4th IL agency concerned with flooding opposes Foxconn environmental waivers

Just as you won't see Walker touting the $117 million for a Foxconn electrical service line being additionally billed to Wisconsinites already on the hook for billions in subsidies, I don't look for him to take seriously growing concerns in downstream Illinois communities about potential site runoff flooding because the deal for Foxconn waives basic wetland reviews and protections.

For the record, Racine County has flooding issues:

Racine County is one of seven counties in the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC), and it said in a lengthy 2015 report that flooding was a major hazard in Racine County (beginning in p. 86):

Flooding is a significant hazard in Racine County.

So I'll add that information to my Foxconn archive and post the item, here. 

Mundelein trustees have joined the Lake County Board, Lincolnshire and Gurnee in opposing Wisconsin's plan to waive environmental restrictions for a Foxconn manufacturing plant being built just north of the Illinois border. 

The village board this week approved a resolution urging Wisconsin to enforce applicable environmental regulations on the project...

Perhaps most significantly for Illinois, the company is being allowed to fill 26 acres of wetlands without first conducting an environmental impact study. Those wetlands flow into the Des Plaines River watershed.

Gurnee and Lincolnshire are among the Lake County communities that experience floods from the Des Plaines River following heavy rains and snow melts. Filling in those wetlands without replacing them nearby could increase flooding, officials have said.

Separately, the Illinois Attorney General is suing over the project's exemption for strong air quality enforcement. 

Farmland like this now being bulldozed for the Foxconn project, like wetlands on the site ticked for filling, absorb rainfall and mitigate flooding.

Because $4.5 billion in public subsidies for Foxconn isn't enough, Bucky...

[7/27/18 update: Still nothing on Walker's Twitter feeds about your being billed for the $177 million Foxconn transmission line despite the billions in state and local subsidies being shoveled its way. Though I do see shoutouts to the Packers, Culver's and an upcoming cheese curd eating contest at State Fair.] 

You electric ratepayers statewide get to fund another giveaway - - a $117 million transmission line for the company.

Pewaukee-based ATC, which operates an electric transmission system and is owned by Wisconsin utilities, needed state approval to build the system. The cost would be paid for by an estimated 5 million customers over 40 years. 

The three Public Service Commissioners - - all Walker appointees - - signed off on the deal.

More about the varied taxpayer-provided, government-enabled grants, tax credits, environmental exemptions, legal favors, private property seizure allowances, air pollution permissions and Great Lakes diverted water perks for Foxconn in this summary post:

A Foxconn Fever Primer

[Updated continuously from June, 2017] This frequently-updated archive follows Wisconsin's award of $4.5 billion in state and local funds, plus waivers of routine judicial and environmental reviews, for a promised - - and already downsized from its original proposal - - Foxconn factory using a massive daily diversion of Lake Michigan water on Racine County open space, farmlands and wetlands. 

  

Who stands with a President who snatches, cages kids? Well...

So when I see a story and headline like this:

Wisconsin Republican Senate candidates Leah Vukmir and Kevin Nicholson won't criticize Trump

MILWAUKEE — Republican U.S. Senate candidates in Wisconsin stood by President Donald Trump during a Thursday debate, refusing to name anything he’s done that they oppose. 

Trump has not endorsed in the race, but both Kevin Nicholson, a management consultant, and state Sen. Leah Vukmir have tried to embrace him as polls show a strong majority of Republicans in Wisconsin back the president.

And I see stories and headlines like this - - among many posted online - - about the separating of children from the parents at the southern border, by the thousands:

I study kids who were separated from their parents. The trauma could change their brains forever.

While hundreds are still held by our government away from their parents, traumatizing the mothers and fathers, too.

So - - not to pick on Leah Vukmir

over Kevin Nicholson, but we also know that Vukmir includes in her official biography her decades of nursing training and practice, including pediatric care, so I wonder how she can square her support for Trump with what he and his directives have done:

Biography

• Born Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 26, 1958; 2 children. 

