Showing posts sorted by relevance for query mine archive. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query mine archive. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, March 5, 2012

For You Archivists Out There - - Some Recent Mining Posts

Here's a mini-archive from last week, all listed most-recent first.

Also from February:
From January:
December:
November:

Posted by James Rowen at 10:27 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 22, 2018

Major Tues. event against sulfide mine on WI-MI border

An important communication and action plan from a friend about a toxic sulfide mining proposal headed for the Menominee River
Menominee River | Tom Young
at the Michigan-Wisconsin border just arrived. 

Since the Walkerites just opened the Wisconsin to this kind of toxic mining, what is playing out just across the border in Michigan will be coming to a freshly-contaminated Wisconsin wetland or stream or watershed near you.

 My friend writes:
-----------------------
There is a public, pivotal wetlands permit hearing in Stephenson, Michigan on the controversial Back Forty Mine mine proposed for the Michigan side of the Menominee River which borders Wisconsin. 

There will be a full house at the Stephenson, Michigan High School at 6 PM. 

Menominee youth will lead a 3 PM march from the Stephenson library to the school. Due to distance and weather tonight, some people cannot attend. Please share these Action Steps.

WHAT CAN DO EVEN IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND:

1) Watch the Indian Country News live stream of the event. Go to the following link any time  to see background material and to sign up for a notice. Return to it at 5:50 PM Tuesday when the public hearing is to start. You might try earlier in case there is footage of the march and press conference. Go to 
http://www.indiancountrynews. com/index.php/tv/14486-live- broadcast-notice-back-forty- wetlands-permit-hearing-jan- 23-2018

2) By February 2nd file your comment against the granting of a wetland permit. 

 First go to http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/ 682476/788dd739a6/ARCHIVE  which explains the Red Flags found in Aquila's most recent permit application. There is a site there so you can read the entire technical review by by the Center for Science in Public Participation, made possible by many Michigan watchdog groups, fishing businesses, environmentalists. They also attach links to help you write your objection which include the wetland permit request http://bit.ly/ DEQBack40Wetlandpermit and the guidelines written comments http://bit.ly/ Wetland-comments.   Be careful as your comment must be about why the WETLAND permit should not be granted. 

3) Get background information beyond the wetland issue. First watch this 2 minute short cartoon film about sulfide mines in general: https://vimeo.com/ 232569399 developed through the Wisconsin River Alliance. 

Hear from the Menominee in 4 minute segments. Start by hearing the youth speak: 
"As a Menominee I have the obligation to protect my ancestors... It matters so much. We need you. The earth needs you... If you have been waiting for a sign, this is your sign. This is the time for us to stand together... in defense with our mother. What are you going to do?"  https://livestream.com/ IndianCountryTV/events/ 7070263/videos/167885806      
Then watch a Call for Action with Anahkwet Guy Reiter and Dawn Wilber explain why they will stand up to the machines if necessary. 

They explain how the Back Forty mine would destroy the ancestral homelands of the Menominee Nation, their ancient village sites and burials. "They saw the animal pelts and took them, then saw the trees and took them, and now the rocks - the oldest of our relatives."
Then other Menominee voices share our common purpose.
Chair of Menominee Nation, Gary Besaw: "We are the Land" 
https://www.facebook.com/paul. demain/videos/1021098783243335 2/ Burton Warrington outlines some "legal positioning." 
https://www.facebook.com/paul. demain/videos/1021099339709246 5/  Video#2 Chair Gary Besaw thanks for those supporting the No Back Forty Mine effort. "Slowly our numbers grow...." 

https://www.facebook.com/paul. demain/videos/1021099425503391 3/ Anahkwet Guy Reiter  "Why Menominee people help preserve the Menominee River for everybody"
4) Go to http://wxpr.org/post/ mining-101-seminar-slated- minocqua#stream/0 to find out how town boards and county boards are learning about sulfide mining in Wisconsin.

