Oil Corruption In Alaska Forces Reforms

It took a major corruption scandal in Alaska to bring about some reform in the way oil companies compensate Alaskans for the depletion of that resource.

The oil companies' routine whining and lobbying failed to stop the much-needed reforms because the Alaskan public discerned that their public officials and special interests were too closely linked.

And rebelled.

This should be a lesson for Wisconsin politicos as they inch towards greenlighting Murphy Oil's six-fold expansion onto 400-500 acres of wetlands in Superior, near Lake Superior and thereby bring massive new refining and pipeline infrastructure to the Lake Superior watershed.

Sometimes it hurts politically to be too close to Big Oil, which in Wisconsin, with its sole existing, but small refinery 35,000 barrel-per-day, means Murphy.

Raising the capacity to 235,000 barrels a day, in that sensitive location, could be a political tipping point in Wisconsin for residents fed up with the energy lobby, including the road-builders, directing state policy-making.

A related item about blockbuster, budget-breaking highway expansion in the face of Wisconsin initiatives to combat global warming, is here.

Losses To Journal Sentinel Staff Diminish The Public Debate

Michael Horne's listing and analysis of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's class of early retirees is pretty well done.

Whitney Gould is the most prominent lost voice in the paper's cost-cutting round of buyouts.

Few writers nationally, and none locally, had her authoritative presence on design and environment. No doubt the owners of Pabst Farms and their allies at the Wisconsin Department of Transportation are ecstatic. The rest of us will miss her.

Greg Stanford was always a favorite of mine. I liked his writing, his style, his view of the world and of newspapers. We were both from Washington, DC, so we could talk DC sports and history.

He became a genuine Milwaukee asset. He'll be missed.

Also among the big loses: the departure of Barbara Dembski, who was not as well known publicly, but was a power at the paper with many top jobs on her resume.

A true professional, she made Crossroads a much better section. David Haynes is certainly a capable replacement, and he inherits an important part of the paper.

Many of the other departing once-ink-stained wretches were colleagues and friends from the old Journal, like Dennis McCann and Bob Riepenhoff. Dave Doege was a Sentinel guy whom I got to know better after the merger - - another real pro.

I wish them all well, and as I have told some of them already, there is life and freedom after the newsroom.

Enjoy it.

Courts Getting The Green Message

A federal appeals court threw out the current ineffective fuel economy standards for light trucks, essentially sending the program back for better standards that have a relationship to the real world.

This is another good step in pushing manufacturers to build more efficient vehicles, and could have been done years ago, saving the planet from some of the greenhouse emissions now contributing to global warming, and conserving gasoline that now costs premiums reflected by excess demand.

Great Lakes Freighters Are Running Aground In Shallower Harbors

Bad news from Muskegon, MI: a third Great Lakes freighter has run aground in recent months, as water levels fall - - but while Great Lakes politicos keep failing to keep public attention focused on these precioyus bodies of fresh water and get the Great Lakes Compact adopted.

Think a warming climate and drought are only issues for the US West, or Atlanta, or faraway desert places?

Think again.

Scott Walker's Budget Phoniness Contines

The Milwaukee County Board is restoring many of Scott Walker's deleted budget items. So it goes in the fake Milwaukee County budget 'drama's of the Walker years - - Walker sends up to the Supervisors another fake budget, filled with trims that no responsible public official can stomach.

So the spending is restored. Vetoes are made. Vetoes are overridden. Taxes edge up.

Walker will say that it's not his fault and that he was the fiscal hero and his campaign brochures and ads will tout his submission of no-tax-increase budgets.

But that wasn't the outcome, and Walker knew what the outcome would be.

And sigh...what could he do? Those darn supervisors...

What baloney.

UPDATE: It seems that the Journal Sentinel agrees with me.

Hurricanes Caused Biggest Tree Kill in US On Record

Satellite imagery shows that Hurricanes Rita and Katrina killed or damaged an estimated 320 million trees - - an unprecedented environmental disaster.

If global warming increases hurricane strength, as predicted, the cascading effects of climate change will continue to expand.

All the more reason to do everything personally and politically feasible to slow this process down.

Consumers Union Takes On Unsafe Toys

Link to Consumers Union action, here.

Closed Meetings In Waukesha Not Withstanding - - Water Diversion Planning Seeps To The Surface

Waukesha blogger and activist Jim Bouman ferrets out information about Waukesha's plans to obtain Lake Michigan water - - despite more closed meetings held by the Waukesha Water Utility.