• Graduate Brookfield East High School, 1976; B.S. in Nursing, Marquette University, 1980; M.S. in Nursing, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1983. 

• Registered nurse with 37 years of experience including more than 20 years as a certified pediatric nurse practitioner; 

Still too much silence from government, media about climate change

How long do we have to wait for TV news anchors and weather forecasters to incorporate basic, consensus science about climate change into their correspondents coverage of increasingly devastating fires and floods in a demonstrably warmed and warming climate?

While many state officials and governors, like Scott Walker, have nothing to say about it, or worse, as documented repeatedly on this blog, here, here, or here, and elsewhere.

Because if you've taken the Koch brothers anti-climate change pledge, that's what you do. Nothing.

TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2013

Walker Pledges Fealty to King Koch, Coal 

More right-wing wordsmithing and policy-making; Walker promises to stand with the fossil fuel polluters: 

This pledge is called the “No Climate Tax Pledge,” but it might as well be called the “Koch Brothers Protection Pledge,” since it was devised by a group co-founded and backed by the billionaire brothers whose companies, according to the EPA, emitted over 24 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2011. 

Signers of the pledge, now numbering 411, promise to "oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue” — in other words, no legislation on climate change without an equivalent amount of tax cuts. 

But mainstream reporting and weather experts could make up for lost ground, lest we have more lost ground scientifically, and literally, in Wisconsin.

Walker's baggage is both local and national

Updated post from 2/24/18 expanding upon Scott Walker's polling weaknesses and those of his pal Donald Trump, a/k/a The Tariff King and Vladimir Putin's best friend.
------------------------------------

WI GOP, Foxconn officials digging out of their own hole

Walker's local burdens include that still failed job-creating pledge, and the state's crumbling roads and the billions in corporate welfare, taxpayer dollars, tax breaks and highway spending being poured into the Southeastern corner of Wisconsin for Foxconn - - the full story, here - - rather than being distributed across the state. 

And while the axiom is that all politics is local, Walker also could find himself on the wrong side of two national narratives which repulse many voters.

The first is Donald Trump. He's a woman-grabbing, race-baiting, Russia-loving loose cannon - - whom Scott Walker, when dropping out of the presidential campaign in September, 2015 urged Republicans to reject. 

Scott Walker Drops Out of 2016 Republican Presidential Race, Slamming Trump

Voters may not recall exactly how Walker ended his brief run for President, or has since done a 180-degree turn and become a strong Trump backer, so let's understand that that as well as remembering that Walker had earlier courted Trump, having presented Trump in New York City with a plaque - - I wonder what's inscribed on it - - and also scored from him a $15,000 in re-election boosting donation.

A favor from Trump perhaps reimbursed in full when Walker went to the Republican Party's 2016 nominating campaign, stood on the podium, disregarded his 2015 anti-Trump call to arms and endorsed Trump's "American Deserves Better" candidacy.

When plenty of other GOP figures wanted no part of Trump's coronation because they already knew enough about Trump to indeed understand that America needed better..

This was a convention organized by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, but before Manafort was indicted for multiple dirty money crimes and Gates's pleaded on Friday to some related felonies.

Still - - Walker's got a fraught relationship with Trump and he'll be ducking from owning it during the campaign.

Second, speaking of fraught Walker relationships, there's his long and profitable connection with the National Rifle Association - - an organization now facing fury and boycotts after the Florida high school massacre, and other blowback with consequences already dogging and confounding Walker:

...Walker did address the question of arming teachers - - by coming down squarely on both sides of the issue with his familiar dodge-and-stumble rhetoric:

Gov. Scott Walker Wednesday said arguments on both sides need to be looked at closely."It doesn't mean we couldn't do it.  I just think we want to make sure that it's not just a spur of the moment, but that we really look at the details and measure the pluses and minuses," Walker said.

