Former hand-picked Schimel tool shows EPA flag in Milw.

A lawyer promoted off GOP AG Brad Schimel's bench of ideologues to the EPA which Trump is busy ruining made a visit to Milwaukee over the weekend.

On Earth Day, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water David Ross visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he toured the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility and recognized its staff for their contributions to protecting public health and the environment.

Good publicity for the MMSD, UW School of Freshwater Science and their missions' initiatives begun long before Trump was elected. 

The MMSD has been acquiring wetlands for flood control and promoting other water conservation programs for years.

Expect to see more White House-orchestrated attention to swing-state Wisconsin, like Trump's Green Bay visit this weekend, as the 2020 election approaches.

And while Ross is touting water quality, remember that he was lead environmental attorney in the Justice Department after Schimel basically forced out long-time and proven environmental champion Tom Dawson.

When he joined Team Schimel, Ross had a record of suing government over water regulation.

David Ross, director of the Wisconsin Department of Justice's Environmental Protection Unit, challenged EPA's Clean Water Rule as assistant attorney general of Wyoming in 2015. He also represented the American Farm Bureau Federation in its 2012 lawsuit over the EPA's Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan....

The Farm Bureau lost the case and its appeal....In the initial legal challenge, he slammed EPA modeling that helped set the pollution limits... 

US dairy news led by WI failures, big operators' stability

Having followed Walker's disastrous impact on rural Wisconsin and the dairy industry,

I'm adding this to our Scott Walker legacy coverage:

Wisconsin, the state with the most dairy farms in the nation, also had the most going out of business, with 590 farms closing their barn doors in 2018. This is a 6.5% decline.  

However, cow numbers in the Badger State remain at 1,270,000 cows, down 5,000 head from a year ago but only down 1,000 head from five years ago.

And with the institutionalization of the big operators comes the predictable manure runoff and drinking water contamination. 

Trump's in WI this week, so time to defend Harley!

New hat needed: Making America Crazy Again.

Remembering that he's visiting battleground Wisconsin in a few days, Trump is now threatening to 'help' Harley-Davidson 

after bashing the company last year, hurting H-D profitability with import duties on metals he triggered and even urging foreign competitors to set up shop in the US.

Further subtext: in the chaotic strongman insanity that defines and propels the Trump presidency, only he can use US business and their shareholders' values for his own ends.

Busines always says it needs certainty above all else, so Trump weighs it down with the opposite.

This isn't making America great. It's making America crazy. 

Walker ignores Earth Day, touts Nat'l Jelly Bean Day

He was said to looking 'desperately' for relevancy, but five tweets today about the Milwaukee Bucks, "one about another" ham and cheese sandwich (with photo) and none about Earth Day - - and this - - scream irrelevancy to a broad audience.

By the way, the new Governor and Lt. Gov. issued a smart, engaged, informed joint Earth Day proclamation, and even Speaker Vos got into the act, while Walker flipped it off. So only incumbents acknowledge the state of the planet?

Scott Walker‏Verified account 

It’s #NationalJellyBeanDay and I have plenty in the jar on my desk from the @Reagan_Library

EPA Great Lakes regional office adds 3rd ex-Walker/DNR official

Team Walker and its reach pops up again.

It became clear after Democrats ousted Wisconsin's GOP Governor Walker and Attorney General Schimel in November that secretly-crafted 11th-hour bills were to be sent quickly for Walker's OK to maintain Republican/business-sector control despite the outcome of the election.

While those actions are being litigated, I've noticed another effective but less-visible method of maintaining and even expanding Walkerism: the growing cluster of key Walker-era DNR officials ensconced in senior positions at the US EPA's regional office in Chicago which covers Wisconsin and several other Great Lakes state.

Trump's selection of Walker's long-time DNR Secretary and key corporate cudgel Cathy Stepp 



as Administrator of the EPA's six-state Great Lakes-area regional office has been reported, and her selection of her former DNR deputy Kurt Theide as Chief of Staff was also noted by media.

