Walker, WI DNR actions undercut their Arbor Day/Forest Week words

Nice words about trees and forests have little meaning when Wisconsin is encouraging wetland-filling, forest-cutting and wildlife habitat destruction.

As I said the other day, Wisconsin's DNR needs a new mission statement that reflects the 'chamber of commerce mentality' Walker installed and enforces there.

To wit:

The DNR highlighted in a news release Walker's Arbor Day and Forest Appreciation Well words about the importance of trees and habitat with some of its own:

Wisconsin celebrates trees and forests this week

MADISON - Gov. Scott Walker issued a proclamation recognizing Friday, April 27, 2018 as Arbor Day in Wisconsin and April 22-28, 2018 as Forest Appreciation Week. Arbor Day is an annual observance celebrating the role of trees and forests in our lives and promotes tree planting and care. Wisconsin has celebrated Arbor Day on the last Friday of April since 1883.

And from Walker's proclamation, these phrases detached from reality and his record:

...trees are a valuable resources, creating a myriad of wildlife, habitats...economic, social, cultural and ecological values...."

These words may come as a surprise to anyone following Walker's eagerness from Day One to dismiss the DNR's wetland-permitting processes:

...[he] has accelerated special interests' access with state government assistance to water that began in the early days of Walker's rule:

Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin Governor on January 3, 2011 - - five days after announcing his selection of [developer and DNR-basher Cathy] Stepp to run the DNR - - and nine days later he suspended the review of a wetland filling permit application so one of his campaign donors could more quickly begin building a project near Lambeau Field... 

A year later, Walker signed in front of cheering Realtors at their convention a bill which weakened environmental protections for wetlands.

Also surely surprised by Walker's words and the DNR's platitudes:

*  Wisconsin residents trying to prevent the loss of trees and habitat on the 247-acre Lake Michigan shoreline nature preserve and inside an adjoining state park for golf construction which the DNR has moved closer to bulldozing

with the award of a key wetlands-filling permit.

Details from a DNR review of the site, here:

*  Page 50: The Kohler Property is almost 100 percent contiguous forest. Up to 50 percent of the forest would be removed if the proposed project is constructed. The remaining fragmented forest would provide some habitat during songbird migration. Invasive species management and restoration of native trees and shrubs in invasive removal areas would help control exotic and invasive species in the retained forest. The forest edge along turfgrass and human use areas created from fragmentation of the forest would probably increase the challenge of exotic and invasive species management. 

The edge would likely provide some habitat for species that inhabit transitions between forest and openings. Habitat value would likely be diminished. 

Tree clearing would occur on the Property for each hole, the access road, the clubhouse/parking lot complex, the practice range, the maintenance facility, the restrooms, and the irrigation pond. Tree clearing may also occur in forested areas between tee and fairways to provide lines of sight. Interior forest bird nesting habitat is likely present within and adjacent to the Project boundary and would essentially be eliminated. Wildlife species inhabiting these areas would be permanently impacted by the loss of habitat. 

* Page 63: Some trees bordering the beach would be removed, allowing longer sight lines between the Project and Lake Michigan. Trees present in dune habitat that is utilized by a rare species may not be able to be removed unless additional authorizations are obtained (i.e., an incidental take permit). Additionally, the number and area of trees removed would have to be reviewed to determine the potential impacts on the beach/dune community. 

* Pages 69-70 Summary of Adverse Impacts That Cannot Be Avoided

The site’s nearly 100% forested canopy would be reduced by nearly half. Habitat value will diminish along forest edges near turf grass and human use areas.

Approximately 3.7 acres of wetland would be lost due to filling including impacts to approximately 1.36 acres of Great Lakes ridge and swale wetlands, a wetland type that is considered “imperiled” in Wisconsin. Additional wetland impacts resulting from alterations to wetland hydrology and the influence of increased nutrients could change the wetland type and allow encroachment of invasive species.

Reduction of the forest to 50 percent cover would result in a substantial reduction of available migratory bird stopover habitat on the Kohler Property. Interior forest bird nesting habitat is likely present within and adjacent to the Project boundary and would essentially be eliminated...