As Walker also did on Feb. 16th, but hasn't used more than week to say something on the subject that's "not just a spur of the moment."

 TMJ4 reports these words:

Meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker is reacting to the school shooting and what needs to be done in Wisconsin to prevent school shootings like the one in Parkland. 

“Part of this is reexamining and making sure no matter what the issue is that we’re making sure, whether it’s what we saw the other day or it’s explosive, we want everyone to feel safe, but particularly our schools,” he said. 

Walker has been far less reticent when it comes to accepting NRA money and testimonials:

* In 2011, NRA front man Wayne LaPierre traveled to Wisconsin for Walker's ceremonial signing of legislation legalizing concealed weapons' carrying.

Walker signed the bill Friday afternoon in Rothschild, just outside Wausau. National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre joined Walker for the bill signing. 

Passing a concealed carry law has been a priority for the NRA in Wisconsin over the past few years.The governor called it long overdue, saying he co-sponsored a similar measure when he was in the State Assembly. He proclaimed himself a proud member of the NRA. 

* The NRA provided Walker with more than $815,000 in support during his 2012 recall campaign, according to the Journal Sentinel, and in 2013, Walker gave the group's annual convention in Houston a shoutout via live video for the money:

 “Most of all I want to say ‘Thank you’ to oh, so many people who helped us out in our recall election last June,” he told members at the organization’s annual gathering...

“I’m sorry I’m not able to join you Houston, but last year I had a great time in St. Louis,” he said. “And I thank you for the tremendous recognition you gave us for the good work we’ve done on concealed carry and castle doctrine right here in the state of Wisconsin.”At last year's gathering in St. Louis, Walker famously sought help in his recall election by telling members "I have become a target." 

* In 2015, Walker lauded his record of support for NRA's priorities at that year's annual convention. 

Since taking office four years ago, Walker has signed legislation allowing the concealed carry of firearms and other weapons by permit holders and establishing the so-called "castle doctrine" in which homeowners are presumed to have acted correctly if they shoot an intruder on their property. 

The Republican governor has also committed to sign legislation eliminating the state's 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases.

*  Shortly thereafter, the NRA praised Walker for signing legislation that ended that 48-hour handgun purchase waiting period: 

Your NRA-ILA would like to thank all legislators who voted in support of this legislation, especially SB 35 authors Senator Van Wanggaard (R-21) and Representative Romaine Quinn (R-75). NRA also thanks members who contacted their legislators on behalf of this bill, as passage would not have been possible without your active support.   

Please take the time to contact Governor Walker and thank him for signing SB 35 into law.  

*  By 2016, Walker's direct and indirect NRA funding had topped $3.5 million, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Also in 2016, Walker addressed a conference hosted by the NRA and a Wisconsin sister organization in Weston, WI, where, having exhausted winning approvals for gun law priorities, he gave the attendees a bill signing that boosting another NRA priority - -  ending restrictions on switchblade knives, according to Walker's office: 

While at the annual conference, Governor Walker also signed Assembly Bill 142 into law.  

Assembly Bill 142 – as amended, repeals the prohibition on manufacturing, selling, transporting, purchasing or possessing a switchblade knife. Additionally, the bill would prohibit political subdivisions from enacting ordinances or adopting resolutions that regulate knives more stringently than state law.

Walker has got Trump and NRA problems this year, because Wisconsin deserves better.

Walker donors nailing down more Foxconn contracts: Report.

One Wisconsin Now reports that more Foxconn contracts are being awarded to Walker campaign donors.

According to reports and reviews of campaign finance information, individuals associated with companies receiving contracts announced today have donated over $44,000 to Scott Walker... 

The latest announcement from Foxconn work brings the total of contributions to Scott Walker from individuals associated with businesses snagging contracts to to over $582,000.

I'm sure the total would be even higher if road-building companies working on a quarter-billion dollars of Foxconn-related highway work that has drained road spending from repairs and other projects were added into the mix.

