Wisconsin Attorney General Opinion On Great Lakes Issues: Read It Here

The Wisconsin Attorney General has already issued an opinion on Waukesha and New Berlin's efforts to win diversions of Great Lakes water.

"Really?" you ask. "I didn't read about that in my newspaper."

But it's true.

AG Peg Lautenschlager issued a 20-page opinion in December, 2006, and the ruling was important, timely and directly relevant to the controversial issues in southeastern Wisconsin and across the Great Lakes region about how diversions of water beyond the Great Lakes basin boundaries in Wisconsin might happen.

Lautenschlager, taking note of a) Waukesha's back-door efforts to get Jim Doyle to approve a diversion of water without sending the application to the other Great Lakes Governors for their review and approval, and b) comments by bureaucrats at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that New Berlin's diversion permission also might not need to come from the other states, ruled that existing federal law mandated that applications from out-of-basin communities like New Berlin and Waukesha must be approved by the other states.

In other words, if the states establish new diversion application standards and procedures as amendments to the Great Lakes Compact, then those new procedues and rules will apply.

Until that happens, current federal law is the standard and the guide to diversion approvals and rejections, according to Lautenschlager, and that means:

No back-door efforts can be approved by Wisconsin's governor (Doyle declined Waukesha's requests).

No approvals by the Wisconsin's DNR can be made administratively without the other states giving their OK's.

New Berlin has a second, amended application before the DNR. While it probably will be sent to the other states for review, as was its first last year where it got widely criticized as incomplete and inaccurate, the DNR has failed to announce a public comment period for the new application, so the DNR's intentions and handling surrounding the new, New Berlin effort are not entirely clear.

Lawyers familiar with these processes say it doesn't matter that Lautenschlager has been replaced as AG. Her opinion is there for all to read, will guide diversion application procedures in Wisconsin for the immediate future, and can be cited by interested parties as a strong endorsement of current US water diversion law anywhere.

Like many documents and portions of the Great Lakes water policy debate, the AG opinion has not made its way into the traditional media.

Final note. Since I'm not an attorney, you can read how a major Wisconsin law firm interpreted the opinion, here.

Tommy Thompson's Awkward Twenty Seconds On The Daily Show

In case you missed it, Our guy Tommy Thompson got about 20 seconds on The Daily Show With John Stewart Monday night, and like the rest of Tommy's rocky campaign, it wasn't pretty.

Using this link, and wading through a commercial and the first few minutes of the Daily Show segment, you will get to Tommy and 'correspondent' John Oliver a minute before the segment ends.

It's worth the trouble.

Whither The Vernon Marsh?

It's hard to get a read on the City of Waukesha's relationship to the Vernon Marsh Wildlife Area.

That's a 4,600-acre wildlife area in Waukesha County, and the City of Waukesha, anxious to nail down future supplies of clean drinking water, wants to annex 42 acres of land alongside the marsh in the adjoining Town of Waukesha as the site for five new city wells.

The plan is deeply controversial in the city, the town, and with conservationists who fear that the wells will harm the Vernon Marsh because the same clean water the city seeks to pump out of the ground also helps to replenish the marsh.

That's not to suggest that the city would seek to harm the marsh, which Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Fauber, a nearby resident, described this way in a 2001 article:

"...several foot trails lead into the area, which surrounds the Vernon Marsh as well as several wetlands that are home to a variety of fish, including northern, bass and panfish.

"The area, which is open to hunting during most of the year, also is inhabited by deer, fox, coyote, badger and beaver.

"Most of the users are non-hunters, [a DNR official] said.

"Bird watchers flock to the area, which is habitat for elusive species such as black terns, Forster's terns, American bitterns, long- eared owls, wood ducks, black crowned night herons and great blue herons."

In fact, for the last few years, Waukesha officials have been invoking the health and vitality of the Vernon Marsh, arguing that the marsh would suffer greatly - - perhaps even dry up and disappear - - if the City of Waukesha won permission to pipe in Lake Michigan water that it would have to return to the Lake Michigan basin.

