Legislative Water Committee Disbands: Fake "Sovereignty" Issue Cited

The state's legislative study committee on the Great Lakes Compact disbanded today - - perhaps paving the way for some more authentic debate and real action on Great Lakes preservation.

Lord knows the Great Lakes need it, but State Sen. Neal Kedzie (R-Elkhorn's) statement that "sovereignty" issues killed the discussion shows that this particular committee, heavily-laden with Compact foes and minimizers, never was going to produce serious Great Lakes debate and action.

Wisconsin would have ceded no "sovereignty" to the other Great Lakes states, even when those other seven states would have reviewed some Wisconsin communities' withdrawal applications - - because current US law gives the other states that power today.

And the other states' review also would have given Wisconsin a look and partial control over those outside diversion applications, too.

That's how a regional compact works.

The fake, 'states-righty' sovereignty argument originated in Ohio, by Compact obstructionists, and had been dismissed as irrelevant under Wisconsin law and procedures by state natural resources experts who appeared before the Committee.

Turns out some powerful Committee weren't listening. Pretty shocking.

Kedzie lost control of the committee, or gave it away, to the Waukesha-heavy membership, and those members stalled the committee into inaction, and now into oblivion.

So the Committee ended up with little to show for a year's worth of meetings - - but give credit where it is due - - to the genuinely publicly-minded members like Keith Reopelle of Clean Wisconsin, Ann Beier, the City of Milwaukee's Sustainability Officer, and Jodi Habush Sinykin, an attorney with Midwest Environmental Advocates, a public interest law firm.

They were among a steadfast group on the committee dedicated to serving the common good, not the needs of the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, or the Metropolitan Builders Association and other special interests.

Next up: Gov. Doyle's Compact working group, where some of the Compact obstructionists from Kedzie's Committee, like his colleague State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), have mercifully been excluded from more negative participation.

Wisconsin needs a strong Great Lakes Compact in place to minimize diversions, implement conservation, eliminate bottled water exports and guarantee public participation in the efforts to preserve and restore Great Lakes water.

The faux concern about Wisconsin's sovereignty and developers' agendas in southeastern Wisconsin should not be allowed to drive this important public policy.

You can read Kedzie's letter to the legislative leadership folding his tent, here.

Kedzie also tells the committee members in a house-keeping note that he had distributed to them a Mary Lazich's paen to out-of-state obstructionists - - the text of which had been obtained earlier and published by this blog.

Wisconsin Legislative Study Begins To Weaken Great Lakes Legislation

Talk about the left hand completely missing the signal from the right:

While Wisconsin's two US Senators are leading an effort to find out just why the Great Lakes levels are declining, the state legislative committee putting together a bill to implement the pending Great Lakes Compact is going in the opposite direction:

It made weakening a key water conservation provision its first recommendation, reports the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

In June, I posted an analysis of the committee's work to that point, cataloguing a wasted year of delay, primarily caused by the committee's top-heavy Waukesha County delegation stalling and undermining the Compact's conservation and regional goals.

I said at the time that extending the committee past its then-looming sunset date was a mistake.

Now the committee is rushing to complete its work by tossing consensus decision-making out the window in favor of voting, giving the Waukesha delegation and other anti-compact forces that are out to water down or destroy the agreement altogether an unfair and undeservedly-held upper hand.

Little wonder that Gov. Jim Doyle has appointed a parallel working group to produce Wisconsin's bill, since he is the chairman of the Great Lakes governors organization that drafted the Compact and could hardly go back to his counterparts with a weakened bill.

Signed in 2005 by the eight US Great Lakes governors and two Canadian provincial premiers in Milwaukee, the Compact is designed to preserve Great Lakes waters through conservation, limited diversions away from the lakes and regulated new large withdrawals by communities within the Great Lakes basin boundaries.

The first states to ratify the Compact, Illinois and Minnesota, didn't adopt changes that would weaken the document - - which can only take effect if all the states ratify the same language.

Here's what the Green Bay paper said in its Saturday, September 9th roundup of news from Madison:

"Great Lakes committee makes waves

"A special committee voted on Tuesday to raise thresholds for consumptive uses of Great Lakes water for in-basin users, a move opposed by conservation groups.

"The Great Lakes Water Resources Compact committee was expected to wrap up its work Tuesday and recommend legislation that would allow the state to ratify and implement the Great Lakes compact. But, instead, the group scheduled another meeting for Sept. 14.

"The Coalition to Protect the Great Lakes — comprised of 14 environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters — is calling for tighter restrictions on the baseline compact.

"At least two coalition members who serve on the special committee left Tuesday's meeting in frustration after the vote was taken, said Anne Sayers, program director for the league of conservation voters.

"She said the vote to raise the threshold would result in the ability to withdraw excess water, and that the baselines would be set "so high that they wouldn't actually apply" to any Wisconsin communities.

"The baseline compact says there should be conservation plans," said Sayers. "What we're asking for is something more specific about what exactly those conservations plans attempt to do, and who does them."

"State Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Allouez, who serves on the committee, said he viewed the amendment as a weakening of the compact. "

State Budget Impasse Is Not The Biggest Problem Facing Local Governments

Local governments are complaining about the delay in passing a state budget.

So are loan-dependent state college students and others with a stake in state spending - - but the budget will get passed once the deals are cut.

The real threat to the health and welfare of upcoming local budgets - - and in a sense, this is tied to the outcome of the stalled '07-'09 state budget because that document will set the level of permitted local tax levy increases - - is the gathering decline in real estate values.

Assessments are at the heart of the local tax levy and thus the provision of huge chunks of village, town, city, county, school and other taxing boards and districts' service financing.

If property assessments drop steeply across the board, tax collections will fall unless tax rates are raised as a compensation, or if new fees and other taxes are raised or created - - all unpalatable, and thus pretty unlikely politically.

I mean, how much more money can you really squeeze out of a garbage cart pickup fee, or overtime parking tickets, or dog license costs?

I semi-facetiously asked a Milwaukee city government official a couple of years ago what the plan was if the real estate bubble burst - - it was a modest bubble in Milwaukee, to be sure, but still one that had grown with steady increases across the city, year-after-year.

"I don't want to think about that," came the answer.

But here we are, seeing the real estate market in Milwaukee and statewide gasping for air when it had been roaring along just 18 months ago, with solid annual increases in sales, prices and corresponding assessments more or less expected/guaranteed.

And the R-word - - for recession - - has been in the news, with optimists and nervous Republicans hoping for more Federal Reserve intervention in this, an election year, to stabilize the real estate market and the GOP's fast-fading fortunes at the ballot box.

If the '08 election rolls around, and "it's the economy, stupid" is resurrected while Republicans preside over a budget deficits and recession, their losses at the polls could be historic, catastrophic and both.

But back to what ails local governments and their fiscal planning.

Budget-and-spending problems in an economic downtown will likely be roughest in the older cities - - Milwaukee, West Allis, Racine, Beloit - - where there is relatively lesser growth and new construction - - but easier to bear in the faster-growing suburbs or exurban new towns - - places like Pewaukee, Franklin, and the like.

But don't expect a cakewalk out there in Sprawlville either, because the real estate market slowdown will bring with it a drop in the related retail, commercial and industrial expansion that follows residential growth to recently-paved cornfields.

So if local budget-crafters think the impasse at the State Capitol is a problem in forecasting future revenues and budget parameters, wait until next year.

If there is a recession and a more dramatic dip, or cratering, in home prices in 2008 and beyond, 2007's budget 'problems' will have been little more than a crack in the sidewalk on Easy Street.

Downtown Location Will Make Public Health School More Important

Three cheers for developer and philanthropist Joseph Zilber and his $10 million donation to a help create a School of Public Health in downtown Milwaukee.

We'll leave it to cynics to criticize the site specificity in the terms of the donation. Maybe just this once, they'll stifle themselves.

Zilber, UW-M officials and Mayor Tom Barrett all helped rescue the UW system from decades of waste and embarrassment, as it had originally planned to build the state's only public health college in Madison while the needs of the school were most located in big city Milwaukee.

The downtown location will merge old urbanism with new urbanism.

Everyone wins.

US Inquiry Into Falling Great Lakes Water Levels, Finally

It's about time.

Kudos to Wisconsin Senators Feingold and Kohl for getting this started, and to US and Canadian environmentalists for demanding it.

Now let's keep the pressure up, so that the hearing leads to action, in weeks, perhaps months, but not years, since years have gone by since the first alarms fell on deaf ears, from the Congress to state houses to the Council of Great Lakes Governors.