While not likely to be complete, this “Mining 101” seminar is in Minocqua on January 24th 9 AM. For example, Township of Lynne in Oneida County has “a 7.5 to 8 million ton massive sulfide deposit of which approximately 6 million tons is amendable to open pit extraction.” 

 The new Toxic Mining law go into effect in July, so there is only precious time for counties to craft their own mining regulations on non-ferrous metallic mining. 

5) Write to the main investors in Aquila Resources for this project. This is how most of these awful projects are stopped. Investors want to know there is a social contract (general acceptance of a project) so there will not delays or lawsuits. 

Take a few minutes to call or email the five companies investing in Aquila. Let them know that there is widespread public opposition to this attack on Native peoples, and this attack on all who depend on water. Every one of us can take 3 or 4 minutes to email or phone the following major investors in Aquila Resources and let them know we will fight any open pit sulfide mine. Contact info at:

6) Contact your legislators, legislative candidates and governor candidates about their position on the pro-mining bill that passed (SB 395/AB 499). It reversed what many legislators and our Governor did 20 years ago when enacting the "Prove it First" protection of our land and water from toxic sulfide mining.

Thank State Reps. Todd Novak(R)-Dodgeville, Jeff Mursau(R)-Crivitz, Patrick Snyder(R)-Schofield, & Travis Tranel(R)-Platteville who broke with their Republican colleagues to vote "No."

The only Republican Senator voting "No" was Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay).  All Democrats in both houses voted against dangerous sulfide mining.

http://conservationvot ers.org/newsitems/1182017- with-elections-just-a-year- away-legislature-abandons-wisc onsin-families/

Posted by James Rowen at 10:35 PM 2 comments

Friday, December 18, 2020

Foxconn moves to the 'flexibility' zone from 'Wisconn Valley'

I call attention to the five-alarm word "flexibility" in this tell-all headline the Journal Sentinel placed on the news that Foxconn is 'willing' to forego some of the record-breaking subsidies Scott Walker and a compliant Legislature 

 

larded on the company - full archive, here - that's been busy bulldozing prime ag lands, local budgets and people's homes without creating a faint shadow of what was repeatedly underwritten and promised:

Foxconn willing to agree to fewer tax credits 'in exchange for flexibility'; new agreement 'within reach'

In a statement, Foxconn said the company “is optimistic that an amendment to the WEDC Agreement is within reach. In response to market conditions that were unforeseeable three years ago, Foxconn formally came to the table with WEDC in August 2020 with a desire to lower taxpayer liability in exchange for flexibility that continues to incentivize future business development and job creation in Wisconsin.”  

Because when you hear 'flexibility' - or its dreaded twin buzzword "certainty" from people whose doors are open to special interests and deal-making with your money - hold on for dear life, because "flexibility" is just a five-syllable camouflage for rewrite that changes history and buries accountability.

As plenty of people have discovered in the flexibility-free and flattened 'Wisconn Valley,' as Walker had called it before irony died there, too, reported The Verge in a signature piece: 

Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with....Foxconn would spend the next two years jumping from idea to idea — fish farms, exporting ice cream, storing boats — in an increasingly surreal search for some way to generate money from a doomed project....It has been a baffling ordeal for the people who thought they were building the Silicon Valley of the Midwest — “Wisconn Valley,” Walker called it...."

And before I forget, let's remember that the initial Foxconn announcement in 2017 that was followed by several more statewide through 2018 was choreographed with Walker's campaign in mind - 

*  In May, Walker toured the state announcing Foxconn contracts with Foxconn officials in tow.

*  Then Walker was at the Foxconn groundbreaking last month, a few hours after a huge-ticket GOP fundraiser in Milwaukee with Trump.

*  The next day, Walker and Foxconn bigwigs were in Green Bay announcing a Foxconn project there.

*  Now we learn that Walker will make an announcement in Eau Claire - - in a vote-rich, swing area where Walker has spent time very recently - - about another Foxconn project.

