US Losing 90,000 Acres Of Key Wetlands Annually

This is the national picture:

Over a four-year span, the United States lost more than 360,000 acres of freshwater and saltwater wetlands to fierce storms, sea-level rise and booming development along the coasts, according to a newly released federal study.

And in Wisconsin?

It's not mother nature doing the damage. It's Big Government serving special interests.

Scott Walker had been in office only a few days before be began his assault on state wetlands.

That included the drafting of a wetlands deregulation bill with the active help of builders and developers, then its passage on a GOP-dominated party-line vote, and finally its signing by Walker before a crowd of Realtors.

While the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources gives frac sand mining and large dairy expansion a pass and will likely do the same as an out-of-state coal mining company wants to fast-track the excavation of the country's largest open-pit iron ore mine in the pristine Bad River watershed near Lake Michigan and wild-rice growing wetlands.

Meanwhile, the DNR has a web page on wetlands acreage facts that has not been updated since Aug. 16, 2012.