A year's worth of posts with scores of links about Foxconn is in this item.

And good on OWN for adding this context:

Previous research from One Wisconsin Institute revealed how the Walker administration’s Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) doled out over 60 percent of awards to businesses whose owners and employees donated over $2.1 million to Gov. Walker’s campaigns.

The principal project site in the Racine County Village of Mount Pleasant includes wetlands exempted from state reviews and protections, and farmland which includes fine homes with neighboring structures that can be seized after being labeled "blighted" by local, pro-development officials. 

How many subsidies can profitable Kimberly-Clark absorb? Plenty, apparently.

There is something fundamentally distorted on the winners-and-losers scale with Wisconsin under 'win re-election-at-any cost' Walker being open to shoveling new tax breaks for the profitable Kimberly-Clark Corp. because workers have agreed to make concessions.

Same story with the slams at middle-class wages Walker enacted statewide when he launched Act 10, followed it with 'right-to-work' legislation and a separate bill rolling back the 'prevailing wage' rates on publicly-financed projects.

The K-C subsidy potential - - and you know, Republicans show contempt for anything that smacks of socialism - - comes on the heels of the profitable company already getting major Trump tax breaks and using the windfall to close up those Wisconsin facilities, as I'd noted in February: 

Desperate Walker offers another company Foxconn-level subsidies

WI GOP Gov. Scott Walker is behaving like he just saw some fatal polling data.

I'd said a couple of days ago that Walker loves to give away your money to hang on to power, and right on schedule that same wild spender of your tax dollars wants to do it again...at the unprecedented Foxconn level...for yet another company. 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker called Monday for giving paper maker Kimberly-Clark a Foxconn-style deal to avoid the closure of plants in Neenah and Fox Crossing.

Foxconn's deal comes out to $200,000 per job, so to save K-C's 600 threatened jobs Walker wants the WEDC to print another $120 million. 

Trying to save those jobs would be good for the state - - though Walker didn't lift a finger when 1,000 Oscar Mayer in Madison left for Chicago and Iowa, and for that matter, many other communities statewide - - data, details about a dozen high-profile examples, here - - when employers large and small shut down and or went elsewhere.

And don't forget that K-C said it would fund the plant closings with savings under the Trump-Ryan tax cut plan, so, first the federal treasury is drained for the company's benefit, and then Walker wants to step in with state money and give the company more and more millions.

Is there no end to the corporate welfare being larded on to the private sector by these phony fiscal conservatives?
 

Walker, Trump sinking upside-down, principle-free GOP

Trump's $12 billion bailout for farmers hurt by the trade war he started because it would be easy to win is the final nail in the GOP coffin.

So from now on:

*  No more stories about Republicans being the party of fiscal caution, let alone expertise. Also see, Paul Ryan, trillion-dollar deficit, etc.

Updated, here. And file under 'get ready for reductions to Medicare, Medicaid, your life span, etc.' All as cold-blooded as is Walker's promotion and signing of bills that slammed middle-class workers' take home pay, including Act 10, right-to-work and overturning the 'prevailing wage' rate for public project construction. 

Along with his hard-and-fast adherence to $7.25 as a 'livable,' minimum, poverty-enforcing wage.

*  Ditto about Wisconsin Republicans who are throwing $4.5 billion in taxpayer money to a foreign company at the cost of additional depletion of already-strained state transportation dollars. Not to mention also the damage done to wetlands, fresh water and clean air for Foxconn.

And throw in protections for another 100,000 wetland acres statewide which Walker and the legislature wiped out for developers a few months ago.

More about all that that, later.

* And let's make sure the GOP is challenged if it hauls out sanctimonious tripe about being the party of law and order, what with a president who seized and jailed thousands of children and innocent adults at the US southern border.

And who makes secret payments to cover up his infidelities, uses a family foundation as a personal piggy-bank, cozies up to dictators worldwide like Putin and Duarte whose undemocratic, thuggish powers he longs to exercise.