-  so I'd say he and the company had enjoyed a certain special flexibility that at least initially served both well. 

But taxpayers' and Mt. Pleasant residents interests? Not so much.

Now let me give you some earlier examples of this particular 'f' word:

* Take Walker's intention in 2012 through his corporately-obeisant DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp to enforce "flexibility" on people living in the watershed  he wanted to flatten and dig up for a destructive iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin that local opposition and an inflexibile water table ultimately blocked:

Open pit mine neighbors: Your 'flexibility' is demanded

This is the key to DNR Secretary and Scott Walker cheerleader Cathy Stepp's pro-mine and partisan argument:

It [the bill] does, however, recognize that the ore body is located where it is. As a result, some flexibility is needed to change the landscape to get at the ore deposit.

*  Speaking of the DNR, I also remember when Milwaukee-area building executive Matt Moroney opposed the adoption of the Great Lakes water management Compact because it didn't offer business enough flexibility. 

Scott Walker eventually named Moroney to the position of Deputy DNR Secretary, then to the Governor's staff and later to the Department of Administration as the state's point person on the Foxconn project.

Moroney's efforts to water down the Compact and to remake what is basically a water management and conservation agreement into more of an economic development document were not successful - - State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), led a failed state's rights campaign against the Compact:  
Wrote Moroney: 

" The homebuilding industry does not believe the case has been made that it is necessary to manage the quantity of water being utilized from the Great Lakes to the extent that the compact does at this time. The compact is far too limiting in its standards and approval process for water use by straddling counties. Mr. Dahl, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, indicated in his presentation that the Army Corps does not even factor into its forecasting of lake levels the municipal use and other “minor” diversions. Such impacts are so trivial to other factors like evaporation and temperature. As a result, it is our belief that a little more flexibility for water diversions in states that border the Great Lakes is desirable for continued economic growth."

* And in 2018, when some tax credits echoing what Foxconn received were being debated and eventually directed Kimberly-Clark's way by Walker, I'd noted how company had used a similar gob of subsidies, and I included that in a list of other GOP 'flexibilities' and their ideological  outcomes in Wisconsin:

Give Walker extra credit for boosting the Trump tax cut which Kimberly-Clark said it was using to finance its plant closings. 

Chief Financial Officer Maria Henry said on a conference call that savings from the recent federal tax cut would help fund the cost reductions. It "provides us the flexibility" to do so, she said.

Which brings us back to that favorite Walker concept and cudgel - - "flexibility" - - seen when justifying the undermining of UW tenure to upending local controls and public employees' personal budgets under Act 10. 
And when opposing federal health care changes, a demand for gubernatorial "ultimate flexibility."

"I just still think there's some more work to be done," Walker told reporters. "Our ultimate goal as governors, certainly my goal, is to have ultimate flexibility." 

Or when he's after the right to drug-test the poor in exchange for food stamps as a "flexibility" necessity.

President Donald Trump’s administration “has indicated, throughout the administration, interest in working with states to provide flexibility,” Wisconsin Department of Health Services spokeswoman Julie Lund said. 

* Here's one more that shows how 'flexibility' is an all-purpose GOP sop to special interests, not the public's interests, writ large: 

A few years ago, former GOP state legislator and now Congressman (willing to throw out more than 200,000 of your ballots) Tom Tiffany endorsed yet 'flexibility' to help feed special-interest road-building: 

The GOP State Senator from Hazelhurst - - friend to iron mines and frac sand mines and foe of town and local resource and planning controls who has admitted that he recommended successfully the slashing of more than a dozen DNR science positions in the just-approved state budget -- has a July 31 e-update that highlights his winners and losers: 

"More flexibility has been established for road projects with the repeal of the "Complete Streets" statute. Communities will no longer be forced to build pedestrian paths if they believe them to be too costly of unnecessary."

