First Impressions On The Shakeup At The Wisconsin DNR

What are the implications of Gov. Jim Doyle replacing Scott Hassett as DNR Secretary with Corrections Secretary Matt Frank?

1. Frank is a smart guy, and a professional manager, but will have to hustle to get up to speed on large pending issues, including mercury emission controls and the Great Lakes Compact. Both are technical and political issues of the highest magnitude.

2. Frank's appointment further solidifies Doyle's control of the DNR, formerly an independent agency, but a political cabinet appointment thanks to former Gov. Tommy Thompson's aggressive politicization and control of state government.

In January, Doyle named another loyalist, Randy Romanski, as DNR executive secretary. Romanski has held several positions in the Doyle administration, including that of deputy chief of staff in the Governor's office.

Bottom line: Frank's appointment cements lines of communication, policy-making, and other connections between Doyle and the DNR, so when the DNR acts, it is absolutely clear that the position has been cleared, vetted, approved by the Governor and his staff for implementation.

Scientist Says Lead Poisoning, Crime Linked

It wasn't too long ago that the City of Milwaukee lost its lawsuit against lead paint manufacturers.

The scientific research referenced in this Washington Post story strongly correlating lead contamination to criminal behavior could have made a good exhibit for the city. Or in an appeal?

New Berlin Should Lead On Great Lakes Compact Approval

Now that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has moved New Berlin's application for a Lake Michigan diversion to the discussion phase- - with final approval contingent on many factors that could take months or a year or more to iron out - - New Berlin should be taking the lead in the legislature and throughout Southeastern Wisconsin in advocacy for the Compact's adoption.

New Berlin's Mayor, Jack Chiovatero, seems to understand that, given his remarks to the business publication Daily Reporter.

With a Compact in place, New Berlin's application and further approvals from the DNR will have the Compact's legal and procedural rules governing Wisconsin's review of New Berlin's diversion request.

The other seven states in the Great Lakes region, then, are more likely to consider the DNR and New Berlin approach to a diversion as acceptable - - because the Compact provides a fair and consistent framework that all the Great Lakes states can follow.

Plus: a working Compact protects Wisconsin from water grabs by other states and communities faraway - - something that New Berlin's very own state senator, Mary Lazich, just can't seem to grasp.

She mistakes protections for a true, two-nation, eight-state regional resource - - and also one of the planet's most precious sources of fresh water - - as somehow bad for New Berlin and Waukesha County, though they are surely part of the Great Lakes region, and the planet, too.

Lazich is among those in the legislature slowing up Wisconsin's approval of the Compact, even though her city wants to be the first to receive diverted water since the Compact was approved by the eight Great Lakes governors in 2005 and moved to their legislatures for ratification and state-by-state implementation.

How odd and contradictory is that?

Chiovatero told the Shepherd-Express that Lazich's obstructionism was a problem for New Berlin.

Wrote the Milwaukee weekly paper's Dennis Shook, a long-time reporter in Waukesha County and an expert on politics there:

"Chiovatero, who has meetings this week with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to discuss water access details, said he sees Lazich as the major obstacle to solving the city's water woes.

"These are her people ... she lives here," Chiovatero said of Lazich, who could not be reached for comment.

"She has Lake Michigan water herself and she's enjoying it. So let everybody else [enjoy] it. This is just a political thing going on that has me upset," he said of her opposition to the compact."

Chiovatero seems also to understand that the sequence to win Great Lakes water for a Waukesha Count community should be: Compact first, then final diversion application review, and if everything is OK in those processes, then a negotiation and deal with a water seller and treatment system to handle the logistics and finances of both a water sale and a safe and feasible return flow.

That's what the Compact is all about - - on behalf of the entire Great Lakes ecosystem - - rules, standards, procedures, whether you're in New Berlin or New York.

On the other hand, if it looks like the DNR and Wisconsin are jumping the procedural gun on behalf of a Wisconsin community - - New Berlin or any other city - - another Great Lakes state could sue Wisconsin. Chiovatero gets that, too, and he, unlike Lazich, grasps that'd be a bad thing.