*  Wisconsin residents concerned about the wholesale paving of farmland, woodlands and wetlands on the 3,000-acre Foxconn site which the state has exempted from routine environmental reviews and protections - -  including a separate DNR approval-in-advance of the destruction of rare Monarch butterfly habitat for state-paid road-building serving the site - - which the DNR has moved closer to unprecedented levels of bulldozing with the award of four air pollution permits and a daily diversion of Lake Michigan water equal to a line if water tanker trucks 14 miles long.

*  Wisconsin residents contesting the DNR's award of a wetland-filling permit in Monroe County for sand mining operations that will destroy a rare stand swamp oak trees.

*  Wisconsin residents who opposed the removal of state protections for 100,000 wetland acres statewide.

Huge court win for WI public water, state constitution, but...

[Updated from 4:31 p.m.] Wonderful to see a Dane County Circuit Court judge throw out after a successful lawsuit brought by Clean Wisconsin a group of harmful

permanent high-capacity well-water permits the DNR approved at the instigation of Walker's 'chamber of commerce' administration, a GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel tag team with Robin Vos, and blatantly-demanding special interests used to getting their way - - the subject of dozens of posts on this blog over the years.

[Updated 10/12/17]  Wisconsin's environmental groups have to run with this decision and organize an educational campaign about the Public Trust Doctrine and constitutional water rights which Wednesday's court ruling affirmed. 

In this example, many more examples:

*  Wetlands preservation statewide has already been weakened through sweetheart legislation at the behest of developers and real estate interests. Walker signed the February, 2012 allowing more encroachment into wetlands at a convention of cheering Realtors.

*  Even earlier, Walker had sent three signals that Wisconsin's waters and wetlands were open to pollution, weakened regulation or outright draining and filling:

He blocked rules designed to keep toxic phosphorus out of state waters, supported a special bill to let a developer fill a 12-acre wetland near Lambeau Field and signed a measure ending the requirement that all municipalities install water system disinfecting and testing equipment.

*  Walker is helping to extend years of delays that have allowed a large, coal-burning Lake Michigan ferry to dump overboard 3.8 tons of coal ash every day of its Manitowoc-to-Ludington, MI sailing season.

*  Thousands of northern Wisconsin acres rich in water resources are about to be cordoned off, and then - - if Walker and his legislative allies get their way - - blasted apart and cleared for an open-pit mine that will leak acidic drainage across the Bad River watershed at the edge of Lake Superior from layers of dynamited sulfide-bearing rock.

DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp set aside the traditional honest-broker role of agency chief and backed the passage of the mining bill, then took to right-wing AM talk radio when the bill faced an initial defeat for a partisan rant.

*  The DNR is so anxious to shrug off its neutrality, let alone the resource protection advocacy assigned to it by Public Trust Doctrine responsibilities and legal precedents that it is not contesting a Waukesha County lower court ruling that blocks the agency from opening a large lake to public access as the Public Trust Doctrine mandates...

The DNR even gave kid gloves treatment to a politically-connected septic waste hauler who dumped too much human waste on farm fields near residential wells.

*  Likewise, the DNR is not fighting for Public Trust guaranteed groundwater protections. Instead our deliberately-passive DNR with the "chamber-of-commerce mentality" that Walker installed at the top is intentionally enabling large water users, including industrial-scale dairies and scores of new frac sand mines.

So let's remember that some of the same corporate interests again pushing water privatization, like the WMC, have helped those same powers gain and preserve a 5-2 majority on the State Supreme Court.

The District Court ruling today in favor of the state's role as trustee of public water, as opposed to salesman or donor, also highlights questions already raised by Walker and the legislature's giveaway of groundwater in the potential Foxconn site, and parallel demands by mining and other businesses statewide. 

Details, here.

But for the law, the people, and sustainable water supplies in Wisconsin, a great win.

After all, it was only yesterday that I had noted another fresh push for private control of state water, and the narratives that for the last few years have so favored the special interests:

The public-private tag team's relentless campaign in Scott Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' Wisconsin just got another boost, reports the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign: 

Beware, New Front Group Formed on Water Policy!