Posted by James Rowen at 3:48 PM 3 comments

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Milwaukee Sen. Carpenter a bulwark v. GOP/Walker Toxic Touch

This is a story about Milwaukee south side state senator Tim Carpenter, and how he should get more credit for protecting public trusts - - from water and wetlands to taxpayer dollars and transparency - - 
Image of Tim Carpenter
- - when those resources are threatened by special interests and their GOP bellhops.

 And it's also about the politicians whom Carpenter has been standing up to years, and who didn't do their jobs to protect our resources, then simply figured out how to monetize their failures.
Walker's speaking fee: $25,000
* It was Carpenter, as a board member the WEDC controlled by Walker appointees, whose whistle-blowing about flaws in the Foxconn contract led to language rewrites that may help save millions and even billions of taxpayer dollars should the already-shale Foxconn project collapse.

 I will add today's post to the 20-month-long Foxconn blog archive, maintained here.

 *  Similarly, it was Carpenter, along with his moderate, then GOP senate colleague Dale Schultz, saved miles of the Penokee Hills and the Bad River watershed from at least 35 years of blasting and polluting to extract iron ore for which there was no market.

 Both of these boondoggles were pushed by Walker and his legislative marionettes despite the obvious financial or environmental flaws.

 Other similarities: GOP leaders have already spewed a false narrative about why the Foxconn project is wobbling, and when the mining company pulled out it did some fake finger-pointing even though its own analyses showed that the project site was too saturated to be mined, as the Bad River tribe and other critics had been say for months.

 You begin to see the pattern. Hurry through a flawed plan. Employ secrecy. Hurry up with the phony excuses when all the b.s is exposed.

 So props to Carpenter for years of strong public policy advocacy - - seen also in his effort to minimize spending on the Walker/special-interest driven highway expansions that have sapped those budgets, too.
Including the very segment to which GOP Assembly Speaker and Foxconn-booster Robin Vos has helped maneuver more than $250 million while other big projects like the Zoo Interchange are stalled and Walker's legacy Scottholes are re-emerging in the current thaw-freeze cycle.

 Fascinating, also, that some of the promoters of the mine were rewarded with promotions, positions and perks:

 Then-State GOP Rep. Jeff Stone, after apologetically refusing Native American input on the mining project's enabling bill which the mining company had played a key role in drafting was later appointed by Walker to head the water section of the Public Service Commission.

 A key mining project spokesman was also named to a PSC post. Those appointments are documented, here
Soft landings for high-profile GTac mine personnel
And GOP State Senator Glenn Grothman, after traveling to the mining region and assuring people that any damage to their wells from 35 years of trucking and blasting could be fixed with caulk moved up to a congressional seat his party had made available through ultra-partisan gerrymandering Grothman had supported while a state legislator.

 Stupidity, monetized.

 And let's not forget the pro-mining Cathy Stepp, Walker's hand-picked inside-and-atop the-DNR-wrecker, who parlayed her obeisance to the wetland-fillers into the directorship at Donald Trump's Great Lakes US EPA regional office.

 Ditto to the monetizing after abusing the public trust.

Posted by James Rowen at 2:14 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

WI GOP environmental motto: 'No Permit Required.'

[Reposted from2/25/18] Wisconsin policy-makers should replace Walker's state border "Open for Business" signs

with new ones that say "No Permit Needed."

 Why not: it's the way Walker and GOP legislators are dealing with Wisconsin water quality and wetlands these days:

 *  For example, about 33% of the state's large dairy cattle feeding and manure producing businesses were operating as late as last May with expired permits.

Some argue that a dairy operation's expired permit is still in force, while others note the resulting limitations and consequences; both arguments and the data, here.

 A related number - - the DNR didn't follow its own pollution enforcement rules 94% of the time, and:
Auditors also examined how quickly the DNR renewed five-year pollution permits, legal documents that establish limits for waste water discharges, and found the agency usually missed its goal of renewing 85 to 90 percent of permits before they expire
So the message is that, yes, there are permits, but making them effective in the public interest and and worth more than the paper they're printed on isn't exactly the major priority in Walker's oft-polluted, "chamber of commerce mentality"-driven state.

 * Better yet, consider surprise permit-related legislating by GOP State Rep. Ron Tusler, (Town of Harrison), a freshman GOP Assemblyman from Calumet County. 

 His late-night amendment on behalf of a big sand mine across the state in Monroe County could throw a monkey-wrench into the mine's pending wetland-filling permit process that moves to a hearing Monday. 
A note in the drafting documents for the amendment states, “Permit was issued, no discharge yet (because) stayed for contested case hearing. Bypass this by saying no permit required.”
Bypass this...no permit required.

 [Update - - citizen objections and a court filing led to the project's cancellation]

 I'd predicted even before Walker was sworn in that his environmental motto for Wisconsin through the DNR he intended to corporatize would be "Cut it, pave it, gut it, fill 'er in." 

Walker then began his first term with Executive Order Number One. It called for a special session to legislate, among things: 
exemptions from water quality certification and wetland mitigation requirements for certain nonfederal wetlands that are less than two acres in size.
 
And his allies have been at it since, as I have noted often, including this 2014 summary:
Walker had a bill introduced [right after his swearing-in] to suspend a DNR wetlands' filling permit review in progress so that one of his donors could immediately fill a wetland for a development near Lambeau Field.
The bill passed, but the development's intended tenant - - Bass Pro Shops - - pulled out because wetland filling was incompatible with a fishing equipment retailer's business and image. 
[Update - - Eventually Cabela's occupied the development, then Bass Pro Shops bought out Cabela's.] 
But the signal had been sent and legislators working on Walker's behalf - - along with business special interests - - adopted a bill easing permitting procedures along the lines sought by builders. 
Which they bragged about helping to write with Matt Moroney, a former builders' official, whom Walker had appointed Deputy Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources. [Update - -  Moroney later joined Walker's executive staff,, then because the state's point person for the Foxconn project.]
And to drive home the point, Walker signed the bill in front of a cheering crowd of real estate agents.
Fast-forward to late 2017, when the Legislature approved Walker's giant corporate welfare package for Foxconn - - a complete Foxconn archive is here - -  including exemptions allowing the company on its approximately 3,000-acre rural Racine County site to fill wetlands, build on lakebeds and re-route streams - - no permit required: 
The bill exempts Foxconn from four types of permits that are otherwise required for filling wetlands, straightening streams, and disturbing other waterways. It also eliminates Foxconn’s responsibility to create an environmental impact statement that would allow the public to review all the possible harm that could be done to air, water and soil.
Exemptions the state's leading business group wants expanded:
WMC’s Scott Manley said he hopes the Foxconn exemptions will eventually be applied to all businesses in Wisconsin because current state regulations are unnecessary and burdensome. 
So, presto, the company already has targeted wetlands on its site, and, presto, again, the Legislature has since opened about 100,000 acres of protected state wetlands to Foxconn-style, no-permit-needed development. 
The bill, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, and Senate President Roger Roth, R-Appleton, allows builders to fill, without a permit, certain wetlands currently protected by state law.
How long will it take for metal-mining companies recently allowed to operate in Wisconsin with their open-pit digging and acid-assisting milling to go back to the Legislature for Foxconn-style environmental and permit exemptions? 

 People say that mining regulation will always be relatively tough, but people also said metal mining wasn't coming back to Wisconsin, too.