Milwaukee Reporter Chronicles Iraq War Brain Injury Toll

Marilyn Marchione, the AP's medical reporter and former colleague of mine at the Milwaukee Journal and Journal Sentinel, brings her reporting and writing skills to this sad, maddening and growing legacy of the War in Iraq: brain injuries.

Traumatic injuries, by the thousands - - each a reason to bring US troops home.

Green Bay Hears Conservationist, Great Lakes Message

The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters takes the message for a strong Great Lakes Compact to Green Bay.

Hot Air Or Dirty Air: It Comes From The Same WMC

I'd posted recently about the dirty air sitting over southeastern Wisconsin of late, and how the smokestack huggers over at the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce - - cough-cough - - want air quality standards relaxed.

Now Paul Soglin filters the organization's hot air with a nice bit of investigative blogging.

Get The Lead Out

While we're wondering why lead paint is still permitted in children's toys, here's a comprehensive listing published by the federal government of hazardous toy recalls.

More On Pabst Farms: Kurt Bauer Weighs In And He Might Surprise You

Kurt Bauer, executive director emeritus of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, weighs in on sprawl, Pabst Farms, and the decision to build that big interchange on I-94 to serve the mega-mall coming to the Pabst Farms project.

In a nutshell, his personal view is that Pabst Farms should have remained agricultural property, and that unheeded efforts to contain sprawl like Pabst Farms and smaller, "incremental" developments have been "crying in the wilderness."

Though retired from SEWRPC as its long-time executive director Bauer chairs its water supply advisory committee and is a paid agency consultant.

Friends Of Friends Recommend This Eclectic Site

http://www.dailyyonder.com/

Is Bush Drinking Again?

Too many verbal and physical gaffes and goofs in one speech.
You decide.

The Pabst Farm Interchange Debate Continues

On Tuesday, I posted commentary on the fast-tracked deal to spend $25 million for the Pabst Farms shopping mall Interstate interchange.

I said it would use public funds to induce sprawl and drain business away from nearby small-town Main streets.

I also argued that it was a sweet deal for the mall's developers because they are paying just 7% of the interchange cost while taxpayers will pick up the remaining 93%.

Later in this post, you will see that Kurt Bauer, Executive Director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, holds personal opinions that support much of my land-use argumentation.

In an editorial today, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel disagrees, but also notes that along with better highways, the region needs improved transit, upgraded water treatment facilities and more sensitive planning overall.

Points well taken - - though sprawl and poor planning in Waukesha are more likely to accelerate in direct proportion to the amount of highway concrete that is poured, farmland that is converted, and new water supply that is piped there.

It's worth remembering that the Pabst Farms project - - really a self-contained small city with hundreds of homes, a hospital, a school, parking lots and multiple commercial ventures that will include a million-square foot mega-mall - - spreads acres of pavement right on top of once-agricultural land.

The very same land that still serves as the vital recharge area through which rain and snowfall are absorbed for the aquifer, which is the region's underground water supply.

The Pabst Farms project will spur more construction throughout the historic Kettle Moraine, encroaching on or near environmental corridor lands that the regional planning commission (SEWRPC) has recommended for decades in its Land Use Plan be left alone.

Kurt Bauer, SEWRPC executive director emeritus, has said often that the commission's original Land Use Plan, updated since, contains many good recommendations, including some that have been followed and some that have not.

(Bauer is the chairman of SEWRPC's controversial water supply study advisory committee - - controversial because it is headed, in my opinion, towards recommending sprawl-inducing diversions of Lake Michigan water into Waukesha County, so the spiral continues. Though retired as the agency's long-time executive director, he remains an agency consultant.)

At the advisory committee meeting of November 30, 2005, Bauer said that some local governments' failure to adopt SEWRPC's environmental corridor recommendations "in the Land Use Plan for 20 or 30 years" had been "a tragedy."

He recommended that environmentalists read the plan, and thinking he was aiming that comment at me (I was in the audience), I talked to Bauer after the meeting and he made sure I got a copy of the plan to peruse.

And as an aside, Bauer said to me, "Pabst Farms should never have been built."

That statement stuck with me.

Today I asked Bauer by telephone to amplify it, which he did, emphasizing that it was "a personal view."

Said Bauer: "Pabst Farms was at one time in a prime agricultural area. If the Regional Land Use Plan had been followed, it [Pabst Farms] would not have been given over for development...it should have been kept in agricultural, open use."

And as to agriculture in Waukesha County, which Bauer said was a worldwide cattle provider as late as the 1960's?

"Agriculture is pretty much gone there," he said.

Bauer said the key to containing sprawl is land use decision-making at the front end of the planning and development processes because "land use is the key to all these problems that we don't address" - - but he said that residential developers across the region continue to convert open land, with commercial and industrial land following.

"The containment of sprawl: [SEWRPC] has been preaching against it for forty years, but it's crying in the wilderness."

"Pabst Farms is a big change. You can see it," Bauer said.

"But alot of these changes occur in small increments. What do the Chinese say? 'It's the death by a thousand cuts.'"

My take on sprawl, both in smaller increments and the big, Pabst Farms' scale examples, in Waukesha County and across the region?

If regionalism and regional planning don't have preservation as their centerpiece, then we are squandering God-given gifts of water, forests and glacial hills, leaving behind a lament of failure through greed as our grandchildren's legacy.

Scott Walker's Thoughtlessness Hurts Milwaukee

Another day, another story about Scott Walker's failure as Milwaukee County Executive.

Recent reports had catalogued his sleeping-at-the-switch as fresh pension scandals washed over his administration.

And his recalcitrance on regional transportation issues had led to such a scolding by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board that Walker finally put some ideas - - limited as they were to some unfinanced bus system linkages - - on the table.

But Thursday's took the cake:

Keeping to his one-note pandering preference for cutting public service spending, Walker says he will likely slash funding for mental health treatment, reports the Journal Sentinel.

This paragraph caught my eye:

"The stretched-thin mental health staff would take a 12-person trim, while money to pay for outside service agencies would shrink by more than $1.5 million, creating waiting lists for inpatient and outpatient care, including drug and alcohol treatment."

Doesn't Walker understand, or haven't his staff and agency people told him, that there is a direct link between drug and alcohol abuse and crime - - realities that are universally recognized as Big Trouble in the City and County of Milwaukee?

And that mental illness is related to drug and alcohol abuse as both cause and effect, thus playing a significant role in violent, costly abnormal behaviors - - measured in dollars and cents and suffering - - that make headlines here everyday?

If Walker were a leader, he would not reduce this spending.

He would expand it, and he would not apologize for it.

And Walker would do it proudly, as a problem-solver.

And to help reach these comprehensive community goals, he would jawbone the hospitals and health care insurers and other medical services providers in the county - - many of which are paid handsomely by the county in employee benefit premiums and other payments - - for direct in-kind and cash contributions.

Milwaukee Police Chief Nanette Hegerty hit the nail on the head a while ago when she talked about the spiking level of anger in Milwaukee that is linked to violent crime.

School teachers and administrators will tell you the same thing because they are with our young people all day long, and also know the family histories and neighborhood-and-community shortcomings that surround and influence the youngsters.

Drug and alcohol abuse, and mentally unstable behavior, are directly related to that anger, and to its consequences. They feed each other. They need to be dealt with as a whole.

Separately, drugs and alcohol are not the only reason for mental illness, and vice versa, but each and all are both symptom and cause: A real leader would recognize the realities and the connections, and marshal resources to confront and reduce their impacts.

And not - - definitely not - - stay focused on the little picture and the talk radio templates, or on getting just right The Right's coded lingo for the next day's news release or targeted, self-serving emails, or a budding re-election campaign's ads or those to launch and carry the eventual race to succeed GOP Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner.

Given local crime and unemployment rates - - actually given the side swath of damaging social ills that touch every other aspect of Walker's budget and life in these parts - - there's only one word to describe these proposed cuts in mental health spending and drug and alcohol treatment.

Irrational.

(Disclosure note: It's well known, and I've mentioned it on this blog, that my son Sam works for 3rd District Milwaukee Alderman Mike D'Amato. It has also been reported that Ald. D'Amato might run as a Walker opponent in 2008. For the record, I don't have a scintilla of inside information about whether Ald. D'Amato will run, and either way, it's of no relevance to my opinions about Walker's budget and leadership.)

Further Note: On Friday, D'Amato told the Journal Sentinel he is not running for County Executive.)

Our Own President Embarrassment

And he helps put a Democrat in the White House in 2008 everyday.

Let's hope he doesn't apply his analysis to any more countries needing his special brand of liberation.