But here's an update: the Chicago EPA office has confirmed that another former DNR official - - Russ Rasmussen - - is now on Stepp's EPA team as "Special Adviser on Water." 

That's especially interesting, as the DNR under Stepp was so disinterested in water policy that formal action had to be filed to force the agency to comply with 75 efficiencies in water management that the EPA prior to Stepp's arrival had ordered:

The public interest law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates filed a Petition for Corrective action, PCA), in 2015 with the EPA to force the DNR into compliance with the Clean Water Act on 75 matters which the Walker administration knew about but failed to repair under Cathy Stepp's tenure as Walker's DNR Secretary for almost seven years.

And during the Walker-Stepp-Thiede-Rassmussen years, the number of polluted streams had doubled while state groundwater was alternately gifted to special interests or allowed to contaminate rural wells, kitchen taps and even baby formula:

From the Minnesota Star Tribune comes this heartbreaking, infuriating story about the all-too-familiar water quality issues in rural Wisconsin's Central Sands:

WATER PRESSURE second in a three-part series

BABY’S DEATH SPARKS WATER SAFETY FIGHT

Wis. residents take on state and powerful ag industry

Which is what might happen if senior officials at the DNR preferred to let the polluting industries police themselves, as I noted in a 2015 post:

...a DNR official acknowledged the manure spreading issue and called for self-regulation to address it:

A Department of Natural Resources official acknowledged Wednesday that the system of spreading manure in certain regions of Wisconsin isn't adequately protecting drinking water supplies and said the state will recommend new application methods in coming months...  

The agency for now isn't suggesting new regulations, which would mandate limits on how much manure could be applied on land where animal waste and other pollutants are polluting groundwater supplies, [Russ] Rasmussen said. 

Instead, he said, his agency, the state agriculture department and other groups are developing voluntary recommendations... especially in northeast Wisconsin, where water and manure are known to flow quickly through fractured bedrock and potentially taint the groundwater.

Rasmussen also warned his water staffers after the 2015-2017 Walker budget proposed major reductions in their division that, on office time, they should keep their objections to themselves. 

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources water division administrator Russell "Russ" Rasmussen sent his staff a "Hello Water Colleagues" memo on February 8th about "the Governor’s budget proposal [that] is now our DNR budget proposal" that ended with a warning:

An additional note - you may have your own personal feelings about provisions in the budget; however, the Governor’s budget proposal is now our DNR budget proposal.  You are entitled to your own opinions and you may want to express them.  That is your right.  It is important, however, to keep your work and any political activities strictly separated. Any media contacts about the budget should be referred to Bill Cosh who is the department’s spokesperson on the budget.  

Work rules prohibit use of any state equipment – phone, copy machines, e-mail or computers – for political activities, of which lobbying is part.  In addition, you cannot engage in lobbying activities on work time or in the work place, and you cannot use your work title and affiliation with DNR when talking to legislators about your personal feelings about a legislative decision.  Here is a link to the DNR Manual Code on political activity... 

Bottom line: bad water IS the Walker legacy: 

Here is one summary post: 

WI Central Sands the next Flint? Kewaunee County already soaks up that honor.

I cannot think of a worse group of people to advise on, manage or implement water or any environmental policy in Wisconsin or the Great Lakes region, but there they are in US EPA District 5 having helped Walker embed his 'chamber of commerce mentality' across the Wisconsin public's land, air and water.

WI GOP's Earth Day words: Will action follow?

After years of environmental negativity and do-nothingism from Wisconsin 'leaders' like Ron Johnson and Scott Walker, Earth Day produces some modest proposals from GOP (!) legislators:

Assembly Republicans on Earth Day back plans for electric vehicle charging stations

Are they serious? Will there be action behind the headline? We'll track it. 

