too. Sorry.
The Federal Highway Administration's county-by-county map shows poverty in Wisconsin's northern and rural areas, but not in Southeastern Wisconsin.
Here is the national map, showing Wisconsin's counties. Note all the blue - - no economic distress - - in southeastern Wisconsin.
Remember: these are among the agencies vetting and passing out federal stimulus funds, and economically-distressed areas are supposed to get funding priority.
Wally Morics, Milwaukee's Comptroller and independent, elected official, has issued a request for proposals to lease the management of the city's Water Works "in order to provide the City with a stable source of revenue," according information posted on the Comptroller's website, here.
Such an agreement is in place that has privatized the management of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, but not its property.
Bidders would provide estimates of the Water Works value, along with related engineering and legal costs, for a 99-year lease, with approvals required by the Common Council, records show.
The proposal deadline is April 9th.
Given the value of water assets and public facilities, the proposal could attract attention from major consulting, management and resource companies nationally, abnd beyond.
More later.
Years ago, Bill Christofferson coordinated Nukewatch, a statewide effort to raise awareness about the risks of nuclear power generation.
In fact, we did a little work on this together when we both lived in Madison - - about a thousand years ago.
Anyway: Good thing Bill is still an organizer.
In addition to his ongoing work work for peace in Iraq, Bill took to the pages of Crossroads, the Journal Sentinel's Sunday opinion section and put readers on notice that nuclear power is back on the table for consideration in Wisconsin.
Though the basic safety, financial and environmental problems that have plagued nuclear power generation for decades - - that's why no nuclear power plants have been built or approved anywhere in the US for a long, long time - - nukes worked their way through political compromise into the final recommendations approved by Governor's Task Force on Global Warming.
With the endorsement of both industry leaders and environmental groups and activists.
We'll hear a lot more about this in the months and years to come, but if you thought nuclear power in the US, or in Wisconsin, was dead and buried after the Three Mile Island meltdown, think again.
Papers will shuck off their Saturday editions, too.
First-round stimulus funding for transportation projects have to meet these criteria:
Must be shovel-ready.
Must be completed by 2010.
Must be on a roadway that is a federal highway (and that rule is apparently being broadened to include some additional, high-traffic roads).
Milwaukee didn't get any first-round projects allegedly because there were no such road projects eligible - - but somehow everyone missed the need to repair the northern approach of I-794 and then its continuation over the Hoan Bridge.
It's shovel-ready because the holes in the pavement are ready to be filled.
It's a federal highway.
And you wouldn't need to do any fancy preliminary engineering or study because the damage is visible and obvious. It drives like it's been mortared.
I seem to remember that the bridge is a county responsibility, and that Scott Walker has thumbed his nose at stimulus funding.
My guess is that he would change his mind if he drove the route, and if he's still dopey enough to refuse to fill out the paperwork, the County Board, or perhaps the City of Milwaukee should appropriate the process.
This approach to Milwaukee, the lakefront, the Calatrava, and the Summerfest grounds is a beautiful and important gateway to the City.
If the road isn't repaired, the authorities should post warning signs and re-post the speed limit to 15 MPH.
A division between the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and its Environmental Justice Task Force over how studies are constructed and carried out appears resolved.
Ken Yunker, the SEWRPC Executive Director, told Tuesday's Task Force meeting that SEWEPC's staff now supports adding to the draft water supply study and recommendations an independent socio-economic analysis that the Task Force requested be included last year, but to which then-Executive Director Phil Evenson objected.
Evenson had told the Task Force that he was "insulted" by its vote approving the requested independent analysis.
I attended the meeting where the exchange took place, and blogged about it, here.
This may seem like inconsequential inside baseball, but in fact it will substantially improve SEWRPC recommendations and ameliorate long-standing complaints that SEWRPC studies, especially those started and finished in-house, lacke vitality, innovation, credibility and appeal.
It's also a victory for the Task Force and grassroots citizen participation at an agency that has had its outreach problems.
It made no sense to me that SEWRPC would fight with a Task Force it had created following a federal certification review in 2004 - - a review that said SEWRPC needed to do a better job reaching out to communities that felt ignored by SEWRPC procedures.
With the 2008 federal quadrennial review still open, and with criticism of the agency's management, governing structure and funding gaining steam over housing, transit, highway spending and affirmative action, I'm guessing that cooler heads - - or perhaps those who are more politically aware or astute - - are prevailing at the agency.
That's speculation, but it rings true.
Twenty-five months ago, in one of the first postings on this blog - - and 260 of them are focused on SEWRPC and its institutional shortcomings - - I took note of the agency's troubled outreach activities.
Maybe things are changing, these 25 months later:
Monday, February 26, 2007OK: back to the water study:
ACLU Slaps SEWRPC Over Pulseless Outreach
The Wisconsin ACLU, from its Milwaukee offices, has rightly told the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that the agency is moving far too slowly with the formation of a task force on environmental justice.
SEWRPC has had months to get this outreach effort underway but has not made task force appointments and is not aggressively getting input on appointees from communities to whom this long-overdue outreach effort is aimed, the ACLU says in its new release.
With its laissez-faire approach, SEWRPC is skating on thin ice with watchdog groups like the ACLU, and federal regulators who could use federal civil rights to light a fire under SEWRPC, as the ACLU further reminds SEWRPC by letter.
The Pewaukee-based agency already has minimal credibility with large sections of the region because of its pro-suburban history, and giving the task force formation a low priority only reinforces SEWRPC's negative image.
At this very moment, SEWRPC and other entities are discussing major changes to transit and water management policies that will guide development in the region for generations, and will therefore profoundly impact low-income residents.
Yet those residents are regularly shut out of many of these policy discussions - - a problem the environmental justice task force could help remedy.
If SEWRPC had a comprehensive planning strategy and a more inclusive mentality, it wouldn't need an environmental justice task force in the first place: its commissioners and multiple committees would have integrated genuine environmental justice principles and goals into all their work as a matter of routine.
For example, if environmental justice were an important thread in SEWRPC operations, its last housing plan for our heavily-segregated region wouldn't have been done in 1975, and SEWRPC would have been a champion for transit expansion, not $6.6 billion in new, suburb-serving freeways lanes.
It's a disgrace that community groups representing low-income and minority populations had to demand a task force in the first place, and reprehensible that SEWRPC continues to drag its feet on its implementation.
Federal officials conducted their quadrennial certification review of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission in October, and the report was to be done this month, but Carlos Pena from the Madison office of the Federal Highway Administration sends this update in answer to an email inquiry:
"The draft of the report has been distributed for review by all the required channels. However, given the short period for implementation of the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the limited resources available to some of the reviewers we anticipate the final report to be ready for distribution sometime within the next two months."
Think about it: Milwaukee County, with financial/policy connections and implications affecting every taxpayer in Milwaukee, the county, the state - - and even beyond - - is facing debt and other costs that are unsustainable, according to yet another authoritative report - - this time produced by the respected, non-partisan Public Policy Forum of Wisconsin.
The study was paid for by the Greater Milwaukee Committee, and nicely reported upon by Steve Schultze in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, here.
A link to the full study is here.
It concludes that without radical solutions, crisis looms.
Yes, the County's house of cards was built for years under the mutually-inefficient tenures of former Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament, and his allies on the county board, with their calamitous pension and benefit grab that cost them their careers - - and we taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in continuing and unproductive taxation.
But Scott Walker, elected in 2002 to clean things up following Ament's recall and similar ousting of many supervisors, has made things worse through right wing ideologically-driven inaction and an unwillingness to coordinate with state and city government, or the private sector, or frankly anyone except his talk radio buddies.
Leadership and crisis management demands more than an occasional email and phone call to a conservative call-in program that inevitably turns to political posturing against Gov. Jim Doyle.
Look no farther than Walker's foolish resistance to splitting equally with the City of Milwaukee $91.5 million in available federal funds for transit projects.
After years of self-defeating obstinacy by Walker, Mayor Tom Barrett convinced Congress to divvy up the funds, and Walker got $9 million less than what was on the table in Barrett's original 50-50 offer.
Nearly a year ago to the day, I posted a commentary that argued Walker should not be rewarded by the Journal Sentinel with another election endorsement.
And I said the county was teetering towards bankruptcy.
Here we are, a year later, and seven years after Walker's occupancy of the county;s top job - - and ruin is on the horizon.
What is Walker's preoccupation?
Positioning himself for a 2010 gubernatorial run through the Republican Party's conservative base in Waukesha and Ozaukee Counties, and in the Fox Valley and northern Wisconsin, Walker made a big show of turning down federal stimulus funding for his failing county government and struggling constituents.
Yet local leaders, aware of the county's fiscal realities laid out in the Forum report and earlier studies and news stories, are talking about the need for state intervention to keep Milwaukee County afloat.
These days, we call that a bailout.
What will Walker do if the recession and continuing legal and financial county obligations so badly imperil the delivery of services and the county's bond rating that only outside intervention could stave off insolvency?
It's clear that Walker's plan is to escape the crumbling county house of cards by moving on up to the Governor's Mansion.
That would be like putting AIG's former CEO in The White House.
Unthinkable.
Here's why:
Mequon thought arrest #8 was merely arrest #1, and issued the repeat/repeat/repeat/repeat/repeat/repeat/repeat/repeat offender that famous Wisconsin citation for a first offense.
Now he's back in jail, after arrest #9, which can get you 10 years in prison, which, by the way, you can get for an 8th conviction - - skated past in this case due to Mequon's rinky-dink prosecution..
Here is the state OWI penalty chart.
Hats off to SEWRPC - - yes, you heard me - - for delaying the delivery of stimulus funding to an unworthy project in upscale River Hills, and similar kudos to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, blogger Gretchen Schuldt and the ACLU for arguing that stimulus funding needs to be spent with jobs and diversity in mind.
Pressure matters.
Federal stimulus funding - - regardless of Republican State Sen. Alberta Darling's foot-stomping on behalf of her hometown constituents - - should be targeted at lower-income communities, which rightly leaves River Hills far down the list.
You'd think Darling would be nicer to SEWRPC.
The agency did her a favor some years back when it took off the table during freeway expansion planning "The Northern Bypass," the very kind of wide, gaudy high-speed concrete ribbon Darling backed through Milwaukee neighborhoods.
The Northern Bypass would have connected I-43 and State Highway 45, east-to-west, in Darling's legislative backyard.
There are public hearings galore in Milwaukee this week - - a big week for participatory democracy, and for the suits to hear what taxpayers and other regular folk really want.
Monday it was a DNR hearing on how to get invasive species out of Lakes Michigan and Superior.
(Solution: since the feds have been indecisive, let the Department put into place a plan to require ocean-going freighters' to flush and clean their ballast tanks without infecting the Great Lakes, and to implement additional safeguards to restore the lakes' quality.)
Then later this week, there are hearings on additional important environmental and developmental issues, including whether UW-Milwaukee should sprawl all over the County Grounds (No - - put the new UW-Milwaukee School of Engineering downtown, near Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and all of the city's amenities), to deciding whether to remove Estabrook Dam (Yes, of course.).
You want a restored Milwaukee River?
A preserved County Grounds?
An enhanced downtown?
Less induced traffic congesting as it moves cross-town from the main UW-Milwaukee East side campus to the County Grounds, where it makes no sense to plop down an entire college?
These decisions speak to the kind of city, county and local environment we can enjoy and pass down to the next generation - - so get involved, and speak up.
Decision-makers need to see full hearing rooms, and to hear from people expressing themnselvs.
The DNR hearing was packed Monday.
Let's do the same Tuesday and Wednesday, too.
Details on both upcoming hearings, courtesy of Riverkeeper, here.
The talkers still squawked.
All day long.
Talk about bad timing, so to speak.
I went over to the DNR's regional headquarters on King Dr. Monday morning to leave a comment in support of the invasive species management plan the agency wants to establish to help restore the Great Lakes - - but there were no written-only comment forms available for this hearing.
If you registered, remarks were expected, and given the mob scene there, I couldn't take the time to wait.
A DNR employee at the hearing told me that comments for the record could be submitted through the DNR staffer who is the permit drafter.
That would be Paul Luebke, in Madison.
Here is his contact information taken off a DNR information sheet handed out at the hearing, which also says comments can be submitted for the record by the public for a week following the hearing.
1-608-266-0234; Paul.Luebke@wisconsin.gov; 101 S. Webster St., PO Box 7921, Madison, WI 53707-7921.
So weigh in and support the permit plan; details here.
Waukesha is getting its Lake Michigan diversion ducks in line, proposing to shell out $40,000 to the MMSD for a feasibility study on dumping treated wastewater into Underwood Creek in Wauwatosa to comply with return flow requirements - - during some portions of the year ony - - laid out in the Great Lakes Compact.
Waukesha and SEWRPC officials believe Underwood Creek can take the new flow.
MMSD will see if that is true, feasible and prudent;
Wauwatosa has yet to be heard from.
And the DNR has yet to write one sentence of the administrative rules that are required to be in place governing Wisconsin diversions, according to the Compact implementing bill passed last year.
With no water crisis in the region, and once-pending legal challenges tied up with regulators concerned about Waukesha's well water safety, what is the hurry?
Jon Anne Willow has moved her journalism, culture and organizing skills to ThirdCoastDigest. Check it out.