This is real public service blogging: We owe Jim our thanks.

State Capitol sources tell me that discussions continue between state regulators and Waukesha officials about possible ways that Waukesha might propose in an eventual diversion application to return diverted water back to Lake Michigan, though there is no resolution to the technical, let alone political and fiscal questions - - yet.

Without a plan to achieve this so-called "return flow," one or more of the other Great Lakes states will surely block the application.

Federal law requires than any diversion of water to a community outside of the Great Lakes basin like Waukesha has to have the unanimous approval of all the eight Great Lakes governors.

Creating a net loss for Lake Michigan fails basic political and environmental tests - - but if Waukesha can show a way to get the water back, then the city has a better, but not guaranteed chance for the other states' crucial approval.

Michigan has taken a pretty hard line historically, for the most part, against water leaving the Great Lakes basin, and though Waukesha has argued as recently as 2006 that unseen, underground connections connect it to the Great Lakes basin, Waukesha knows it has to guarantee return flow - - or risk its diversion application being sunk.

Some recent statements from Waukesha indicate movement towards return flow commitments, but what that means precisely isn't clear.

The problems for Waukesha:

• Its current wastewater discharge is to the Fox River, away from Lake Michigan but through the large Vernon Marsh wildlife preserve: cutting off that discharge in favor of a tributary to Lake Michigan risks harming the marsh.
  
• Some of the potential tributaries to Lake Michigan, like the Menomonee River, or Root River, may not be able to handle the new wastewater discharge without flooding, or eroding the river bank.


• Likewise, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District may not be able to handle another major city's waste stream without substantial infrastructure investments - - raising the regional cooperation deal-busting "Who Will Pay" question.
  
• Waukesha's apparent solution, sources say - - some discharge to the Fox River, some through a Lake Michigan tributary - - may not satisfy the other states that will argue that acceptable return flow to Lake Michigan can't be a partial, seasonal or unpredictable transfer of water.

Whether the state and Waukesha can figure out a credible return flow solution that meets technical, environmental and political standards is still a matter of discussion between city and state officials, I am told.

The MMSD financing issue has barely been acknowledged, sources say.

Additionally: The regional planning commission (SEWRPC) may recommend creating a regional water authority to push greater quantities of Lake Michigan water into several additional communities through a loophole in the pending, new Great Lakes water agreement (The Great Lakes Compact).

I believe this is where SEWRPC's nearly-two-year-water supply study is headed - - and I predict strong resistance to any Wisconsin community's diversion application if it appears to the other Great Lakes states that Wisconsin is looking for an end-run around this new, multi-state and international water conservation Compact that has been years in the making.

Anyway: We'll see if the Waukesha consultants that blogger Jim Bowman has begun to identify can figure out a saleable framework for its diversion planning.

And see if Waukesha gets caught up in any backlash created by SEWRPC's potential embrace of a new water authority designed to facilitate water transfers across the SEWRPC multi-county jurisdiction with relatively minimal reviews.

Not to mention what will become of New Berlin's efforts to win a diversion in the face of an Attorney General's opinion - - continually unreported by the media since December, 2006 - - stating that Wisconsin cannot approve a diversion to New Berlin or Waukesha without the approvals of the other Great Lakes governors laid out both in Federal law and the pending Compact.

County Pension Probe Stalls: Lena Taylor Could Benefit

News that the County's much-touted, long-overdue pension scandal probe is on life support could help the fledgling campaign by State Sen. Lena Taylor (R-Milwaukee) for Scott Walker's County Executive position.

She'd have a issue: Failed leadership on the most crucial issue facing Milwaukee County.

If Scott Walker and County government can't be trusted to launch and finance an independent investigation into systematic pension system abuses, then it's time to clean house - - really clean house - - and let a new County Exec partner with the US Attorney and let the chips fall where they may.

Iraq Moratorium Gains Strength

Check out the group's website, and get involved.

New "One Wisconsin Now" Blog Follows The Annette Ziegler Disciplinary Hearing

One Wisconsin Now (OWN) - - a Milwaukee-based progressive policy and communications organization - - is launching a new website to highlight the Wisconsin Judicial Commission's upcoming disciplinary review into ethics allegations against now-State Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler.

The hearing begins next Monday morning, September 19th at the Washington County Courthouse.

During this year's Supreme Court election that was won by Ziegler, OWN documented a pattern of cases over which Ziegler presided in her Washington County court room that involved a West Bend bank on whose board her husband served as a paid director.