P.S. Take a look at how the DNR still explains that the state's waters belong to the people and ro protect and preserve them, the state is supposed to act as public water trustee, not a sales or prize patrol staff.

For sand mine, WI DNR approves biggest wetlands fill in 10 years

The Journal Sentinel reports that what had been a preliminary approval is now green-lit:

DNR approves sand mining project with large wetlands loss

The privateers are winning under Walker & Co. - - part of a pattern that is devastating Wisconsin landscapes for private gain:

------------------------------------------------------------
This blog has followed this issue for years, as corporate control of public resources like water drive the Walker 'chamber of commerce mentality'/ intentional DNR-weakening/ Wisconsin GOP playbook, - - now assisted at the request of the GOP-run Legislature by a unsurprisingly favorable give-the-water-away opinion from GOP attorney General Brad Schimel.

And has accelerated special interests' access with state government assistance to water that began in the early days of Walker's rule:

Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin Governor on January 3, 2011 - - five days after announcing his selection of [developer and DNR-basher Cathy] Stepp to run the DNR - - and nine days later he suspended the review of a wetland filling permit application so one of his campaign donors could more quickly begin building a project near Lambeau Field... 

A year later, Walker signed in front of cheering Realtors at their convention a bill which weakened environmental protections for wetlands.

As to campaign donations and environmental issues in the state? 

The pattern continues to this day - - both the fillings and the campaign donations - - as recent stories and records show:

An out-of-state investment company wants to build a sand mining and processing plant in Jackson and Monroe counties that would eliminate about 17 acres of pristine forested wetland, according to plans being reviewed by state and federal regulators.

The project is sought by Meteor Timber, a company owned by Atlanta, Ga.-based Timberland Investment Resources. A Timberland executive and attorneys with Weld Riley, an Eau Claire law firm that represents Meteor, contributed about $23,000 since January 2010 to Republican and Democratic legislative and statewide candidates. 

*  Major Walker campaign donor Herb Kohler is working with the DNR on a plan to allow Kohler to turn a 247-acre wooded/wetland/artifact-rich nature preserve into a golf course along Lake Michigan.  

The plan would even require four acres of an adjoining, popular state park to be included in the privately-owned, high end golf course project... 

Also, the DNR, with assists from Wisconsin's corporately-attuned GOP Attorney General and State Supreme Court majority whose campaign committees have received millions of dollars in donations from Walker-sympathetic business and conservative advocacy organizations, has loosened the rules governing high-volume well pumping permits which supply water to diary and farming and frackers sand operations - - but which can deplete nearby waters, as is well-known. 

*  Records show Walker's campaign has received more than $30,000 from two of the most recent big-volume ground water permit winners: 

One of the permits was granted to James Wysocki, of Bancroft, for a well located in Pine Grove in Portage County. Wysocki and several members of his family own the Wysocki Family of Companies, which operates large vegetable and dairy farms. 

The owners of the Wysocki Family of Companies contributed about $31,000 to Walker between January 2010 and August 2016...

The consequences of Walker's destruction of a science-based DNR are documented and known.

The consequences of over pumping groundwater are known and documented.

The consequences of using massive amounts of water to irrigate more acreage and support dairy cattle and contaminate drinking water are known and documented, and props to Kewaunee Cares and Midwest Environmental Advocates for taking a stand.

The campaign contribution connections are known and documented.

So now the end-game in our one-party state is in sight as state power may allow big volume groundwater permits to be handed out like party favors and, if the legislation is approved, be transferred and held forever in the owners' - - not the public's - -  control.

Downstream neighbors, drinking water quality, effects on the environment, impacts on the water table and, through enabled, inevitable runoff into Lake Michigan - - all be damned.

Campaigning Walker to milk groundwater giveaway bill signing

It won't surprise me if right-wing GOP WI Gov. and perpetually-campaigning Scott Walker signs the groundwater privatization bill that's sitting on his desk with a freshly painted dairy barn or prepped-for-planting potato farm in the photo op frame.

