Thursday, June 29, 2017

Walker's WI disregards environmental law, people's rights

As Wisconsin agencies cater to a major Scott Walker golf course developer/ donor by laying the groundwork for bulldozing a nature preserve and even privatizing some land in an adjoining, water-rich state park - - continuing a pattern boosted by a reckless opinion by Attorney General Brad Schimel and corporately-controlled GOP legislators whose actions further embed private control of wetlands and pristine timber acreage and drinking water into special-interest hands - - we should all remember that decades ago the Wisconsin Supreme Court warned against this very short-shortsightedness when it affirmed that Wisconsin's waters belong to everyone:
"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The PublicTrust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution...
This permanent loss of the people's water and everything the water supports is exactly what is happening at the Lake Michigan shoreline golf course proposal moves along apace, or when more and more industrial-scale feedlots are opened at the expense of the land and the groundwater,  or when more and more sand mines are gouged out from woodland stands and the wetlands holding and filtering the people's waters.

We've been warned. The Walkerites are ignoring it, carelessly, intentionally and self-servingly.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rural Wisconsin voters, Walker's base, deserve to have their waterways filled with manure from CAFOs.

I know this sounds harsh, but the rabid teabaggers are never going to support anything non-ALEC/Koch (and now apparently pro-Putin) until their communities economies are destroyed.

Sure, the economies in all these areas are sick and failing, but Walker's base is not smart enough to put 2+2 together. They will support this moron. Not only will, by hook or crook, Walker "win" re-election in 2018; but he will run for President again and don't kid yourself -- the media propped-up tRump and continues to prop-up Walker in Wisconsin.

They can catapult him into the White House, by hook or crook, and justify even a blatantly stolen election by falsely proclaiming that Walker restored the dignity and integrity of the republican party!

BARF!!!! But we have seen more blatant pro-Walker propaganda in Wisconsin from the state's leading newspapers & broadcast industry.

James Rowen said...

I strongly disagree that anyone deserves to have their water polluted. Very short-sighted and insensitive.

Anonymous said...

I think the politics of resentment cuts both ways. People who voted for Walker feel left behind and people who voted against Walker feel ignored. Only the rich prosper while the rest of us fight over the crumbs.

Anonymous said...

“We are not concerned that strategically adjusting the way we direct public outreach will lessen the public’s understanding of our natural resources,” [Jim] Dick said. “In fact, we may be able to reach more people.”

Am I understanding this? The DNR spokesperson doesn't care that changing their outreach strategy will mean the public understands less about the natural resources (that we all own)? If you reach more people but they understand less is that a good thing? Shouldn't that be a bad thing? More people understanding less? How do DNR administrators dream this stuff up?

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/mandated-education-efforts-dwindle-but-dnr-says-they-are-priority/article_f18fd639-fb5b-5ec2-b8ce-2027c4ce87ae.html