State rules discourage or prohibit such conflicts, or require that they be disclosed to the parties: Ziegler eventually reached a settlement with the State Ethics Board in which she admitted to ethics code violations regarding some of the cases, and paid a civil forfeiture.

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission proceeding on the 19th is a separate inquiry: further discipline against Ziegler could occur once the matter moves to the State Supreme Court for final disposition - - an awkward process, to say the least, as Ziegler is now a member of the Court and will be judged by her colleagues.

Her earlier request that the Commission's proceeding take place based only on written briefs was denied.

The OWN website includes details of a number of the controversial cases, along with other archives and more material about additional financial relationships between Ziegler and her husband, and the bank.

I am on the Board of Directors of one OWN organization, but played no role in its Ziegler probe or the establishment of the new website.

New Berlin Plays Potential Water Sellers Off Each Other: A Losing Game

New Berlin is discussing Lake Michigan water purchases with several potential supplying communities, complaining that the City of Milwaukee is dragging its feet as a seller.

New Berlin's complaints are misdirected.

If the state adopted the Great Lakes Compact, clarified the rules and let the other Great Lakes states know that Wisconsin would review diversions with some sort of real process on its books, then diversion applications could be processed more smoothly.

New Berlin can thank its own State Senator, Mary Lazich, (R), for torpedoing Compact negotiations in Madison this summer and fall, putting her own city in water limbo.

Without a Compact, no sale from Milwaukee, Oak Creek or Racine, or from Timbuktu, for that matter, is likely to be approved by Wisconsin regulators or the other Great Lakes states, as required by the draft Compact and existing federal law.

Note that Waukesha is continuing its secrecy-laden efforts for a separate diversion, repeating its penchant for confidentiality that was exposed in 2006 with the surfacing of secret appeals to Gov. Jim Doyle for backdoor-diversion approvals - - appeals that Doyle turned aside.

Furthermore, as I have pointed out on this blog several times - - Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager issued a lengthy opinion nearly a year ago saying that Wisconsin could not, on its own, approve a diversion of Lake Michigan water to New Berlin, or Waukesha, without the approval of the other Great Lakes states' governors.

In the opinion, Lautenschlager cited the pending Compact as well as current federal law.

It does not matter that Lautenschlager is no longer the Wisconsin AG: it was the opinion of the office, and Wisconsin officials would be fools to proceed with a diversion approval unilaterally with an AG opinion saying they cannot.

New Berlin can try and pressure Milwaukee for a water sale by visiting Oak Creek or Racine, but none of these communities can sell, yet, as Lautenschlager pointed out.

New Berlin should try and win its own state senator to its cause, though she has thrown in with Compact bashers on the states'-right fringes in Ohio, jeopardizing the agreement across the Great Lakes, and certainly helping to block future sales to water-hungry New Berlin customers.

University Bay on UW's West Campus Sure Looks Pretty Trashed

I had a close look the last couple of days at what is left of University Bay's marshlands at the west end of the University of Wisconsin campus on Lake Mendota, and it's a trashed construction zone - - along with a great deal of already-filled property holding UW structures and parking lots.

How did the UW get permission (or did it?) to fill that land?

The same way it ran the Charter St. coal-fired plant for years - - administratively making up its own rules until last week's courthouse butt-kicking in a federal Clean Air suit brought by the Sierra Club?

After the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources had taken the unusual and embarrassing step of filing an enforcement action against the UW - - a sister state agency - - over the way the power plant was being operated?

I know there has been some successful preservationist activity in the area, but wetlands fillings were supposed to be hard to do in Wisconsin - - except, apparently, on the UW-Madison campus.

Non-Wisconsin Cities See Fastest Housing Value Dip

CNN has compiled a list of the 25 US housing markets where home values could fall the fastest - - many on average above 20%.

Most are in the once-fabulous sunbelt - - Miami, Phoenix, Las Vegas - - and none are in Wisconsin.

We never had the stratospheric climb in housing values that some of these now fading stars experienced, so maybe we'll have a softer landing here.

Two looming issues if housing stays depressed for a few years: falling property tax collections.

With tax increases limited annually by legislation, and public sentiment, the lines on the graph will cross, and some municipalities with declining property tax bases could face a drastic plunge in projected revenues - - the very dollars that keep the fire trucks rolling and police squads patrolling.

I posed that "what if" question a year or so ago to a City of Milwaukee official, whose response was "I don't want to think about it."