A regular bill signing in the Governor's Office would waste a perfectly-good, taxpayer-subsidized benefit of incumbency, and while Walker has done some high-profile bill signings in private to foil any pesky protestors who might have popped up, he's known for special flourishes if special interests need to be served.

He signed his 2012 wetlands de-regulating and development bill crafted with the enthusiastic help of state builders at a convention of cheering Realtors - - just in case someone were to forget at election time who had sealed that deal:

Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation Wednesday to loosen state regulations on development in wetlands.

The Republican governor approved the controversial legislation before an appreciative audience from the Wisconsin Realtors Association. Realtors, builders and property rights advocates pushed for the legislation, saying current law hamstrings development and the changes would better balance environmental interests and the rights of property owners.

With that surface water rights' giveaway program in the books, Team Walker can turn this election season to its groundwater gifting - - passed by the Legislature with 50 million reasons, as the campaign-donation tracking Wisconsin Democracy Campaign just documented.

The bill was backed by a host of powerful special interest business and agriculture groups – see here – including the Dairy Business Association, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), and the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.

The agriculture industry and more than a dozen other influential special interests represented by WMC, including business, manufacturing, real estate and construction, contributed $16.7 million between January 2011 and December 2016 to Republican legislators. These same interests also contributed another $33.2 million to Walker during the period. That’s almost $50 million combined.

In particular, large vegetable growers and other mega farms sharply increased their contributions to GOP legislative fundraising committees during the second half of 2016 after a similar bill failed to pass early last year. Large potato and vegetable growers doled out more than $136,000 in individual and corporate campaign contributions in 2016 to current legislators, including about $126,300 to Republicans and $10,250 to Democratic lawmakers.

Walker can sign the groundwater giveaway now that the 'chamber of commerce mentality' Department of Natural Resources he's stage-managed since January 2010 finally announced bottled water deliveries - - a belated, tidy-up gesture, not a fix- - for families with persistently-contaminated wells near big feedlots and groundwater-sucking farms.

Leaving his newly-designated 2018 re-election campaign apparatchiks to scout out a the perfect blue sky, farm fresh location - - not one of the scores of huge, water-dependent feedlots or sand mines now exploding across the state - - where he can put official bill-signing pen to paper and, for the first time, give permanent control to private landowners over massive amounts of Wisconsin groundwater without regard to negative resulting cumulative effects on the water table, neighboring properties or downstream rivers, lakes and streams.

It's the way they do water law and property rights in Western states - - first come, first served- - and the cumulative effects and unintended consequences can be awful when water becomes a hot commodity in an irrational marketplace.

For example: Middle Eastern family-run state economics like Saudi Arabia are buying huge farms sitting atop already-stressed aquifers in drought-ravaged Arizona and California to grow wheat for export to feed diary cattle thousands of miles away.

An extreme example, you say?

We know that big groundwater pumping in central Wisconsin is already associated with falling water levels in lakes and streams like the Little Plover River.

Did you ever believe that right here, while the state constitution says Wisconsin's waters belongs to everyone - - and I've often written that evading that constitutional stricture is the GOP's ultimate special interest-driven aim - - a GOP-led Governor's office, Attorney General, State Legislature and State Supreme Court would align and manipulate the law to deregulate at least 13,000 high-capacity wells - - each capable of pumping 100,000 gallons or more every a day?

Those 13,000 high-capacity wells are about to receive less state oversight and even become available for transfer when a farm is sold as the wells and their newly-minted private water rights were just another tractor, driveway or out-building.

Today, Arizona.

Tomorrow, why not Wisconsin?

3/15 hearing kicks off permanent WI groundwater privatization

Shakespeare warned us that bad things could happen on 3/15 - - the Ides of March - -  and sure enough, 3/15 is when a joint Wisconsin Assembly/Senate committee hearing in Madison will launch Big Ag and Big Dairy's 

long-sought push to finally win permanently-held rights to massive amounts of Wisconsin ground water through an expanding number of wells which pump at least 100,000 gallons of water a day.

