The WMC group did it before for Menard's despite the company's polluting history, so it's no surprise that a well-connected Big Ag group which siphons off a lot of groundwater near the threatened Little Plover River
would also get - - from a committee again including a DNR rep - - the WMC's environmental honor.
It's as much a poke in the eye to Wisconsin environmentalists than it is a door prize for the winner.
They'll have to retire the awardif when Foxconn wins - - a shoe-in given the WMC's help - - despite, or because of, Foxconn's wetland-filling, farm-field bulldozing, clean-air contaminating, Lake Michigan-water-diverting, record-subsidy-setting deal in Racine County.
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An industry group that helped spearhead a state law that loosened state oversight and regulation of controversial high-capacity wells has received an environmental award from Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC).
The Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association and eight companies received WMC’s Business Friend of the Environment Award earlier this month.Update: A commenter reminds me that the group in 2014 got its leader appointed to the state's groundwater advisory council, replacing George Kraft, a noted UW-Stevens Point water scientist. I'd written about that, here.
Wisconsin has a statutorily-created groundwater coordination council; Scott Walker has just replaced the council Governor's representative - - UW-Stevens Point professor and water expert George Kraft - - with Stephen Diercks, a potato grower, according to this industry report.
A frequent contributor principally to GOP candidates, Diercks has donated $4,450 to Walker's campaigns since 2009, including $1,500 on June 30, records show.The 'award' is par for the course in a state where Walker directed the DNR to work with a "chamber of Commerce mentality," and also similarly from Trump through his corporatized, corrupted EPA, Interior Department, etc.
It's as much a poke in the eye to Wisconsin environmentalists than it is a door prize for the winner.
They'll have to retire the award
Up is down and down is still up in Fitzwalkerstan. And don't forget that a potato grower sits on the Groundwater Coordination Council as the governor's representative.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder. I'd written that up in 2014, added it to the post and here's the link. https://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2014/12/walker-replaces-scientist-on-water.html
ReplyDeleteI saw that quite a bit working at DNR in recent years.....companies getting some kind of environmental award at the same time I couldnt get compliance or my program to refer them. Green Tier is another one that has become a joke. Another program referred one of my companies and they folded my violations into it, lol. I guess the other program didn't have Pat Stevens as the division adm. I have no idea how a new governor is going to unwind this ridiculous mess....So many supervisors have sold their souls at DNR and harassed and lied about employees that tried to do their jobs.
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