Posted by James Rowen at 7:00 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Blog Guide To WI Water, Mining, Rail Issues

I get requests from time to time for links and posts about various environmental issues central to recent Wisconsin politics, so here a few basic entry points:

 The GTAC iron ore mine:
The Iron Mine: Planning, Technology And Human Behavior
A 2012 mining archive:
For You Archivists Out There - - Some Recent Mining Posts
Water Crisis:
Wisconsin Waters At Crisis PointRail:
In Job Poor State, Walker Derailed Wisconsin's Emerging Rail Industry

Posted by James Rowen at 9:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, March 12, 2018

Walker has debased WI agency reviewing Foxconn water ask

[Updated from 3/8-9,12/16] You have until March 21 to send the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources your thoughts - - email, regular mail directions, here - - on the application to the DNR for the green-light to divert 7 million gallons a day of Lake Michigan water to GOP Gov. Scott Walker's beloved, budget-busting project for Foxconn - - a private business headquartered in Taiwan.

 This is the same project financed with record-breaking state subsidies organized by Walker and his compliant, GOP-led state legislature where excavation, paving and building on 3,000 acres of Racine County farmland, wetlands, lake beds and stream courses has been exempted through precedent-setting special-interest legislation from routine state environmental assessments and permit requirements.

Here is a full Foxconn archive back to day one.

 3/12 update - - More on Wisconsin's environmental outlier status, here.

So, yes, it's important to send in your comments and build a strong record in favor of water conservation and Great Lakes integrity - - despite plenty of reasons to believe that the approval is in the bag - - but also without any illusions.

 The diversion application - - to be reviewed by, and receive its up or down ruling from, the DNR and only the DNR - - also seeks DNR approval for Foxconn's flat-screen panel production processes to use consumptively about 40% of its daily diversion, with the balance returned to the lake properly treated.

Here's an overriding thought about all this to consider alongside two others I wrote about Wednesday:

*  The application has a fundamental credibility problem. 

Why? 

 Because the DNR has a credibility problem, having been stripped of authenticity and respectability by a Governor who intentionally installed across top management positions a 'chamber of commerce mentality.'

 And cut its budget, and laid off scientific staffers and generally trashed its mission to erase its legacy and weaken its relationship with the public and devalue its importance to individuals by creating in its place - -  a hybrid agency - - part Department of Agriculture, part Department of Commerce,

Discussed for years on this blog - - here, for example, or here.

 And led for the first seven years of Walker's administration by a GOP former home builder and McDonald's manager who agreed to do Walker's anti-science, anti-climate change bidding right down to getting rid of staff scientists whom GO legislators said were out of step: 

 In her own 2015 words:
Stepp declined interview requests, but in August she said that while protecting researchers from political pressure is key, senior scientist positions were being shed because the DNR Bureau of Science Services had run afoul of elected officials.
“We want to make sure that research that’s going on is answering the questions our regulators on the ground have or our biologists on the ground have or our user groups and interested citizens have,” Stepp said in an interview with WisconsinEye. “That hasn’t been the case in the past.
“We’ve seen a pretty sound response from the Legislature during this last budget process on some things that they saw that happened historically in that particular area of the department that they were unhappy about, and they wanted to send a message to us, (which) is, you know, ‘Get your researchers in better line with what their constituents are telling them, the legislators,’ and we’re going to do that.”
Stepp said an example was a science bureau compilation of scientific literature on environmental effects of mines while a controversial iron mine was being developed in 2014.
Validating this story about demands that mine's leading backer had made on Walker:
State Sen. Tom Tiffany has owned up to asking for job cuts to DNR scientists, who he has said focus too much on climate change.
On Friday’s Devil’s Advocate radio show, the Hazelhurst Republican said he asked Gov. Scott Walker and his staff to include a provision in the state budget axing approximately 17 positions from the Department of Natural Resources’ Science Services Bureau.
“Yes,” he said in responding to a question asking him if he requested the cuts.
Which is why you won't see the DNR fighting Tiffany on his wetland-filing bill Walker just signed into law.

 Or opposing Tiffany's separate bill Walker also recently signed to allow companies  to begin very toxic mining statewide that had been barred for the last 20 years.

So you can see why the DNR - - this weakened, circumscribed and beaten-down iteration of a once-proud science and conservation-minded agency - - is absolutely the wrong body at the wrong time to be asked to objectively assess whether diverting all that water - - not to mention deciding whether the company's industrial-scale addition of chemicals to its manufacturing and wastewater treatment processes - - to serve one private business meets the rules of a multi-state Compact created to allow such diversions for extremely-limited and public purposes only:
Jodi Habush Sinykin, an attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, said the Great Lakes Compact bans diversions outside the Great Lakes basin unless they meet narrowly defined exceptions. She cited section 4.9.1 of the compact that states “all the water so transferred shall be used solely for public water supply purposes within the straddling community.”
The compact further defines “public water supply” as serving “largely residential customers that may also serve industrial, commercial and other institutional operators,” Sinykin said.
“Rather, the complete opposite is true,” she said. “Racine will use the majority, if not the entirety, of the diverted Great Lakes water to serve the industrial needs of a single, private, foreign industrial entity – Foxconn.”
And let me be clear here that I am addressing in this assessment of the DNR the senior, politicized management of the agency on behalf of Walker's vision and not the hard work of many DNR staffers who continue to do their jobs day-in-and-day out with public service dedication and professionalism. 

 Note, for example, this then-current DNR observation first published among many informed comments posted on this blog in 2016:
Under Walker and [then-DNR Secretary Cathy] Stepp, science is not a priority. Scientific knowledge is ever-changing but in Wisconsin our staff are being left behind. We no longer have a statistician to help interpret data, a library to provide journals or books, or researchers that monitor fish counts, wildlife health, air quality, water quality and etc….employee scientific knowledge and data specific to WI is stagnant...we cannot do the best job possible for our state. 
The DNR is currently run by people who understand public relations spin but not the complexity of the natural resources they are responsible for...Communications staff, generally not trained specifically in resource communication, answer questions with talking points..usually developed by upper management - political appointees - and legal staff. The information provided is biased and superficial.
Act 10 and the pay cuts related to that have been hard on a lot of staff...We now do the minimum to protect resources...
I do believe that all the natural resources of Wisconsin belong to the people of Wisconsin...I don't understand why people who live in one of the most beautiful and environmentally diverse places in the world voted for environmental degradation. 
A view echoed by a former expert staffer:
The most alarming issue to me is the great waste of decades of sound science, compiled overtime in on-going studies and data collection. WI had more information about our natural landscape than most states. Abolishing science services put an end to decades long studies vital to maintaining and recovering rare and endangered plants and animals as well as understanding natural communities as information on resilience for climate change.  
Observations also echoed by Gordon Stevenson, an engineer and former DNR Chief of Runoff Management who now serves Midwest Environmental Advocates as board secretary.  At an MEA program in May, 2016, Stevenson said, in part: 
For the majority of my career, water policy decisions were based on the strong bond between law and science, the people in charge of making those decisions had conservation and environmental protection credentials, and my colleagues and I shared the belief that Wisconsin's true and sustaining wealth is its clean water.
Much of that is now changed at DNR. Wisconsin DNR's water quality permit program has been found seriously deficient by the US Environmental Protection Agency. DNR is failing to protect downstream water from upstream pollution sources, they are allowing already impaired water bodies to get worse and they are suppressing the public's ability to challenge water quality permit decisions.
Wisconsin DNR's authority to protect Wisconsin's water resources is delegated from EPA. Under the delegation agreement, DNR is obligated to administer the federal Clean Water Act. DNR is not doing so. On behalf of 16 Wisconsin citizens, Midwest Environmental Advocates has filed a Citizens Petition for Corrective Action with the US Environmental Protection agency to correct these deficiencies. The petition seeks to restore the credible water quality protection program that we once had in this state.
We're arriving at an important crossroads in Wisconsin. We have our own version of Flint, Michigan in Kewaunee County where citizens cannot drink the water and we have our own version of the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone. A dead zone now also exists in Green Bay that runs from the City of Green Bay all the way up to Marinette... 
water policy decisions should be based on the strong bond between law and science, that the people in charge of making water quality decisions should have the credentials to do so, and that Wisconsin's true and sustaining wealth is its clean water."
In an email to me after his remarks , Stevenson also said:
In addition, DNR management has made it clear to staff that environmental advocacy is no longer the core mission of DNR and staff are disallowed from doing so. What was once a guardian of Wisconsin’s natural heritage is now reduced to a rubber-stamping vendor of licenses and permits without oversight.
The past year has really shown me how the GOP is afraid of and caters to their wealthy donors - some of whom aren't even that generous. It was obvious before but this year has been brutal. DNR administrators support any development project regardless of environmental impacts. They are not interested in the environment or public health. If they can't maneuver around the law by bending it, the legislature simply changes the law. 
Rich Republican donors feel free to call up the DNR Secretary and Governor and demand that their projects go through. This puts pressure on legislators and DNR upper management. It has created an atmosphere of desperation at all levels of the DNR.
I have witnessed administrators simply ignoring valid environmental and legal concerns from experienced, competent employees and I have seen administrators ignoring the process for determining environmental hazards when granting permits. It is true that DNR doesn't follow their own processes and skirts the law when possible.
The Secretary's office seems to have a lot of power. And when that power is wielded by an incurious, pro-business person, bad things happen. So far, even in his short tenure, Dan Meyer has proven himself to be the same as Cathy Stepp. 
The only real check on unbridled donor power is the citizen groups and nonprofits who sue. Most of these groups are focused on local problems so it is difficult for the average person to know what damage is being done to other parts of the state.
And let's face it, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin is mostly unsympathetic to the average citizen. The DOJ under Brad Schimel is complicit in twisting the law.
There is a message I would like to send to Wisconsin: Make no mistake, Wisconsin is being sold off piece by piece to rich individuals who own the party currently in the governors office.
And that party is more than willing to promote (for money) the destruction of the environment in order to stay in power. These rich donors (at least the ones I have met) aren't exceptional. They are ridiculously selfish people less worthy and no more intelligent than you. They are stealing your water, polluting your air and compromising your health and wealth. We deserve better. 
Get rid of the politicians who are beholden to and serve these losers. Replace them with people who take your well-being into consideration. You matter.
The DNR would have more credibility on many matters, and the Foxconn diversion review would be seen as more than done-deal kabuki if the agency hadn't also:

 * Approved for a sand mine business a permit to destroy rare wetlands and timber - - though recent sworn testimony claimed that senior DNR officials had intervened in the permit review against the assessment of expert staff on the side of the business.

 *  Long-promoted an earlier application for a Lake Michigan diversion for the City of Waukesha that included sending diverted water for communities and open space near Waukesha which hadn't applied for the diversion. The application was eventually approved by a body of Great Lakes governors - - a process more complex than what Racine County is likely to win solely from the DNR - -  but the DNR's insistence that the diversion include Waukesha's neighbors, for the most part, was deleted.

 * Ignored its own pollution rules in 94% of the cases which came its way.

 * Deleted climate change science and related materials from its official website.

 * Recommended to its official oversight board that state park land inside a state park be made available to a major Walker donor for upscale, privately-owned golf course construction. 

 And also issued a related permit - - the first of several - - so the developer could fill wetlands on his golf course's proposed 247-acre Sheboygan County site along the Lake Michigan shoreline - -a site on which scores of acres rich in timber, wildlife habitat, dunes and native artifacts will be bulldozed, stripped clean and otherwise turned into fertilizer-enriched fairways, putting greens, and a driving range. 

 All close to Lake Michigan. Nice symmetry with the Foxconn Lake Michigan diversion pipe not too far to the south off Racine County. 

 The DNR as directed by Walker and his hand-picked, big-business friendly team have repeatedly bent and massaged Wisconsin rules and law for special-interest advantage.

 So let's build the record, with our eyes wide open.

Posted by James Rowen at 2:52 PM 2 comments

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