More Belling Hilarity

It was a few minutes before 4 PM today, and Mark Belling was airing the Right's conspiracy synapse of the day - - that Bill and Hillary Clinton could have been behind the theft of a book manuscript allegedly stolen from the home of Kathleen Willey, a woman who years ago got famous for a few seconds after accusing Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.

Belling cited a rightwing website as his source, and said the Clintons' masterminding of the book's disappearance was a reasonable possibility.

Sounds a tad paranoid.

After all, Willey could have left it somewhere, made the whole thing up as a promotion, or let a wild dingo eat it. Who knows?

But in the next breath, continuing his attack on Hillary Clinton, Belling said both the Clintons shared a major flaw with Richard Nixon.

Paranoia.

Cue the laugh track.

This is a regular feature on talk radio: the squawkers talk so fast, but stick to ideological talking points and templates, so logic falls by the wayside, along with consistency.

How can you call Clintons paranoid right after airing a paranoid, Internet-based theory - - without sounding paranoid and plainly illogical yourself?

Which is why I then I took my own blog's sage advice and switched to Wisconsin Public Radio, where experts were explaining why cleaning up the Great Lakes helps the Wisconsin and regional economy.

Nothing paranoid about that.

And much more logical.

Great Lakes Experts on Wisconsin Public Radio at 4 P.M. Today

AT ISSSUE WITH BEN MERENS, Wisconsin Public Radio, 4:00 P.M. Thursday, has a timely program on the Great Lakes cleanup, referenced earlier on this blog today.

Details below:

According to a study released by the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute, spending twenty-six billion dollars to restore the Great Lakes would be an productive investment.

Public Radio host Ben Merens and his guests look at exactly what needs to be repaired and how it could possibly positively impact the economy.

GUESTS:

4:00: John Austin is a non-resident senior fellow, at the Brookings Institution, and the director of the Great Lakes Economic Intuitive. Co-author of, “"Healthy Waters, Strong Economy: The Benefits of Restoring the Great Lakes Ecosystem."

4:30: George Meyer, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. George is the former secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin, and can put the issues into a state context.

Awards, Auction Highlight 9/20 Gathering Waters Conservancy Event

Want to honor some of Wisconsin's leading practitioners of land conservancy, and win a great auction item or two?

(Note Corrected Date In Headline: 9/20!)

Details Below:

When: 09/20/07

What: Land Conservation Leadership Awards Celebration

Where and When: 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM at Monona Terrace, Madison

Join Gathering Waters Conservancy for its 5th Annual Land Conservation Leadership Awards Celebration, and help recognize the outstanding accomplishments of individuals, policy makers, and land trusts that work together to conserve the places that make Wisconsin special.

The awards celebration is accompanied by a silent auction: come ready to bid on one of the over fifty items including a vacation package, a work of art or a vintage Radio Flyer tricycle!

Tickets are $25 per person.

Direct further questions, or RSVP by phone (608) 251-9131 x 15, or by email, to Liz Walsh at:

info@gatheringwaters.org.

Brookings Institution Cites Benefit, Needs For Great Lakes Cleanup

The Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution, a leading non-profit establishment think tank, is citing the multi-billion dollar economic development benefit resulting from a major, focused cleanup of the Great Lakes.

The report, analyses and comment are here.

It's must-reading, especially for those who think that oil companies should be allowed to further pollute the Great Lakes in the name of economic development.

How Oil And Water Do Not Mix

With thanks to the Harper's Index, August 2007:

Estimated amount of oil, in barrels, used to make the bottled-water containers sold in the U.S last year: 16,000,000.

Ratio of the amount of water used to make the containers to the amount of bottled-water consumed: 2:1.

(A barrel of oil contains 42 gallons, and produces about 20 gallons of gasoline.)

Here are a few more fun facts about the waste of money and energy in the bottled water craze.

Anyone out there on the right fringes of the Blogosphere - - and you know who you are - - want to continue to defend the bottled water industry?

Immigration Hysteria Sends US Farms To Mexico

You'd have thought it impossible to bring about the outsourcing of US farm business and jobs to Mexico, but that is exactly what is happening, reports The New York Times.

On the one had, we are constantly being warned about foreign-produced food carrying terrorists' contaminants. Not to mention lesser wage, labor and environmental standards south of the border.

Regardless, the Right's hysteria over illegal immigration, which is in large measure a calculated political ploy to gin up the base as the GOP's fortunes fade, is yielding an entirely new set of consequences: moving jobs and business out of the US.

Spare us any more of this political success, and pass the locally-grown produce, please.

Mid Coast Views Blog Is A Solid Site

Michael Rosen, long-time Wisconsin teacher and activist, offers important insights regularly at his blog, Mid Coast Views.

Sorry I haven't called attention to it earlier, but his detailed post about the differences between Costco and Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart helped remind me.

BP's Expansion Comes With Relatively Small Treatment Cost

British Petroleum, backing away from adding more pollutants to Lake Michigan as part of an expansion plan at its Whiting, IN refinery, had said it might have to scrap the move altogether because upgrading its waste treatment capacity might be prohibitively expensive.

Consultants touted by the City of Chicago, however find the added treatment costs are relatively small for such a hugely profitable multi-national oil company, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The possible cost of the upgraded pollution abatement equipment totals around 1% of the expansion's $3.8 billion price tag - - and while $40 million is certainly real money, isn't the quality of Lake Michigan, its fisheries and drinking water supplies worth it?

Another Bad Air Quality Day(s): The WMC Has Said Suck It In Anyway

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has issued an ozone alert - - again - - for much of southeastern Wisconsin Wednesday.

The full text of the alert for includes far more counties that those under a similar DNR dirty air watch on Sunday that was right in the middle of a holiday (think outdoor activities) weekend for residents of and visitors to Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Kenosha, Racine and Sheyboygan Counties.

Bad enough that significant numbers of people were warned about going outside, but remember also that in the name of economic growth, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce wants those pesky air quality standards in southeastern Wisconsin relaxed.

So you folks with asthma, or outdoor workers (a nice Labot Day message, eh?), joggers, swimmers, and all the kids and seniors from Door through Kenosha to Rock Counties - - the WMC says go suck some dirty air.

And these people routinely run down the business climate in Wisconsin?

How about doing something about the actual climate?

Note: Wednesday night update for Thursday:

"The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Advisory for Particle Pollution (Orange) effective Wednesday, September 05, 2007 7:23:07 PM through Thursday, September 06, 2007 9:00:00 AM for Kenosha and Racine counties.

The advisory is being issued because of persistent elevated levels of fine particles in the air. These fine particles come primarily from combustion sources, such as power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and wood fires."

DNR TUESDAY TEXT:

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is issuing an Air Quality Watch for Ozone effective Wednesday, September 05, 2007 12:00:01 AM through Wednesday, September 05, 2007 11:59:59 PM for Door, Jefferson, Kenosha, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Rock, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington and Waukesha counties.

The watch is being issued because of the forecast for elevated levels of ground level ozone. Ground level ozone is formed when pollution from power plants, factories and other industrial sources, vehicle exhaust, and volatile organic compounds chemically reacts with hot temperatures, high humidity and atmospheric stagnation.

The Air Quality Index is forecast to reach the orange level, which is considered unhealthy for people in sensitive groups and others, including people who are not in sensitive groups but who are engaged in strenuous outside activities or exposed for prolonged periods of time.

People in those sensitive groups include those with respiratory diseases, such as asthma, older adults, and active adults and children. When an air quality watch is issued, people in those groups are advised to reschedule or cut back on strenuous outside activities during the watch period.

People with lung diseases such as asthma and bronchitis should pay attention to shortness of breath, or respiratory symptoms like coughing, wheezing and discomfort when taking a breath, and consult with their physician if they have concerns or are experiencing symptoms.

Ground level ozone can irritate the respiratory system, reduce lung function, aggravate asthma and chronic lung diseases, and, over time, cause permanent lung damage.

To receive air quality advisories by e-mail, visit http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/air/newsletters/.

There are several actions the public can take to reduce their contributions to this regional air quality problem.

Reduce driving when possible and don't leave vehicle engines idling.

Postpone activities that use small gasoline and disel engines.

Minimize outdoor wood fires.

Conserve electricity.

For more information:

Federal interagency air quality web site, for information on the Air Quality Index and nationwide air quality forecasts and air quality conditions, http://airnow.gov/

DNR's statewide air quality monitoring web page, http://dnrmaps.wisconsin.gov/wisards

For local DNR air management program contacts, http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/air/staff/regions.htm

Bill Richardson On Water

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson tells Nevadans that he would elevate water to cabinet-level importance.

