The purge continues at Walker's DNR

Yeah, who needs a 37-year Wisconsin wildlife veteran:

[Tom] Hauge, who served as the DNR's director of wildlife for the last 25 years, was informed Sept. 19 by division administrator Sanjay Olson that he was being reassigned in early October to a district wildlife supervisor position.

The job would be a demotion for Hauge in both authority and pay.

Rather than take it, he exercised his option to retire.

Thus joining a club I wrote about in June which no one should have to join:

After two recent, high-ranking staff departures - - and a host of legal, program and policy changes in state government which have put Wisconsin air, water and land at risk since Gov. Walker's inauguration in January, 2011 - - I thought it was time to get a closer look inside the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Because Stepp knows better as she moves Walker's agency 'realignment' forward - - all part of an ideologically-driven plan by right-wing Wisconsin Republicans to prove that government doesn't work by starving it of money, staff, spirit - - and more and more - - expertise.

Sound familiar?

Walker salutes Earth Day with 57 layoffs at WI DNR

And also from this post: With his permission, I am adding comments...from Gordon Stevenson, an engineer and former senior DNR manager, who now serves Midwest Environmental Advocates as board secretary and spoke at a a May MEA water program in Milwaukee. This is from his MEA bio:

Gordon is a 26 year veteran of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. His last assignment was serving as the Chief of Runoff Management until his retirement in January of 2011. His professional expertise includes watershed-based water resource protection and control of diffuse water pollution sources. Gordon had been instrumental in development of policies and administrative codes for the State of Wisconsin involving both agricultural and urban nonpoint source water pollution. In particular, Gordon has been an architect of Wisconsin’s environmental programs that apply to Wisconsin’s extensive livestock industry. He wrote and issued the first permits for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Wisconsin, developed technical guidance for abatement of agricultural pollutants in both surface water and groundwater and was the voice of the Department of Natural Resources to Wisconsin’s livestock producer community.

 At the MEA water program, Stevenson said, in part:

For the majority of my career, water policy decisions were based on the strong bond between law and science, the people in charge of making those decisions had conservation and environmental protection credentials, and my colleagues and I shared the belief that Wisconsin's true and sustaining wealth is its clean water.

Much of that is now changed at DNR. Wisconsin DNR's water quality permit program has been found seriously deficient by the US Environmental Protection Agency. DNR is failing to protect downstream water from upstream pollution sources, they are allowing already impaired water bodies to get worse and they are suppressing the public's ability to challenge water quality permit decisions.

Wisconsin DNR's authority to protect Wisconsin's water resources is delegated from EPA. Under the delegation agreement, DNR is obligated to administer the federal Clean Water Act. DNR is not doing so. On behalf of 16 Wisconsin citizens, Midwest Environmental Advocates has filed a Citizens Petition for Corrective Action with the US Environmental Protection agency to correct these deficiencies. The petition seeks to restore the credible water quality protection program that we once had in this state.

We're arriving at an important crossroads in Wisconsin. We have our own version of Flint, Michigan in Kewaunee County where citizens cannot drink the water and we have our own version of the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone. A dead zone now also exists in Green Bay that runs from the City of Green Bay all the way up to Marinette.

While I am alarmed, I am also encouraged . We are pleased to report that more than 70 people like me, DNR retirees, along with other credible scientist and partners have signed on to support the Petition for Corrective Action along with our original 16 Wisconsin citizen clients. And the number of people supporting the petition is growing daily.

But in a larger sense. I am even more encouraged that so many Wisconsin citizens believe like I do: that water policy decisions should be based on the strong bond between law and science, that the people in charge of making water quality decisions should have the credentials to do so, and that Wisconsin's true and sustaining wealth is its clean water."