Because while Walker is gone, power GOP legislators remain, including the anti-transit Speaker, Robin Vos, and the powerful anti-science GOP State Senator, Tom Tiffany. 

In a way, Wisconsin is ten years behind the issue, and behind Chicago, too.

Here is more information about the rapid increase in electric vehicles and charging stations. Note that there are several in the City of Milwaukee:

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

ECO is paving the way for electric vehicles in Milwaukee. Four public electric vehicle charging stations have been installed by ECO in strategic locations throughout the city.

Electric vehicles, if widely adopted, have the potential to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and improve neighborhood air quality. With public charging infrastructure, prospective owners of electric vehicles will have added confidence that they can commute and run errands around town without worrying about running out of power away from home. The stations are 100% funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The locations use ChargePoint stations by Coulomb, which will become part of the national ChargePoint Network, that allows drivers to find and reserve charging stations. Business Week magazine recognized Coulomb Technologies as one of the Top 20 Businesses of the Future. Time magazine recognized the ChargePoint Network as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2010. The charging stations are enhanced by a rich software environment providing ease of use and a host of other features ensuring the highest level of service for its users.

Earth Day founder's Senate seat now held by non-entity

You can understand the depth of Wisconsin's forfeiture of environmental leadership by grasping that the US Senate seat formerly held by Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson has been occupied since January, 2011 by climate change denier Ron Johnson, previously the owner of a plastics packaging firm.


Elected with Tea Party support and enticed to run for the Senate by a Fox News commentator's off-hand remark, Johnson has said that trying to fix climate change is "a fool's errand."

And before you say 'takes one to know one,' Johnson has also said climate activists with whom he disagreed are on an "environmental jihad" and are as bad as Stalin and other dictators.

He has also said the earth is not warming and that climate change is caused by sunspots.

Links to those remarks are in this summary item:

GOP Senator Compares Climate Change Activists To Stalin 

He said that science proves “the climate hasn’t warmed in quite a few years.” (Hint: He’s wrong.)

On Earth Day eve, Robin Vos lauds the Foxconn 'ecosystem'

I've noted that Walker and Foxconn officials are partial to the term "ecosystem" when describing what their land, wetland and water trashing is all about.

Today it's Robin Vos' turn:

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, in a separate appearance on Sunday's "Capital City Sunday," said Foxconn is becoming a part of Wisconsin's "ecosystem," and believes Foxconn will still create 13,000 jobs in the state because the company continues to stand by that figure.

"Ecosystem." Seriously?

* Filling so many wetland acres that downstream communities fear flooding and pollution.

Heads up, Illinois:

The Chicago Tribune says this today:

Report: Wisconsin Foxconn development could bring record flooding to Gurnee

* Does this runoff last year from Foxconn's Mt. Pleasant site 

where crops used to hold the soil enrich any ecosystem you'd like to co-exist with?

Here is my updated Foxconn archive, now closing in on two years running.

And for the record, Vos does love microphone.

Walker refuses to defend his disregard of drinking water safety

I'm sorry I can't take your call right now; pass the chips, and Go Bucks!

Props to the Wisconsin State Journal's Steve Verberg for a comprehensive review of the way Walker and the pro-pollution hacks he installed atop the DNR systematically slowed the regulation of harmful contaminants in state waters.

Wisconsin's protections against new drinking water pollutants slowed under Scott Walker

Verberg's review is a devastating, infuriating review of Walker's eight-year disregard of the people's water and public health; the reporting exceeds my own efforts in these matters and I salute him for his analysis and precision:

Of the three governors who served full terms since the state’s groundwater law was enacted, Walker is the only one whose administration never initiated the setting of health-based standards for new pollutants. 

As a result, it is taking years longer for the state to dispel uncertainty about risks posed by a growing mix of contaminants flowing from household taps, reduce consumption of the chemicals and help replace contaminated wells.

And here is the most galling line in Verberg's reporting:

Walker couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.  