That makes sense, since he's the Governor of arid New Mexico and is known as a big-picture thinker, though his thinking aloud about Wisconsin making water deals with arid states raises a heck of a lot of questions.

Attention, Waukesha County Taxpayers: On The Road To Sprawlville, Shop T'il You Drop

In this the third installment of a continuing series, The Road To Sprawlville, let us take yet another look at the political and financial activity at Pabst Farms, the 1,500-acre new city being built on former grain-growing acreage in Western Waukesha County on both sides of the Interstate.

Facing the possibility that the mega-mall planned there might open without a way for shoppers to actually drive into its parking lots, the powers that be have announced that funding has been found to construct for mall access a top-of-the-line "diamond" Interstate highway interchange.

This blog had suggested - - an example is here - - that the mall developers, and not taxpayers, pay the estimated $25-million interchange tab, since the state's transportation fund is already short a few billion fbucks or everything currently on the books.

Waukesha County is the heart of the region's tax rebellion, so you'd think that taxpayers and politicos would want -- no, demand for the sake of ideological consistency - - that the private sector pay for its amenities.

And to tamp down taxation and spending.

Well, maybe just a little, it turns out.

The mall operators are kicking in 7% of the tab.

Local and state taxpayers will cough up the rest, according to Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas.

In fact, Waukesha County's share of $1.75 million - - identical to the mall owner's contribution - - was cobbled together from savings on capital projects - suggesting that county taxpayers have been overtaxed routinely if there's that kind of loose change lying around unspent in county coffers.

The state share will be in the range of $21+ million - - a drop in the $6 billion bucket known as the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Freeway project - - though it alters the schedules and will increase pressure to spend more money faster on the connecting segments.

Talk about the tail wagging the dog.

State and local officials are hailing the deal; no doubt it will be offered up as regional cooperation at its finest.

But is it really?

In fact, the deal, put together because no one had budgeted interchange spending while the mall plans moved forward, is little more than welfare for a self-described upscale, privately-owned commercial project.

And one that is already benefiting from subsidies provided for Pabst Farm infrastructure through Tax Increment Financing.

The mall will also pull business away from merchants in the small city downtowns nearby - - Oconomowoc, Jefferson, Ft. Atkinson - - and City of Waukesha officials will no doubt point to growth at Pabst Farms to their west to justify further annexations onto their tax base.

That's one of the distortions caused by the rush to build The Road To Sprawlville: public money gets used to subsidize development that pushes the economy farther from already-built business districts - - with merchants and residents in the losing communities knowing that some of their tax money is paying for their demise.

It's more than a self-inflicted wound, since the blows comes from the top down, and the collateral damage hits on Main Streets without the direct consent of the already insulted injured.

Mall supporters are touting its revenue production for state and local collections, so the message to Waukesha County and local Oconomowoc taxpayers is this:

Shop t'il you drop and help pay off your interchange investment.

There Is A La Crosse/ Mississippi River Serial Killer

The FBI concludes otherwise, but there is a serial killer in and around UW-La Crosse, and is known as John Barleycorn.

As I argued in 2004.

Extend The Vietnam Comparisons: Declare Victory and Come Home

Pres. George W. Bush recently surprised observers by drawing comparisons between the Iraq and Vietnam wars.

Since he's convinced the US is making progress in Iraq, and hints at some troop withdrawals, maybe he should do what the late US Senator George Aiken (R-VT) had suggested as a way to bring home our troops back from the southeast Asian fiasco:

Declare victory, and leave.

Labor And The Environment: No Contradiction

I moved from Madison to Milwaukee in 1983 for the job of Labor Reporter at The Milwaukee Journal.

Those were hard times for organized labor.

It was early in Ronald Reagan's presidency. He set the tone nationally for labor relations by busting the air traffic controller's union (PATCO), declaring its strike illegal and firing the entire membership.

Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin were still feeling the effects of a recession that had cost the region thousands of factory jobs, especially damaging the central city.

There were walkouts at Briggs & Stratton, Kohler, and Miller Brewing Co., to name a few: Production would decline at other manufacturers as capital fled to cheaper labor markets. Schiltz had already closed.

Some of these trends have continued, and even accelerated with post-NAFTA outsourcing, so the issue of jobs and economic growth should always be at the top of the political agenda in Wisconsin.

And policy-makers at the regional and state levels have done their part, too, endorsing 120 new miles of economy-shifting highway lanes to expand the reach of urban sprawl and beginning to greenlight water diversions from Milwaukee to communities on the other side of the subcontinental divide.

Additionally, politicians and business leaders have misused the need for expansion in the job market to run roughshod over the environment we all have a right to enjoy, and an obligation to pass down unharmed to our children, as if there were only one way to create jobs - - and environmental considerations were irrelevant.

The Wisconsin Jobs Creation Act, shoved into law in 2003 in a matter of hours, opened too many loopholes for construction close to rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands. The law turned the already-diminished Wisconsin DNR into an arm of the Department of Commerce.

It was a bad bill - - this explanation by Melissa Scanlan, then executive director of the public interest law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates hit the nail on the head - - that has since been expanded: it should be drastically reformed with the environment being a respected factor in jobs creation, not a rhetorical afterthought.

The possible expansion of Murphy Oil's Superior, WI refinery is already being framed as a jobs-creator - - even though refineries are known to damage the environment and Murphy specifically has had a horrendous pollution record at its Lake Superior facility.

Let's recognize that there is a bigger picture.

And let's look at it, much as people across the Great Lakes recently took a look at the planned expansion of the British Petroleum refinery on Lake Michigan near Chicago, didn't like the plan to dump tons of new pollutants into the lake as the price of development and jobs, and forced the company to redo its plan without adding more toxins and sludge to Lake Michigan.

Melissa Malott, a staff attorney at Clean Wisconsin, has begun to lay out these issues in a recent op-ed in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Lake Superior supports vast, existing, integrated economies, with workforces built around shipping, recreation, fishing, and clean drinking water.

We should remember on Labor Day that working men and women have just as much right to enjoy clean air and water as their white-collar neighbors.

Furthermore, emerging green technologies offer tremendous employment opportunities, ranging from alternative energy production to research and development to the construction and supply of building and housing materials that meet energy-efficiency standards.

There's a lot of green in green business. And nothing to hold us back in going for it.

That's where Wisconsin, a strong agricultural, manufacturing and graduate education state - - with abundant water in the Great Lakes - - has an unprecedented opportunity to prosper without harming landscape that makes the state attractive.

That's where the jobs of the future lie - - created harmoniously with the environment - - and using the Great Lakes without abusing them

More Background On A Board-Appointed DNR Secretary

Decentralizing power and returning some to the grassroots in Department of Natural Resources management - - along with honoring Wisconsin traditions - - is behind the bi-partisan effort to have the state's Natural Resources Board select the agency's secretary.

This blog has been featuring this developing movement, led by conservation groups like the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, and environmental organizations, such as the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters.

It's a fascinating coalition, now more than 50 groups strong statewide, and will either mesh nicely with Gov. Jim Doyle's current restructuring of the DNR's senior management, or collide with it over gubernatorial power and prerogatives.

Stay tuned.

Wisconsin Group Helps Bust Illegal 'Organic' Milk Operation

An organization in Cornucopia, WI helped gather the evidence that federal authorities used to shut down parts of the giant Aurora corporate dairy farm in Colorado and Texas - - the nation's largest such operation - - for falsely manufacturing, labeling and selling milk nationally as "organic."

This is the sort of scam that shakes the consumer's trust that products labeled "organic" are what they claim, thus requiring heightened vigilance by government regulators and advocate watchdogs on the consumers' behalf.

Congratulations to The Cornucopia Institute. Details about the work of this impressive Bayfield County group are here.

Using A Red Herring To Beat A Dead Horse: Water Politics In Ohio And New Berlin's 28th State Senate District

With apologies to all my English teachers and professors, here is the question in a political context:

Can you use a red herring to beat a dead horse?

Maybe some Waukesha County politicians and business leaders can answer it, since that is exactly what they are doing regarding the Great Lakes Compact.

Though property-rights-obsessed Ohio legislators have made it a centerpiece of their objections to the Great Lakes Compact - - and State Sen. Mary Lazich R-New Berlin) has ideologically bought into the thinking - - the Department of Natural Resources has already dismissed in writing one of the objectors' concerns as irrelevant in Wisconsin:

That the Compact could lead to a mistaken over-extension of the historic, constitutional Public Trust Doctrine, which says that water management in Wisconsin must occur in the public interest.

"Irrelevant," was the term used by a senior DNR water expert to describe the Ohio concerns that had been, and continue to be, forwarded to the study committee as meritorious by Lazich.

Throwing up the Public Trust Doctrine, and anachronistic notions of sovereignity that sound like the platform of long-ago-buried Dixiecrats, are the kinds of superficial and exclusionist thinking and politicking that could kill a regional effort among eight states and two Canadian provinces to help the Great Lakes.

The legislative study committee has been stalled for a year by these kinds of objections, tactics that some Waukesha County politicians and their pals in the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Builders Association think are in their interest.

As this blog as pointed out innumerable times, the longer the delay in approving and implementing the Compact, the more likely that tougher federal standards against diversions of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha County will remain in place - - a self-defeating strategy for sure, and, more importantly, an approach that evades stewardship responsibilities shared by Wisconsin for the health of the Great Lakes.

US Army Washs Its Hands Of A Brain-Damaged Iraq Vet

With relatives in South Dakota, I read that state's media, and pass along this particularly infuriating account of one wounded Iraq vet's struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder - - and with commanders who want to use it as an excuse to boot him out of the service.

Tancredo Is Done With All That 'Brother's Keeper' Hooey

Colorado Congressman and GOP Presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo tells Katrina hurricane victims to drop dead.

Good strategy for Republicans as the '08 national elections roll around.

Just kidding.

More Than 50 Organizations Support Independent Natural Resources Secretary

It's a groundswell at the grassroots: More than 50 organizations have signed a letter calling for the legislature to return to the Natural Resources Board the appointment of its Secretary.

Former Gov. and Power-Hungry Chief Executive Tommy Thompson pushed the legislature in 1995 to recreate the Department of Natural Resources Board as a politically-run agency, part of his attack on grassroots environmentalism that also included wiping out the positions of Public Inervenor in the Office of Attorney General.

The push to return to the Natural Resources Board the selection of its Secretary - - the arrangement under which the agency had run for decades in Wisconsin - - is widespread and bi-partisan.

And is uniting urban and suburban environmentalists, rural conservationists and landowners, and the so-called "hook-and-bullet" interests - - the state's powerful angler and hunting communities.

It's a good sign, and long overdue.

Lazich Aligns Herself With Out-Of-State Compact Foes

A letter circulating around the State Capitol from State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) - - the full text is at the bottom of this post - - tells Great Lakes legislators who convened in Traverse City, Michigan last week she wants the Great Lakes Compact sent back to the Governors for rewriting.

(Lazich sent me a copy of the letter by email today, confirming it's authenticity.)

As to rewriting the Compact, in the real world: Fat chance. That would kill it.

It took the Governors, their Canadian provincial counterparts, and numerous other stakeholders five years to write a compromise document. There is no way that process will start over. Minnesota and Illinois have already ratified it and the whole process is moving forward, though certainly slowly.

But it's moving forward and is an absolute necessity because the Great Lakes are being pummeled by drought, falling levels, invasive species and decades of inattention. Not only does the Compact need to be adopted by all the Great Lakes states, the state of Wisconsin should be the leader with strong, active, pro-conservation implementing legislation, as many organizations have recommended.

Here is a statement by leading Wisconsin conservation and environmental groups explaining what needs to be strengthened in the Compact - - the opposite of the Lazich approach.

Lazich, supported by the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, has been sniping at the Compact for months from her perch as a member of the legislature's special study committee set up a year ago to draft meaninful, effective enabling Compact legislation for Wisconsin - - not to obstruct or kill it.

Sending it back to the Governors would, ironically, lead to years more delay and thus leave in place as the only regulation on Great Lakes withdrawals a tough, federal standard that would keep Lake Michigan water from easily or quickly flowing to the City of Waukesha and to Lazich's base in the City of New Berlin.

Another prediction, and additional irony:

Telling out-of-state legislators that she thinks the Compact should go back to the Governors for rewriting and aligning herself with the Compact's staunchest foes in Ohio is likely to further marginalize Lazich's effectiveness in the Compact's Wisconsin drafting.

She has already been left off a bi-partisan working group on the Compact initiated by Gov. Jim Doyle because the goal of both the legislative study committee and the working group is Compact adoption, not Compact deep-sixing.

The letter's text:

Dear Michigan State Senator Birkholz and Great Lakes Legislators:

Currently I serve on a Wisconsin Legislative Council Study Committee that has been meeting since September 7, 2006, to study and recommend whether the Wisconsin Legislature should adopt the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact. Each of the eight Great Lakes states has a different stake in the Compact and the status of legislation to ratify the Compact varies from state to state.

I have followed this issue closely both on and off the committee, and I am very disappointed that I will not be attending the meeting in Traverse City . Prior family plans with people attending from other states keep me in Wisconsin .

The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact implicates conflicting public policy issues. The Great Lakes hold about one fifth of the world’s freshwater. It is undisputed that freshwater is a valuable resource that must be preserved. Some people may argue that water should not be removed from the Great Lakes or from the Great Lakes Basin.

However, it is also undisputable that freshwater is used now to meet current needs and those needs will continue to grow. We Great Lakes states do not want to be at a disadvantage by agreeing to a compact that denies our constituents and our states reasonable use of Great Lakes water.

There are various problems with the Compact including, but not limited to:

ONE STATE VETO

Under existing federal law, the 1986 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), one state’s governor can veto an application for a diversion of Great Lakes water. The parties negotiating the Compact failed to remedy this twenty year old flaw in totality. Instead, it still exists in the Compact in relation to some diversions. Allowing one state to veto an application gives one state power out of proportion with that state’s interests in the Basin’s resources. Giving dictatorial power to one state is not consistent with majority rule. Our country was founded on majority rule and our country exists to this day on the principle of majority rule.

CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY

Proponents of the Compact may say that it should be enacted so that the states in the Great Lakes Basin can determine the future management of Great Lakes water. However, Congress has the final legal authority to interfere with the operation of a compact. The ultimate check on Congress is political and unfortunately the eight states that are party to the Great Lakes Compact have a minority of seats in Congress. Historically Congress has rarely interfered with compacts it has approved; however; with water becoming a scarce resource and the Great Lakes states status as a minority in the U.S. Congress, there is a lot at stake for the Great Lakes states. I am concerned that over time Congress might enact changes to water law that are not in the best interest of the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes states.

GOVERNORS MIGHT CHANGE COMPACT

Once approved by Congress, there is a provision of the Compact allowing the Governors of the Great Lakes states, sitting on the Council, to amend key provisions of the Compact regarding standards and reviews. There is the risk that they may amend the Compact so that it provides less protection for the Great Lakes , or at the other extreme, onerous regulations. This uncertainty always invites the possibility of litigation.

PUBLIC TRUST DOCTRINE

Adopting the Compact raises the specter of extending the Public Trust Doctrine to all waters in all Great Lakes states, including groundwater. Specifically, the trust language in the Compact, “The waters of the basin are precious public natural resources shared and held in trust by the states.” For example, Ohio Senator Timothy Grendell has already noted that the Public Trust Doctrine language of the Compact would also have negative results in Ohio .

The Trust language in the Compact has been identified as language that cannot be modified by the states. The Public Trust Doctrine has various meanings in the states, and the Compact may affect each state differently. What will it mean in the State and Federal courts, how will this get resolved?

FISCAL IMPACT

State and local governments will incur a fiscal cost for implementing the Compact, including the costs associated with litigation. The broad language of the compact is ripe for extensive litigation and state costs.

REGULATORY UNCERTAINTY

If ratified by all eight states and adopted by Congress, the Compact will be federal law. The results of litigation over the Compact may be unanticipated and unintended regulations, and states cannot change the Compact.

The states do not have discretion to change substantive Compact language. Early in the process, the Wisconsin Legislative Council staff provided our Study Committee with a memorandum that among other things identified examples of the broad language of the Compact. That memorandum is attached. The broadness of the Compact’s language invites litigation over its meaning and application.

CONCLUSION

The governors of the eight states and the premiers of the two Canadian provinces signed the Compact in 2005, and only Minnesota with very little at stake, and Illinois with massive special diversion protection in the compact, have ratified the Compact. The Compact should be sent back to the Governors of the Great Lakes States so that they can correct fatal flaws in the Compact.

I hope the meeting in Traverse City is filled with healthy debate. I am very disappointed that I will not be in attendance, and I look forward to knowing the information presented in Traverse City .

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or advice for me, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Mary Lazich
State Senator
Senate District 28

Note: the memo electronically came with an attachment, referenced in the text, and which I have appended here.

Milwaukee Deep Tunnel Debate: Commentaries Abound

A friend called from Madison the other day looking for the five-minute short course on our Deep Tunnel.

