Still Needing Transparency, SEWRPC Reauthorized To Spend Federal Dollars

So the quadrennial kabuki known as the federal government's review and renewal of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission power to spend major transportation funds ended Wednesday afternoon when the agency accepted at a full commission meeting the reviewers' relatively bland and heavily bureaucratic findings.

Earlier Wednesday, I posted a link to the report, and also posted the executive summary.

At the meeting attended by only one reporter from traditional media - - Sean Ryan of the Daily Reporter - - the feds praised SEWRPC for certain activities, especially its coordination of transit planning in the region.

Also spelled out were the areas where SEWRPC needed to make improvements.

Most remedial efforts will be in agency communications and outreach - - echoing findings in the 2004 recertification review that pointed to insufficient agency work with low-income and minority communities.

SEWRPC's Executive Director Kenneth Yunker said the agency was close to meeting one of the federal recommendations - - hosting and presenting an improved website.

Three things struck me at Wednesday meeting:

1. SEWRPC and the lead reviewing agency - - the Federal Highway Administration - - work closely together all the time, so there was little likelihood that the review would be hard-hitting, or could threaten SEWRPC's certification.

All parties to the process have too much at stake and in common for that to have been in the cards.

2. That SEWRPC could be told in December, 2009 that its studies and formats needed to be better presented in "plain English," and that the agency's outreach to low-income and minorities still needed attention were stunning commentaries on SEWRPC's half-century of insularity.

3. This means that SEWRPC still does not understand or champion transparency, and this reality speaks volumes about an agency funded 100% with public dollars.

Here Is The SEWRPC Certification Executive Summary

The entire 30+page report is worth reading, but here is the executive summary:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

At least every four years the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Federal Transit

Administration (FTA) must jointly certify that the metropolitan transportation planning process

carried out by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) in Transportation Management Areas

(TMA) is being carried out in accordance with applicable provisions of Federal law.

The certification is not just a review of the MPO or the MPO staff, but rather covers all of the

agencies (local governments, State, and transit operators) that are charged with cooperatively

carrying out the process on a daily basis.

The regulatory foundation for the Certification Review supports the goal of enhancing the quality of the transportation planning process. Certification is based on routine FHWA and FTA interaction in day-to-day MPO operations,

participation in planning studies and the development of required planning products, periodic

meetings with staff, topical review activities, and the detailed review of the overall transportation

planning process.

Specific review activities conducted as the basis for this determination relative to the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC) included a desk review of SEWRPC planning products and processes conducted in September 2008, a field review meeting with staff from SEWRPC, WisDOT, and local transit operators October 22-23,

2008, a public comment period from October 8 – November 8, 2008, and an open house/public

meeting on the evening of October 22, 2008.

The full report documents evaluation of SEWRPC planning practices relative to basic elements

specified in federal metropolitan transportation planning regulations. Public comments were

considered in the evaluation of the corresponding planning elements. The report provides the

foundation for the joint FHWA-FTA determination regarding certification.

Overall, FHWA and FTA find that SEWRPC is in compliance with federal metropolitan

transportation planning requirements. The SEWRPC transportation planning process provides

comprehensive information and analysis that serve as a solid basis for policy decisions to guide

investments in transportation that serve the needs of Southeastern Wisconsin.

The certification findings cite good practices and recommendations in a number of areas to more fully meet the

objectives attendant to federal goals and requirements and to enhance the effectiveness of the

metropolitan transportation planning process.

Good practices cited include the following:

 Strong support for transit, including advocacy for development of a sustainable dedicated

source for local funding; and

 Extensive outreach to involve environmental resource agencies in transportation plan

development and account for impacts of plan alternatives on the natural and manmade

environment.

Key recommendations for improvements include the following areas:

 Public Communication and Access to Information

Update the structure and organization of the SEWRPC website and adopt plain language,

visual and concise styles and formats for summary documents and public

communications of key issues, analyses, and policy decisions;

 Effectiveness of Public Involvement

Develop and document a public participation evaluation methodology outlining specific

public participation objectives with corresponding measures and procedures to guide

evaluation and refinement of techniques to improve the effectiveness of public

involvement for transportation planning activities, including targeted outreach to minority

and low income communities;

 Outreach to Minority and Low Income Communities

Continue to cultivate established relationships with minority and low income groups and

the EJTF, work with the groups to further interaction with other groups within the

minority and low income communities, and provide feedback on how their input is used

in transportation planning processes; and

 Congestion Management Process

Fully develop the CMP to further function as a mechanism to develop and prioritize a

regional program of projects that implement the congestion management strategies.

The FHWA and FTA find that the broad context of federal public involvement and Title VI

requirements provides opportunity to examine the public expectations expressed in comments

and consider appropriate changes to improve SEWRPC metropolitan transportation planning.

The certification recommendations listed herein recognize SEWRPC’s past willingness to

consider critique of their processes and improve their practices to address valid concerns.

Responsibility for these improvements falls on SEWRPC, the local governments, WisDOT, and

the transit operators, as well as the concerned citizens, interest groups, and public officials who

seek changes. FHWA and FTA expect to be closely involved in monitoring implementation of

these recommendations to better understand the basis for the concerns, interest, and commitment

of all parties to constructively improve the processes.