As the Daily Reporter said:

"Chiovatero is also pulling for the compact to be approved soon, as it is his belief that New Berlin would qualify for the diversion either way as a straddling community.

“I think the governor’s office feels for us,” Chiovatero said.

“They know we should get the water, but they don’t want to break the rules and upset other states, and I don’t want them to either. The last thing I want is to get approval and then have to fight lawsuits, because that will only delay us getting the water. The DNR is being sensitive to that.”

Conclusion: Give Chiovatero credit for clarity, and for supporting the Compact.

And let's see more leadership from the very part of the state that seems to want Lake Michigan water, but has done little to approve and implement the reasonable rules and standards that took negotiators five years to write in the proposed Compact.

State Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) On Great Lakes Fact-Finding Tour

Here's something revolutionary: A Wisconsin legislator touring the Great Lakes to learn more about the Great Lakes Compact and exchange information with counterparts.

Good for freshman legislative Rep. Cory Mason, (D-Racine). I can think of half a dozen Waukesha County legislators that could benefit from such an open-minded, refreshing approach to legislating.

He's even bringing along a video camera to produce a presentation for use on his return.

Xoff Speaks Truth To The Waukesha Freeman In Its Own Pages

Former Freeman editor Pete Kennedy played the fear card on the pages of The Freeman, and Bill Christofferson responded with an op-ed that put Kennedy in his place.

You can read Kennedy's screed, and another response to it, here.

Scott Walker's Administration Continues To Fail

Scott Walker's smoke-and-mirrors budgets that he creates and manages as Milwaukee County Executive have become an administrative joke in local government circles, but Thursday's news that the red ink is flowing early and deeply highlight again what a failed tenure he has had in office.

True enough that he inherited a mess from the disgraced and recalled F. Thomas Ament, but that was years ago, and Walker's inadequacies are his to own - - though note in his comments below, it's all someone or something else's fault.

Details below, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newswatch blog:

"THURSDAY, July 19, 2007, 2:39 p.m.

By Steve Schultze

County agencies report potential deficits

More bad budget news for Milwaukee County was served up today, with more departments reporting potential year-end deficits.The bottom line, for now, is a year-end shortfall of $4.2 million, which County Executive Scott Walker wants to erase by another round of belt tightening.

"While I am very concerned about the mid-year projections, I am optimistic that by working together we can make corrections now... without jeopardizing essential county services," Walker wrote in a memo given to supervisors today.

The latest tally includes projected shortfalls of $3 million in the Behavioral Health Division, $950,000 for the Economic Development Division, $1.8 million for transit and $239,000 for the Department of Child Support Enforcement.

Walker said all county departments should immediately halt any non-essential spending, including travel and to hold off hiring whenever possible.

He also asked other elected officials to take action to save money.

He blamed the worsening budget picture on unexpected increases in juvenile corrections placements, needed hiring of additional staff at the county's mental health complex and a decline in revenue from real estate fees."

More Support For Milwaukee Rail, Criticism Of Scott Walker

The blogger Mobile's Take supplies more data about the benefits of rail than I have posted. Check it out.

Assembly Budget Cuts Key Public Land Program To 1990 Levels

The GOP-dominated State Assembly, showing its hostility to the common interest, adopted a 2007-'09 state budget proposal that rolls back a popular, bi-partisan land acquisition budget to 1990 levels, according to Gathering Waters, a Wisconsin conservation organization.

The Assembly budget would cut financing proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund by nearly 60%, vastly limiting acreage left undisturbed, or available statewide for hunting, fishing, and hiking, in the years to come, according to Gathering Waters.

Doyle's proposal was endorsed by the Democratically-controlled State Senate, so a conference committee will attempt to reach a compromise. Details about that process, and how to influence it, are at a Gathering Waters website.

Scott Walker Will Never Support City Rail: Move On Without Him

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board lays the blame at the doorstep of County Executive Scott Walker for preventing downtown Milwaukee from getting a downtown rail system.

That is fair criticism: even flying Walker by private jet to see the transportation and investment benefits of rail systems elsewhere in the US has failed to move Walker into a partnership with Mayor Tom Barrett, leading Barrett to consider moving on rail without the county executive's participation.

The paper says that's a bad idea.

I disagree.

If Walker remains county exec, continuing efforts to persuade, cajole, or reason with him on this issue are a fruitless waste of time.

And the more time that elapses due to Walker's intransigence, the higher the price tag on the rail system that will eventually be built because fuel prices and a growing number of downtown residents will mandate it.

The politics surrounding the issue make clear that Walker can't and won't bend, as the paper hopes he will, to support city rail because:

A) Walker is a Republican and Barrett is a Democrat, and Walker will not do much to help the Democratic mayor of the largest city and the Democratic voter base in the state.

B) Walker owes much of his successful campaigns to AM talk radio, on which "light rail" is a cheap, easy and potent ratings ploy.

Any candidate or official for light rail is immediately attacked, demonized, pilloried by the talkers, who use light rail to stir up their suburban listeners fears of big government and urbanites' easier access to towns, villages and subdivisions.

C) For Walker, supporting a rail system would be defined as a fatal flip-flop, so surviving in office and perhaps running for a higher position, such as Cong. Jim Sensenbrenner's seat, means treating trolley cars as if they were toxic.

It's also worth noting that the politics of transportation in the Milwaukee area mirror the politics of water.

(The same people and interests that support easy access by Waukesha County suburbs to Milwaukee water also support freeway expansion over transit extensions. It's a generalization, but the underpining is the same: Resources are to be pulled out of the city for the benefit of growth in the suburbs, but the reverse is never the case.)

Walker is in such an irrational box on transit of his own making that it leaves him opposed to more modern connections to county-run facilities, such as the zoo, the airport, and the research park.

And also stunting economic development - - jobs, tax base, commerce, residents - - along rail corridors and at stations - - the very thing that governments and businesses interests agree is the life-blood of a growing community.

Walker's inconsistenciese and failures are the penalties paid by narrow-minded ideologues when their reflexive politics collide with commonsense, but that's Scott Walker, and he's standing as an obstacle blocking modern transportation and economic development in Milwaukee.

Update: Another blogger, Mobile's Take, offers good data on rail and development, here.

New Berlin Legislator's Opposition to Great Lakes Agreement Lands On Minnesota Blog

Great Lakes water expert Dave Dempsey discovers Wisconsin State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), and says on his blog that her obstruction to a key element of the Great Lakes Compact could kill the whole agreement.

More good publicity for Wisconsin policy-making!

Lazich has been outspoken against the Compact, and was left off a Governor's new working group that is trying to resolve political differences between Compact supporters and detractors.

Belling's TV Departure Is No Big Loss

The disappearance of Mark Belling's Sunday Morning rightwing jabberfest is no big loss.

His numbers were small, the show was boringly formulaic, the lighting and the set were odd and tired, like much of the opinion aired there.

Belling's TV downfall began when the show moved to Channel 58 from 12, and some of his more entertaining panelists, like Todd Robert Murphy and Walter Farrell, had moved on.

And when Belling had to serve a suspension for using a slur to describe Mexican immigrant residents of Milwaukee, you knew his days were numbered.

He's still got his powerful drive-time afternoon radio program on WISN-AM 1130, and a weekly column in The Waukesha Freeman, but it's a sign that better days are ahead in our market when rightwing squawk TV loses appeal and commercial sustainability.

Bush To Veto Increase In Poor Children's Health Insurance; Proves Michael Moore Correct

Pres. Bush doesn't want too many more poor kids using a government-funded health care plan instead of private insurers, The Washington Post reports.

Is Michael Moore writing Bush administration strategy on health care, turning "Sicko" into Republican talking points?

In threatening to veto an already-compromised funding increase, Bush even has turned a deaf ear to key Republican Senators, including Utah's Orrin Hatch, who know that Bush's stubbornness on foreign and domestic agendas will lead the GOP to ruin in the '08 elections.

Rick Esenberg And Some Of His Readers Discuss Regional Segregation

Though I've been absent for the last few weeks, I try and spend Thursday afternoon's on Eric Von's "Backstory" media roundtable on WMCS-AM 1290 with other guests, including conservative blogger Rick Esenberg.

Rick's got a residue of some liberal tendencies (maybe he'd find "moderate" less of a slur), and is usually a thoughtful, lawyerly-logical guy, which is why I'm putting up this link to a discussion that began on my blog (here) about race in the Milwaukee region, and mutated to his blog.

Some of the comments, though long-winded, and worth reading, too.

Water Compact Critic Lazich Not Invited To Another Committee She Can Criticize

State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), has been blasting the Great Lakes Compact from her position on the state's legislative study committee that is trying to draft a Compact ratification bill.

The Compact would establish rules and standards governing diversions from the Great Lakes - - rules and standards that Lazich and her allies on the pro-development, laissez-faire Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce do not like.

Now she's blasting a new state task force designed to try and break that logjam at the legislative study committee. Her complaint: she wasn't invited to the task force meeting.

Why wasn't Lazich invited?

Probably because the task force's goal is to work through the impasse Lazich is partially responsible for creating.

Some of that history is here.

Barrett Should Leave Walker At The Curb

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is exploring if the city, blocked from spending federal transit funds on a downtown streetcar system by noted rail phobic and naysayer Scott Walker - - a/k/a/ the Milwaukee County Executive - - can invest the funds in the system without Walker's approval.

It's a long-overdue move.

Walker has for years vetoed modernizing transit in the downtown, diminishing development in the city.

This is the same tactic used by former Waukesha County Executive Daniel Finley, whose anti-rail politics served as a model for Walker's.

Barrett is on the right track. Walker is off the track - - by choice - - and that's where he should left.

Ed Garvey Weighs In On Great Lakes Issues

Nice to see activists statewide - - in this case, Ed Garvey - - beginning to take note of efforts to move water out of Lake Michigan while important legislation to preserve and administer Great Lakes water remains blocked by Waukesha County business interests and legislators.

Wisconsin media have tended to define the Great Lakes Compact, and diversion applications from Lake Michigan, as southeastern Wisconsin issues only.

But the Great Lakes are central to the entire state's economy, and questions addressed by the compact, including bottled water export and conservation programs, are state and regional issues.

So thanks to Ed: more coverage is welcome.

Organizations Amplify Their Support For A Strong Great Lakes Compact

Nine Wisconsin environmental, health and conservation organizations said today that the Department of Natural Resources' encouragement to New Berlin to seek a sale of diverted Lake Michigan water from Milwaukee underscored the need for Wisconsin to adopt a strengthened Great Lakes Compact agreement.

The Compact, if ratified in similar versions by the eight Great Lakes states, would establish first-ever rules and standards governing diversions from the Great Lakes, guarantee conservation and establish other public policy goals.

Minnesota has adopted the Compact; New York is close, leaving six states, including Wisconsin, without ratification.

New Berlin applied for a diversion of Lake Michigan water last year and submitted a revised application earlier this year.

The DNR said last week that New Berlin's application was in order, and also was in the spirit of Compact, but the DNR is helping New Berlin jump the gun because the Compact has yet to be approved by the Wisconsin legislature.

And the DNR is also jamming the City of Milwaukee by pushing on to the city the political responsibility for transferring water to New Berlin, while also exaggerating the DNR's role in getting New Berlin and Milwaukee talking about someday agreeing on a water deal.

The nine statewide organizations are bringing some perspective to the table.

In their joint statement, the groups argue that a strong Compact is in the interest of New Berlin, the state and the region because it will help preserve a shared resource.

More than 40 million people utilize the Great Lakes for drinking water, and the Great Lakes anchor the economies of the eight states and two Canadian provinces.

Only 1% of the Great Lakes' volume is renewed by rain and snowfall every year; the Great Lakes make up 20% of the world's fresh surface waters.

Update: Gov. Doyle has convened a bi-partisan, public-private working group to help a deadlocked legislative council study committee draft a bill to approve and implement the Compact in Wisconsin.

The working group met Tuesday. State Sen. Mary Lazich, a persistent critic of the Compact, tells The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she is mad that she was left off the working group.

Lazich has gone so far as to suggest there's merit in setting aside the five years of negotiations that led to the December, 2005 Compact proposal.