Forty-five minutes later, the most useful thing I had done is to point him towards the Journal Sentinel's recent Sunday deep tunnel editorial and paired op-ed by Lynn Broaddus, environmental activist and Executive Director of Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers.

I was out of town for part of that week, but in reconstructing the chronology, it looks like Milwaukee Magazine editor Bruce Murphy started this latest round of commentary.

I guess rightist talkers Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes jumped in, as they have for years.

Charlie regularly smears the MMSD by awarding faux weekly "Deep Tunnel" awards to politicians and groups he says are "full of it," complete with oh-so-cute toilet flushing sound effects).

But the talkers apparently ranted about the MMSD because the newspaper's editorial chastised some radio talkers for spreading misinformation about the agency. (Imagine that!)

I didn't hear any of the radio, but Belling has dealt with MMSD twice in recent Waukesha Freeman columns, and Bill Christofferson, blogging as Xoff at UppityWis.org, pulled alot of the threads together.

Read those links, and one more later in this posting, and you'll be done with the short course.

My take: the Deep Tunnel ain't perfect, but it's a vast improvement from the old days.

And the Deep Tunnel didn't get credit for the huge reduction in annual overflows it achieved.

The MMSD is spending heavily to improve the system. It needs to do more, and it benefits from media criticism, organizations' scrutiny, vigorous oversight and public input.

It also should be praised for its very active conservation activities, ranging from big-picture riverbank and watershed protections to rain garden promotion and rain barrel distributions.

Bloviating by rightwing talkers, however, adds nothing constructive.

Pat Henderson New Deputy Secretary at DNR

Pat Henderson, one of the Doyle administration's key staffers and Great Lakes policy people has moved from DOA to the DNR as part of a continuing shake-up there.

Does Fred Thompson Have Staying Power?

So Fred Thompson is going to announce?

I wonder if he's in too late, even though the election is more than a year away.

His spring and summer-long dithering suggests some ambivilance, some indecision: his leaked announcement plan looks anti-climatic and underwhelming to me.

It'll be interesting to see if he shoots up in the polls or gets the politician's dreaded deat-cat bounce.

Alliance Of Cities Notes Which Cities The Assembly GOP Hates. Any Guesses?

State budgeting as a partisan weapon?

The Wisconsin Alliance of Cities notes that the Assembly budget proposal cuts shared revenue to certain cities, Milwaukee among them.

Could it be that there are too many Democrats in those cities, could it?

One Wisconsin Now And Its Blogger Gets Respect

The Madison Capital Times publishes a major profile on Cory Liebmann, the blogger/"netroots" coordinator at One Wisconsin Now, (OWN), highlighting both the organization's emergence as a statewide political force and Liebmann's investigative work into now-State Supreme Court jurist Annette Ziegler's stock holdings.

So congratulations to OWN and to Cory.

One Wisconsin Now has also hired Scot Ross as its Executive Director.

The activist organization is playing a key role across the state in the health care reform debate, and expects to continue and broaden its issue-based activities.

(Disclosure: I am on OWN's board).

Belling Laugh-A-Thon Subbing for Funny Man Limbaugh

Driving around Wednesday afternoon, and, for a moment, thought Comedy Central had begun a new radio feed.

Some guy was ranting about the similarities in American politics today to the Russian Revolution of 1920 - - whatever that meant (1917 perhaps?1918?) - - and that today's American Democrats were identical to Russian leftists then.

Among the talker's intellectually-deep red-baiting examples: support for national health insurance.

You know - - that sort of program they have in Communist Germany, Italy, France, Australia, and so on.

(In fact, here's a map of which countries have and don't have universal health care coverage. Note that the US provides it in Afghanistan and Iraq! Just what kind of values are we promoting over there? Communist?)

Then, a few minutes later, the squawker opined that as '08 unfolded, an independent Lieberman-McCain ticket was possible.

Mark that down, so to speak.

Anyway: Then I realized that this voice talking goofytalk belonged to our own radio ranger...Mark Belling.

And that he was talking from Rush Limbaugh's big chair in New York City (which Mark has said previously means he camps out in a hotel room rather than going out on the town during his free time and fretting, being in New York City and all...), so when Mark goes national, his ideas and words go national, too.

And that's comedy.

$50 Billion More Headed For the Quagmire

Whether your concern is fighting poverty in Milwaukee, guaranteeing Great Lakes restoration, improving energy research and development, or paying down the national debt - - kiss another $50 billion in federal revenues goodbye.

That's what President Bush wants as an additional appropriation for the Iraq War.

November 2008 can't come fast enough.

As Congestion Nightmare Evaporated, Seattle Looks Past Freeways

A huge traffic mess predicted for Seattle never materialized during the shutdown of a major freeway.

Turns out that traffic diffuses to other streets, much the way that rushing water is absorbed into a wetlands - - an analogy that former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist often made. (Disclosure: I worked for Norquist from 1996-2004.)

Makes you wonder why the cash-strapped state is hell-bent on spending $6 billion on more freeway lanes in the seven-county Milwaukee region, when studies by the regional planners promoting the expansion have shown it will only modestly reduce the congestion predicted.

And which, as Seattle discovered, just doesn't happen.

Oil Spill Drill Off Duluth: Training For Murphy Oil Expansion?

The good folks up on Lake Superior are running oil spill cleanup drills off Duluth - - just a few skips of a stone from the Murphy Oil refinery, where a six-fold expansion could begin soon if the oil company finds an investor who can help finance the plan.

Are these two circumstances related - - practicing the clean-up of an oil spill on Lake Superior, and a planned expansion of the big refinery there on the Big Lake?

Well, it turns out the drill is an annual one.

Let's hope we never need to find out how well the training actually went.

Doyle Makes Great Appointment To The DNR Board

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle today appointed veteran City of Milwaukee forester, environmental supervisor and public works official Preston Cole to the Department of Natural Resources Board for a six-year term.

That's good news for Wisconsin and Milwaukee, because Preston Cole knows his stuff.

US Sen. Larry Craig Flunks Politics 101

When it's crisis management time, politicians are schooled to avoid the dreaded "second-day" story syndrome.

In other words, don't make a bad situation worse.

Don't raise more questions or make fresh disclosures about something that provoked a difficult or embarrassing story - - grist, in other words, for follow-up reporting.

Which is exactly what gay rights' basher US Sen. Larry Craig, (R-ID), has done in the wake of his arrest for misbehaving in a Minnesota men's room.

After you are caught, and plead guilty, you might drop out of sight, or retreat into counseling, ask for some private time to sort things our, with a plan to address your constituents at a later time - - anything to appear thoughtful, hopefully authentically thoughtful, when serious thought and reflection are needed.

What you don't do if you are a national lawmaker is proclaim your innocence after pleading guilty, then kick yourself some more in print for going to court without an attorney - - all of which was reported by The Washington Post after Craig's arrest was first disclosed by Roll Call, a Capitol Hill insiders' newsletter.

You just end up looking stupid.

UPDATE: Here comes Day 3,4,5 stories, ad infinitum. And play the Blame the Media card?

He'll have to resign, and fast. The GOP leadership, seeing '08 shaping up as a post-W massacre, will demand it.




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Wetlands, While Beautiful, Are Also Natural Flood Insurance, Group Says

The Wisconsin Wetlands Association reminds us through a nicely illustrated op-ed in the Wisconsin State Journal that wetlands are more than beautiful, wild areas for people and wildlife to enjoy: wetlands help with flood control, an unfortunately timely topic this month in Wisconsin.
All the more reason to push the legislature to adopt Gov. Jim Doyle's expansion of the state's stewardship land acquisition fund, too,.

Rush Limbaugh And The Ugliness Of Right-Wing Talk Radio

A while back, some of in the blogosphere had a bit of fun turning back Charlie Sykes' published talk radio rules on themselves/himself.

Here's some reporting on Rush Limbaugh's recent racially-tinged rants.

The site run by the conservative-watchdogs at Media Matters For America comes with an online signature opportunity that adds your name to a running total calling for an apology.

Remember: One of the things some us on the left said you won't hear on right-wing talk radio is "I'm sorry," and I don't expect you will hear it from Rush or his sycophants, even when it's needed.

Residents Object to Herbicide - - DNR Gives Approval Anyway

Residents along Pewaukee Lake objected to proposed chemical weed-killing - - and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved it anyway.

The spraying will affect 137 Pewaukee Lake shoreline properties. The chemical is 2,4-D.

And the DNR wonders why it has fewer and fewer supporters, and why environmentalists and conservationists are calling for an overhaul of the agency's leadership.

Franklin Sprawls Farther: Who Will Pay?