The other questions is what happens to Baby Boomers' nest eggs, many of which included inflation equity in the old homestead.

I can hear you now: "I don't want to think about it."

Center For American Progress Wrap-Up On Water

The Center for American Progress has put together a wrap-up of national water issues, including some Great Lakes material. Nothing earth-shattering, but a decent compendium, here.

So the Iraq War's True Cost is $1.6 Trillion...

No wonder we can't afford health insurance for kids, clean water, and paying for other domestic needs.

But there's always money for the military in our Garrison State.

Author Peter Annin's Great Lakes Website Is A Great Resource

The Great Lakes Water Wars' author Peter Annin has put up a very informative website, with comprehensive links to, and detailed archives for, a number of local and regional water issues.

These include The Great Lakes Compact and New Berlin's diversion application, with other jurisdictions' comments.

That some good work.

I've added it to my growing index (recently-added links are italicized) of related sites and blogs about the Great Lakes, along with the UWM Water Institute site.

Thanks to Peter Annin and his staff.

A Better Whey To Alternative Fuels

And it's a Wisconsin innovation, too.

New Milwaukee AMTRAK Station Proves You Have To Fight For The City

Some years ago, the state transportation department wanted to replace the 6th Street Viaduct with an ugly, flat-span concrete bridge lifted from the Interstate Highway design book.

Mayor John Norquist (disclosure: I worked for him) wanted a more inviting urban design, and balked, and won the stand-off, producing the beautiful 6th Street Bridge.

The final, award-winning project also gracefully drops to street level, connecting to the Valley and adding value in a way that the flat-span design could not.

The new bridge has created connections in and around the south side and downtown- - actual intersections on the street grid - - that will make the new Harley-Davidson Museum far more accessible, along with other businesses and walkways along the Menomonee River and a rebuilt Canal Street.

To get all that, there had to be a strong, comprehensive vision that integrated traffic, planning, business development and aesthetics.

So there had to be a willingness to resist the transportation department, which just wants to do the simple thing: lay concrete and avoid much that is innovative for Wisconsin.

These lessons have been learned again, this time with nearly-completed remade rail station downtown.

Once an eyesore, the station will combine rail and Greyhound bus terminals, again with a modern, welcoming design that pays homage to the 6th Street Bridge nearby, and to the Calatrava Art Museum Addition and Pier Wisconsin building to the east on the lakefront.

Again, there had to be a fight with the state transportation bureaucrats.

The initial rebuilding concept would have kept much of the cheap, repellent design. Worse, the developer wanted to add a fast-food drive-through window, as if that was any kind of upgrade at all. Talk about dissing the growing numbers of AMTRAK users: welcome to Milwaukee: do you want fries with that burger?

Milwaukee Alderman Bob Bauman began the resistance, and Mayor Tom Barrett took up the fight, too.

They correctly understood that the city needed a showcase station to continue the momentum generated by the other positive changes in and over the Valley, and to promote transit in all its modalities.

Whitney Gould correctly appraises the victory that the new station represents.

Everyone involved with this effort deserves praise.

Following The Great Lakes Online: A Beginning Index

Thought I'd get together a list of blogs and other sites that focus on Great Lakes resources, the Great Lakes Compact and related issues.

Here's a first cut (Note that this has been updated since its initial posting, with two additions in italics). Feel free to send me others and, in time, I'll update this again.

1. Loon Commons in Minnesota:
2. Michigan Liberal in Michigan:
3. Dave Dempsey, in Minnesota, via Michigan:
4. The Political Environment, in Wisconsin:
   

Online news and information sites:

1. Great Lakes United.org:
2. Great Lakes Information Network, GLIN, collecting traditional media, daily (not blog items):
3. Great Lakes Town Hall, an arm of the Biodiversity Project, Madison.
4. The environmental engineering firm Brown and Caldwell has an excellent newsletter and roundup (free registration required here).
5. Great Lakes For All.
6. University of Wisconsin-Miwaukee's WATER Institute: Numerous experts, papers, other resources.
7. Peter Annin's Great Lakes Water Wars: Comprehensive listing of Great Lakes resources, diversion applications and responses, and more.
8. Energetich20 - - A UW-Madison engineering student.
9. Dale Olen Blog - - Wisconsin activist, writer.
10. Good variety of sources at Great Lakes Shipwatchers.
11. From Oregon State University, Water and Watersheds:
12. Wisconsin Association of Lakes e-newsletter and additional resources.