The Ides of March spelled trouble for Shakespeare's Caesar; fittingly, perhaps, it's the day on which in Wisconsin, our own emperor may in fact render unto private interests that which is not Caesar's to transfer in the first place.

The organization Wisconsin Lakes has a fine summary of the hearing details, issues and bill language, here:

It would prohibit the state from reviewing a high capacity well’s permit when it is repaired, reconstructed, replaced, or transferred. Because this would leave such wells with no time in which their permits are reviewed, the bill creates a virtual right to withdraw water that would never expire.

This blog has followed this issue for years, as corporate control of public resources like water drive the Walker 'chamber of commerce mentality'/ intentional DNR-weakening/ Wisconsin GOP playbook, - - now assisted at the request of the GOP-run Legislature by a unsurprisingly favorable give-the-water-away opinion from GOP attorney General Brad Schimel.

And has accelerated special interests' access with state government assistance to water that began in the early days of Walker's rule:

Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin Governor on January 3, 2011 - - five days after announcing his selection of [developer and DNR-basher Cathy] Stepp to run the DNR - - and nine days later he suspended the review of a wetland filling permit application so one of his campaign donors could more quickly begin building a project near Lambeau Field... 

A year later, Walker signed in front of cheering Realtors at their convention a bill which weakened environmental protections for wetlands.

As to campaign donations and environmental issues in the state? 

The pattern continues to this day - - both the fillings and the campaign donations - - as recent stories and records show:

An out-of-state investment company wants to build a sand mining and processing plant in Jackson and Monroe counties that would eliminate about 17 acres of pristine forested wetland, according to plans being reviewed by state and federal regulators.

The project is sought by Meteor Timber, a company owned by Atlanta, Ga.-based Timberland Investment Resources. A Timberland executive and attorneys with Weld Riley, an Eau Claire law firm that represents Meteor, contributed about $23,000 since January 2010 to Republican and Democratic legislative and statewide candidates. 

*  Major Walker campaign donor Herb Kohler is working with the DNR on a plan to allow Kohler to turn a 247-acre wooded/wetland/artifact-rich nature preserve into a golf course along Lake Michigan.  

The plan would even require four acres of an adjoining, popular state park to be included in the privately-owned, high end golf course project... 

Also, the DNR, with assists from Wisconsin's corporately-attuned GOP Attorney General and State Supreme Court majority whose campaign committees have received millions of dollars in donations from Walker-sympathetic business and conservative advocacy organizations, has loosened the rules governing high-volume well pumping permits which supply water to diary and farming and frackers sand operations - - but which can deplete nearby waters, as is well-known. 

*  Records show Walker's campaign has received more than $30,000 from two of the most recent big-volume ground water permit winners: 

One of the permits was granted to James Wysocki, of Bancroft, for a well located in Pine Grove in Portage County. Wysocki and several members of his family own the Wysocki Family of Companies, which operates large vegetable and dairy farms. 

The owners of the Wysocki Family of Companies contributed about $31,000 to Walker between January 2010 and August 2016...

The consequences of Walker's destruction of a science-based DNR are documented and known.

The consequences of over pumping groundwater are known and documented.

The consequences of using massive amounts of water to irrigate more acreage and support dairy cattle and contaminate drinking water are known and documented, and props to Kewaunee Cares and Midwest Environmental Advocates for taking a stand.

The campaign contribution connections are known and documented.

So now the end-game in our one-party state is in sight as state power may allow big volume groundwater permits to be handed out like party favors and, if the legislation is approved, be transferred and held forever in the owners' - - not the public's - -  control.

Downstream neighbors, drinking water quality, effects on the environment, impacts on the water table and, through enabled, inevitable runoff into Lake Michigan - - all be damned.