That's because the City of Waukesha currently discharges water from its treatment plant into the Fox River, and that discharge keeps the Vernon Marsh wet because the Fox River runs through the marsh.

So on the one hand, Waukesha officials have repeatedly and passionately argued that the Vernon Marsh could not be sustained if water connected to it from the Fox River were removed to meet the return flow requirement of a Lake Michigan diversion.

But now they are trying through eminent domain to tap into the groundwater that also feeds the marsh.

Waukesha-area environmentalists, and property owners in the Town of Waukesha who are served by private wells that use the same shallow acquifer that the City of Waukesha seeks to access are rightly raising questions about the property acquisition and well-drilling plan.

Waukesha city officials, and the management of the Waukesha Water Utility that is driving the annexation and well-drilling plan, will need to convince the public and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources that the sinking of five high capacity wells so close to a major regional wetlands - - the Vernon Marsh - - will not harm it.

Islands Sprout, Ships Get Lighter As Lake Superior Gets More Shallow

Lake Superior's level continues to drop so cargo ship loads have to be lightened.

That means costs to consumers go up as the lake level goes down, according to this report from Minnesota Public Radio.

This isn't some scare story about Global Warming or a hotter, dryer future.

It's about what's happening on the biggest of the Great lakes, today.

Steep Gas Tax, Separate Stupid State Law Keep Wisconsin Gas Prices Even Higher

Wisconsin's 'minimum markup law" that requires gas stations to artificially raise gas prices makes our state's highly-taxed gasoline even more costly at the pump.

Originally adopted to help independent gas stations compete against national chains, the law is getting some national, incredulous publicity.

The story in the Wausau paper is out on the AP wire.

Media Black Out MMSD/Great Lakes Initiative

It has been more than two months since the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District entered the fray over Great Lakes water diversion policy, but the traditional media have not taken note.

Readers of this blog are thus one step ahead, as an April 23rd posting explained that the MMSD had approved a moratorium on new sewer extensions outside of the Lake Michigan basin boundary (the subcontinental divide) until the State of Wisconsin adopts pending amendments to the Great Lakes Compact.

All eight Great Lakes states, and the US Congress, must adopt closely similar, if not identical, Compact amending language for the revised international agreement to go into effect.

(Readers of this blog have also been provided with the only reporting on New Berlin's revised application for a Lake Michigan diversion).

The Compact amendments establish the first-ever formal set of rules and procedures governing diversion applications and approvals - - including demonstration of absolute need, proof of water conservation programs and pledges by the applicant communitites of a return flow of diverted water to the Great Lakes basin to sustain Great Lakes water levels.

The amended Compact, however, does not address exactly where that return flow should be aimed, or how it would be financed. Those are big questions, and explain why the MMSD has decided to weigh in.

With consideration of the Compact amendments stalled in a state legislative study committee, in large measure over objections to some of the proposed amendments by political and business leaders in Waukesha County, the MMSD's action was both a carrot and stick to Waukesha County leaders.

Now some of those leaders are objecting to MMSD's stick, records show.

City of Muskego Mayor John Johnson has written to MMSD, calling the moratorium unfair to his city, as well as to the cities of New Berlin and Franklin, he says.

Johnson says the Commission's action would have "a negative effect on economic growth," and violate the intent of the region's cooperative "Milwaukee 7" initiative.

Tht is because infrastructure investments, master plans or private developers' plans beyond the subcontinental divide in Muskego and the other communities are based on the expectation of MMSD sewer extensions, Johnson argued.

Johnson asks that the MMSD reconsider the moratorium, which passed by a commission vote on February 26th.

MMSD already has obvious and costly capacity problems during storms.

And it is concerned with having to pay for the treatment of greater levels of waste water coming from diverting communities, or to face riverbank or wetlands improvement costs that could come if faster development upstream that followed diversions led to increased downstream flooding.

Gretchen Schuldt Finds the Data That Explain School and City Violence

Milwaukee journalist/blogger and activist Gretchen Schuldt has a day job crunching numbers at Milwaukee Public Schools, so it's no surprise that she could could combine her first-hand perspective about the city's troubled schools with solid interpretation of some shocking and shameful data.

A must-read posting.

Ziegler Cruising For A Legal Bruising

Recently-elected State Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler continues to commit career and reputational suicide.

First she was clueless enough to preside over several cases in her Washington County Courtroom in which she or her husband had a financial or business conflict-of-interest.

Then she minimized the conflicts during her campaign, and has compounded her difficulties by asking her no-doubt embarrassed soon-to-be-colleagues to toss a State Ethics Board inquiry into her troubles.

Now (Tuesday evening) the Court has declined to go along with Ziegler's 'I'm above-the-law' practice and arguments, paving the way for a probable, substantial Ethics Board forfeiture (the proposed hit is $25,000 - - huge by Wisconsin standards) and yet another disciplinary whupping from a separate body concerned with public officials' ethics - - the Wisconsin Judicial Commission.

Hard to imagine a worse introduction to the state's highest court, where case principals will no doubt be wondering - - "and she's sitting in judgement of me?"

Milwaukee Public Market Has Extended Hours

I was headed out of town when this happened, so let me be the last to know and the latest to forward the good news:

The Milwaukee Public Market is now open Mondays, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday had previously been the market's day to close for restocking, but the new management there has figured out how to serve customers on Mondays, and that's great.

(The coffee shop there is open weekdays at 7:00 a.m.)

Additionally, the market is open another hour on Sunday, opening at 8:00 a.m., like Saturday mornings, but now closing at 5:00 p.m.

The Milwaukee Public Market is a vital cog in the downtown revival. It has had growing pains, but the direction there seems all positive.

Madison Rail Battle Disappoints

I used my monthly op-ed space in the Madison Capital Times to urge politicians and opinion-makers there to stop fighting over rail options.

From a Milwaukee perspective, and to the rest of the state, the fight is counter-productive.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that if 510 votes in the 1979 Mayoral contest had gone the other way, that rail argument would have been settled long ago, but let's not get too far off the track.

Put An End To The End Run

It has come to light that an item slipped into the proposed 2007-'09 state budget by a legislative committee will allow Wisconsin utilities to substitute purchased Canadian hydroelectric power for locally-generated wind power.

That change will, if adopted, undo extensive efforts by a diverse citizens panel which produced the wind power requirement to help the environment and also get Wisconsin launched into the business of locally-produced alternative power.

This is not the first time that environmentalists could say that their issues and goals were targeted by an end run power play called by politicos and others who can use their insider positions to tweak the process and maneuver around citizen input offered in good faith and the full glare of policy-making sunshine.

Three years ago, the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission was about a quarter of a million dollars shy of the million bucks it needed to embark on a water supply study first requested by Waukesha County.

The missing quarter of a million dollars had been sought by SEWRPC from Milwaukee County. But the cash-starved Milwaukee County Board was unwilling or unlikely to pony up the money, especially because SEWRPC had earlier recommended a freeway expansion plan within Milwaukee over the objections of the County Board, many county residents and the Milwaukee Common Council.

But the chairman of the water study planning committee also served as the chairman of a second, even-more obscure committee that oversaw some County mapping functions, and this mapping committee had a substantial treasury - - created from mere $4 fees collected routinely and virtually invisibly from county residents and businesses when they sold properties.

With little fanfare, the obscure committee voted to send SEWRPC the money it needed to initiate the project - - a maneuver denounced by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett who rightly saw it as an end run around the wishes of the city.

None the less, the study got underway, and will be completed in late 2007 or 2008.

It is expected to recommend diversions of Lake Michigan water beyond Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to Waukesha County - - diversions of water that are likely to help economic development and jobs also flow westward across the subcontinental divide into Waukesha County.

The irony is not lost on Milwaukee officials and others who know that the study's crucial financing came involuntarily from Milwaukee County property owners with virtually no citizen input or awareness.

And here's another interesting connection to the end run that financed the regional water study.

As the water study moved forward, and was often described as a working model of regional cooperation, and with the Waukesha Water Utility's general manager among the water study's committee members - - lawyers working on contract for the Waukesha Water Utility twice confidentially approached Gov. Jim Doyle in 2006, in writing, to obtain special Lake Michigan diversion permissions.