Texas wants to spend big stimulus dollars on a new sprawl-serving toll road: Big surprise. Texas has giant toll road plans on the books, so stimulus funding offers a cheaper way to get them built.
So far, Wisconsin's transportation stimuls planning is a mixed bag. $97 million went out the door early to push along the I-94 north/south leg expansion and rebuilding from Milwaukee to Illinois, but Gov. Doyle is also pledging a major effort to launch high-speed rail in the state.
So far, no toll roads.
But I have yet to see any evidence that stimulus transportation spending in SE Wisconsin, where the state's low-income residents are concentrated, is targeted to aid low-income employment or transportation needs - - purportedly a stimulus priority.
We also have to make sure SEWEPC does not direct stimulus funds it controls to the Pabst Farms mall 'interchange to nowhere,' or other sprawl-serving road expansions in Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington Counties.
The ACLU of Wisconsin has raised some of these issues.
More later.
Monday is the day you can show your support at a hearing for a plan to prevent further damage to the Great Lakes by invasive species that are dumped into the water when ocean-going freighters flush their ballast tanks.
Even if you can't stay for the hearing - - details below - - stop by and register your support, as the shipping industry will show up, in force, in opposition.
Their position helped stymie a Congressional solution, so Wisconsin, to its credit, is trying to implement a plan that should help prevent further harm by mussels and other species to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.
If you want cleaner beaches, more efficient lakefront industries and better boating and fishing, you need to come to the hearing.
Groups like the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation are organizing support for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' ballast water control proposal.
I will post the prepared remarks of WWF Executive Directror George Meyer at the bottom of this post.
The public hearing begins at 10 a.m. Monday at the DNR southeastern regional headquarters, 2300 N. Martin Luther King Dr., Milwaukee, in room 140.
There is free parking behind the building, and on local streets.
Here is a description of the plan.
And from George Meyer:
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation March 23, 2009
Testimony of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation in Support Of the WDNR’s General Discharge Permit Regulating the Discharge of Ballast Water into the Great Lakes
Good morning, my name is George Meyer and I am representing the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, the state’s largest conservation organization, comprised of over 164 hunting, fishing, trapping, and forestry-related groups throughout the State of Wisconsin.
The Federation and virtually every conservation and environmental group in Wisconsin are very supportive of the proposed Department of Natural Resources General Permit WI-0063835-01-0 regulating the discharge of ballast water into the waters of the State of Wisconsin.
Sportsmen and women throughout the state cannot believe that thirty-seven years after the passage of the national and state Clean Water Acts, international ships are allowed to discharge their ballast water into the Great Lakes without any permit or effective treatment.
The results of these unregulated discharges are the presence of zebra mussels, quagga mussels, Eurasian Ruffe, round goby, white perch, spiny water flea, phragmites, possibly VHS and over 170 other invasive species that have devastated the Great Lakes ecosystem and its recreationally and economically important sports fishery.
We all have seen the results, the collapse of the salmon fishery in Lake Huron, the expenditure of over $1.5 billion in the last 20 years to deal with the clogging of water and discharge pipes, the loss of 93% of the forage base for Lake Michigan’s fishery and the severe fouling of our beaches just to name a few.
These invasive species just don’t stay in the Great Lakes, they infest our inland lakes and are transmitted throughout the country. Wisconsin sportsmen and women contribute over $80 million through licenses, stamps and excise taxes to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Account that is used to enhance and protect our fish and wildlife resources and their habitat.
These hunters, anglers and trappers see that same habitat devastated by the irresponsible actions of international ships discharging their ballast water into our waters.
I spend virtually all of my time talking and listening to the sportsmen and women in this state and when it comes to the discharge of ballast water from international ships, they say that: “We are fed up with it and we are not going to take it anymore.”
When will the shipping industry start acting responsibly and clean up its ballast water discharges? Hopefully it will be before the $ 7 billion a year Great Lakes fishery is totally collapsed. Every other industry or municipality in this state must treat their waste and protect the water quality of the state.
Why should the international shipping industry be free from comparable regulation?
Some argue that the technology is not there to meet the treatment standards in the proposed Wisconsin discharge permit. Without conceding that point, the Federation argues that is the purpose of the State and Federal Clean Water Acts.
I was involved as a young attorney in DNR in implementing the 1972 Federal Clean Water Act that required all industries and municipalities to treat their waste discharges. For the great majority of industries at that time, there was not available technology to meet the standards, but the requirement of the law drove the development of the technology.
When it comes to treatment of ballast water discharge, what entrepreneur is going to develop and produce the necessary technology unless it is required by law, it surely isn’t because the shipping industry has been demanding it on a voluntary basis.
We are very sensitive to the Duluth-Superior Harbor dilemma where potentially higher regulatory standards on the Superior side of the harbor could drive shipping to the Duluth side of the harbor.
The Federation does not want to see that occur. However the answer to that problem is not adopting the extremely weak standards advanced by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, it is Minnesota adopting the Wisconsin standards. We applaud the National Wildlife Federation and our Minnesota counterpart, the Minnesota Conservation Federation and their legal efforts to bring the Minnesota permit in line with the permits in Wisconsin and New York.
Lastly, we all agree that strong federal regulation is preferable to state regulation and we applaud the efforts of Congressmen Oberstar and Obey, Senator Feingold and the remainder of the Wisconsin congressional delegation to seek the adoption of equally strong federal regulation.
However until that happens, and we have been disappointed for over twenty years, it is critically important for the State of Wisconsin to join the State of New York in adopting the proposed general permit for the discharge of ballast into the Wisconsin waters.
The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation thanks you for the opportunity to testify here today on this critically important issue.
Submitted by:
George Meyer
Executive Director
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation
The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin continues to monitor transportation decision-making in the region, as it took the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to task last Friday for excluding the public, low-income and minority communities from meaningful participation in the allocation of millions in federal stimulus spending.
When will those folks at SEWRPC get it?
The ACLU last year filed two formal federal complaints - - still pending - - on behalf of several organizations about SEWRPC hiring procedures, advisory committee membership, and other actions the ACLU said discriminated against low-income and minority communities.
It also filed a separate complaint against the Wisconsin Department of Transportation on behalf of several organizations and individuals, raising, again, similar challenges to the State of Wisconsin's SEWRPC-blessed commitment of $1.9 billion to rebuild and widen I-94 from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line.
That eight-year plan is but a portion of a larger $6.5 billion regional freeway expansion and reconstruction scheme written for the state by SEWRPC planners that has not one dime for transit in its budget.
Some history on these complaints is here.
SEWRPC is a seven-county, 100% publicly-funded agency headquartered in the Western Waukesha City of Pewaukee. The agency has few minority professional staffers and no representatives from the City of Milwaukee on its 21-member governing board.
Without a voice or vote on the SEWRPC board - - though counties smaller than the city have three votes each - - it is up to organizations like the ACLU to constantly remind SEWRPC and the public that opaque planning and taxation without representation produces results that are exclusionary, dismissive of the public niterest, and technically deficient.
Recent comments forwarded to SEWRPC by the ACLU on behalf of legal and environmental organizations about the shortcomings of SEWRPC pro-suburban, sprawl-inducing waer supply recommendations, are here.
Here is the text of the letter about the SEWRPC stimulus meeting and decision-making precess:
March 20, 2009
Kenneth Yunker, Director
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission
P.O. Box 1607
Waukesha, WI 53187-1607
ALSO TRANSMITTED ELECTRONICALLY TO: kyunker@sewrpc.org
RE: Comments on Stimulus Program Projects
Dear Mr. Yunker:
I just learned this morning that SEWRPC is today holding a meeting to address the issue of what programs should be funded with stimulus dollars. I was unable to attend the meeting on such short notice. Instead, I am submitting written comments.
The process for discussing the allocation of stimulus dollars, as well as, potentially, the allocation itself, appears to violate civil rights requirements. Please note that civil rights compliance requirements do apply to the stimulus program, including to the distribution of stimulus funds.
I strongly object to SEWRPC’s failure to comply with its public involvement program in general, to involve its Environmental Justice Task Force (which is meeting next week) in the process, or to ensure that diverse communities are involved in the decision making process. The notice of the meeting was not even posted on SEWRPC’s website until less than 24 hours before today’s meeting, no notice was sent to interested parties, and there is no public comment period at the meeting (or at any other stated time).
The SEWRPC Staff Memorandum entitled “Public Participation Plan for Transportation Planning Conducted by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission” explicitly states the following steps will be taken in transportation planning, none of which occurred here:
• Timely notification of, and provision of access to, Commission regional transportation planning and programming activities will be achieved to encourage early and continuous public participation.
• The purposes of the [Environmental Justice] Task Force include to further facilitate the involvement of low-income, minority, and disabled individuals and communities in regional planning; to make recommendations on issues and analyses relevant to the needs and circumstances of low-income, minority, and disabled communities; to help identify the potential benefits and adverse effects of public infrastructure and services addressed in regional planning programs with respect to minority, low-income, and disabled populations; to advise and recommend methods to prevent the denial of benefits, and to minimize or mitigate disproportionately high and adverse negative impacts on minority, low-income, and disabled populations; . . .
• Beyond Commission efforts to notify and inform, and obtain input from, the general public, the Commission will seek opportunities to notify and inform, and obtain input from, those most likely to be impacted by transportation proposals. The Commission will, for example, contact community groups of an affected and concerned area, and offer briefings and presentations to those groups at meetings held expressly for that purpose or during regularly scheduled meetings of those groups. Outreach contacts and materials will be done in user-friendly, lay language. Outreach efforts will also particularly be made to notify and inform, and obtain input from, low-income and minority populations.
In addition, in the comments on the TIP that I submitted on March 16, 2009, and that I incorporate by reference herein, I addressed the fact that funds from the Highway Infrastructure Program are to be prioritized for projects in economically distressed communities.
These funds are available for transit development, as those comments also stated.
Those priorities should be applied in deciding which projects to fund with stimulus dollars. I also request that you provide me with copies of all records showing whether or how these issues were discussed or considered in any process of deciding what projects to support with stimulus funding.
Submitted by:
Karyn L. Rotker
Senior Staff Attorney
Brilliant political analysis by Frank Rich in The New York Times.
Conservative Waukesha activists are protesting Gov. Doyle's budget. Too much taxation and spending, they claim.
I guess they would want their Congressman - - that would be the tight-fisted Jim Sensenberenner (R) - - to block efforts to win earmarks and special funds and grants totalling up to $87 million to help pay for Waukesha's Lake Michigan diversion and other area projects?
In December, I noted that information about a major bank in a SEWRPC-posted economic development profile of the City of Milwaukee was outdated because the bank had a new, post-merger corporate identity, but the SEWRPC information still showed the old bank's phone number - - a number assigned to Kincaid's, a new, upscale chop house in downtown Milwaukee.
I checked a month later, and the bad information was still there; callers looking to talk to the non-existent US Bank of Milwaukee were still going to get the restaurant instead.
Now we learn that Kincaid's is closing, so that old bank's phone number will be re-assigned to yet another Milwaukee-area customer.
It's a snappy number: 414-227-1111. You say you might want it, but do you want calls intended for a closed restaurant, and also a bank, thanks to a public agency that won't correct its webpages?
SEWRPC could disconnect itself from this confusion by correcting its information, but that would be acceding to some outside pressure, a practice not in its Standard Operating Procedures, apparently.
Glad to see this initiative.
Republicans will foolishly oppose it, and some Madisonians will not like the Dane County Airport station, as opposed to one downtown, but its a good plan and will offer more business to the Milwaukee-Chicago run.
Go for it.
Or could the federal government even grant Waukesha money to use for a diversion - - study or implementing that study - - without the prior consent of all eight Great Lakes Governors, wonders water expert Dave Dempsey?
I disclosed Waukesha's Congressional efforts to obtain up to $87 million in federal funds for its probable Lake Michigan diversion and other water projects, perhaps involving Milwaukee County or city programs.
This is the language in the US Code restricting the use of federal funds relating to the study of the feasibility of diversions outside the Great Lakes basin that Dempsey cites:
Approval of Governors for diversion studies
No Federal agency may undertake any study, or expend any Federal funds to contract for any study, of the feasibility of diverting water from any portion of the Great Lakes within the United States, or from any tributary within the United States of any of the Great Lakes, for use outside the Great Lakes basin, unless such study or expenditure is approved by the Governor of each of the Great Lakes States. The prohibition of the preceding sentence shall not apply to any study or data collection effort performed by the Corps of Engineers or other Federal agency under the direction of the International Joint Commission in accordance with the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.
TITLE 42, CHAPTER 19B, SUBCHAPTER IV § 1962d–20, U.S. Code
A state budget proposal would make it more costly for landowners to fight the state transportation department if it seized land for a project.
Sneaky and arrogant.
Eighteen months ago, I urged on this blog that there be a probe of the state's agreement to spend $21.3 million on an I-94 interchange to a mall at Pabst Farms that had not yet been built.
The spending seemed little more than a subsidy to serve one private property owner.
The project has been dropped by one developer, and picked up conceptually by another company that has substantially changed the design - - on paper - - from the original, upscale "lifestyle" center to an undistinguished group of planned big box and strip-mall chain stores.