A president stuffed his Cabinet with corporate puppets at HSS, HUD, EPA and Interior who broke or ignored ethics rules and standards of conduct and fiscal oversight they were duty-bound to follow and enforce throughout their agencies.

* And whose US Attorney General provided misleading answers during his confirmation hearing and just smirked his way through a "lock her up" chant with high schoolers he should have lectured about American democracy, the rule of law and the US constitution.

* And whose Wisconsin Attorney General counterpart had no problem quickly minting self-serving commemorative coin handouts with taxpayer funding that touted his dedication to work, yet is dragging his feet testing rape kit evidence and is campaigning as an opioid abuse crusader while the state leads the nation in new opioid emergency room admissions.

And from all Wisconsin Republicans, let's have a moratorium on campaign ads and self-serving photos like this one from Walker's Twitter feed showing him 'fishing' with his pole held upside down

while pretending they have any true respect for Wisconsin's environmental beauty they, like the rest of us, have inherited and should be resisting, not shrugging off as mercury and phosphorous and manure poison our waterways, or selling off land and legacy water rights to well-placed donors or out-of-state companies.

Wisconsin Republicans and the Trump team which is copying our Walker-era environmental contamination and sell off are neither stewards of the public treasury, guardians the law or protectors of our clean air, water and lands. 

They always have the public sphere and interest in their sights, aiming to deploy across all three branches of the government, and every level they influence the 'chamber of commerce mentality' which Walker pledged to establish at what had been a science-and-conservation-directed Department of Natural Resources.

And which, whenever he can, coordinated it with other agencies as disparate as the Department of Administration and the purportedly-somewhat-independent Wisconsin Natural Resources Board to serve his client-donors.

* These Republicans don't even believe anymore in what had been bedrock GOP  guideposts like local control or private property rights.

* And hearing Walker claim to be the education governor is as intentionally-disorienting and nauseating as the phrase 'Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education.' 

Or 'Cathy Stepp, director of the EPA's Great Lakes regional office.'

Or 'the transportation party.'

Or 'the family values party' (also see Trump, children jailing, above.)

These Walker-Trump Republicans are 'conservatives' without a shred of interest in conservation, and are fiscal managers of public money they control with more in common with Bernie Madoff while making off with your money - - instead of minding it for the public good.

Ron Johnson's latest word salad served with Russian dressing

You never know where ol' Senator Sunspots will land on an issue.

One day he's endorsing Trump for "his policies."

Even spoke for Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention when plenty of other potential speakers couldn't fit a speaking slot into schedules crowded with sock drawer arranging and oven-cleaning time. 

Next thing you know, Johnson is calling Trump's latest gambit - - federal aid for farmers hurt by Trump's 'policies' - - a step towards a "Soviet-type economy."

Is this how he's making up for the bad reviews he earned for his recently-released political box office bomb My Russian Vacation?

Not the first time that Johnson has come with an inflated, international metaphor that doesn't hit the mark.

Ron Johnson: League of Conservation Voters ad represents an 'environmental jihad'

Seriously?

Ah, I remember the good old days when Wisconsinte RoJo came out in favor of drilling for oil in the Great Lakes and left all the big-picture international stuff to the experts, like Jared:

One month ago, Johnson was asked by the media, "Would you support drilling like in the Great Lakes, for example, if there was oil found there?" Johnson said, “Yeah. You know, the bottom line is that we are an oil-based economy. There’s nothing we’re going to do to get off of that for many, many years, so I think we have to just be realistic and recognize that fact. And I think we have to get the oil where it is…”[WisPolitics, Interview, 6/14/10]

And, for the record, it's also realistic and a fact that you don't get for the oil where it isn't. 

Walker didn't schedule a Foxconn photo-op. What's up with that?

Why pass the ball when there are no defenders under the basket and there's an easy layout staring you in the face?

