Brown water, black water state AGs blend their 'expertise'

The Attorney General of West Virginia, where coal companies have been known to pollute the drinking water, has linked up with our own Brad Schimel, the corporately-obeisant Attorney General of Wisconsin, where contaminating, industrial-scale animal feeding operations have been turning the drinking water brown.

Kewaunee County, WI feedlot runoff

A marriage made in heaven?

Here's the goal of the partnership, reports the Capital Times, and let me be the first to say, "I won't drink to that."

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel is partnering with West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey in an effort to push back against federal environmental regulations they say infringe on states' authority.

Schimel and Morrissey led a group of 20 states that sent a letter this week to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt seeking changes and clarifications to the EPA's "waters of the U.S." rule, implemented under then-President Barack Obama's administration and currently under review...

 One bit of information about where Schimel's heart lies:

Attorney General Brad Schimel is trying to send a closely watched case involving the expansion of a large dairy farm to appeals judges in conservative Waukesha County — and keep the case away from judges in liberal Dane County.

More, here:

WI ignores lessons of self-inflicted MI water crises.

...file under 'with governing comes responsibility.'

5 Michigan Officials Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter in Connection With Flint Water Crisis

I'm not saying there is perfect equivalency between what happened in Flint and what is going in Wisconsin's Kewaunee County, for example, where the state has not moved aggressively against known, long-standing drinking water contamination - - 

Complete DNR fail: Massive fecal pollution in Kewaunee County wells

 - - and where lax pollution inspections and enforcement has been organized against by citizens and advocates, and documented:

State audit finds DNR ignoring own rules on water pollution

- - but the Michigan tragedy with multiple victims which will linger for years is certainly a lesson in personal responsibility, smart policy-making - - unlike Wisconsin's laws blatantly-tilted towards factory farming - - and the consequences, logical or unintended, of public policy failure.

And quietly shipping Kewaunee residents bottled water as the 2018 election looms, and after years of inaction while government kept expanding the big feedlot operations while reducing inspections and pollution enforcement, speaks volumes.