Now, thanks to the outstanding reportorial work of Waukesha blogger Jim Bouman, we learn that with the project in limbo, and in an economy so bad that subdivision construction at Pabst Farms has been suspended, the state transportation department has already spent more than $8 million for land acquisition and other interchange planning and preparation expenses.
This is nothing less than a public subsidy to Pabst Farms and a maybe-mall builder, and cries out for an investigation - - especially as local communities like Milwaukee are being turned down for transportation stimulus project financing because projects are not "shovel-ready."
This is a horrible waste of precious public funds, and will pressure Oconomowoc to pony up $400,000 it once was assigned to spend on the project, as well as a similar $1.75 million expected from Waukesha County.
And has the mall developer put in its share of $1.75 million?
WisDOT was able to begin spending because the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission put the project on a fast-tracked eligibility list, so all the institutional power brokers in the region have had a role in this unfolding boondoggle.
Legislators should begin by asking the State Legislative Audit Bureau to probe the spending.
Now.
Jim Bouman, intrepid Waukesha blogger, ferrets out some stunning news: WisDOT has already spent $8 million+ on the interchange to the once-canceled, twice-stalled, not-constructed shopping mall at Pabst Farms.
With the mall in limbo - - and already down-scaled from a glitzy "lifestyle" center to a collection of big box and cookie-cutter chain stores - - the audacity of WisDOT blowing off public dollars and input is jaw-dropping.
The ACLU of Wisconsin is using its blog to post and circulate comments made by several organizations and legal experts on a regional water study in southeastern Wisconsin.
The comments are important for two reasons:
They explain the inadequacies of the water study and recommendations, that if followed, would encourage sprawl development, job migration, discriminatory housing patterns and other socio-economic problems in a seven-county region with the City of Milwaukee in its center.
A majority of Milwaukee residents are minorities, many of whom are also low-income, and cannot easily reach jobs in the predominantly white, higher-income suburban and out-county areas to which Lake Michigan water is recommended for diversion by the regional study.
The study was produced by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, a publicly-funded and federally-certified Municipal Planning Organization with the power to approve certain federally-financed transportation projects and to distribute federal funds, including new stimulus dollars.
Secondly, the comments offer a broader lens through which proposed diversions of water from the Great Lakes could be reviewed under the new, eight-state Great Lakes Compact.
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has an Environmental Justice Task Force; it asked the planning commission to slow down the final review of the water study so that intentional socio-economic analyses could be added, but the commission, to date, has declined the request.
The City of Milwaukee does not have a seat on the planning commission's 21-member board. Each of the seven member-counties has three seats, and some counties have fewer than one-third of Milwaukee's 600,000 residents.
Bill Christofferson sends these reminders:
Friday, Mar. 20, is Iraq Moratorium day, and this one marks the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Please join us in Milwaukee if you can, at Water and Wisconsin, for a rush hour vigil from 5 to 6 p.m.
For a full list of Wisconsin events, use this link: http://iraqmoratoriumwis.blogspot.com/
Or do something yourself to call for an end to the occupation. For more on the national scene, go to www.iraqmoratorium.org
Saturday, join us for a rally and march at the Milwaukee County courthouse, 10th and Wells, at 1 p.m. Congresswoman Gwen Moore is among the speakers.
When blogging goes too far...
Judgement missing, for sure.
Forget those potholes in the City of Milwaukee, or the Milwaukee County crumbling pavement (we're looking at you, Scott Walker):
The only community in the County to get a transportation grant of stimulus funds from the state: River Hills, one of the wealthiest communities in the state.
Nine environmental, conservation and community organizations, an attorney for the law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates, and State Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine), have sent the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission a detailed critique of the agency's water supply study recommendations.
The heart of those recommendations: Lake Michigan water should be diverted to Waukesha, and several other communities.
The heart of the comments: the study and recommendations areincomplete, were based on an outdated regional land-use plan, and should be held, improved and considered only after the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources establishes administrative rules that implement the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin.
The comments echo a document filed several days ago about the plan by the American Civil Liberties Union and other Wisconsin groups.
Taken together, the comments by these organizations and individuals indicate deep scientific and legal concern about the study; Over the years, Gov. Jim Doyle and others have emphasized that water diversion policy needs to be governed by science, which is another reason that SEWRPC needs to slow this process to get it right.
SEWRPC officials have said there is no water crisis in the region, and since a Lake Michigan diversion to Waukesha would create a precedent under the just-approved Compact, the onus is on the agency to be prudent, cautious, and complete - - and to take seriously the comment period, honoring the work that these groups have done in the public interest.
I am posting the comments below in text, rather than send you to another website's URL:
March 12, 2009
Robert Biebel
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission
W239 N1812 Rockwood Drive
P.O. Box 1607
Waukesha, Wisconsin 53187-1607
RE: Comments on SEWRPC’s Preliminary Regional Water Supply Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin
Dear Mr. Biebel:
We are submitting public comments to identify three major failings of the SEWRPC Preliminary Regional Water Supply Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin (“Water Supply Plan”), which we are confident further study, evaluation and revisions could rectify.
I. The Water Supply Plan is Premised Upon an Outdated and Questionable Land Use Plan.
First of all, we must raise our continuing objection to the underlying premise of SEWRPC’s Water Supply Plan, which is based upon the SEWRPC 2035 Regional Land Use Plan (“Land Use Plan”). The Land Use Plan is outdated both in its approach and in its projections.
From the outset, it was clear that the analysis and findings of the Regional Water Supply Study should have been directed by a science-based assessment of the nature and extent of the region’s water resources. Instead, SEWRPC’s Land Use Plan emerged as the driver of the Water Supply Study and, ultimately, the Water Supply Plan, notwithstanding the record’s demonstration of repeated objections by Advisory Committee members, including University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor and hydrogeologist, Doug Cherkauer, and Milwaukee Water Works Superintendent, Carrie Lewis. Of the many assumptions underlying the Land Use Plan and, thereby, the Water Supply Plan, perhaps the most questionable, and most at odds with water resource constraints, is the high increase in growth projected for Waukesha County over the next twenty-five years. Indeed, as reflected in the May 15, 2007 Water Supply Study Advisory Committee meeting minutes, the growth in Waukesha County’s population and housing is projected precisely where water supply sources may least be able to accommodate that growth. At this same meeting, Mr. Biebel, you drew attention to several places in the report, including Chapter IV, where it was noted that water supply conditions identified by the Water Supply Plan may identify a need to refine or revise the 2035 Land Use Plan. We say the time to revise the Land Use Plan is now.
Moreover, this projected growth, dependent as it will be on heavy automobile transit and expanded infrastructure costs, is exactly the kind of sprawl and its attendant costs that national planning experts, intent on reducing our oil dependency and carbon emissions, counsel against. Indeed, this sprawl is already a major contributor to Waukesha’s and Southeastern Wisconsin’s non-compliance with federal ozone and fine particulate air quality standards. Following the existing Land Use Plan will only make this non-compliance situation worse. The result will be significant adverse health impacts on our region’s citizens, including higher rates of asthma and respiratory illness, as well as the prospect of severe economic growth restrictions for our region overall.
While outdated land use planning of this type may not be surprising given that SEWRPC’s Land Use Plan unapologetically rests upon planning principles and plan concepts heralding back to 1966, the citizens and communities in our Southeast Wisconsin region deserve a better—more progressive, intelligent and current—
template for growth and development than what SEWRPC is relying upon and, worse, has predicated its Water Supply Plan upon.
The Water Supply Plan’s reliance on the Land Use Plan as its driver, rather than vice versa, also has resulted in Plan recommendations with little or no relevance to the sustainability of the region’s water resources. For example, whereas the Water Supply Plan asserts that there will be enough water resources to implement the Land Use Plan, at the September 23, 2008 Water Supply Study Advisory Committee meeting, committee member, Doug Cherkauer, pointed to critical areas within the region where this will not be the case, notably, in Oconomowoc and Hartford, where existing problems with base-flow reductions will place Western Waukesha County lakes at risk of being drawn down—promising adverse impacts both to the ecology of the lakes and to the assessed value of the lake properties.
Other examples pointing to the fallibility of the Water Supply Plan’s assumptions regarding sustainability include the Plan’s failure to specifically address or develop plans for the growing population pressures and ongoing environmental concerns in the East Troy/Lake Beulah area. Likewise, the Water Supply Plan fails to take into account the potential cumulative impact of multiple high capacity wells in the region, an omission that is especially concerning given the region’s hydrogeology. Moreover, it is our understanding that more sophisticated models exist, including one recently developed by the USGS and other scientists involved in the SEWRPC Water Supply Study, and would assist considerably in predicting impacts to lakes, streams and wetlands under different development scenarios. It is regrettable that SEWRPC has not taken the time and afforded itself the opportunity to take full advantage of these more sophisticated tools.
Yet another critical assumption on the part of the Water Supply Plan, which pertains both to the Plan’s sustainability findings and the Plan’s recommendation that the City of Waukesha obtain Lake Michigan water, regards its “Strategic Conversion to Lake Michigan as a Source of Water Supply” element. This element assumes that nine communities currently part of MMSD sewage system—including a portion of the City of Brookfield, the City of Cedarburg, the Village of Elm Grove, the Village of Germantown, the Village of Grafton, the Village of Saukville, and the Town of Yorkville, the central portion of the City of New Berlin and the City of Muskego—will convert from wells to Lake Michigan for their water supply. However, this underlying assumption is, at best, unsupported in terms of whether, when and to what extent these other communities, in fact, will agree to move off the deep aquifer for their water supply, especially in view of the present cost differential between Lake Michigan water and existing groundwater supplies.
Recommendation: Given the foregoing, we recommend that the Water Supply Plan’s recommendations concerning the region’s water resources be put on hold until further study is undertaken to provide a complete picture of the region’s water resources in terms of their sustainability in the face of future demands. After this analysis is completed, more realistic findings could be developed and in turn be used to begin the process of revising the Land Use Plan.
II. The Water Supply Plan Fails to Evaluate or to Call For Further Study of Critical Environmental Impacts to Receiving Lake Michigan Tributary Waters Identified as Recommended Alternatives.
Despite the Water Supply Plan’s description and recommendations concerning the three outlined return-flow alternatives enabling a diversion of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha, the Plan plainly fails to assess a wide array of important questions relating to potential water quality and ecosystem impacts that could result from implementation of the recommended alternatives. Contrary to the meaning suggested by the title of the Plan’s Chapter IX, “Alternative Plan Comparative Evaluation and Selection of Initially Preferred Plan,” the evaluation of alternatives is sorely lacking in terms of return-flow impacts on receiving tributaries.
Recommendation: Any proper “comparative evaluation” as intended by the Great Lakes Compact would, at the very least, compare return flow impacts to the tributary streams being contemplated as potential recipients of return flow discharges, including both Underwood Creek and the Root River. At the very least, a proper comparative evaluation would also examine the relative impacts of developing a separate pipe and treatment system for direct discharge to Lake Michigan or of hooking up to the current MMSD system. Taking just one of these scenarios—the alternative of returning water back to Lake Michigan through Underwood Creek—would at a minimum require SEWRPC to examine the following areas of inquiry bearing upon water quality, water quantity and cost considerations before reaching any specific recommendations as part of the Water Supply Plan:
1. Are total loading of nutrients and other pollutants to Underwood Creek and Lake Michigan being considered in the permitting process?
2. What effluent limits would Waukesha need to meet to discharge to a restored Underwood Creek that fully meets the fishable and swimmable goals of the Clean Water Act? Who will be monitoring the effects of this effluent on downstream waterways?
3. What impacts might increased flows of Waukesha wastewater in Underwood Creek have on creek restoration efforts underway now or being planned by MMSD, the city of Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County Parks, and others? How would returning flow to Underwood Creek affect the ability of parties to remove concrete channelization in the future?
4. Do the assumptions used about Underwood Creek’s capacity to absorb more flow take into consideration extreme run-off events of the kind seen in recent years?
5. What are the impacts of the treated wastewater on water quality of Underwood Creek, which is currently a variance water? Will monitoring be conducted to ensure that this effluent is not having a negative effect on downstream receiving waters?
6. Does Underwood Creek, as a receiving water, contain the same base flow available in the Fox River to dilute pollutants to acceptable levels that ensure compliance with water quality standards?
7. What data exists showing the concentration or loading of each regulated pollutant in the receiving stream prior to addition of the Waukesha effluent?
8. How would the proposed discharge of wastewater impact existing efforts to create a Watershed Restoration Plan for the Menomonee River?
9. Given Underwood Creek’s status as one of the flashiest streams in Wisconsin, what are the impacts of the return flow on the safety of local residents and fishermen, especially during high flow events?
10. It is estimated that returning Waukesha’s diversion water would increase the daily flow of Underwood Creek by 39%.
a. What steps will need to be undertaken to prevent erosion?
b. Who will pay for inevitable erosion damage/repair work?
III. The Water Supply Plan Recommendations Fail to Comply with Key Provisions of the Great Lakes Compact in the Absence of Act 227 Rule-Making
For like reasons, the Water Supply Plan fails to address, much less satisfy, key provisions of the recently enacted Great Lakes Compact or those of Act 227, Wisconsin’s statutory implementation of the Compact. Specifically, SEWRPC’s Water Supply Plan’s recommendations concerning water conservation and the three outlined return-flow alternatives regarding a diversion of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha raise critical issues pertaining to the Great Lakes Compact and Act 227 implementation in the absence of DNR rule-making, including the following:
• How does a return flow alternative that is not continuous but, rather, sporadic and spaced over the course of many months, even years, conform with the legal requirements for the Great Lakes Compact?
• With respect to the return flow alternative described immediately above, how would return flow to Lake Michigan be monitored? Over what interval? Daily? Monthly? Yearly? A five-year average? How will this be regulated to conform with the Great Lakes Compact?
• How does a return flow alternative that includes the option of discharging Lake Michigan water into the Fox River and thereby the Mississippi River basin (during a two-year storm event or greater and during low flow in the Fox River) conform with the legal requirements of the Great Lakes Compact?
• How does a return flow alternative that will, according to Waukesha Water Utility officials, include substantial quantities (20%) of infiltration and inflow (I & I) water from the Mississippi River basin in its calculations of return flow volume back to Lake Michigan conform with the legal requirements of the Great Lakes Compact?
• How does the conservation program of the City of Waukesha, referenced and relied upon in the Water Supply Study’s recommendations, conform with the legal requirements of the Great Lakes Compact? Where in the Study is there an examination of the following pertinent questions:
a. What water savings have been documented from the start of the City’s water conservation program?
b. What water savings can be tied directly to the City’s conservation measures as opposed, for example, to an increase in precipitation?
c. How does I & I water factor into the City’s conservation program?
d. What additional measures are committed to?
e. What conservation measures have been rejected and on what basis?
f. If a diversion is approved to Waukesha, will the city’s water conservation programs be continued? If so, how will its compliance be monitored?
• In view of the Water Supply Plan’s failure to examine critical water quantity and water quality considerations as described in Section II above, how do any of the return flow alternatives outlined in the SEWRPC Water Supply Plan conform with the legal requirements of the Great Lakes Compact and Act 227, specifically the latter’s provision that the applicant, in returning water to the source watershed, must document that “[t]he returned water will be treated to protect and sustain the physical, chemical and biological integrity of the receiving waters, including consideration of the impacts of temperature, nutrient loading and flow regimes” ?
Recommendation: It is in view of the above questions—which go to the heart of the Great Lake Compact’s regional review process and whose resolution is absolutely dependent upon the Wisconsin DNR’s rule-making responsibility—we recommend SEWRPC hold off completion of its Water Supply Plan until Wisconsin has rules in place to guide SEWRPC’s recommended alternatives in keeping with the legal requirements of the Compact and Act 227.
Thank you for your attention to the foregoing matters of concern relating to the Preliminary Regional Water Supply Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin. We are hopeful that SEWRPC will commit to undertake the additional studies and efforts, identified above, as required to fulfill the Plan’s necessary scope and purpose.
Sincerely,
Jodi Habush Sinykin, Of Counsel
Midwest Environmental Advocates
Submitted on behalf of the following people and organizations:
Ecology Association of New Berlin
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
New Berlin Land Conservancy
1000 Friends of Wisconsin
State Representative Cory Mason
Sixteenth Street Community Health Center
The Great Waters Group Sierra Club
Waukesha County Environmental Action League
Wisconsin Great Lakes Coalition
Wisconsin Wildlife Federation
Another step in the right direction, and towards Wisconsin's historic position barring capital punishment.
I have blogged about this, and my views were formed in large measure by a months-long project on the death penalty I completed for the Journal Sentinel in 1995.
The sister of a murdered woman in the Chicago suburbs told me that she urged the judge in the killer's case at sentencing not to impose the death penalty, but to put the murderer in prison for life (and that indeed was the sentence) so that the killer would have to be reminded everyday why it was that he was locked away.
That made a lot of sense to me; that life without parole was in some ways a more harsh punishment than execution.
I studied sentencings and concluded that poor, badly-defended, minority and plain unlucky killers - - and some wrongly-accused defendants - - got the death penalty, while others walked, copped pleas or weren't executed.
And I witnessed one execution in Texas, which firmed up for me that the practice is barbaric and out of place in the modern world.
Most countries ban it; more states are getting rid of it, so cheers for New Mexico.
But don't expect its big state neighbor to the east to follow suit.
Yet.
I raised on my blog yesterday an issue with where the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission had scheduled the 3/24 meeting of its Environmental Justice Task Force - - the airport, where parking is $2 per hour.
I noted that people attending from low-income communities might not have funds to spend on the parking, or expense accounts from which to obtain reimbursement, and I emailed SEWRPC my concerns.
SEWRPC responded this afternoon by email that the airport location will remain for the meeting, the location will be discussed (having been raised at the 1/27 meeting without objection - - a meeting I had not attended), but attendees can have their parking costs paid for by SEWRPC.
Seems like a fair solution to me, though I believe SEWRPC needs to make a better effort to find meeting venues that provide free parking, as the agency has done routinely in the past.
You will remember that Mark Benson, the Oconomowoc physician charged in a high-profile multiple-homicide drunk driving crash last year, was at the time of the free on bail, thanks to a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge who did not incarcerate Benson immediately following his conviction.
Following the crash, and after several months in jail on the drunk-driving homicide charges, Benson was released on $500,000 bail.
Fair enough: he made bail, with strings attached.
Now we learn that Benson has been arrested again for possession of prescription drugs that violated the terms of the bail agreement.
His re-arrest came after a tip from a parcel delivery driver.
Searching Benson's residence, police also found six firearms, and 20,000-to-50,000 rounds of ammunition - - a separate bail violation because the agreement forbade him from possessing firearms.
Wait a minute: this is the address to which Waukesha officials allowed Benson to return.
Apparently, the authorities do not check records or conduct a thorough background investigation to see if a person in a homicide case is being bailed out to an address where firearms and a massive cache of ammunition - - and, as WTMJ-TV4 reported tonight, explosives.
Turns out that the some of the drugs that Benson obtained while out on bail were steroids.
Lots of steroids and nearly 200 syringes.
So let's add this up: Steroids. Six guns, explosives, and enough ammo to supply a small army, in the possession of a repeat OWI offender, facing homicide charges.
And a Waukesha judge set bail for the re-arrest offenses at $150,000.
Does that sound right?
Waukesha officials continue to have a casual attitude towards this defendant.
[Update: Benson's bail was raised another $500,000. Maybe the public outrage is having some effect.]
The Journal Sentinel catalogues at least 36 OWI arrests in Milwaukee County on St. Patrick's Day - - 29 by county deputies - - plus 30 more on the previous weekend leading into this co-called Wisconsin cultural practice.
Separately, there was at least one multiple-injury OWI crash in Waukesha County on St. Patrick's Day, which this year fell on a weekday.
Allowing the bars to keep extended hours on St. Patrick's Day certainly doesn't help.
The City of Waukesha has requested through the Wisconsin congressional delegation a total of $87 million, from three federal programs, to fund current and future water program needs, including ongoing radium treatment and potential new water sources from Lake Michigan and Western Waukesha wells, according to documents provided upon request by the Waukesha Water Utility.
With estimates of the Lake Michigan diversion and return flow efforts in the $50-$60 million range, the federal funding - - if obtained - - could conceivably pay for much or all of the work.
The applications continue a process Waukesha has followed in recent years that has included hiring lobbyists in Wisconsin and Washington, DC, and which has led to $2.65 million in grants from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the documents indicate.
Receiving funds at the level sought in the current proposals to Congress - - all carry a 2/10/09 date - - would dwarf the total received in the last few years, the documents indicate.
The 2009 requests of Wisconsin's Congressional delegation - - and Waukesha Water Utility general manager Daniel Duchniak said by email this morning there has been no response back yet - - seek the following:
$2 million from the US Department of Interior. That document is here.
$10 million from the EPA. That figure, along with a fact sheet and related materials, is in this document.
$75 million from a US Army Corps of Engineers program that would fund $100 million in activities in a service territory comprised of Waukesha and Milwaukee Counties. The remaining 25% would be a local match.
The document - - here - - does not indicate whether any other municipality in the two counties is part of the application.
[Updated graph] Duchniak said in follow-up emails Wednesday afternoon that "the $100 Million request is for Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties, not for the City of Waukesha," and that both Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee are aware of the funding request.
The document acknowledges that an approach to the Corps of Engineers for the two-county service area and funding is a strategic departure for Waukesha.
Would this trio oppose stimulus funding if it were to help pay for Lake Michigan diversion and wastewater pipes, pumps, and related expenses that could all top out at $60 million, or more?
Just asking.
SEWRPC has done a good job scheduling meetings of a task force that provides outreach to low-income, disadvantaged and minority communities at venues with accessible, free parking - - on King Dr., for example, in Waukesha and elsewhere in the region, but it has laid an egg with the scheduling of the 3/24 meeting - - a Mitchell Field conference room.
At $2 per hour in the airport lots, attendees can expect to spend $4-6 to attend, or ride long bus routes with transfers to get there.
Government shouldn't schedule meetings that make people pay to attend.
Many of the people who attend these meetings don't have money to burn, or expense accounts from which they can be reimbursed.
Regardless if SEWRPC's intention was to get the meeting rotated close to the south suburbs, or counties, it needs to find a more suitable, affordable and convenient site for this meeting.
I did write an email to SEWRPC Tuesday about noon about the meeting site, but didn't hear back.
Tax credits and incentives make them an even better bargain, plus burning less gasoline is good for the air we all breathe.
I have not had much to say about the State Supreme Court race underway between incumbent Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and her challenger, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Randy Koshnick.
I support the incumbent, a nationally-recongnized scholar and one of Wisconsin's greatest jurists, and I see nothing of merit in the challenger.
Then I noticed a rambling news release issued by, or on behalf of, the challenger, and if this is the way he thinks and writes or manages staff, he certainly shouldn't be on the state's highest court.
Here is the release. You decide.
Oh, great news! Knowing SEWRPC, I'm sure there are some suburban water slides or shopping mall aisles that will get funded.
Today he called the $165 million in bonuses distributed by the bailed-out insurance giant AIG "chickenfeed," and said efforts by the Obama administration and the Congress to get the funds returned were dangerously confiscatory.
So to continue his one-microphone crusade against Obama, El Rushbo had to ridicule efforts to get back $165 million in taxpayer dollars.
Payments that Rush said made sense, as these so-called retention bonuses kept key employees working...while they were shutting down the very arm of AIG that helped run the company into the ground.
CNN is reporting that 15% of those receiving retention bonuses, some amounting to more than $3 million, have already left AIG.
The Journal Sentinel posts photos of early St. Patrick's Day drinking.
This is the face we show the world?
And we complain about our image?
Gov. Jim Doyle is offering a substantial boost to the profile and content of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a $240 million investment package.
His proposals, which include creation of a school of freshwater science, a significant and long-overdue upgrade to UW-M's hidden gem - - the WATER Institute - - and a public health school downtown will add great value to the University.
Unfortunately, the spending plan endorses the off-note location of the University's proposed new engineering school at the County Grounds, miles from the East side campus.
The engineering school should be located downtown, where there are intersecting bus lines, housing, commercial and cultural amenities, and most-importantly - - related programs at both the Milwaukee School of Engineering and Marquette University.
The County Grounds siting decision is being driven by Milwaukee County, which is looking to sell land, and by UW-M, which has private funds with which to acquire the property.
Lost in that decision-making process are the needs of faculty and students - - you could bike in the nice weather from the East side downtown, then hop over to the lakefront, and so forth.
Also lost are spinoff benefits to downtown businesses and entertainment venues, as an exciting synergistic network of new schools and programs will lose one major element right from the start.
It's a social and economic mistake to isolate the new engineering school from what the rest of the University and city have to offer.
Rethinking and then relocating this element of the UW-M upgrade would turn a triple into a grand slam homerun.
The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission would be well-advised to take seriously written comments it has received about its draft water supply plan and recommendations.
A coalition of attorneys and community organizations has told SEWRPC that there are civil rights and related legal issues with the recommendations, and how they were written.
The comments and a release about them, are here.
SEWRPC is a 100% publicly-financed regional planning body: how it handles these comments, along with the outcome of pending civil rights complaints facing the agency, will in large measure help define SEWRPC's credibility moving forward.
How the comments are received and evaluated will also reveal the value that SEWRPC officials and federal regulators that work with the agency place on open government, and discrimination-free public planning and spending in a region that includes Milwaukee, Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha, Walworth, Racine and Kenosha Counties - - close to 40% of the state's population and an area containing most of the state's non-white residents.
The SEWRPC water recommendations suggested massive regional spending on new water infrastructure, and precedent-setting diversions of Lake Michigan water to some suburbs, but did not include in its three year, nearly $1 million study a socio-economic analysis, or consideration of potential impacts on lower-income communities or people of color that a justice task force created by and staffed by SEWRPC itself had asked last year be folded into the water study.
The organizations and attorneys signing the comments are asking that the study remain open until broader parameters and participation are included in the writing of the plan and its final recommendations.
Though SEWRPC officials have said there is no water crisis in the region, they have not reacted positively to suggestions that the water study be kept open and new planning elements be added.
Earlier concerns about SEWRPC's staffing, committee composition and public spending recommendations that were raised with the agency resulted in two formal civil rights complaints filed last year with federal regulatory agencies.
