Walker Team's Radical Self-Interest Could Make Water Resources "Disappear Forever"
Scott Walker's Executive Order #1 seeks removal of protections from 1.6 million acres of small Wisconsin wetlands' parcels.
All the better to drain them, add some fill, drop in a few houses and presto! - - a subdivision replaces moist dirt and wasted, icky marsh.
Big victory for developers, home builders and other private interests.
Leaving intact the small wetlands, or their close-cousin shoreline parcels for the public benefit could block some development - - and note Walker is further guaranteeing deregulation by installing home-building personnel in the top two jobs at the Department of Natural Resources.
And while losing these properties to development might seem insignificant, remember that these resource protections are an integral piece of Wisconsin historic Public Trust Doctrine, in part because of the cumulative impact of multiple losses.
So let's look at the bigger picture.
The Public Trust Doctrine predates statehood and is now constitutionally-embedded in the Wisconsin Constitution in Article IX).
Wisconsin courts have extended the Public Trust Doctrine to wetlands in 1972 - - history here - - and had ruled even earlier, in 1966, that the cumulative effect of small environmental losses harms the public interest and must be considered by regulators - - the job of the DNR - - because, "once gone, they disappear forever," said the court, in Hixon v. PSC.
Scott Walker, Cathy Stepp and Matt Moroney might want to cut that out and put it up on their refrigerators.
A few more lines from the Department of Natural Resource's web page on the subject:
"The court has ruled that DNR staff, when they review projects that could impact Wisconsin lakes and rivers, must consider the cumulative impacts of individual projects in their decisions.
"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices in their opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC.(2)...
"(2) "Champions of the Public Trust, A History of Water Use in Wisconsin" study guide. 1995. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Water Regulation and Zoning."
5 comments:
Accumulative effects can, of course, be real; but they should be able to be shown that they are real and not just imaginary. The precautionary principle, by design, is to imagine that extreme consequences will occur by the slightest action. The flapping of a butterfly’s wing causing a hurricane in the Gulf; a shovel of dirt during home construction causing the disappearance of all of the water resources in the State of Wisconsin forever. It may be possible to scare children with such boogie men, but after surviving many such doomsday predictions most people will simply not buy it.
There are two pieces of literature that all environmentalists should read and refer back to on occasion: “the boy who cried wolf” and “chicken little”. Yes, there are legitimate environmental concerns but carbon dioxide is not sulfur dioxide and a home building project is not a nuclear explosion.
A real example of the danger of the accumulative effects of the precautionary principle can be seen in the economic and personal destruction suffered from imaginary concerns such as the Delta Smelt fiasco in California.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2009/05/09/fnc-drought-stricken-farmers-lose-fight-water-endangered-fish
Thankfully, common sense prevailed but not until after thousands of people were put out of work and had their lives thrown into chaos.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/12/15/15greenwire-judge-discards-sloppy-science-by-fws-on-delta-75600.html
Do you think the filling in of wetlands will effect the recharging of aquifers in Wisconsin?
Will Wisconsin accelerate projected water shortages through sprawl and distruction of aquifer recharge zones?
Do you think a Lake Michigan diversion for Waukesha promotes recognition of good stewardship and conservation of resources?
How will children view the actions of todays adults who teach them to recycle, reuse, and conserve?
Water, environmental, public trust lawyer from Michgan:
Embedded in public trust law is a presumption of public value in the public trust lands and water. While similar, this is not a precautionary principle, so much as democratic/constitutionally based notion that things of value held by government in trust for citizens are presumed to have substantial public value. Accordingly, those who seek to alter, divert, use, subordinate public trust land and waters have the burden to demonstrate that cumuulative impacts or nibbling effects will not, over the long term, diminish or impair the public trust uses or presumbed public value. Around 1961, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected the diminimis harm idea, and adopted a rule that cumulative, nibbling effects impaired the the public trust; that is, the filling of Great Lakes or a stream bottomland cannot be justified simply because there are millions of acres remaning. See People v Broedel (Mich S Ct 1961 or so).
Yes, Jim, let us look at the bigger picture, like real value destroyed because of adminstrative rules denying previously legal uses of the land. This is in fact a form of theft if not compensated.
Or look at Lake Arbutus, where the DNR forced a number of people to destroy improvements that in some cases were "permitted" by local governments in good faith, all because some bureaucrat got a hair turned sideways. I could go on, but doubt if you will see the bigger picture anyway.
Your pollwatch buddy.
RE: Accumulative effects. Simple illustration. Think about it. Follow me here. Every drop of water which falls on a property either soaks in (to replenish an aquifer), evaporates, or runs off. Filling in wetlands and developing properties increase impermeable surfaces, and guarantee more of the water runs off the property. (Few owners want rainwater standing on their property -- they want it to drain away.) That means each nearby ditch, stream, and river gets more water, and gets it faster than ever before. This means more flooding downriver. The only reasonable way to protect any properties downstream is to protect (restrict) what is done on properties upstream. That is REAL, not imaginary.
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