[Updated, 11:25 a.m.] Needed: Serious stewards of water in Wisconsin where Earth Day was founded, and where the State Constitution mandates public access to clean water, but also where there are new and growing threats to water quality and its enjoyment statewide, including:
* A massive open-pit iron mine in the pristine Bad River watershed close to Lake Superior.
* Clear-cutting on public land at the Milwaukee County Grounds.
* Multiple frac sand mines near the Mississippi River.
* An expanded mega-dairy - - one among many - - near Green Bay. Or this one.
* Another sailing season of coal-ash dumping by a big ferry into Lake Michigan.
* A tripling of tar sand crude oil pipeline capacity north-to-south in Wisconsin.
* And now, a golf course to replace wetlands and forests along the Black River, and the Lake Michigan shoreline, near Sheboygan.
The big water picture has become murkier since I wrote this May, 2013 summary of threatened Wisconsin waters.
Especially since Scott Walker has deliberately turned the DNR and its regulatory role over to officials with, as he put it, "a chamber of commerce mentality."
Their target - - the state constitutional water rights protection known as The Public Trust Doctrine, though the Walkerites, afraid to go straight at the constitution, are instead draining it less directly.
Little wonder that big businesses, the super-rich, and modern day land barons in Wisconsin want to manipulate ground and surface waters for their own narrow and special interests.
As I said, serious stewards, water advocates are needed here, and now.
One excellent source of information is Midwest Environmental Advocates, a public interest law firm.
Apply at your local town hall, common council, environmental organization and political campaign office.
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