Three theories why Walker would pass -  unless I'm not seeing the coverage - - on a Foxconn photo-op today, instead defaulting to a Tweet and deferring to a company announcement about hiring subcontractors - -

Verified account 6h6 hours ago6 hours agoMore“Foxconn names 37 subcontractors for construction of first building”

(Full Foxconn archive, here.) 

Instead of holding a hardhat, in the dirt photo to milk even more free media from his pet corporate project to which he's tied his re-election bid with $4.5 billion in taxpayer money.

*  Theory #1 - - He knows voters are experiencing Foxconn-overload-overexposure-syndrome, as polling suggests.

*  Theory #2 - - He might have to remember his 'no-collusion-with-Butina' lines, so better reduce the likelihood of more embarrassing questions about embarrassing pictures his own campaign PAC had circulated that have led to embarrassing stories in national media.

*  Theory #3 - - He was busy - - and he's reminded us that he only has so much time to deal with certain issues - - editing his cellphone photos to pick the next round of posted pictures of half-consumed cups of custard, burrito plates and beers.
 

Central Sands residents: call legislators, agencies about the water. Now

People in Wisconsin's Central Sands are past due for clean water.

I included in a July 9 summary blog post about water pollution statewide

CAFO runoff in Kewaunee County

key recent findings of groundwater contamination in Juneau County, including the Towns of Armenia and Port Edwards. 

Widespread well water contamination reported in Juneau County.

Testing of more than 100 water wells in a rural area of Juneau County found 42 percent of them had high levels of nitrates and nitrogen, making the water unsafe to drink, a groundwater specialist said Tuesday.

42%! That's not acceptable.

So here's a plan: Residents of Juneau County and across the Central Sands could contact legislators whose districts are impacted - - specifically State Sen. Patrick Testin, (R-Stevens Point), State Rep. Edward Brooks, (R-Reedsburg), and State Rep. Scott Krug, (R-Nekoosa), and ask them to press both the DNR and EPA for follow through to guarantee that drinking water be made safe.

And ask: why, in 2018, can't the state make that happen?

You can find your legislators and their contact information by entering your address here.

You can also reach your legislators by calling the Legislative Hotline, toll-free, 1-800-362-9472.

Read what the EPA has said in a recent online update about water sample testing and results, here, and in text, below, and note the "CONTACT and SHARE links.

So weigh in, speak out, demand action and pass the word:

EPA in Wisconsin

CONTACT US

SHARE

 
 
 

Juneau County Groundwater Screening Investigation

Update – July 2018

EPA has released the results of groundwater testing conducted in Juneau County, Wis. EPA’s tests – and others conducted by the county health department -- found elevated levels of nitrates. Region 5 continues to work with Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to evaluate the results and determine appropriate next steps. Both agencies will attend a county-sponsored public meeting on Tuesday, July 17.

Background

On April 30 through May 3, 2018, EPA sampled groundwater west of Petenwell Lake in northeast Juneau County after receiving complaints and information from citizens in the area regarding private drinking-water well contamination.

EPA collected groundwater samples at 41 temporary boring locations and 5 private drinking water wells. The samples were analyzed for:

• nutrients
• anions
• total metals
• nitrate isotopes

Note that not all samples were analyzed for all parameters.

EPA used temporary or “point-in-time” groundwater sampling techniques with the goal of characterizing the nature and extent of pollutants in groundwater. This information can be used to identify potential sources of groundwater pollutants and potential impacts to drinking water sources.

The borings were located in a grid network designed to characterize groundwater conditions upgradient and downgradient of potential sources of well contamination.  Samples were collected at two depths to better characterize the extent of potential nitrate contamination in the aquifer.

EPA continues to evaluate data collected during the April 30 to May 3, 2018, sampling event.  EPA will coordinate further with Wisconsin DNR to determine the appropriate next steps to protect public health.

Documents

EPA Laboratory and Field Screening Data for Juneau County Groundwater (ZIP)(21 pp, 6 MB, June 28, 2018)

Contact Us to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem.