Saturday, June 15, 2013

Stop Legislature From Giving Away Wisconsin Waters

Remember: Under the State Constitution's Public Trust Doctrine, Wisconsin water belongs to everyone:

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Action Alert: Assembly Vote On Controversial Groundwater Provision To Be Held This Tuesday.
In a recent email we sounded the alarm over the slipping in of controversial and environmentally destructive language around permitting of high-capacity wells into the budget (you can read the language right here). The budget is now making its way to the Assembly to be voted on this coming Tuesday, June 18 and it still contains language that undermines citizens' ability to protect lakes, streams, drinking water and their private property rights from excessive groundwater pumping.

What Can You Do?

Our elected leaders need to know that both this motion and the way it was slipped into the budget in the dark of night is not how you want things done in Wisconsin. Please send a loud and clear message that controversial, and bad, policy has no business being slipped into the budget without debate, and you want the state to protect our groundwater and our lakes and rivers, not give it away to powerful industries.

Contact your State Senator and Representative and ask them to support the removal of the high-capacity well motion from the budget. Find your representatives


Contact the Governor's office and ask him to veto the high-capacity well motion if the Legislature doesn't remove it.
Email: govgeneral@wisconsin.gov
Phone: (608) 266-1212 
Online Contact Form: http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/Contact-Us   


Talking Points:
  • This motion will result in the overpumping of aquifers that provide us drinking water, and feed our favorite lakes and streams (as we've already seen in places such as Long Lake and the Little Plover River in central Wisconsin).
  • This motion is unfair and probably unconstitutional because it prevents citizens from challenging the agency when it doesn't carry out a duty assigned to it by the constitution
  • The state budget is no place to ram through controversial and bad policy with unknown political and legal consequences.  

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