Here are the hearing details:

The Senate Committee on Labor and Regulatory Reform, along with the Assembly Committee on Agriculture will hold a hearing on SB76/AB105:

LOCATION: ROOM 412 EAST, WISCONSIN STATE CAPITOL, MADISON

DATE & TIME: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2017 – 9AM

Wetlands - also known in Walker's WI as expendables

The official assault in right-wing GOP Gov. and corporate bellhop Scott Walker's Wisconsin against the people's Constitutional water rights in an intentionally-trashed Public Trust Doctrine continues apace as our one-party, GOP-controlled state steals birthright public assets and leaves behind a Broken Trust Doctrine instead.

After imperiously assisting in the earliest days of his first term a wetlands' fill for a campaign donor/developer, followed by signing a business-enabled wetlands development bill in front of a cheering convention of Realtors and developers, Walker has put the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on staffing and budgetary life support with just enough energy left to set more wetlands-fillings and Big Ag groundwater withdrawal permissions into motion.

So it's not surprising that within a week we would learn that the DNR is preliminary approving the largest wetlands-fill in a decade that will grind down pristine acreage for the frac sand underneath, and is goosing along a plan to fill more wetlands so another donor/developer can build a high end golf course along Lake Michigan and partially into an adjoining state park.

These projects' planers pledge to fix up some other degraded land as environmental compensation, but everyone knows that so-called 'artificial wetlands' are not as good as the real thing, and you wouldn't have to scramble to out together a remediation plan off-site if you weren't bulldozing it in the first place.

And this 'fill-it/pave-it' mentality I've written about for years - - notable exception, Walker's potholed roads as all that money heads for overbuilt major highway expansion - - spins off into local communities, like Wauwatosa, where leaders have worked with developers and even the County and UW-M to continually grab off and level what's remaining of the people's land known as the Milwaukee County grounds.

Those policy-makers probably figure, if the state can do it, why can't they?

The bigger picture with facts and figures, here:

Here are a few points of context for the preliminary state approval of a Wisconsin frac sand mine that will destroy a Jackson County pristine wooded wetland, and also require huge amounts of groundwater for its operation: ... 

the Walkerites have used law and policy and political power in Wisconsin - - this GOP/corporate control has been an under-covered, carefully crafted take-over operation - - to tilt benefits and access in a heavenly way towards big business and the executives who own them.

1. This is just the latest example of Wisconsin right-wing GOP Gov. and corporate tool Scott Walker and his party helping the private sector absorb public resources in a loop of mutual self-interest across multiple business interests:

2. There are records of $10,300 in campaign donations from the land owner and people associated with it to Walker's campaign, according to this report by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

3. Projects like this will probably accelerate in Wisconsin and elsewhere because Walker is lobbying Donald Trump to give states more control over environmental policy-and-decision making, and because Trump has named former pro-business Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Finally - - remember the admonition about Wisconsin waters and The Public Trust Doctrine laid down by the State Supreme Court more than a half-century ago that I have put on the front page of my blog and should guide conservation and public policy here forever:

"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 Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution..

Get used to more corporate control of WI, US environment

[Updated from 3/6 and 3/7/17] Here are a few points of context for the preliminary state approval of a Wisconsin frac sand mine that will destroy a Jackson County pristine wooded wetland, and also require huge amounts of groundwater for its operation:

1. This is just the latest example of Wisconsin right-wing GOP Gov. and corporate tool Scott Walker and his party helping the private sector absorb public resources in a loop of mutual self-interest across multiple business interests:

...the Walkerites have used law and policy and political power in Wisconsin - - this GOP/corporate control has been an under-covered, carefully crafted take-over operation - - to tilt benefits and access in a heavenly way towards big business and the executives who own them.

2. There are records of $10,300 in campaign donations from the land owner and people associated with it to Walker's campaign, according to this report by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

3. Projects like this will probably accelerate in Wisconsin and elsewhere because Walker is lobbying Donald Trump to give states more control over environmental policy-and-decision making, and because Trump has named former pro-business Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Walker had Wisconsin join Pruitt as an anti-EPA litigant fighting federal clean air rules.

3/8 Update: Trump is adding more enemies of climate science and EPA mission to senior EPA positions, reports The New York Times.

Mr. Pruitt has drawn heavily from the staff of his friend and fellow Oklahoma Republican, Senator James Inhofe, long known as Congress’s most prominent skeptic of climate science. 