These requests were not disclosed to the SEWRPC committee as it debated the ins and outs of a comprehensive regional water supply policy, and only came to light through a freelance writer's Open Records request.

Gov. Doyle did not approve the Waukesha requests. So that was an end run that failed, but it showed that Waukesha was willing to call the end run play, just as SEWRPC did to get its water supply study funded and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. successfully did to win favorable treatment on alternative power generation at the Joint Finance Committee in Madison.

Each time the end run play is called - - regardless of the outcome - - the power differential separating special interests and citizens' interests is highlighted, and open government - - by and for the people - - is the loser.

MPEACHW Is Again a Legal License Plate

Good news:

Free speech and license-plate creativity live on in progressive South Dakota, and in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.

Health Care Reform Forums Continue Statewide: A Sample Schedule

Activists promoting health care reform in Wisconsin continue to take the message statewide, at grassroots hearings, getting out valuable information and demonstrating to elected officials that people want change, and they want it now.

From the good folks over at www.onewisconsinnow.org, here is the list of this week's hearings, and similar lists will be posted as the hearings get planned (feel free to pass this around):

May 8, 2007
Milwaukee, Ebenezer Church of God in Christ, 3132 N. Martin Luther King Drive
7-9 pm

May 10, 2007
Sparta, Franciscan Skemp Hospital, 310 W. Main Street
12-2 pm

Wisconsin Rapids, Performing Arts Center of Wisconsin Rapids, 1801 16th St. South
6-8:30 pm

May 11, 2007
Black River Falls, Black River Country Bank conference room
9-11 am

May 12, 2007
Minocqua, Ascension Lutheran Church
10 am-12 pm

Rhinelander, Nicolet College Theatre, Cty Hwy G
1-3 pm

Urge The DNR To Continue To Hold Ladysmith Mining Company To Cleanup Responsibilities

Remember the Flambeau Mine in Ladysmith, Wisconsin?

The Flambeau Mining Company is no longer mining copper and gold there, so it wants a "Certificate of Completion" from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and a release of most of the $11 million bond the DNR is holding to cover any pollution and or restoration problems.

Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA), a Madison-based public interest law firm, is representing the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and will contest, in court, the DNR's potential release of the company from future clean up responsibilities.

MEA is concerned about the DNR determining cleanup work is "complete" at the site because public records show the mine has contaminated a pond, stream, groundwater, and more.

Who will clean that up if not the mining company? And who will be stuck paying for it, MEA asks?

Prior to the contested case hearing, public hearings will be held on these issues at the Rusk County Courthouse in Ladysmith, Wisconsin - - on the following dates:

May 16th (2 PM to 5 PM and again beginning at 6:30 PM).
May 17th (beginning at 8:30 AM).

Please attend the public hearing and testify against the DNR issuing a "Certificate of Competion" and releasing the bond until the site has truly been restored to its original condition, meaning with clean water.

You can get more information from:

Melissa K. Scanlan
Executive Director
Midwest Environmental Advocates, Inc.
551 West Main Street, Suite 200
Madison, Wisconsin 53703
608-251-5047, or Fax 608-268-0205

www.midwestadvocates.org

Toss The Microwave Popcorn

We've all worked with them: officemates that fire up the first microwave popcorn of the day around 10:30 in the morning.

Sometimes it smells good, sometimes it smells rancid, but now it turns out the fake butter that manufacturers put in the bags has a chemical in it that might be doing more to our co-workers health than merely saturating their arteries with fats.

How about wrecking their lungs, for which the only relief is a transplant.

The syndrome is called "Popcorn Workers Lung," because it has shown up in microwave popcorn factory employes. Cases have been documented, and claims of $100 million have already been paid out.

Maybe this is another good reason to decline that phony yellow 'butter' that movie theaters soak into your popcorn tubs?

Should Lakefront Communities Test The Water For Fireworks Toxin?

Seems that fireworks can discharge toxins into bodies of water over which the colorful displays are fired, a recent study has found.

(Note: The link above has been updated and corrected.)

The toxin is perchlorate. One source put the need for more scientific consideration this way:

"The study "helps to emphasize the fact that perchlorate exposure is not always from a well-documented contamination issue," says Andrew Jackson, an environmental engineer and perchlorate expert at Texas Tech University."

Probably wouldn't be a bad idea for communities like Milwaukee that draw drinking water from Lake Michigan, which absorbs major fireworks residue throughout summer, to check it out.

Journal Sentinel Wisely Endorses Great Lakes Compact

Though the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce continues to campaign against the Great Lakes Compact - - misunderstanding and misconstruing the eight-state, two-nation cooperative water management agreement - - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sunday urged that Wisconsin adopt the Compact.

The editorial may help jumpstart discussions in Madison where a state study committee has been bogged down since December, unable to find agreement - - in large measure because business and conservative political interests in Waukesha County have been trying to weaken or derail the effort.

One opponent, State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), has been touting an academic from Colorado who thinks a four-to-five year negotiating process that has produced crucial, proposed amendments to the Compact be scrapped.

The Journal Sentinel wisely says that's a bad idea, and urges Compact adoption now. That's showing opinion-making leadership, something in short supply among some participants in the process.

Such as Waukesha Chamber of Commerce spokesman Brian Nemoir, who submitted an op-ed piece that the paper ran Sunday, too.

Nemoir repeated the Chamber's tired, Waukesha-centric, 'us-first' arguments: that the Compact needs to be shaped to meet Waukesha's narrow interests.

Nemoir tries to fit that position under the rubric of regionalism, and the on-going work of the Milwaukee 7.

But Nemoir again fails to see that the real region on which the Compact is based is the Great Lakes Region.

And that by adopting the Compact (actually the Compact's amendments to codify diversion procedures: the Compact and related Federal laws have been in place with Wisconsin's participation since 1985), Wisconsin gets as much voice in protecting its waters as other states get in requiring reasonableness from our state, too.

It's a little hard to take the Chamber position seriously: For months, it has had on its website commentary opposing the Compact, and continues to erroneously state that Canadian provinces bordering the Great Lakes can veto a water diversion application by Wisconsin or another US State.

That is false.

Canada's role on US states' diversion requests is advisory; the facts have been pointed out repeatedly in both the Journal Sentinel and on this blog, yet the Chamber will not correct its website content.

Contrast Nemoir's approach to the Sunday op-ed written by longtime Waukesha environmental activist Steve Schmuki. His is a big-picture argument for widespread stewardship of water.

The newspaper's editorial was an urgent message to the study committee, and all parties, to get busy and adopt the Compact.

In other words, Compact adoption, first. Big Region Regional Cooperation, first.

In Sunday's round of diverse opinions: advantage Schmuki, and more to the point, the Great Lakes.

Some Good Reporting On The Dalai Lama's Madison Speech

As a former news reporter, I know it's hard covering an important speech delivered under less than ideal listening conditions - - and while wishing you could just sit back and take it in for yourself without scribbling notes and planning interviews, story organization and production.

That's why I was very happy to have heard the Dalai Lama's Friday afternoon speech in Madison as a mere attendee, letting a real pro like The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Tom Heinen give readers an excellent report.

Jerrel Jones Correctly Takes Mike McGee, Sr. Off The Air

Jerrel Jones, owner of WNOV-AM, correctly removed talk show host Mike McGee, Sr. from "Word Warriors," a morning program, after McGee, Sr. went on a disgusting rant about the death of the mother of WTMJ-AM radio talk show host Charlie Sykes.

It's Jones' station. McGee, Sr. hurt it with his remarks, and Jones responded quickly and smartly.

The replacement host is Ald. Mike McGee, Jr. Like some other AM talk show hosts, McGee, Jr. can be caustic - - which is certainly protected speech - - but he also has engaged in negative name-calling aimed needlessly and harmfully at homosexuals.

The airwaves are already too full of intolerance and degrading talk. Let's hope that Mike McGee, Jr. make use of his air time without making a sometimes nasty radio format even worse.

Bush Falls To 28% In The Polls

Biggest question for Democrats: Is he cratering too soon?