Based on the reviews conducted and ongoing oversight by FHWA and FTA, the Southeastern

Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s transportation planning process is certified as

meeting the transportation planning requirements of 23 U.S.C. 134 and 49 U.S.C. 5303.

Here Is The Full SEWRPC Certification Report

Thanks to the good folks at One Wisconsin Now, a link to the full report from the Federal Highway Administration recertifying SEWRPC for another four years of project approval power is here.

More commentary later...

Advance Look At SEWRPC Certification Report

I have read in pdf format - - hope to have a link to it to post soon - - the federal report to be released today at 3 p.m. that, as I predicted, recertifies the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to approve federal transportation projects in a seven-county region for another four years.

The federal reviewers tell SEWRPC to continue improving its outreach to minority and low-income communities (repeating the findings and directions in the 2004 recertification review), to improve its website (a flaw frequently cited on this blog) and to produce its communications in plain English.

SEWRPC's reports are written in plannerspeak, and in formats that are often incomprehensible and inaccessible.

In short, no surprises.

The report takes no position in pending civil rights complaints.

Waukesha Delays Lake Michigan Water Diversion Application

Bill McClenahan, the public relations contractor for the Waukesha Water Utility, sent me the following email this morning:

"Waukesha has decided to postpone our release of a draft application for Great Lakes water, which was tentatively scheduled for December 8. It is still compiling information and drafting the document.

"The utility expects to release a draft application for public review early in 2010, with subsequent meetings for public questions and comments. "

My only response is that this underscores that the entire process will proceed in fits and starts, and demonstrates the need for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to have written its administrative rules governing the application construction and review - - and now there is more time for the DNR to have done just that.

Which the DNR has not done.

Some Scientists Want Even Faster Action To Stem Climate Change

Forget the righty deniers' claim that climate change is a hoax: some scientists say the data demand faster action to attack greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is a summary of those scientists' findings and suggestions as provided on the environmental website www.grist.org:

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Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array
of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has
accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global
average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets

Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise
at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in
the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century.

The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a
maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.

To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society—with near-zero
emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases—needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000

Scott Walker's Leadership Gets Another "F"

Business leader Sheldon Lubar again says County Government should be blown up.

Big Project, Rushed Schedule, One Bidder

Is this a good situation?

After Long Delay, Feds To Announce SEWRPC Certification Decision Wednesday

Federal highway authorities have delayed its release for close to a year, but tomorrow will disclose their decision about whether the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission gets another four years to approve major project spending in the Milwaukee area.

The signal that the recertification will be renewed - - and that the regional planning substance and procedures will remain in their narrow, status quo format - - is that the report's release at 3:00 p.m. at the War Memorial on the Lakefront will take place at a meeting of the full commission.

Details here.

The most recent review, in 2004, produced in 2007 the commission's Environmental Justice Task Force, a citizen body, along with commission pledges to work more closely with low-income and minority communities.

When things change at SEWRPC, the pace is glacial, and the process can be brutal.

Yet the Task Force had to engage in a public struggle with SEWRPC to get the agency to understand that its crucial regional water supply study - - nearly five years and a million dollars in the drafting - - was fundamentally flawed without a socio-economic analysis that had to be done by an outside, independent consultant.

SEWRPC recently hired an outreach manager, too, but the agency's staff, commission membership and goals are still heavily-weighted towards the suburbs and exurbs.

There are seven counties in the region comprise the boundaries of the agency, and each county gets three commission seats that are passed out by county, not population.

The City of Milwaukee, with a population greater than any of the six counties other than Milwaukee County, gets no seats on the commission.

For the last year-and-a-half, I have written and blogged extensively on the need for the City and County of Milwaukee to withdraw from SEWRPC and participate in a new, more urbanized entity that would put cities first.

I would expect the feds Wednesday to generally praise SEWRPC's performance while also offering the critics a few morsels by calling on SEWRPC to work more closely with more minority and low-income communities and citizens.

Or to work harder hiring more minority staffers, given that there are federal civil rights complaints pending against SEWRPC.

Here is one posting with links to both pending complaints - - one about transportation planning and one regarding employment and other personnel matters.

But I'm not expecting any blockbuster findings or recommendations.

Mass Poisoning Aimed At Invasive Asian Carp

Let's hope the massive poisoning to begin tomorrow stops the march of the Asian carp towards Lake Michigan.

If not, kiss commercial fishing and much boating goodbye.

Save A Mountaintop: Get Involved

A West Virginia organization is using the Internet to gather opposition to the disgusting coal-mining practice of mountaintop removal.

Details here.

Urban Environment, Endless Degradation

The damage to Wisconsin's urban environment continues unabated.

Milwaukee County and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are pressing ahead with a plan to put an engineering and innovation center at the County Grounds in Wauwatosa - - ripping up some of the remaining open space in the County and destroying a Monarch butterfly migration site.

As will the Wisconsin Department of Transportation when it widens the Zoo Interchange, also at the expense of County Grounds acreage.