A former Inhofe chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, will be Mr. Pruitt’s chief of staff. Another former Inhofe staff member, Byron Brown, will serve as Mr. Jackson’s deputy. 

Andrew Wheeler, a fossil fuel lobbyist and a former Inhofe chief of staff, is a finalist to be Mr. Pruitt’s deputy, although he requires confirmation to the position by the Senate.

And as Trump and his budget slashers take aim at climate change science, staff and expertise at the EPA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and even the Centers for Disease Control, remember that Walker and his DNR did it first.

And let's look at some of the earlier record and precedents:

* Scott Pruitt, meet Cathy Stepp.

In a burst of uncharacteristic transparency days before becoming Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker said he was nominating developer and outspoken Department of Natural Resources critic Cathy Stepp as agency Secretary because he wanted this critical Wisconsin environmental and management department with an open government/public health/clean water and air mission run with "a chamber of commerce mentality."

[Update] Other division-level and senior managers have come from the forestry industry, the builders organizations, transportation and the statewide chamber of commerce, summarized here. In fact, the Wisconsin Builders Association bragged about how closely their staff worked with key DNR insiders to get the bill written.

And here are the consequences: an agency with a severely damaged mentality, and reputation, according to insiders.

* Jackson County wetland, meet one in Brown County.

Walker was sworn in as Wisconsin Governor on January 3, 2011 - - five days after announcing his selection of Steps to run the DNR - - and nine days later he suspended the review of a wetland filling permit application so one of his campaign donors could more quickly begin building a project near Lambeau Field.

A companion bill introduced at Walker's request sped through the Legislature his party controlled.

[Update] A year later, Walker signed in front of cheering Realtors at their convention a bill which weakened environmental protections for wetlands.

As to campaign donations and environmental issues?

* Major Walker campaign donor Herb Kohler is working with the DNR on a plan to allow Kohler to turn a 247-acre wooded/wetland/artifact-rich nature preserve into a golf course along Lake Michigan. 

The plan would even require four acres of an adjoining, popular state park to be included in the privately-owned, high end golf course project.

The agency is being so helpful to the golf course proponent that it hasn't yet required the submission of a formal permit application that would greatly inform the public and expand the record - - so right there is some DNR provided, one-sided, taxpayer-paid advantage and assistance - - but the DNR did discuss whether to discipline a DNR staffer for giving opponents some public information relevant to the matter.

Does all this sound even-handed and equitable to you?

* A major lead paint maker was found to have donated $750,000 to committees tied to Walker and GOP legislators before and after the GOP-controlled Legislature rolled back lead paint manufacturers' liability responsibilities.

* Another $700,000 was routed secretly to Walker's campaign by an out-of-state mining company for whom Walker signed sweetheart legislation written with the company's participation to allow the digging of a gigantic open pit mine measured in miles across the Bad River watershed and Penokee Hills in Northwest Wisconsin. 

Again, does this sound equitable?

The mine proposal fell through because, as critics and the neighboring Ojibwe tribe had repeatedly argued and documented, there was too much water in the area for the mine to be established.

* A wealthy couple who had donated more than $3 million to various Walker-related campaign organizations received DNR approval to buy a prime piece of state lake frontage; public pressure blocked the deal until an alternative arrangement was approved.

Also, the DNR, with assists from Wisconsin's corporately-attuned GOP Attorney General and State Supreme Court majority whose campaign committees have received millions of dollars in donations from Walker-sympathetic business and conservative advocacy organizations has loosened the rules governing high-volume well pumping permits which supply water to diary and farming and frackers sand operations - - but which can deplete nearby waters, as is well-known.

Records show Walker's campaign has received more than $30,000 from two of the most recent big-volume ground water permit winners:

One of the permits was granted to James Wysocki, of Bancroft, for a well located in Pine Grove in Portage County. Wysocki and several members of his family own the Wysocki Family of Companies, which operates large vegetable and dairy farms. 