Other questions raised by Franklin's interest in pushing its sewer connections towards Racine:

Where does this fit into the M-7's purported priorities with regard to Milwaukee?

Conservation, land-use controls, and Smart Growth planning?

Pressure on the water table and the region's woefully inadequate transit system?

John Michlig, a Franklin blogger, covers these issues in depth.

Stephen Colbert, Genius

Stephen Colbert is raising money for wounded Iraq war vets by auctioning on eBay the cast that just came off his broken wrist.

With nearly a week to go, the bidding is past $13,000.

He's managed to turn a minor injury into hugely funny TV during weeks of programming (side note: my wife and I made a trip to NYC last summer just to be faces in the crowd, and I got to be in a little impromptu skit with Colbert during the warmup: Big Fun!) ) and now to raise money for a worthy cause.

The New York Times has even taken note.

His show and Jon Stewart's at Comedy Central are certainly the real must-see TV, Monday-through-Thursday, 10-11 p.m. central time.

The Great Lakes Need Protection, And We All Need A Stronger DNR

Clean Wisconsin staff attorney Melissa Malott raises important questions about Murphy Oil's intentions at its refinery on Lake Superior.

Will a six-fold expansion of refining planned there lead to more pollution of Lake Superior?

Given the company's pollution track record that Malott cites in her Wisconsin State Journal Sunday op-ed, the concerns are valid, and they need to be raised and addressed before Murphy Oil is allowed to turn Lake Superior into an industrial dump.

Clean Wisconsin is a Madison-based environmental organization.

In an earlier blog posting, I questioned whether the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will stay passive in the face of the Murphy Oil issue.

It's a fair question, because that's what the DNR did while the rest of the Great Lakes forced British Petroleum to step back from its expansion-related pollution at its Northern Indiana refinery on Lake Michigan.

All in all, and especially with the Great Lakes Compact getting watered down in a state legislative study committee dominated by development interests in fast-growing Waukesha County, it's the right time to ask the DNR to step up and begin managing the state's water resources in the public interest.

The Public Trust Doctrine, embedded in the Wisconsin Constitution and State Supreme Court rulings, requires it, and the DNR needs a refresher course in its mission.

Look no farther than its own webpage on the subject.

There was a recent, swift and relatively unexplained change in DNR Secretaries this summer, with the incumbent Scott Hassett leaving in favor of Corrections Department Secretary Matt Frank.

No offense to Frank, but surely he was not appointed for his environmental credentials.

Talk around the Capitol was that the DNR's regional district operations needed more coordination, and that perhaps the Office of the Secretary and the Governor's Office were not on the same page, so the change could have had more to do with internal operations and communications than the details of public policy, sources suggest.

Maybe they are right, and maybe they are wrong, but this much is pretty clear:

This was a lost opportunity by Gov. Jim Doyle to install a high-profile, environmentally-inclined individual to lead the department.

It strengthens the case for legislation recently introduced into the legislature to return the department to independent status and the secretary's appointment to the Natural Resources Board.

The legislation is bipartisan and enjoys the support of groups including the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and Wisconsin League of Conservation voters, and also, in detail (2007 priorities, p.21.)

When hearings are scheduled, supporters of a stronger, grassroots-driven DNR - - the one envisioned by Wisconsin's great conservationists - - need to come out in force.

The politicization of the department is one of the more onerous legacies of Tommy Thompson's politics-at-all-costs regime, right up there with his pandering to big business by eliminating the Public Intervenor positions from the Office of the Attorney General.

The Great Lakes and the state's natural environment need firmer stewardship, without government that enables or tolerates the pollution of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior by oil companies.

The Public Trust Doctrine needs to be treated as a mandate, not an option.

In their separate actions, Clean Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation are pointing the way.

Court Action May Bar BP's Pollution Plans For Lake Michigan

While British Petroleum has backed off its permitted allowance for more pollution from its northern Indiana refinery on Lake Michigan, an environmental group, the Alliance for the Great Lakes, is pursuing the matter in court to make BP's voluntary action permanent.

This assertive and principled opposition to adding more toxins to the Great Lakes is in the true spirit of the region's collective water ownership, enshrined in the Public Trust Doctrine that is a permanent part of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Handed down from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the Public Trust Doctrine is part of the region's good government definition, and of natural resource protection heritage, too.

All of which makes the State of Wisconsin's official silence on the BP issue, broken last week by a shrug of the shoulders over the entire matter by a senior Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources official all the more shocking.

If the DNR is allowed to morph into an arm of the Department of Commerce, we're headed for years more environmental disappointments in the state, with the Public Trust Doctrine becoming little more than an historical footnote.

Smoking Out Scott Walker

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker gets credit for ordering smokers to keep their distance from county-owned building entrances.

It's obnoxious to run the gauntlet of smokers in order to get into a publicly-owned building, and unhealthy, too.

Walker would get more credit if he'd lead locally on a wider smoking ban in businesses that operate with public permits, and would get deeply involved in anti-smoking efforts generally.

Blog Item About Highway 41 Sparks Debate At Conservative Blogger's Site

Those darn internets produce the most interesting results.

Region's Flooding Raise This Question: Which Tributary Could Accommodate Waukesha's Potential Discharge Of Treated Lake Michigan Water?

The City of Waukesha continues to work with the Department of Natural Resources in the city's search for a solution to one major stumbling block to winning a diversion from Lake Michigan: returning water to the lake.

Without this so-called return flow, a diversion would fail politically under the requirements and intent of federal law and the Great Lakes Compact, drafted, pending or adopted.

That's because basic principles of sustainability and water conservation demand that water taken from a source like Lake Michigan be returned, minus a reasonable amount consumed.

Waukesha is looking at the Root River and other tributaries as the potential means to convey diverted water back to Lake Michigan - - but as this summer's rains have shown, some tributaries cannot handle heavy and unpredictable natural precipitation without flooding, so could they also handle several million gallons of water daily sent down river by Waukesha?

Waukesha has indicated that it would keep its Fox River treatment facilities open, perhaps using both the old and new means of disposal to handle treatment flow during major rains.

But that would, at times, be a lot to coordinate and predict, and could leave the Lake Michigan return with deficits.

It's a dilemma, for sure, but one that regulators in the other Great Lakes states will study closely, and one that underscores why conservation, water reuse and recycling may be better courses of action both in Waukesha and for the Great Lakes.

It's not a solution to the needs and burdens of one watershed to transfer them to another.

As Predicted, SEWRPC Recommends Wide Use of Diverted Lake Michigan Water

As predicted on this blog, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC), has begun to float out its solutions to the region's water supply issues as it has chosen to define them, and recommended potential diversions from Lake Michigan to suburbs in counties across the region, according to documents quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Put this together with the cavalier attitude over at the DNR about potential Lake Michigan pollution by an oil company, and you can see that the powers-that-be in Wisconsin - - even the so-called regulators - - are setting the public interest in water aside in favor of industry and land development.

The million-dollar water supply study upon which these recommendations are based has been classic SEWRPC theater, not unlike the study a few years ago that considered highway options, but in the end recommended what everyone knew would be the outcome - - an expanded regional freeway system.

In that case, the state Transportation Department lapped up the recommendations - - after all, it had paid SEWRPC to do the study - - and the state is dutifully following through with spiffier interchanges and 127 miles of new freeway lanes, with more sprawl induced, and soon, further aided by a torrent of fresh water for development from Lake Michigan.

In the water study case, the recommendation for wide use of Lake Michigan water - - one of four possible paths to great water supplies and the one probably most favored by the pro-growth, suburban mindset - - was telegraphed further by the heavy representation on the advisory committee of suburban members.

When it comes to make a final recommendation among alternatives, you can put your money on a recommendation that calls for substantial diversions to address regional water supply issues.

The deck was stacked that way from the beginning.

Adding to that probability: SEWRPC hired as the study's lead consultant the firm of Ruekert & Mielke, the same consulting firm, using the same technical experts, that prepared New Berlin's Lake Michigan diversion application.

With recommendations to divert water to communities far from those most-often mentioned to date (New Berlin and Waukesha), SEWRPC is setting the table tor a recommended structural solution - - the creation of a regional water authority which could consolidate diversion applications and stage-manage development across the region.

Such an agency would become the most powerful political body in the region, directing water and thus controlling economic growth in the most populous region in Wisconsin.

And if the regional water authority's governance matches the SEWRPC model - - seven counties dominated by the suburbs and exurbs at the expense of cities and their low-income residents - - the result will be an even greater disparity in population , employment and wealth between under-represented cities in Milwaukee and Racine Counties and the outlying portions of Walworth, Kenosha, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington Counties.