More discussion of SEWRPC and these issues can be accessed by entering ACLU, or SEWRPC, into the search box on the top left of this blog's home page.
The complaints are still pending, as is the release of SEWRPC's quadrennial federal certification review that enables the agency to recommend the spending of certain transportation funds.
Also pending: resolutions to the state from Milwaukee County asking that SEWRPC receive a performance audit, and a separate resolution from the City of Milwaukee asking for substantial changes to the all-county SEWRPC governing structure, or an eventual Milwaukee County and city withdrawal from the agency.
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker has complained that the Congress, with input from Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, divided $91.5 million in earmarked transit funds 60% to the city, 40% to the county.
Here are a few fun facts to remember about the transit funding:
* The money was always the federal government's to hand out. Originally, the earmark was $289 million, cut to $241 million because of the inability of local and state officials to decide where and when and how to spend it. Congress could have cut it to $0 if it so chose.
* In 1998, then Gov. Tommy Thompson prevailed on Rep. Tom Petri (R) to allow Thompson to direct the transit funds to other transportation projects, including freeways, because Thompson wanted the money for the Marquette Interchange reconstruction. Intervention by then-Rep. Tom Barrett (D), and Sen. Herb Kohl, (D), prevented that outcome - - and I don't recall then State Rep. Scott Walker, (R), piping up and complaining that would mean less money for Milwaukee County buses someday.
* Walker has said the Congressional decision violated an agreement signed by then-County Executive Scott Walker, Thompson and then-Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist to divide the remaining $241 million - - 50% to the state, and 50% to the city and county together.
The Congressional split honors that agreement, as the remaining local piece - - $91.5 million - - is being shared by Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee and will be spent on transit projects in those jurisdictions.
Besides - - Ament is no longer County Executive, Norquist is no longer Mayor, Thompson is no longer governor, and Grenadier's - - the restaurant where the local/state split was agreed to - - has closed.
What peeves Walker is that Barrett and the Democratic Congress worked together to get the $91.5 million moved from an earmark to an appropriation.
Thompson's earlier effort to grab all the money was not successful; this time, the Democrats were better organized than were the Republicans a decade ago.
So it goes.
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and some of his talk radio GOP water-carriers have said that they were blindsided by the Congressional agreement to allocate legislatively $91.5 million in languishing federal transit funding.
[Some history here.]
The division cut the money 60-40, with Milwaukee getting the lion's share ($55 million) for a downtown trolley system and the county getting the lesser share ($36) for bus purchases.
Walker and the gang's-blame-someone-else response is wrong, inaccurate and disproven by the record, so if Walker and the talkers felt blindsided, maybe they need to start reading the newspaper and perhaps remembering, photocopying or bookmarking its contents.
Twenty-one months ago, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, frustrated with Walker's refusal to accept a 50-50 split of the funding - - note that Walker and talk radio's self-defeating, city dissing position was and is 'not-one-dime-for-rail' - - told the Journal Sentinel he might independently seek to finance the trolley system if Walker declined the compromise.
Story here.
The headline writer didn't miss the point of the story:
Barrett explores bypassing county on transit plans
Then about two months ago, Barrett told the Journal Sentinel that he was pursuing a permanent resolution of the deadlock with both the incoming Obama administration and the state's congressional delegation.
"Barrett, meanwhile, said he was in talks with President-elect Barack Obama's staff and the Wisconsin congressional delegation "to end this stalemate once and for all." He declined to elaborate but said he remained committed to rail transit."In the real world - - "end this stalemate once and for all...committed to rail transit... that indicated that Barrett was serious, and with Democrats running both the Congress and White House, a solution was very likely.
At least now we have an administration that values science over magic, and special interest carveouts.
The Journal Sentinel has documented the poor shape of Milwaukee's streets.
So why did the first round of federal transportation stimulus funds include not a nickel for Milwaukee?
And remind me again why the state is pouring $1.9 billion into rebuilding and expanding I-94 between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line, with $200 million for a new lane that will have its own repair schedules?
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission worked together and created a $6.5 billion regional freeway expansion and rebuilding plan, including 127 miles of new lanes.
Not a penny in that plan to rebuild or repair local streets, or, heaven forbid, expand or support transit.
Remember all this the next time you hit a pothole, or follow the debate about whether Milwaukee, unrepresented on the SEWRPC board, should formally withdraw its approximate $220,000 annual property tax transfer to SEWRPC and put that money into a city-based planning body.
The Governor is declaring war on invasive species. Good idea.
These invaders are at the heart of what makes Lake Michigan beaches reek in the summer, damaging the regional economy.
Already suffering from pension scandals, and an ideologically-wired County Executive desperate to prove he's a leader, Milwaukee County is poised to risk hundreds of millions of borrowed dollars in what can best be called fiscal alchemy.
Supervisors need to resist Scott Walker's suicidal course.
Did Walker hire Jim Cramer as a consultant/wizard?
The scheme sounds like arbitrage to me. Isn't that illegal, or is this variant somehow permissible?
Finally: how can Walker rail (bad pun) against taking federal stimulus funds because they might have recurring costs, yet propose a potentially-calamitous financial house of cards that could collapse and saddle county taxpayers with costs that would be ruinous.
I appreciate Steve Schultze at the Journal Sentinel for staying on top of this story.
Falling ad revenues are hurting California's conservative radio talkers, according to the LA Times.
Since trends take a while to work their way west to east, perhaps we'll see this phenomenon in these parts later this year or in 2010?
The dirty air alert has been expanded, and extended: Ridiculous, dangerous, outrageous...
Per the DNR:
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Watch for Particle Pollution for Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington and Waukesha counties effective 12:01 am on Monday, March 16, 2009 through 11:59 pm on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 .
The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of fine particles in the air. Fine particle pollution is composed of microscopic dust, soot, liquid droplets and smoke particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and wood burning.
The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on str enuous activities during the watch period.
People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms. Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.
To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.
There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this regional air quality problem.
Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.
Postpone activities that use small gasoline and diesel engines.
Minimize wood burning.
Conserve electricity.
For more ideas on how you can reduce your emissions today and every day visit: Do a little, save a lot!
For more information:
Air Quality Watches and Advisories Status Web Site
Daily Air Quality Hotline - 1-866-324-5924 (1-866-DAILY AIR)
Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov
DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards
For local DNR air management program contacts, http://dnr.wi.gov/air/about/regions.htm
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If you go outside in Milwaukee County, bring your face mask.
Here's what the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has to say about our air quality for Sunday:
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Advisory for Particle Pollution (Orange) for Milwaukee County effective 10:49 am on Sunday, March 15, 2009 through 11:00 pm on Sunday, March 15, 2009 .
The advisory is being issued because of persistent elevated levels of fine particles in the air. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and wood burning.
The Air Quality Index is currently in the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an orange advisory for particle pollution is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities.
People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, and heart disease should pay attention to cardiac symptoms like chest pain and s hortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms. Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.
To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.
There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this regional air quality problem.
Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.
Postpone activities that use small gasoline and diesel engines.
Minimize wood burning.
Conserve electricity.
For more ideas on how you can reduce your emissions today and every day visit: Do a little, save a lot!
For more information:
Air Quality Watches and Advisories Status Web Site
Daily Air Quality Hotline - 1-866-324-5924 (1-866-DAILY AIR)
Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov
DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards
For local DNR air management program contacts, http://dnr.wi.gov/air/about/regions.htm
Scott Walker, Milwaukee's County Executive and leading local opponent of stimulus funds - - none for him/us if there are strings or recurring expenses attached - - will be getting $36 million he says will go for new buses from a Congressionally-mandated 17-year-old earmark he had nothing to with securing.
Walker is upset that he was cut of the deal that divided the earmark 60-40 in favor of the City of Milwaukee, which will use its share for a downtown trolley system.
Had Walker accepted an earlier offer, he'd have had $9 million more, but here is the real question: how can Walker, with a straight face, complain about the way the money was divided - - his bus system will get $36 million for new equipment - - if he believes that stimulus funds should be rejected because they come with continuing cost obligations?
So do the federal funds he will take for the buses.
Operations. Maintenance. Driver salaries. Fuel. All require local or state dollars.
Walker wants to have it both - - no, several - - ways:
He wants to posture on the stimulus funds to please the hard, anti-Obama right.
Secondly, he wants to take funds from the same source - - the federal treasury - - though accepting them violates the principles (sic) he invoked against the stimulus.
And third, he continues to criticize initiatives and services in Milwaukee - - the city - - while representing (harming) the same citizens as Milwaukee County taxpayers.
Strip out the spin and qualifiers and adjectives he loaded into his explanation of good federal dollars/bad federal dollars to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel a few weeks ago, and the contradictions become more than apparent.
Walker's defenders in the media are full of outrage and sarcasm - - but the delays in allocating and using the funds has been Walker's doing, and goal.
Walker;s stance and dance are beyond hypocrisy: to be consistent, Walker should return the bus funding, and Congress can rewrite the earmark (the funds have languished for 17 years) to direct the rest to the city for its trolley construction - - expanding its routes to capture UW-Milwaukee, Menomonee Valley, Third Ward/Fifth Ward and lakefront riders, for example.
Being true to his principles (sic) would be Walker's biggest contribution to the local economy after all.
A cautionary tale for those who would turn water into the ultimate commodity, as reported by The New York Times.
What a great idea: incentivize ( I hate the 'word,' but it's descriptive) consumers to install wind and solar power equipment by paying them a premium for the power generated.
Solid piece in the New York Times explains that instead of providing incentives through tax credits - - a taxpayer, public subsidy - - the incentive comes from the utility, hence the ratepayers.
We use. We pay. We get something back if we go green.
Cry Me A River.
And listening to Walker worry aloud about the state of the bus system is like listening to Michael Savage fret about incivility.
The Governor's budget proposes eliminating license plate expiration stickers. Savings: $500,000, and likely to be added back by legislators hearing from their county sheriffs and local coppers.
Yet the state is spending $200 million on a new lane between Milwaukee and the Illinois state line, expanding I-94 without data backing up the need.
In a $1.9 billion project that will eat up a huge percentage of stimulus funds, which are simply filling the highway budget's deficit.
Now does that makes sense?
The surprise news Friday morning that the feds had split the remaining transit funds earmarked 17 years ago for Milwaukee transit on a 60-40/City-County formula means downtown will get a starter rail system.
That is a welcome development: most major US and foreign cities have rail transit of some kind to blend with bus and auto routes. Visitors and businesses relocating expect to find rail in a real city, and people moving in and around the routes will love it.
Without trains, Milwaukee was behind the times, and the longer that County Executive Scott Walker obstructed a settlement involving the funding, the less valuable became the funding and the farther behind Milwaukee fell.
Walker is upset he was cut out of the deal by Congressional Democrats and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, but that is Walker's fault entirely for refusing to accept Barrett's repeated offers of a 50-50 split.
Walker turned down a compromise. It was an unreasonable, politically-motivated, spiteful, anti-city position.
And the result: he looks appropriately weak and properly ignored; his unit of government gets millions less, though the public still gets 100% of the funding's value.
Sounds good, fair and balanced to me.
And you know what: Despite his fulminations, Walker doesn't really care. He's being campaigning against accepting federal stimulus funding for weeks, so he should actually be celebrating that he gets a lesser share of that filthy federal lucre.
My prognostication:
It's within the realm of possibility that Milwaukee can get a shovel in the ground to launch the system sometime next year. Stimulus dollars, and perhaps other revenues through a Regional Transit Authority, state funding (there's always plenty for highways), fare collections and tie-ins with businesses, museums, conventions, and other venues can bring dollars and leverage into the system, and onto expansion.
Save me a seat on the initial ride. And one for former Mayor John Norquist, too.
He can have Walker's.
While the State Senator from New Berlin (R) is ripping Gov. Doyle for submitting a state budget with fee increases, I don't believe she has yet joined the growing number of legislators who are refusing to take their scheduled pay increase.
Suppose he gets keel-hauled by a Congressional committee, or the DA?
Bragging about hood-winking the Securities and Exchange Commission - - in an interview Cramer had posted on his own website - - could turn a cable kerfuffle into something more.
License suspensions are indeed in order for bartenders who, as video tape documented, over-served a drunk patron who then drove away and killed two pedestrians.
They are lucky that Wisconsin law does not yet hold them criminally liable.
Yet.
Personal responsibility extends to the bar owner, the servers and the patron.
Congress has ruled:
The $91.5 million in transit funds for Milwaukee that has languished for years because Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker would not split it 50-50 with the City of Milwaukee will now be split 60-40 in favor of the city, according to the Milwaukee Mayor's office.
The city is now free to invest its share on a downtown rail system, while the county can use its portion on a rapid bus system.
The mayor's office told the Common Council today:
The recently passed Federal Omnibus Budget bill contains language, originating on the House side and reaffirmed in the Senate, that dedicates 60% of the remaining $91.5 million to the downtown rail project and 40% of the funds for energy efficient buses to operate on bus rapid transit routes. Mayor Barrett made it quite clear that if the County Executive would not sign-off on an agreeable solution for spending the $91.5 million, the Mayor would ask our Congressional delegation for assistance. In meetings with members of the delegation in the fall and later, in December of last year, the 60-40 split was agreed upon.