The owners of the Wysocki Family of Companies contributed about $31,000 to Walker between January 2010 and August 2016...

And GOP legislators are getting ready to further loosen high-volume well permitting procedures.

In summary:

This is going to be the pattern in Wisconsin and across the country - - as I have noted here and here - - when Walker and similarly chamber-of-commerce minded Governors get more environmental power from the EPA which Trump will run with a chamber of commerce mentality.

Don't think for a moment that National Parks and other public lands can't go the way of Wisconsin state park acreage a Walker donor wants for his golf course, or the 10,000 acres of state land the Wisconsin GOP-controlled Legislature arbitrarily had the DNR put on the market - - along with permissions for Walker to sell any state asset, up to and including power plants, campus dorms, and the State Capitol.

All part and parcel of running government with "a chamber of commerce mentality."

If it's January, it must be Wisconsin wetland filing time

The bid by a frac sand business to open a large mine in Wisconsin which would necessitate a major wetland filling and pristine timber cut has taken a decidedly uglier turn - - the threat by the owner of the land to clear cut the property for financial reasons if the Wisconsin DNR doesn't grant the mining permit.

We ought to call January "Walker Wetland Filling Month" in Wisconsin, since that's where it all began within hours of Walker taking office:

*  As I noted on January 4th, 2011, a day after Walker's swearing in:

Take a look at Item #6 of Walker's Special Session directive to the Legislature in Executive Order #1, as it will impact 1.6 million acres protected of non-federal wetlands, or 30% of the wetlands in Wisconsin...

I also quoted an alert about it issued by the Wisconsin Wetlands Association:

On Day 1 of his administration, Governor Walker released an Executive Order that calls for "exemptions from water quality certification and wetland mitigation requirements for certain non-federal wetlands that are less than two acres in size" (see item 6 in the Executive Order). In other words, Governor Walker wants to make it easier for developers and industry to destroy isolated wetlands in hopes of creating jobs. 

*  Later that month, and after administratively blocking an ongoing wetlands filling permit appeal process so he could help a developer/campaign donor build on a wetland near Lambeau Field, Walker had a special bill introduced into the Legislature to further smooth the way for the developer.

Think about how much of the official state machinery was set in motion to benefit one person, a Walker campaign donor.

*  The bill quickly passed, followed by Walker signing into law a broader wetland filling bill in front of cheering Realtors a year later, and wouldn't you know it - - in January, 2012 all sorts of insiders were bragging about how they a wetlands' deregulation bill done:

The Wisconsin Builders Association offers itself a pat on the back and a lesson in State Capitol Politics 101 when telling its members how wetlands' deregulation legislation got drafted.

Here is a key paragraph from the WBA newsletter - - remember it when you see the predictable editorials urging its passage after a few tweaks:

The key to this bill passing is to get some minor technical changes in committee and make sure the bill is not “watered down” (no pun intended!) during the process.  WBA staff professionals will continue working with members, local staff members and the legislature to pass a strong wetlands bill before the end of the legislative session...

*  Followed by another effort begun in January, 2014 to get another special permission for one Door County development to fill a wetland.

See the pattern yet?

No?

*  Followed by Walker's signing an even more permissive law in 2016 to allow development in specialized wetlands previously off-limits to development.

Of course, wetlands are nature's pollution filters and flood water controls - - 

- - issues of little importance to Walker and the "chamber of commerce mentality" mangers he has installed at the DNR which he has been systematically diminishing and downsizing and freeing from science guidance and public policy concerns.

*  And, as we speak, this being January - - Walker is considering a budgetary DNR coup de grace to break the agency apart and make it less likely to enforce pollution standards so Walker's corporate donors can have at the people's waters, clean air, state parks and environmental legacy as they wish.

So Happy Wetland Filling Anniversary Month to Walker and his Pollution Party, though we also remember what the Wisconsin Supreme Court had to say - - and which is quoted out on this blog's face page - - about such matters years ago:

"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 Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.

Back when the Wisconsin Supreme Court hadn't devolved along with much of the political environment that had first produced John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Gaylord Nelson and Earth Day.