She also favors gutting the Compact of a key diversion approval procedure - - the unanimous vote of all eight Great Lakes governors if water is to be shipped to a community like the City of Waukesha that is completely outside the Great Lakes basin boundaries.

So leaving Lazich off the working group is hardly a surprise.

About Those New Berlin - - Milwaukee Water 'Negotiations'

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel applauds the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources grant of negotiation permission to New Berlin and Milwaukee over a possible water sale from Lake Michigan.

Actually, the DNR doesn't need to authorize these negotiations, or what they really are - - discussions - - because the cities are free to discuss this matter anytime they choose, and were exchanging information anyway.

New Berlin already knew that Milwaukee's Water Works pipes and pumps were insufficient to handle moving water across the subcontinental divide, so the DNR was doing a little theater - - pronouncing that something of substance was happening to begin to get water to New Berlin.

What the DNR really did with New Berlin's revised application was to say it met a DNR technical assessment.

If New Berlin and Milwaukee or another city were to reach an agreement to sell water, then the DNR will determine if the agreement, technically and legally, is in line with the revised application.

That could happen this year, or the next year - - and would move more quickly or rationally if Wisconsin legislatively approved and adopted the pending Great Lakes Compact.

This is something that Waukesha County business and legislative leaders have been obstructing.

So it's been a backwards process by the DNR - - approving New Berlin's application, even technically, prior to the Compact's adoption.

The City of Milwaukee's long-standing position was - - Compact approval first, then diversion application review under the terms of the Compact - - a process that would allow time to figure out who's going to pay for all the new water piping and pumping infrastructure, too.

Maybe if the state is fast-tracking New Berlin's application it should pay for the improvements.

All in all, not much of process by the DNR.

Not a great moment for Wisconsin.

Gretchen Schuldt Continues To Expose SEWRPC Spending

Transportation activist Gretchen Schuldt has the goods on SEWRPC, finding through Open Records requests that the regional planning agency has recently spent or agreed to pony up $130,000 on image-building, while failing to find the resources to update its 32-year-old regional housing plan.

The agency is going to need more than image burnishing if it wants to save its credibility, as supervisors in both Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties, complaining about separate issues, are saying publicly that SEWRPC is increasingly out-of-touch with the counties that supply most of SEWRPC's funding.

BP Allowed To Add More Pollution To Lake Michigan

The next time you see those ads for British Petroleum touting the company as "BP - - Beyond Petroleum," a phony rebranding of the oil giant as a green company, remember that BP has been awarded a new permit for its northern Indiana refinery to vastly increase daily dumping of ammonia and sludge into Lake Michigan.

Altogether, BP will be allowed to drop about 3 tons of these contaminants into Lake Michigan everyday, constituting an increase in pollution that is already tolerated.

A more complete story from The Chicago Tribune is here.

The permission for more willful contamination of Lake Michigan allowed by the State of Indiana is a telling example of the mounting stresses placed on the Great Lakes, including invasive fish species carried in by ocean-going freighters, and runoff from municipal, industrial, construction, highway and agricultural sources.

It is in this context that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' encouragement of a diversion of water from Lake Michigan to New Berlin should be considered.

Instead of focusing on protecting the Great Lakes, the DNR is adding additional pressure to an already-stressed ecosystem.

Grant permission to New Berlin for its diversion, and it will be harder to say "no" to Waukesha, or other communities sure to line up in Waukesha County, Northern Illinois, Ohio and in other Great Lakes states, too.

And the more that the DNR enables diverters, or politically off-loads the decision-making nitty-gritty to potential water-supplying communities, like the City of Milwaukee, the more regulatory and conservationist high-ground Wisconsin sacrifices.

It would be hard for Wisconsin to muster up much outrage about bad process and insensitivity elsewhere in the Great Lakes region on water issues, or to criticize Indiana about its retreat on water quality near the BP refinery, when Wisconsin has been working behind the scenes to speed up diversions from Lake Michigan for Wisconsin communities.

Wisconsin and the other Great Lakes states need a coordinated approach to managing and protecting Great Lakes water.

And that consistency begins with adopting the Great Lakes Compact, and its conservation standards and processes.