Scott Walker, Wetlands Champion - - If A Train Goes Over It
He didn't say "boo" about the wetlands being filled to expand the southeastern Wisconsin freeway system -- whose $6.5 billion unfunded spending he has boosted - - but now that the high-speed rail might impact some wetlands, Walker tells officials he wants a hearing.
Ah, clever. A little monkey-wrenching by a guy who is attacking Tom Barrett for an allegedly "radical" environmental agenda.
What a fraud.
Fine - - let's have a hearing. Let's protect the wetlands with a bridge or route shift. I want wetlands protected, too.
Then let's Walker join in the calls to halt to highway projects that routinely convert wetlands into concrete lanes and ramps.
Let's have full transparency - - something Walker says without a shred of embarrassment that he wants with regard to the wetlands - - but has never embraced when it comes to honest budgeting, the Mental Health Complex study, the effort by his supporters to cover up the CMC's findings that bankruptcy is a real choice for the County after his eight years of leadership (sic), etc.
Maybe he thinks he can't cancel the train project - - as he has demagogued for months - - but he can delay and expand its cost by turning into John Muir.
2 comments:
When the significant wetland impacts of the I-94 widening were known, which he approved of, and the potential massive impacts that widening I-90 from Madison to Beloit would have on wetlands (there are many along that alignment), Walker has said nothing. This is despite the fact that expansion of impervious surfaces such as roads can significantly impact wetlands far beyond the actual filling and draining of the wetland for the construction.
Toxic runoff, road salt, and alterations to local hydrology as a result of the large scale impervious surfaces, not to mention the invasive species such as birdsfoot trefoil and crown vetch promoted by the Wisconsin DOT cause far more impacts than upgrading an existing rail corridor. Not to mention rail bed is pervious to rainfall, unlike a road, and road salt is unnecessary to keeping the trains running.
Walker shows his total ignorance of ecological concepts as well as common sense, and therefore his credibility on this issue is completely absent.
Walker is an expert at mincing words. He craft lies using sentences and words that are true in technical terms only. He resorts to an intellectual dishonesty that is smug and sophomoric.
Herein, as with his budgets that manage to rise without ever increasing taxes, is another example of a lie wrapped in a coating of questionable truth.
For Walker the environmental impact is inversely proportional the cash flow into his campaign coffers. Big oil just ain't into passenger trains, so also their black-suited puppet.
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