Thursday, July 23, 2015

Walker's WI DNR broadening 'just-take-what-you-need' approach

[Updated] We saw it in the first few days of the Walker administration when he suspended a DNR wetlands filling permit application review on a parcel near Lambeau Field owned by a donor developer.

Hey, there's the land, someone wants to fill it, and screw the DNR's role to guarantee the public's access to and appreciation of all the state's waters, which the State Supreme Court has declared are inter-connected and finite.

Read this DNR web page about the state's waters, water law and State Supreme Court's ruling- - and copy it before the Walkerites scrub it.

Anyway - - the permit review suspension, also carried out with a special state law just to serve that one donor - - was the coming out party for the "chamber-of-commerce mentality" Walker said he installed atop the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

It has continued throughout his years in office - - eased shoreline and further wetlands encroachment, boosted DNR land sales, industrial cattle operations and aerial manure spraying green-lighted, environmental inspections and enforcement lessoned and lightened, frac mining rubber-stamped, DNR science staff penciled out in the budget.

Catalogued, here.

So little surprise that the DNR is now looking to expand permanently a list of activities which will no longer need agency reviews.

The DNR says these will be so-called 'minor' activities.

I remember when Walker said Act 10 was just a "modest " proposal.


1 comment:

  1. Hello,
    We are being impacted by Governor Walker's blocking Wisconsin's DNR from doing what it is required to do. I live in Rome and am associated with the Rome-Saratoga Friendly actions to prevent a dairy CAFO from establishing itself in Wisconsin's Central Sands area. Other than fighting to keep a big polluter out of a recreational place, we have been overrun with large businesses populating this area with high capacity wells that are causing water shortages. So, that's my background.

    I like you're blog and am looking for a way to share information. I just started postings on Facebook but that might not be the best place to communicate serious issues. Years ago I did some investigative reporting about Rome in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune but not sure newspapers are interested during this time when everything seems to be done online.

    Will you give me some advice on a good way for me to publish information on the various ways our state is being attacked from within by our state government's maneuvers to pave the way for big businesses to use and abuse Wisconsin's natural resources without having restrictions nor negative repercussions. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete