Clean Wisconsin wants 9 high-volume ag well permits reversed
Madison-based Clean Wisconsin is suing to force a reversal by Scott Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' Department of Natural Resources' approvals of nine permits allowing big agricultural operations to withdraw large volumes of groundwater without taking into account the withdrawals' cumulative environmental impacts.
This is yet another example of a non-profit Wisconsin environmental group taking the lead in environmental protection - - such as an action this week to force clean air and public health compliance by state frac sand mining - - because Walker's corporately-and-ideologically directed DNR, and the GOP-run office of Attorney General Brad Schimel, and the GOP-led Legislature and the GOP-obesiant State Supreme Court have intentionally given up their conservation preservation obligations so that big ag, large feedlots and other special interests can enjoy freer access to the state overtaxed and now-under regulated waters - -
- - and benefit from easier pollution inspections and enforcement actions designed to prevent problems or resolve them when they arise.
That's the impaired Little Plover River, above, photographed by the River Alliance of Wisconsin, having run dry as often happens in the summer after nearby potato farms have pumped out the groundwater.
More information, here.
The lawsuits are a good sign that citizens are not going to accept the one-sided and dirty hand this administration is handing them - - another example is the strong citizen opposition to the proposed Kohler golf course along Lake Michigan and on a nature preserve for which the DNR already has a thumb on the regulatory scales - - but it's wrong that the state can default its clean air and water obligations which forces people to spend money from their own pockets to do the state's proper job.
This is yet another example of a non-profit Wisconsin environmental group taking the lead in environmental protection - - such as an action this week to force clean air and public health compliance by state frac sand mining - - because Walker's corporately-and-ideologically directed DNR, and the GOP-run office of Attorney General Brad Schimel, and the GOP-led Legislature and the GOP-obesiant State Supreme Court have intentionally given up their conservation preservation obligations so that big ag, large feedlots and other special interests can enjoy freer access to the state overtaxed and now-under regulated waters - -
- - and benefit from easier pollution inspections and enforcement actions designed to prevent problems or resolve them when they arise.
That's the impaired Little Plover River, above, photographed by the River Alliance of Wisconsin, having run dry as often happens in the summer after nearby potato farms have pumped out the groundwater.
More information, here.
The lawsuits are a good sign that citizens are not going to accept the one-sided and dirty hand this administration is handing them - - another example is the strong citizen opposition to the proposed Kohler golf course along Lake Michigan and on a nature preserve for which the DNR already has a thumb on the regulatory scales - - but it's wrong that the state can default its clean air and water obligations which forces people to spend money from their own pockets to do the state's proper job.
1 comment:
Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha! Northern Wisconsin and other rural areas should have thought of this before they voted for Scott Walker. IMHO, no one deserves urine and feces in their drinking water more than communities that vote repug!
George Carlin had a good routine about farmers in his book, "Brain Droppings". People should look it up. Those communities will have an opportunity to express their support for or against the republican agenda in less than 2 weeks -- let's see what they say.
They can't do anything to put adults in control of Wisconsin DNR, but if they continue to vote repug, then they will continue to deserve the vilest of drinking water.
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