Jon Stewart blows up Jim Cramer and the Wall Street gang with serious reporting, and you wonder why traditional reporting hasn't similarly exposed the facts about stock manipulation.
This is big, and the link I posted will get you to The Daily Show's effort all week exposing financial 'expert' Jim Cramer, his network, CNBC, and Jon Stewart's morphing from comedian to real reporter and an aggrieved public citizen and hoodwinked investor.
It was a jaw-dropping half-hour of TV last night, and today it is on the front of the New York Times website today.
That's big.
An earlier post of mine will give you some bits from The Daily Show as it aimed its spotlight on CNBC this week.
The Daily Show is known to find video that undermines two-faced politicians; somehow the program got hold of video of Cramer admitting to stock manipulation - - and all this was aired on Stewart's show - - in an extended segment during which Cramer could not really defend himself - - on the same day Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty.
For Cramer, and CNBC, the timing couldn't have been worse, but for the viewer - - perfect.
No to coal, yes to wind, says Alliant, pushed there by the state Public Service Commission and public opinion.
Of course publicly-financed construction work should pay so-called prevailing wages. There should be the greatest public benefit obtained in allocating and appropriating these funds, because that amounts to a subsidy, thus a private benefit rolled into a public agenda.
Gov. Doyle in was right to propose it.
Gerard Randall runs into, and under, the Scott Walker Campaign Express.
Fascinating historical piece.
Thanks to Ft. Atkinson Phil.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Ald. Michael Murphy, the Common Council's most senior member and resident water expert, have sent the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission lengthy comments on the SEWRPC water supply plan.
That plan recommends diverting Lake Michigan water to the City of Waukesha, which, should it occur, would be the first allowed outside of the Great Lakes basin under the just-completed, eight-state Great Lakes Compact agreement.
Among other things, the Milwaukee officials reach this conclusion:
...the full cost of providing water is woefully underestimated. While the Plan does a good job of standardizing regional information, it does not fully reflect the full cost of improvements to Milwaukee’s system that would be necessary to supply water to the additional communities. Estimating these costs will require a better understanding of Milwaukee’s existing water system. The current Plan understates the full costs associated with serving suburban communities with Milwaukee Water Works water.Barrett and Murphy suggest that SEWRPC delay the study's recommendations' approval and take more time to make the study complete, and more authoritative, concluding that:
March 12, 2009
Mr. Robert Biebel
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission
W239 N1812 Rockwood Drive
Waukesha, Wisconsin 53187-1607
Dear Mr. Biebel:
The City of Milwaukee appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Preliminary Regional Water Supply Plan for Southeastern Wisconsin. As you know, Carrie Lewis, Superintendent of the Milwaukee Water Works has represented the City on the Regional Water Supply Planning Advisory Committee and many of our comments reiterate Ms. Lewis’ comments during the study period.
The City of Milwaukee supports many of the regional Water Supply Plan objectives outlined in Chapter V. However, the City of Milwaukee disagrees with the use of projected population growth and land use from the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s (SEWRPC’s) Land Use Plan as the basis for estimating future water supply needs. The City of Milwaukee continues to urge SEWRPC to consider a water supply plan that is based upon our understanding of existing groundwater and surface water resources including the constraints on those resources. The availability and quality of water resources should help local governments determine where future growth should occur and should drive land use planning rather than the reverse. The Water Supply Plan should not be based on a premise that water resource limitations be ignored because a particular area is identified as a growth area in the Regional Land Use Plan.
Even if the City agreed that land use and population are good proxies in establishing future water supply needs, we disagree with the assumption that existing land use trends will continue without adjustment for changes in land use policies, changes in population growth trends and changes in economic investments. The study assumes that historic growth patterns from the 1980s and 1990s will continue. No alternative growth scenarios were included in the water supply study. It would be helpful to include a no-growth projection in addition to the projected continuation of past population trends and land use patterns. The City of Milwaukee recommends that the Water Supply Plan not be finalized without designing and evaluating alternatives based on water resource limitations. The Water Supply Plan should also reflect several population and land use scenarios to better bracket future water supply needs.
The Plan evaluates four major alternatives. Each alternative is evaluated based on ground and surface water impacts, capital and operating costs and other environmental impacts. The Plan does not fully address hybrid approaches to meeting Waukesha and other communities’ water supply needs. For example, the Plan should consider whether there are situations where blending surface water and ground water resources coupled with water conservation may be the best alternative to meeting future water needs.
Alternatives for providing additional water to Waukesha appear to rank fairly closely and the Plan does acknowledge that additional evaluation is needed to help identify the best approach. Because Waukesha is not facing a water crisis, the City of Milwaukee recommends a more complete analysis of alternatives, including hybrids of some of the alternatives already included in the Plan.
Much of the Regional Water Supply Plan is devoted to analyzing the capital and operating costs of the four alternative scenarios. The Plan does provide standard engineering costs to compare various options to each other. However the full cost of providing water is woefully underestimated. While the Plan does a good job of standardizing regional information, it does not fully reflect the full cost of improvements to Milwaukee’s system that would be necessary to supply water to the additional communities. Estimating these costs will require a better understanding of Milwaukee’s existing water system. The current Plan understates the full costs associated with serving suburban communities with Milwaukee Water Works water.
The Plan also does not consider the full environmental costs associated with alternatives that divert water from Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Water Resource Compact prohibits diversions with few exceptions. In the case of these exceptions, the jurisdiction diverting Lake Michigan water must demonstrate that water will be returned to Lake Michigan. Although this language may have anticipated returning flow through a sewage treatment facility discharging directly to the lake, it is apparent that one option for the City of Waukesha is to return flow as treated wastewater through a local river or stream. This study does not fully evaluate the environmental impact of using existing water bodies to return flow to Lake Michigan. There may be costs associated with impacts to both instream water quality and quantity.
The Water Supply Plan provides a good assessment of existing drinking water issues for southeast Wisconsin. It demonstrates that although there are isolated areas of groundwater contamination and drawdowns of some groundwater resources, overall, there is no water supply crisis in southeastern Wisconsin. As such, there is time to fully analyze water supply alternatives with the addition of new technical resources (new models, different paradigms) and new public policy (e.g., the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact). Specifically, the Compact requires us to be much more thorough in any analysis of alternatives based on using water from Lake Michigan outside the basin. There are specific standards in the Compact and additional standards are likely as the Department of Natural Resources moves forward to adopt administrative rules clarifying the intent of the Compact. Because of this, the Plan should not be used as justification for diversion applications since the work was conducted prior to adoption of the Compact and development of state administrative rules. Additional legal findings must be made by any applicant wishing to divert Lake Michigan water. The costs associated with additional investments in infrastructure that may be needed to ensure that return flow requirements are met and water quality is not compromised must also be assessed in any diversion application and should be fully considered in evaluating the costs of any of the water supply alternatives.
The City of Milwaukee appreciates the hard work done by SEWRPC, its consultants and the Planning Advisory Committee. However, because the Plan clearly demonstrates that there is no water supply crisis in southeastern Wisconsin, we recommend that additional analysis be conducted to reflect existing source water limitations, new modeling capabilities and alternative land use and population scenarios. We also recommend that the adoption of the Water Supply Plan be postponed until the full requirements of the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact can be factored in to alternative scenarios. This includes waiting until the Department of Natural Resources issues administrative rules to administer the Compact.
Sincerely,
Mayor Tom Barrett
Michael J. Murphy
Alderman – 10th District
Just a few days left, then hold your peace:
Monday, March 16th is the closing date for comments to be received on recommendations created by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that support a Lake Michigan water diversion to the City of Waukesha, along with related proposals.
Here is the website through which you can send a comment.
Waukesha does not need SEWRPC's blessing recommendation to receive a diversion. That process involves a review and approval by all the eight Great Lakes states, but having SEWRPC's proposal moving forward certainly helps Waukesha say its position and probable formal application has merit.
Notably missing from the SEWRPC plan - - and remember, this was a three-year regional effort written by a seven-county public agency - - is an analysis of the impact of a diversion on the region's housing patterns, job development, transportation spending, air quality and overall economic growth.
SEWRPC's Environmental Justice Task Force asked SEWRPC to delay the water plan's evaluation until so-called socio-economic analyses could be added, but the agency balked at the request.
The gunman who went on a two-county shooting spree earlier this week in Alabama carried two extremely high-powered assault-type rifles, so it is not surprising that the death toll was high, and that he could fire with fatal results from an automobile.
As long as you can walk into a gun show or dealer's shop and purchase weapons designed for military purposes, we will continue to suffer these calamities.
There are more twists in this argument than in your average bag of pretzels.
The Grand Old Party's silly experiment with Michael Steele as party chair will soon come to an end.
I think we're talking days, perhaps weeks, but not months for the guy. He loves the spotlight, but the party bosses do appreciate what he's on stage.
As Steele leaves to pursue other challenges, spend more time with his family or hit the lecture circuit, the Party of the Right will right itself internally with a more reliable ideologue, further cementing its fringe status.
A new, internet-savvy band of Great Lakes cities' activists is holding its second national meeting, in Milwaukee, beginning Thursday.
Here is information and a website offered by the group, Great Lakes Urban Exchange.
More details are supplied by Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, here.
Voters rejected his bad idea in a referendum, but Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker doesn't listen, and has again proposed a risky bonding plan to buttress - - or weaken - - the county's troubled pension system.
This from the guy who has presided over the bus system's tailspin, mismanaged social welfare programming and presented 'budgets' based on cotton-candy revenue projections.
Give Supervisor John Weishan, Jr., the floor...
They'd prefer their workers come in sick.
Solution: state or national legislation.
You're wasting money and energy - - big time.
Afternoon Update: Wonderful coincidence today. Ice Mountain - - that would be Nestle and its Michigan wetlands water - - sent me an offer for bottled water deliveries in those big, Great Lakes diversion-evading jugs - - that now comes with a stainless steel dispenser/holder.
False needs - - multiplied!
I am re-posting a 2/27 item (link here) in which I described letters received by the Waukesha Water Utility from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources regarding procedural issues that Waukesha will face when applying for a diversion of Lake Michigan water.
At the time, I did not have the documents in a form I could post, but now I do, so here, as promised, is the link to the documents and the rest of the text will provide some background. (Hat tip, One Wisconsin Now, for the technical assistance. And: additional items about this issue can be accessed by entering the words Waukesha, or diversion, into the search box on the top left of the blog home page.)
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wisconsin DNR Has Raised Substantial Issues About Waukesha's Lake Michigan Diversion Plannning
Waukesha's effort to obtain a diversion of Lake Michigan water is not on a fast track.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, doing its statutory duty under Wisconsin law and the newly-established, multi-state Great Lakes Compact water management agreement, has told the City of Waukesha that its plans to divert Lake Michigan water out of the Great Lakes basin must meet substantial and substantive water quantity, quality and procedural thresholds, according to documents sent me by the DNR.
I will post their entire content when I get the records converted from hard copy, though this is not the first indication that Waukesha has a tough row to hoe, and it won't be the last.
At the heart of the discussion are two October, 2008 letters from DNR officials answering questions raised in April by Daniel Duchniak, manager of the Waukesha Water Utility.
In the first letter, dated October 14th, DNR Water Use Section Chief Eric Ebersberger makes these points:
"Final state administrative rules" have not been promulgated, so the DNR will work with a previously-issued procedural, interim outline that lines up with the requirements of state law and the Compact.
The letter makes clear that Waukesha is invited to make proposals to the DNR, given the absence of final administrative rules and the existence of the interim procedures.
One key issue for Waukesha - - the calculations of what constitutes acceptable return flow of diverted water back to the lake - - is still awaiting the writing of administrative rules. Ebersberger tells Duchniak that "the discussions with the other states on this issue were based on the assumptions of an immediate and continuous return flow. If you choose to propose something different than an immediate and continuous return flow, then you will have to make the argument for doing so and describe the impact your proposal will have on the water resources of the Great Lakes."
This is a major issue because Waukesha has said it would like to achieve return flow through discharge to Underwood Creek - - but wants to retain the right to discharge some diverted water after treatment into the Fox River, and thus away from the Great Lakes basin.
And that will probably not sit well with other states, such as Michigan, which would want strict adherence to the Compact's return flow requirements, especially since Waukesha's application would be the regional precedent, and the Compact does not spell out an exception for discharging diverted water away from the Great Lakes basin.
Ebersberger also tells Duchniak that a similar issue exists with respect to defining what the term "consumptive use" will mean until final administrative rules are written, and urges Waukesha to present detailed information in its application about water conservation and water loss prevention.
Another requirement is included in the letter to Duchniak..."the application must evaluate the alternative of connecting wastewater discharges to other nearby systems, including the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District," including cost-effective analyses.
That's some big-ticket consulting and staff time requirements, for sure.
Two days later, Duchniak receives a separate letter about water quality issues from DNR Bureau of Watershed Management chief Duane Schuettpelz.
He tells Duchniak, among other things, that Waukesha's application must include "an analysis of impacts of the wastewater flows in the tributaries on river stage, flood flows and storage and associated impacts. Similarly, as assessment of the effects associated with the diversion of the wastewater discharge out of the Fox River must be included. Finally, it must also, as identified in [the earlier letter from Ebersberger] demonstrate that the amount of return flow is equal to that withdrawn as described in the "Great Lakes Compact" legislation."