And, of course, Walker couldn't be reached for comment, let alone for a single syllable of discussion or defense - - or even a verbalized "no comment" - - though Walker uses Twitter to showcase how busy and engaged he is when he wants to be:

Verified account Apr 18

Every American should be happy that Mueller report showed that @realDonaldTrump did not collude with Russia to influence the 2016 elections. We should also be happy that #Foxconn picked WI for largest economic development project in state history. Sadly, some don’t like either.

Apr 18 
About to go on Radio 620 WTMJ

Verified accountApr 17

Apr 17

Love this American flag at Ronald Reagan National Airport!

Verified accountApr 17

Got home in time to watch 2nd half of @Bucks game.
Apr 16
Little bit of rain before take off this morning.

Apr 11 @MarkObenshain

It’s a packed house here for my Oysters event with Gov. @ScottWalker!!

Verified accountApr 7

Happy to be at the @Brewers game with the entire family!

Verified account Apr 6

Plenty of good snacks for watching the @FinalFour on @CBS

MMSD goal is zero overflows into Lake Michigan

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District natural "Greenseams" approach to reducing overflows into Lake Michinga has been noted here.

Take a look at the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage Commission's "GreenSeams" program, and remember, the MMSD services ten counties and works off watershed planning and climate change awareness. I wrote about it last year - - imagine something like this is in your community, up the hill, at the edge of town, and so on:

I'm sure it hasn't hurt the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's multi-county 1,000,000+ residents during the recent heavy rains that its wetlands-and-shoreline natural flood control program known as Greenseams now totals more than 3,400 water-absorbing acres and 100,000 trees planted.

Now Gary Wilson of Detroit Public Television's GreatLakesNow (GLN), gives the District and Executive Director Kevin Shafer, (KS) a higher profile:

Milwaukee sewage exec has an “audacious” goal to protect Lake Michigan

GLN:  You have an ambitious goal of eliminating overflows by 2035. Can you make that goal?

KS:  I think we can. I put that vision out in 2009. In some of the national speeches I give I talk about zero overflows and originally people laughed. Between 2010 and 2015 people would laugh because “you can’t stop an overflow.” We’re only averaging 2.3 overflows a year now. I think we can get there. 

It’ll be a combination of improvements at the plants. It’ll be green infrastructure. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket. You have to look at all the functions in the process. Protect Lake Michigan, that’s our number one goal.

GLN:   What’s your advice to the average citizen when it comes to supporting green infrastructure and playing a part in reducing overflows?

KS:   For too many years people thought big government is going to solve this problem for us. And they probably include MMSD as a part of big government. We’re part of the solution but we have to have that individual involved as well.

People can do simple things like putting a rain barrel on their downspout. It’s low cost and provides water they can use for plants. Putting in a rain garden so the water doesn’t runoff and cause flooding. They’re simple things that I do in my own home. I’ve got two rain barrels. People can implement simple management principles to water and should ask themselves a question when it’s raining —where does that drop of water go and can I can slow it down?  

Senior Correspondent Gary Wilson conducted the interview and it was recorded, transcribed and edited for clarity.

And by the way, this is why it's completely bone-headed to propose cutting down mature oaks in Milwaukee County's Kletzsch Park, strip scores of acres bare in the nature preserve adjoining Kohler Andrae State Park, allow Foxconn to fill wetlands willy-nilly, and remove protections from 100,000 acres across Wisconsin while storm frequency, intensity and floods are all on the rise. 

Activists want Kletzsch Park history, oaks preserved

The Journal Sentinel explains the pressures forcing Milwaukee County to rethink proposed changes in popular Kletzsch Park which could subject some pre-Civil War-era oak trees to the chainsaw.

In the 19th century, the site drew the attention of Increase Lapham, a naturalist and engineer — considered Wisconsin’s first scientist — who surveyed the oak savanna that once dominated the landscape. 