Furthermore, laying the groundwork for multiple and widespread diversions will not go over well in the Great Lakes region, where a pending agreement among the states - - the Great Lakes Compact - - invisions diversions as the rare exception, not the coupon clipping proposed by SEWRPC.

In the very early stages of the water supply advisory committee's deliberations, the committee decided not to specifically incorporate as a study parameter the legal costs that could be associated with controversial diversion applications.

If the committee and full SEWRPC commission adopts the big-diversions-solution, decades-long litigation, regional and international disputes are sure to follow.

And they call this regional planning?

Stewardship Fund Success Stories Speak For Themselves

Those trying to save the state's popular and bi-partisan public land aquisition program - - The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund - - couldn't have picked a better time to publish details of more than 20 outstanding examples of the program's value.

State Assembly Republicans, taking their marching orders from land 'developers' and other self-interested special interests, have suggested cuts to the program that would render it virtually useless.

The list of 20+ successes produced by Gathering Waters Conservancy, beyond tipping off the public to some public land gems statewide, can help citizens get specific with legislators about why the program needs the full-funding proposed in the 2007-09 state budget by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.

Final budget decisions are made in conference committee meetings, where legislators make deals: members of both parties and both legislative houses have to be told that land acquisition for the public to appreciate in perpetuity is not available for horse-trading.

DNR Official Discounts Lake Michigan Pollution Issue: Is Lake Superior Next?

Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources finally broke its silence on the controversy surrounding British Petroleum's plan to add pollution of Lake Michigan (the oil company backed off on the issue Thursday in the wake of growing protests in the region, and in Congress) by minimizing the potential threat to the lake posed by three new tons daily of ammonia and sludge.

Oh, you know those environmentalists: Always worrying about adding more toxins to Lake Michigan - - by the ton!

By the so-called 'green' oil company, British Petroleum - - the one who likes to market itself as "BP - - Beyond Petroleum."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published these remarks online Thursday night in advance of Friday's hard copy editions by a senior DNR water policy administrator:

"I haven't seen anything yet where anybody has demonstrated or shown on paper - when you look at the entire lake, or even locally - that there is going to be a problem as a result of this discharge," Bruce Baker, deputy water administrator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said two days before BP backed off.

"Baker said he was happy people seem to care enough about the health of the lake to be riled, but he wonders if they were they riled by the right thing."

You can read his remarks in their full context, here.

The DNR has had a long, steady loss of credibility since former Gov. Tommy Thompson turned the agency into a political, cabinet-level operation, rather than the formerly independent agency operated by the Natural Resources Board, but Baker's remarks take the cake.

Not to mention the episode a few weeks ago when the DNR told the Journal Sentinel there pretty much was nothing it could do about a major dairy farm's routine fecal runoff into Lake Michigan in Manitowoc County, which left it to the huge dairy's neighbors to cobble together some remedial responses.

And its the DNR that is dancing close to approving a diversion of water from Lake Michigan to the City of New Berlin, despite a warning last December from then-Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager that it did not have the legal authority to do so.

Maybe the reason that the DNR kept quiet during the regional fight with BP was because it sincerely believed it was all much ado about nothing.

Or maybe it's because it knows that the Murphy Oil Company refinery in Superior plans to expand its refining capacity there from 35,000 barrels a day to 235,000 barrels a day (it produces gasoline and asphalt there) as soon as it can find a wealthy partner to help with the expansion.

Does the DNR plan on taking the same "it's-no-big-deal/there's nothing-we-can-do-about-it" stance about any increases in pollutants there, too?

I'll bet there is a bigger stink over a six-fold increase in the scope of a refinery on Lake Superior than the BP uproar over on the Indiana-Illinois border.

That was a state or two away to the south, on the Illinois-Indiana border:

Lake Superior is in the fabled Up North. It's our Big Lake, pristine, mythical, so perhaps more worthy of outraged concern even in the bureaucratic reaches of the DNR not rattled by the thought of more industrial dumping in Lake Michigan.

Thanks to The River Alliance of Wisconsin for beginning to sound the alarm about Murphy's plans for Lake Superior: the company's filing with the DNR is here.

What's needed is leadership from the DNR on the health of the Great Lakes.

Let's see aggressive, public words and deeds from the DNR on behalf of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.

Without them, Lautenschlager, now an attorney in private practice in Madison, hit the nail on the head the other day with an op-ed piece in the Capital Times that called the state's silence regarding the BP pollution potential a "do-nothing" policy.

State Highway 41 Work To Cost More Than Redoing The Marquette Interchange

The next time you see some upstate legislator or alligator-tear shedding highway contractor griping about Gov. Jim Doyle's 'raid' on state highway dollars, consider this interesting piece and accounting in the Daily Reporter:

Improvements and widening to State Highway 41 - - and some of this is the legacy of former Assembly Speaker and highway lobby pal John Gard (R-Peshtigo)- - are scheduled to cost more than the $810 million budgeted for the Marquette Interchange project.

Says the Daily Reporter:

"There is no shortage of major state road projects on the horizon."

And apparently, no shortage of financing for those road projects, as the priority in Wisconsin transportation policy continues to favor construction over repairs.

And certainly over transit, particularly when it comes to demonized and cash-starved rail projects or expanded investments statewide in bus systems.

Milwaukee County is among a handful of major bus systems nationally without a dedicated source of funding beyond the property tax, or a state-supported regional transit authority.

Road repairs, maintenance, transit are all short-changed in Wisconsin because legislators prefer standing side-by-side with road-builder contractors cutting ribbons at highway dedications, rather than at less-sexy bridge inspection sites or bus barn ground-breakings.

And the same politicians have been bullied by talk radio into avoidance altogether of nearly every rail plan, whether trolleys, light rail or commuter rail.

So don't fall for the Assembly Republicans caterwauling about raids on the transportation fund if there's more money budgeted for Highway 41 rebuilding than what's happening where three Interstate Highways converge at the Marquette Interchange.

BP Backs Down On Permitted Pollution

A BP official says in Chicago today that the company will not add new permitte levels of pollutants to Lake Michigan, perhaps ending, for now, the fight over the pollution created at its Lake Michigan refinery at Whiting, near the Illinois border.

If true, hats off to the citizens and officials who really pressured BP and Indiana - - including Mayors like Chicago's Richard Daley and Milwaukee's Tom Barrett.

And to organizations like WisconsinEnvironment.org.

We'll see how this plays out: if BP were really, really smart, it would reduce the levels of pollutants it has been dumping by installing affordable treatment equipment.

Washington Post Covers BP/Lake Michigan Story

The Washington Post reviews the uproar over BP's pollution plans at its Whiting, IN, refinery, highlighting the Illinois vs. Indiana angle.

With some participation by Wisconsin officials, the breadth of opposition and concern for the health of the Great Lakes could have been more regional.

Our state's silence on this issue is galling.

Forbes Says Rail Helps Residents' Budgets, Cities' Economies

Comparing Dallas, Houston and other cities, Forbes.com finds that rail transit helps reduce homeowners' commuting costs and household budgets, while also adding to cities' economic growth, too.

Economic experts in Texas say they haven't missed the point.

But anti-rail policymakers, talk radio hosts and some business leaders in Milwaukee and Wisconsin can't make the same enlightened claim; interestingly, coincidentally rabid rail phobic Mark Belling had an existential moment Wednesday afternoon railing, shall we say, against commuter rail.

From the Forbes.com piece:

"Traffic in Texas

"Dallas is investing $4.86 billion to expand its commuter rail system, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), which services area suburbs and neighboring Fort Worth.

"The job is expected to be completed in 2013, and local economists say the city should reap $8.1 billion in increased economic activity over the life of the project.

"Houston, on the other hand, mainly has focused on road construction and expansion, which isn't expected to pay off as well.

"To say DART Rail's impact has been substantial for the Dallas region's economy would be an understatement," says Bernard Weinstein, an economist at the University of North Texas Center for Economic Development.

"It's a trend that's impossible to miss; the local business community certainly hasn't."

Another Day, Another Story About Sanctioned Pollution

First it was British Petroleum, winning permission from the State of Indiana - - with the US Environmental Protection (sic) Agency looking the other way - - to begin dumping three additional tons of ammonia and sludge daily into Lake Michigan at the site of BP's Whiting, Indiana oil refinery.

Today, it's the Bush Administration permitting coal mining companies to blow off the tops of entire mountains in Appalachia to remove coal, allowing the rubble to fall in and fill streams and rivers in the valleys below.

Filling in hundreds more miles of waterways, projections show.

How many days left until January 20, 2009?