Sunday, April 28, 2013

Glenn Grothman Guarantees More Wisconsin Pollution

Calling this a case of mixed signals would be too charitable, given that the Walker administration's march against the Wisconsin environment continues unabated and he told us the DNR would be run with "a chamber-of-commerce mentality").

Triple threat State Senator, noted herpetologist, and mining handyman Glenn Grothman, (R-West Bend), has convinced Republicans (a hard sell, for sure!) on the Joint Finance Committee to cut 32 positions from the DNR.
Grothman said the jobs have been open for at least a year.
Well, there goes the DNR's excuse offered up just about a year ago that a lack of staff - - but a correctable one - - was behind the agency's cut-back in pollution enforcement activity:
In the wake of a controversial agency wrist-slap for egregious human waste dumping, Matt Moroney, the DNR's powerful deputy, tells the Journal Sentinel that staff shortages are behind the drop in agency pollution enforcement actions:
In an interview, Moroney predicted more aggressive enforcement by the DNR in the future as vacancies are filled.

"Big picture: Once we get fully staffed, I think you are going to see the number increase," he said.
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6 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 28, 2013 at 11:06 AM

    My first assumption upon reading your headline was that Glennie had started talking again.
    But yes, the "not enough staff" excuse is used re: pollution complaints against sand operations and a variety of things. "Sorry this window is closed".
    DNR seems to stand for Do Not Respond these days.
    It's also safe to assume the jobs were forcibly held open, like management people were given the bloody-eyed stare and "made to understand" that work would be spread amongst the existing employees, and no new hires were to be made.
    And LOL when Republican ass-clowns make statements like "these DNR jobs appear to not be needed".
    Right, and this in-depth organizational analysis has been brought to you by the independent consulting firm of Herp and Derp.

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  2. AnonymousApril 28, 2013 at 11:19 AM

    Right now a lot my time is taken up with ensuring past legal settlements are carried out and future court cases. If DNR had better rules, more people to educate people about the rules and more staff to work with polluters before things get so bad that they have to be referred to DOJ, we would be half-way to protecting the environment. The other half requires money for cleaning up past messes. No governor in my memory has seen fit to make the environment a priority over say, road building. I don't expect that to happen in my life time.

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  3. enoughalreadyApril 28, 2013 at 1:25 PM

    I have yet to hear, in all of the news coverage I have encountered, just what these positions were that were left vacant. Were these enforcement people, park rangers, wildlife specialists, biologists? What were they?

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  4. James RowenApril 28, 2013 at 1:31 PM

    Per the DNR's website, here's what's listed as open now:
    Current Job Openings

    Updated: April 24, 2013
    Title Job Code Deadline Date
    Data File Manager - IS Resource Support Tech [exit DNR] 13-01518 April 28, 2013
    Forestry Resource Management Partnership Coordinator [exit DNR] 13-01477 April 29, 2013
    Wildlife Technician - Advanced - May 2013 [exit DNR] 13-01555 May 01, 2013
    Special Investigative Warden [exit DNR] 13-01428 May 05, 2013
    Natural Resources Manager - Deputy District Water Leader [exit DNR] 13-01636 May 10, 2013
    Forest Hydrologist [exit DNR] 13-01557 May 13, 2013
    Forestry GIS Program Manager [exit DNR] 13-01611 May 21, 2013

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  5. enoughalreadyApril 28, 2013 at 4:57 PM

    Thanks for the reporting, James! I

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  6. James RowenApril 28, 2013 at 5:08 PM

    Just followed your lede, ER.

    More tomorrow.

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