Schuettpelz tells Duchniak discharged wastewater must meet existing standards, notes that Underwood Creek has "the most stringent effluent limitations," and that there cannot be "lowering of water quality unless allowed and appropriately justified and then only if the uses in the receiving water are maintained."
So Waukesha, the state, the Cities of Wauwatosa and Milwaukee through which Underwood Creek flows and empties, the MMSD and the seven other Great Lakes states certainly have their work cut out for them.
No wonder Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson said the other day that Waukesha's application will not proceed quickly, though some of these hurdles were referenced in January at a public meeting in Waukesha run by Nelson - - about which I blogged, here.
The records indicate that meetings and communications about the application process among Waukesha and DNR officials are ongoing.
It's a buyer's market in real estate everywhere - - but UW-Milwaukee seems to be willing to toss in extra millions to buy a site on the County Grounds for its new engineering school, and I don't see others lining up as bidders.
Has UW-M estimated the added transportation and commuting-time expenses the Wauwatosa site will generate, as opposed to building downtown where there are transit connections and additional infrastructure?
One Wisconsin Now (I sit on one of its boards) has created a website with clever graphics that disclose funding and leadership connections in right's effort to elect a candidate as Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Check it out.
A committee of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage Commission Monday moved along the plan to pipe methane captured from the Muskego landfill to the MMSD's Milorganite production operation in Milwaukee.
Replacing more-costly natural gas with methane in the Milorganite operation will save millions of tax and ratepayer dollars a year, beginning in 2011, assuming the full Commission green-lights the plan later this month.
Quite the clean-air/clean-water/recycling-and-dollar-saving/regional cooperation winning hand, wouldn't you say?
The MMSD has made great strides in recent years establishing itself as a regional environmental and resource preservation agency, from shoreline and wetlands' restoration, to flood control, to improved outreach, to comprehensive, true regional planning that has, at times, made the Southeastern Regional Planning Commission look hapless.
A lot of people in these parts ought to tip their caps to the MMSD and go find a new government scapegoat to gripe about.
1130 WISN-AM right-wing talker Mark Belling is on vacation, so in for our entertainment today stepped guest host Vicki McKenna.
For the uninitiated, she's the regular late morning 1130 talker based in Madison who is sandwiched in between the ever-grumpy early morning righty talker Jay Weber, and the GOP's new party leader, the self-proclaimed El Rushbo hisself.
(Later in the day, following Belling, 1130 dishes up Sean Hannity - - and this, mind you, is on the region's mere #2 AM station (AM620 WTMJ, the home of C. Sykes/J. Wagner et al being #1. Before I digress too far, forget WISN for a moment - - I'll get back to there in a second - - but does AM620 WTMJ and Journal Communications management understand or care that many Brewer and Packer fans have been driven away because not everyone wants a daily dose - - measured in hours - - of rightwing anger and spin before their sports?)
Anyway: Back to McKenna.
Part of her second hour discussion was devoted to Obama-the-socialist - - you know, that goofy and shallow GOP talking propagandistic talking point making the rounds.
Not to be outdone, McKenna said she believed Obama to be "a commie."
Belling's on his annual cruise.
McKenna's on another planet - - where more and more of the far-right find themselves orbiting.
Some good calendars and information there.
Lake Michigan offers Milwaukee an identity and economic base beyond that of water supplier to the suburbs, the Journal Sentinel explains.
UW-Milwaukee, state government and the private sector are working well together to build an iconic, ground-breaking school of freshwater science in Milwaukee, perhaps on the lakefront, while boosting the visibility of UW-M's WATER Institute and the school's entire research profile.
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's facilities are located nearby on the Milwaukee River and on Jones Island, expanding the scientific pool near UW-M; Marquette University, the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), a new school of public health, and other major scientific and technical private sector employers are, or will be, close by.
So why is UW-M going in the other, and wrong direction, by chasing after a site on the County Grounds in Wauwatosa on which to locate UW-M's new engineering school?
Siting the engineering school there will disconnect students and faculty from all the other educational, scientific, and academic resources in the area.
Not to mention housing, recreational and commercial opportunities and amenities - - all of which are available in downtown Milwaukee - - that are closer to Marquette, MSOE, the proposed freshwater and public health campuses, and more.
Putting the new engineering school that far from the rest of the action is akin to sprawl housing development.
It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close: students and faculty will have to get cars and burn fuel to drive there, and also some days to the east side campus, too; don't expect Milwaukee County to create or expand lines on its failing bus system to provide a true transit connection for an entire campus, let alone any rail service - - but the bus system already circulates through downtown Milwaukee.
This is government behavior at its most wasteful; monument builders constructing something that looks like a semi-rural picture postcard college campus on open space (the Madison Are Technical College's abandonment of a downtown campus, served by transit, for a new campus near the airport comes to mind), when every guideline in Planning 101 says build where the infrastructure, people, transit, businesses and commerce already exist.
UW-M needs to build its engineering school downtown, as some advocates are arguing convincingly.
Students, faculty, businesses and taxpayers will hail the decision for years.
Will Scott Walker allow the federal stimulus logo - - above - - to be placed on county buses purchased with stimulus funds, now that he has managed to justify accepting the money?
Under the disinterested leadership of Milwaukee County Executive and grasping gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, Milwaukee County's failing bus system is not part of the national transit boom.
Milwaukee County will never get the spinoff development benefits from rail transit that are accruing in other cities unless and until the business community begins to see Walker as an economic liability.
The answer is not to promote him to the Governor's office, but to form a coalition with other transit believers and activists that will put a pro-transit, pro-development leader in the County Executive's office.
Paired with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, such a County Exec would be able to coordinate local, state and federal transit investment funds in a coherent fashion.
And to work more productively with the private sector on transportation-related issues.
Another issue that must be addressed is Milwaukee's continuing presence in SEWRPC, the in-bred regional planning commission that is stacked in favor of rural and suburban counties, and on which the City of Milwaukee has no votes among the 21 commissioners.
With a muted voice at SEWRPC, Milwaukee cannot make progress on its transit needs, which enables a distorted housing and jobs' market to grow in the suburbs while declining in the city.
SEWRPC's guiding decades-old land-use plan and thinking continues to support this imbalance - - look no farther than SEWRPC's new water supply study, which recommends diverting Lake Michigan water to Waukesha while not considering the impacts on regional housing and transportation programs, costs, deficiencies and projections.
Milwaukee - - the city and the region - - will remain stunted economically until the old ways in the Milwaukee County Courthouse and at SEWRPC's Pewaukee offices are modernized, or replaced outright.
"No" to some stimulus funds, but "yes" to other stimulus funds that are about as different as Coke is from Pepsi.
After then-Gov. Tommy Thompson seized control of the Department of Natural Resources by morphing its Secretary into a political appointee, then-Attorney General Jim Doyle said he'd return the appointment to the DNR Board if he were elected Governor.
Now the Governor has changed his mind.
And as The Capital Times puts it, he is wrong to go back on that commitment.
Thompson, and his successor, Lt. Governor Scott McCallum, extended the politicization of the department, and began some in the agency believe is an ongoing fall in morale and internal timidity.
George Meyer, the last Secretary appointed by the board, was dismissed by McCallum during the former Lt. Governor's short, undistinguished stint as Governor after Thompson left to serve in the cabinet of President George W. Bush.
Doyle then beat McCallum in the 2002 general election.
Meyer and environmental groups have led an effort to restore the DNR appointment power to the board, have enough support in both houses of the legislature to get it done, but that could lead to a veto, and a problematic override.
Messy.
And it should have never come to this.
Chief executives do not like to lose perks and forfeit power, but in this case, the Governor would retain some control over the DNR secretary because the Governor appoints the DNR board.
Regardless of whom is Governor, insulation from direct gubernatorial intervention into DNR's activities is a good idea, given the agency's regulatory functions - - tasks that are best performed with reasonable distance from political considerations.
I hope Gov. Doyle decides that a DNR Secretary with a bit of independence is good for the state.
We all heard about the anti-Obama rant offered up on CNBC the other day by commentator Rick Santelli.
It was the administration's plan to prop up some failed mortgage holders - - "losers," according to the infuriated Santelli - - that helped push down stock prices that day and kicked off mainstream media discussion about whether the government should be bailing out individual homeowners, and not merely the banks and insurers who helped sell those homeowners toxic financial instruments.
When Santelli bailed out on his scheduled "Daily Show" appearance - - host Jon Stewart and his researchers put together a savage, satirical-but-accurate documentary segment on CNBC's record of failed and fawning financial news coverage.
In case you missed it, here's the link.
We know that New Berlin made its one-time, $1.5 million payment to the City of Milwaukee for diverted water, and that the per-gallon rate is established, but did we ever get straight how much the Milwaukee Water Works would lay out for new pumps and infrastructure to get the water over the subcontinental divide?
Is Joe The Plumber running for President?
Readers of this blog know I am a death penalty opponent.
My views were influenced by months of national reporting for a series on capital punishment I wrote for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 1995, including witnessing an execution in Texas - - the first of many authorized by the then-new Texas Governor, George W. Bush.
The cause of death on an executed Texas prisoner's death certificate is listed as homicide, by the way.
So does the revelation a top Texas judge who willfully ignored a prisoner's last-minute appeal mean she should be charged with more than judicial misconduct?
Like homicide, or a count of party to a crime?
Today's warning is for the state's industrial counties - - Brown, Ozaukee, Waukesha and Milwaukee - - given the weather.
But have you noticed that it's more or less rain or shine, sumner and winter - - for these repetitive warnings about our state's unhealthy air?
Bad for business. Bad for kids. For Seniors...walkers..humans...
When did we become LA Nrth?
Here's the text:
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Advisory for Particle Pollution (Orange) for Brown, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, and Waukesha Counties effective 9:59 am on Saturday, March 7, 2009 through 11:00 pm on Saturday, March 7, 2009 .
The advisory is being issued because of persistent elevated levels of fine particles in the air. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and wood burning.
The Air Quality Index is currently in the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups. People in those sensitive groups include those with heart or lung disease, asthma, older adults and children. When an orange advisory for particle pollution is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous activities.
People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, and heart disease should pay attention to cardi ac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms. Fine particle pollution deposits itself deep into the lungs and cannot easily be exhaled. People who are at risk are particularly vulnerable after several days of high particle pollution exposure.
To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/air/newsletters/.
There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this regional air quality problem.
Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.
Postpone activities that use small gasoline and diesel engines.
Minimize wood burning.
Conserve electricity.
For more ideas on how you can reduce your emissions today and every day visit: Do a little, save a lot!
For more information:
Air Quality Watches and Advisories Status Web Site
Daily Air Quality Hotline - 1-866-324-5924 (1-866-DAILY AIR)
Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov
DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards
For local DNR air management program contacts, http://dnr.wi.gov/air/about/regions.htm
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett tells The Business Journal that there are specific targets and goals for Milwaukee's stimulus dollars.
Energy conservation. Weatherization. Emergency and homeless shclter improvements. Street repairs. Job creation.
Compare this approach with that of Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, who has put his lust for the Governor's office before the needs of County taxpayers.
Scott Walker keeps politicking against federal stimulus funding on behalf of county taxpayers, so the Board of Supervisors may take control of the process.
Good for the board - - and for the record, this is something I suggested a few weeks ago in a Sunday Journal Sentinel Crossroads op-ed piece, to wit:
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker must be steered or yanked away from his absurd "no-stimulus money" approach - which is less a public policy theory and more a campaign position that puts taxpayers last.
Milwaukee County has structural poverty, broken infrastructure and a failing bus system - a municipal recipe if there ever was one for targeted stimulus financing, new ideas and fresh leadership.
If Walker can't rise to the occasion, and because Doyle and all state residents want to get the maximum use of whatever federal stimulus dollars come this way, the governor should consider assigning Milwaukee County's share of stimulus funding to its County Board or to creative partnerships with the City of Milwaukee and the other municipalities in Milwaukee County.
President Barack Obama is keeping a campaign promise to reverse the Bush administration's limitations on stem cell research.
This should advance the research conducted at Wisconsin's pioneering stem cell program at UW-Madison and WARF, its Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
Some say the decision opens up competition and could diminish the lead enjoyed by the Wisconsin scientists, but I think their team is strong and nimble enough to continue to dominate for some time to come.
If the Right puts out propaganda, OWN will respond. Pretty cool.
And because the road needs repaving - - someday, according to someone's data - - let's play that oldest con in the highway planners' playbook one more time and throw in that new, extra lane, too.
Oh, we've heard this before, haven't we?
This is the same hocus-pocus that the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission cobbled together a few years ago when it said: Hey, the entire regional freeway system will need to be rebuilt, so for a few extra hundred million bucks, you can have another lane across the entire 127 system, too.
And this is what is happening right now as the I-94 north/south leg from Milwaukee to the Illinois state line is beginning its eight-year reconstruction.
Estimated cost: $1.7 billion - - and, for a mere $200 million more - - you can have the new lane.
A $1.9 bargain!
So we're reached the point in Wisconsin public spending that $200 million is considered a throw-in, a little bump, an appetizer, if you will.
Worse: the north/south leg has been declared stimulus-worthy, back-filling a shortage of transportation funds with one-time federal dollars that could be used to make sure that the state's transportation infrastructure offers useful, sustainable and variable choices.