Martha Bergland, an opponent of the county’s initial design, is co-author with Paul Hayes of “Studying Wisconsin: The Life of Increase Lapham,” a 2014 biography published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. 

Bergland believes that some of the oak trees that would be lost would have been living in 1850 when Lapham recorded his observations of effigy mounds built by Native Americans. “It’s a historically significant area,” Bergland said. “It was known to be a ceremonial important place.”

The Milwaukee River runs through the park in suburban Glendale north of the City of Milwaukee and draws anglers, hikers and birders, among others.

Bergland and naturalist Jim Uhrinak had posted a comprehensive review of the issues on photographer-blogger Eddee Daniel's "A Wealth of Nature" site, here.

The proposed removal of six old oak trees is a needless destruction of a natural element on this site as valuable as the river. This set of oak trees is the savanna fringe of Indian Prairie recorded in this place by Increase Lapham in 1850 (see map below). Do we really have so little imagination and foresight, time or money that we have to destroy these ancient living beings and the bluff they stand on when there are other possibilities for the fish passage?  Would we really rather have a hard-edged party platform with a view across a ditch than these irreplaceable open-grown oaks?

We are asking that what Aldo Leopold called an “ecological conscience” be brought to bear in redirecting the fish passage proposal. Presenting this current plan as if there is a forced choice between the trees and the fish passage is wrong. 

Intelligent and imaginative engineering plans can be made not at the expense of, but in the service of nature. Aldo Leopold asks us to not be “intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits.” The wrong action, Leopold continues, “is not to be condoned because it pays.”[1]We are all citizens, Leopold tells us, of the land-community, as are the trees and the fish

Not only are the trees an essential part of the natural system, but without the trees, the mysterious and romantic character of the dam overlook is destroyed. One of the reasons we are drawn to this spot and to others in the natural world (and to well-designed gardens) is that we find there a sense of mystery and of romance because all is not revealed at once.  

We delight in discovery. 

Even though we may not be aware of it, when we come along the Milwaukee River Parkway and see those old oaks we know we have arrived at a place different from any other place in the city and perhaps the county. 

Those craggy trees ceremonially preside as we slow and stop and get out of the car or walk into their shade at the edge of the bluff. Beyond the trees we glimpse patterns of light and shade, the sheen of sunlight on the pool above the dam and foaming energy of the river. Perhaps without realizing it, we are drawn as much by the trees to this place as by the river. Trees like these are rare in our urban and suburban lives, as rare as rivers. 

Bergland, also known for her novels and short stories, has also posted a new piece at Urban Milwaukee about the need for park preservation:

Some of the 10 bur oaks near the dam have been there more than 200 years. They have witnessed more than we ever could. We are, of course, using a metaphor—what these trees must have seen!—to aid and allow our imagining, to acknowledge the people who have been here before us. 

The struggle over the fate of Kletszch Park echos preservation activity to save what remains of Sanctuary Woods and the County Grounds, and an entire nature preserve adjoining Kohler Andrae State Park, among other grassroots efforts.

People care about trees - - even just one.

And in today's fast-paced and stressed world they may care even more because there's published evidence that walking in nature among trees, aside from the pleasant timeout, is measurably good for your physical and mental health, as The New York Times put it:

How walking in Nature Changes the Brain

In other words, trees aren't just connected to the soil and wetlands to get us the water we need for life, and which are a bulwark against a warming climate and violent weather. They and we are interconnected - - and even our brains are involved - -  so be smart and honor it.

Or as the Wisconsin Supreme Court put it decades ago when it affirmed the legality and wisdom of the Public Trust Doctrine:

"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."

All of which reminds me: did Foxconn save the centuries-old bur oaks which its ever-changing-and-shrinking 'plan' had threatened?

Acorns on a bur oak

Smarmitude alert: Vos in full pomposity mode again

It seems we'll be needing an updated post noting Robin Vos' outbursts - - and let's be kind about it - - outbursts of embarrassing pomposity.
 

Yesterday I noted that Vos said he knew better about Medicaid coverages than the 70% of Wisconsinites who, when polled, said they want those coverages expanded.

Today, he boosted his signature pomposity with a heavy dose of smaritude by saying that Gov. Tony Evers - - a career teacher with a Ph.D degree earned by defending your own tens of thousands of words in a doctoral dissertation - -  is too naive and unschooled to understand the meaning of his own words.

It's really insulting to kind of take the tack that he is, which just in my mind shows how naive — let’s be kind — how naive Gov. Evers is to not understand the full ramifications of the words that he says and the actions that he is trying to take with this administration."

Pomposity - - thy name is Vos.

A 22-month archive of posts about Foxconn is here.

Foxconn could use existing well water: Racine official

So there's a Plan B.

Having just posted about the continuing need for a Lake Michigan water diversion to serve Foxconn

 - - and the state of a legal challenge under the Great Lakes Compact to the DNR's diversion approval - - I found these remarks from the Racine water utility manager extremely interesting, even  provocative:

"The Compact allows the City to build a water main in the diversion area but we can’t flush water outside the diversion line until the administrative law judge gives the green light. If he says no, they will just sit there,” says Keith Haas, general manager of the Racine Water Utility  

The Big ‘What If’

“If the diversion gets denied, Foxconn could have Mt. Pleasant turn on the existing well and apply for an additional well through the DNR. While using well water is not a long-term sustainable solution, it is an option,” said Haas.

Here is a link to a full archive of Foxconn posts dating to June, 2017.

Though the legal and geographic circumstances of this diversion differ from the Waukesha diversion approval, similar issues about need and availability were and continue to be raised there.

Four questions of cost and liability hang over Foxconn project

There are bigger questions raised by the Foxconn project than what devices the company may build on disappearing farmland in Mt. Pleasant and how many human workers will eventually he hired in subsidized production there.
Foxconn has clearly signaled it is downsizing its Wisconsin operation, and despite Republican caterwauling about it that is partisan, not fact-based, Gov. Evers is correctly looking to negotiate parallel changes to the original state subsidy deal.

I'd add these related questions that demand fresh consideration:

* 1. How can local officials continue to stand by their separate massive commitments and expenditures for Foxconn to which they have committed taxpayers  -  commitments and expenditures which have increased substantially to more than $900 million even as Foxconn has announced reductions in the footprint and purposes of the development?

* 2. By the same token, how can the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources not revisit the seven million daily diversion of Lake Michigan water it approved for the project - - a decision based on a scale and method of water-dependent LCD flat-screen production which Foxconn now says it will not implement at the Wisconsin site:

Just to give an approximation for the purposes of visualization: A gallon of water weighs 8.36 pounds and a typical semi-tanker can hold about 6000 gallons of water legal weight for transport. 

So after doing the math for 7 million gallons per day that would mean the equivalent of looking at over 1,100 semi tankers of water. Of course they're not trucking it but it gives you an idea to visualize the magnitude. Every day. 

A legal case brought against that diversion is now before a Wisconsin Administrative Law Judge.

* 3. Similarly, the DNR hurriedly granted Foxconn four permits to emit massive amounts of air pollution tied that type of LCD-flat screen production which the company has said it will not employ at the Mt. Pleasant project. 

 Gov. Evers has said that should happen; when will those DNR air emission permits be reviewed;.

* 4. And could the Foxconn project produce legal and financial liabilities for state and local governments - - therefore state and local taxpayers - - should air pollution, site runoff and flooding from the Foxconn development, especially through state-granted, Foxconn-only wetland-filling freedoms, move downstream into Illinois watersheds and communities, as Illinois officials fear  and even taken initial legal steps to prevent?

A summary post about many of those issues is here.

And a complete archive on this blog of more than 300 Foxconn items since the project took shape is here.