So while Milwaukee's transit system is failing, commuter rail is stalled and light rail is removed from discussion altogether, I-94 is going to get 70 miles of new lanes between Milwaukee and Illinois despite any authentic traffic justification.
And the same cabal responsible for the expanding freeway system is laying the groundwork for widening another road in Waukesha County, despite the overbuilding of spec houses and deserted subdivisions, and the coming drop-off in aging boomer driving - - to say nothing of the sagging economy and the support for transit that it's stimulating.
I see that comment is being sought for the Capitol Dr. boondoggle.
Good luck expecting the planners and spenders to listen.
More than 20% of the state's stimulus spending will go into rebuilding and widening interstates that reward the highway lobby, not motorists.
Nothing green, or sustainable, or imaginative about this: just old-fashioned special interest spending.
What a wasted opportunity - - money squandered on distorted, rationalized policies.
Pathetic.
The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District is leading the way on expensive restoration efforts for the Kinnickkinnic River, and has done outstanding work elsewhere in the Milwaukee watershed.
The goal is flood prevention, river restoration, environmental preservation.
At great public expense, mind you.
Contrast that with the apparent desire of the City of Waukesha to use another area waterway - - Underwood Creek - - as the discharge point for a daily dumping of millions of gallons of treated wastewater.
Is the goal flood prevention, river restoration and environmental? At great public ezpense?
Well, yes, for the public expense part, but primarily the goal is to enable Waukesha to divert water from Lake Michigan and return it the watershed where it most suits Waukesha.
The region has spent heavily on rivershed stewardship, and MMSD has taken the lead, which is why in large measure that the Menomonee River is cleaner, with now the KK to follow.
Underwood Creek empties into the Menomonee River, then to the lake.
Is using it as the discharge point for more water and treated effluent really the way to continue the trend of watershed revival?
First they tell you to drink water on flights to combat dehydration - - and now this - - as I warned about months ago.
What's next - - charging for the cabin air?
Kayrn Rotker, senior attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin, lays out some problems with the housing study plan proposed by the Southeastern Wisconsin Planning Commission.
The context is a letter to SEWRPC's staff.
Ir should be noted that in 2008, the ACLU filed two civil rights complaints with federal agencies alleging discrimination in SEWRPC hiring and transportation decision-making.
Those complaints are pending, as is the quadrennial performance review of SEWRPC by federal transportation officials.
Ben McKay
Planner, Housing Study
Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission
P.O. Box 1607
Waukesha, WI 53187‑1607
ALSO TRANSMITTED VIA FAX, (262) 547‑1103
RE: Housing Study Scope
Dear Mr. McKay:
I am writing to express some concerns regarding the draft Housing Study Scope. While the Scope provides a good basis to begin the study, it is important to recognize that research has shown that affordable housing does not automatically or necessarily result in fair housing. To ensure that the Housing Study facilitates fair housing, as well as affordable housing, these issues must be addressed.
I am unable to attend the initial meeting of the Housing Advisory Committee, but request that you share this letter and my concerns with Committee members, as well as with the Environmental Justice Task Force.
1) Information:
As a starting point, it is critical to acknowledge that the Milwaukee-Waukesha metropolitan region is, overall, the most racially segregated region in the United States for African-Americans, and in the top third of the most racially segregated large metropolitan areas in the United States for Latinos.[1]
However, while the Housing Study scope makes vague references to collecting demographic information, it fails to explicitly acknowledge, or make plans to gather information on, racial disparities. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that the reason for racial residential disparities is solely economic: for example, throughout the region low-income whites are more likely to live in middle-class neighborhoods, while higher income African-Americans are more likely to live in low-income neighborhoods.[2] In addition, it is crucial that the study gather data not only on overall demographic patterns, but on the variations in those patterns in different local communities.
HUD publications provide guidance on the kind of information that needs to be collected to conduct a meaningful demographic analysis.[3] Relevant information includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
Demographic data on each jurisdiction=s population and housing[4];
Mortgage and rehabilitation lending patterns by race and ethnic group;
Availability of accessible housing stock for persons with disabilities[5];
Results of fair housing testing activity, if available;
Occupancy requirements that might unlawfully limit housing for families with children or for group homes; and
Geographic patterns related to the use of housing choice vouchers and the siting of assisted housing.[6]
In addition, given the current housing crisis, it seems important that the Study also evaluate foreclosure patterns, including the demographics of persons who have lost their homes.
2) Housing Segregation Issues and Remedies:
Throughout the Draft Scope, there appears to be inadequate attention to, and a misconstruing of, factual and legal issues relating to housing discrimination. There is also no articulation of methods to address any housing discrimination or segregation that exists. The concerns, and suggested responses, are as follows:
The definition of the problem@ section limits its concern to housing discrimination in the rental market.
Housing discrimination is not simply discrimination in the rental market. Discrimination in the housing purchase market - including but not limited to – racial disparities in mortgage lending (in which the region routinely leads the United States[7]), predatory lending, and other forms of discrimination - is also part of the problem. In addition, discrimination against facilities such as group homes - which may not be owner occupied, but are also not traditional Arental@ housing - also may exist, but is not discussed.
The section on discrimination talks only about “reported” discrimination, implying that a lack of reported discrimination equates with a lack of fair housing violations.
As HUD itself has made clear, a lack of complaints does not necessarily mean that discrimination has not occurred. It can also mean that there is no adequate investigative entity; that the public is unaware of its housing rights or recourse; or that members of protected classes lack confidence in the investigative entity.[8]
The section on local land use controls appears to assert (incorrectly) that actions that have a discriminatory effect are not unlawful.
Actions that have the effect of discriminating against persons of color and/or persons with disabilities - regardless of whether those actions are based on discriminatory intent - are also unlawful.[9]
There is no acknowledgment or discussion of legal requirements that exist for local communities to affirmatively further fair housing and affirmatively market housing, not just refrain from discrimination.
For example, any community that receives funding from certain federal sources - including the Community Development Block Grant program, from which most, if not all, communities in the region benefit - is legally obligated to “affirmatively further fair housing.[10]” Affirmatively furthering fair housing means that a jurisdiction will conduct an analysis to identify impediments to fair housing choice within the area and take appropriate actions to overcome the effects of any impediments identified through that analysis.[11] The duty to affirmatively further fair housing entails more than just refraining from overt discriminatory practices.[12] Therefore, the Housing Study must review and evaluate these requirements, including the extent to which each jurisdiction that receives funding from any of these sources is or is not in compliance with the requirements, and methods to ensure that communities are in fact Aaffirmatively furthering fair housing.
In addition, recipients of other forms of federal funding must engage in “affirmative marketing.[13]” Affirmative marketing generally means that the funding recipient must take actions including developing procedures to be used by owners to inform and solicit applications from persons in the housing market area - including persons of under-represented racial groups - who are not likely to apply for the housing without special outreach (e.g., use of community organizations, places of worship, employment centers, fair housing groups, or housing counseling agencies).
Again, the Housing Study must review and evaluate these requirements, including the extent to which recipients are in fact complying with them and what steps must be taken to increase or ensure compliance.
Finally, it is a serious concern that the Scope contemplates making recommendations only on “affordable” housing, without addressing or suggesting recommendations to remedy housing discrimination and segregation.
As stated throughout this letter, fair housing is not identical to affordable housing.
Remedying the latter will not automatically resolve the former problem. Fair housing concerns must be explicitly raised and clear and concrete solutions proposed to remedy them.[14]
I anticipate that the Study scope will be amended to address these crucial fair housing matters.
Sincerely,
Karyn L. Rotker
Senior Staff Attorney
cc: Ken Yunker, Executive Director
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]“Residential Segregation of Blacks or African Americans: 1980 to 2000,” U.S. Census Bureau (Dec. 2004) (Ch. 5, 6) (see http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/housing_patterns/pdftoc.html).
[2]See, e.g., Logan, John, “Separate and Unequal: The Neighborhood Gap for Blacks and Hispanics in Metropolitan America,” Lewis Mumford Center (SUNY-Albany, Oct. 15, 2002), Sources of Neighborhood Inequality for Metropolitan Milwaukee PMSA (In metropolitan Milwaukee, the median income of neighborhoods in which poor whites live was $45,014 - higher than the median income of neighborhoods in which affluent blacks ($35,111) and affluent Hispanics ($43,049) live.)
[3]See, e.g., U.S. Dept. Of Housing & Urban Development, “Top Seven Keys to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing,”
www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/communitydevelopment/toolkit/files/Module‑5‑TopSevenAFFH.pdf
[4]Given the regional racial segregation and barriers to housing for persons with disabilities in the region, race, ethnic, and disability-related demographic information must be collected.
[5]This information should be disaggregated by age, as well as by race and ethnicity. For example, even if there is accessible housing for seniors, physically accessible housing for non-seniors, especially those needing family housing, may not be available. Persons with different types of disabilities - e.g., physical, mental, sensory – also may require different types of housing, so data on the prevalence of particular disabilities should also be collected. An analysis should also be undertaken of the residential locations of persons who receive or are on the wait list to receive county or other disability support services, to ascertain the communities in which additional supportive housing may be required.
[6]Again, this needs to be disaggregated by age, as some communities are willing to accept affordable senior housing, but not affordable housing for younger persons. In addition, the racial demographics of assisted housing - including assisted senior housing - must be evaluated.
[7]See, e.g., “Income is No Shield Against Racial Differences in Lending,” National Community Reinvestment Coalition (2008) (Milwaukee-Waukesha led the United States in overall disparities; and disparities exist between loans made to middle/upper income persons of color as compared to loans made to middle/upper income white persons).
[8]ATop Seven Keys to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing,@supra.
[9]See, e.g., 24 C.F.R. ' 570.904(a)(1) (ii) (noncompliance with the law can exist based upon Aevidence that a policy, practice, standard or method of administration, although neutral on its face, operates to deny or affect adversely in a significantly disparate way . . . fair housing to persons of a particular race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. . .@); Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp. v. Vill. of Arlington Heights, 558 F.2d 1238 (7th Cir. 1977). Because minority communities in the region tend to have lower incomes, and thus greater need for affordable housing, than non-Hispanic white persons, actions that have the effect of preventing the construction of affordable housing (e.g., zoning and subdivision issues, NIMBYism), have a prohibited discriminatory effect.
[10]While “fair housing” may overlap with “affordable housing,” the terms - and the problems raised by each - are not identical, and cannot be analyzed as if they were the same. See, e.g., U.S. ex rel. Antidiscrimination Center of Metro New York v. Westchester County, New York, No. 06 Civ 2860 (S.D.N.Y., Opinion and Order of Feb. 24, 2009) (studies were improperly “conducted through the lens of affordable housing, rather than fair housing and its focus on protected classes such as race. . .. [A] determination that affordable housing is the greatest impediment does not absolve the County from its requirement to analyze race-based impediments to fair housing...”).
[11]See, e.g., 24 C.F.R. Sec. 91.225(a)(1) (consolidated plans); 24 C.F.R. Sec. 91.425(a) (consortia); 24 C.F.R. Sec. 570.303 (CDBG); 24 C.F.R. Sec. 960.103(b) (public housing agencies); 24 C.F.R. Sec. 982.53(b)(2) (Section 8).
[12]See, e.g., Comer v. Cisneros, 37 F.3d 775, 792 (2nd Cir. 1994) ; N.A.A.C.P. v. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, 817 F.2d 149 (1st Cir. 1987.)
[13]See, e.g., 24 C.F.R. 92.351 (HOME program); 24 C.F.R. Sec. 511.13 (rental rehabilitation grants); 24 C.F.R. Sec. 850.1 (Housing development grant program).
[14]HUD has prepared a “Fair Housing Planning Guide,” which is a resource that could be useful in developing fair housing recommendations. www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/images/fhpg.pdf
Scott Walker takes his record of clumsy budgeting and political know-nothingism to the Wall Street Journal and shows off his opposition to using federal stimulus funding to help his constituents.
Few politicians parade their flaws so publicly: more details here.
James Dobson, a fundamentalist leader known for his not-contradictory support for Sarah Palin and hatred for Harry Potter ("witchcraft," Dobson once fumed), is leaving his position as head of Focus on the Family, a conservative ministry.
So I'd say it's a good day for families, and reading.
The Institute for Wisconsin's Future is really working in the moment, given the Obama-era moves for state and local tax and financing reform.
The IWF has been pushing tax fairness and reform for years; Democrats in the state house, Governor's mansion and now the White House seem to be listening.
MilwaukeeWorld.com goes planetary:
Spend a few minutes on Michael Horne's website for all the details about a local judicial candidate somehow using a leftover Scott Walker website, and Jim Sensenbrenner's latest February world travels.
Milwaukee and Wisconsin's waterways provide jobs, recreation and value to everyday life, and using stimulus funds to make these water resources cleaner, safer and more productive is completely in the public interest, and the private sector's interest, too, explains Milwaukee attorney Bruce Keyes.
Lost in the discussion about Waukesha possibly dumping treated wastewater into Underwood Creek in Wauwatosa is what Wauwatosa thinks about it, and I am hearing that there has been little communication directly with Tosa.
So the Mittster wins the conservative convention's straw poll as its favored nominee in 2012.
What: Gingrich isn't hip enough?