Oh, just a bunch of butterflies, you say? Why be concerned with them, or the wetlands lost to I-94 construction between Milwaukee and the stateline south of Kenosha, or the projected land and stream damage for the pending City of Waukesha bypass?

Wisconsinites are rightly proud of the state Stewardship program's preservation of land Up North, and yes, there is some holding back development in and near the Kettle Moraine (but not much).

But highway expansion - - all 127 miles of the regional freeway system are due to get another lane in both directions, with wider ramps, too - - puts a $6.5 billion priority on land loss in the name of traffic flow.

Its shameful that UWM wants to plop its new science complex on open space when there were multiple opportunities in and near the downtown that would have put students and faculty closer to other universities, many businesses and all the already-built infrastructure.

For UWM, the County, and WisDOT, cities are seen as impediments to 'better' trucking or commuting routes - - and with an environment easily sacrificed instead of carefully folded into sustainable plans and developments that honor what and who is currently there.

Not to mention in the generations coming up.

Glacial Melt Continuing, Despite Email Furor

While the Right (lead by chief science wizard Rush Limbaugh) escalates its rhetoric about climate science conspiracies based on twisted interpretations of cherry-picked hacked emails, there is a fresh report that New Zealand's glaciers are continuing their meltoff.

Of course, you could claim that the measurements are faked, that New Zealand wants this kind of publicity, which makes about much sense as does Dr. Limbaugh's rants.

Milwaukee's Lake Michigan Water Sales Criteria Posted Below

Much has been written and far more will be said and referenced in the months and years to come about the conditions the City of Milwaukee has placed on selling Lake Michigan water to suburbs or more distant communities like the City of Waukesha.

Waukesha has said Milwaukee is the preferred supplier, so what lies ahead if all eight Great Lakes states approve the diversion application Waukesha has said it will release December 8th is whether Waukesha and Milwaukee can negotiate an agreement.

So I thought I would post a link to the Milwaukee Common Council resolution, attachments and related items that together in one file encompass and explain the Milwaukee sales' conditions.

Note that the file contains documentation describing a water sale agreement between the City of Cleveland and surrounding communities.

That agreement contains far better financial terms than were agreed to last year between Milwaukee and New Berlin, and it contains non-compete, no-raiding understandings that protect Cleveland from job losses to the communities buying its water.

Expect Milwaukee aldermen to use the Cleveland agreement to illuminate and underpin Milwaukee's expectations and goals.

The agreement between New Berlin and Milwaukee did not contain the no-complete/raiding understanding.

Also note that the vote to adopt the Milwaukee conditions as city policy was unanimous, and tightened earlier resolutions, so if and when Waukesha begins negotiations with Milwaukee - - and certainly those negotiations will involve the Mayor of Milwaukee, too - - the Common Council is already on record with a definitive and solid policy.

Waukesha may say the conditions are too costly, or onerous.

Milwaukee will say it is behaving like a seller in a strong position, with needs of its own to meet.

Given how long this entire process will take - - including the eight-state review - - the failure of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to write and approve administrative rules governing the application review process appears more and more irrational.

And because that failure will annoy some of the other states, leading to procedural or legal delays, the DNR could be responsible for undermining any process through which Milwaukee and Waukesha might reach a sales' agreement.

Online Opportunity To Put Your Nonprofit Into The 2010 Census Effort

From the website Nonprofit Count, a webinar Dec. 3rd. Details here.

Barrett Water-Based Jobs Plan Gets Wall Street Journal Attention

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's plan to use discounted Lake Michigan water as a business lure gets a nice ride in The Wall Street Journal, here.

I wonder hos long it will take Scott Walker to take credit for the concept - - though the plan presents Walker with some difficulty, as his suburban Waukesha GOP base prefers water piped in from Lake Michigan at the lowest rate possible to promote growth away from Milwaukee and not in the City, per se.

Regular readers of this blog would have seen plaudits for the plan a month ago, fyi.

For OnMilwaukee.Com Readers: No DNR Rules Means Probable Diversion Delays For Waukesha

I write about once a week for OnMilwaukee.com about the environment: Here is my most recent submission about Waukesha's Lake Michigan diversion plans and the delays that can be laid at the doorstep of the DNR.

Why Conservationists And Timber Owners Can Love Cap And Trade

The Washington Post explains that there is great dollar value in forests because they store carbon .

Which is why owners of timberland are supporting Climate Change legislation that would, through Cap and Trade, give forests value without logging them.

This gives Climate Change legislation - - already through the US House of Representatives - - a better chance of passing the Senate.

Climate Change legislation should make for cleaner air, more pure water and a better preserved landscape.

Hard to argue with that.

Lake Michigan Improvements Worth The Small Cost In Utility Rates

The Journal Sentinel editorially hits the nail on the head: The state Public Service Commission should not, as some commissioners have signalled, reject that piece of a pending We Energies' rate increase that implements environmental improvements approved in a settlement between the company and statewide environmental organizations.

An agreement is an agreement is an agreement, especially one that settled legal challenges that could legitimately have delayed the Oak Creek power plant construction.

And that will improve the quality of Lake Michigan - - a worthy outcome that cannot be measured in dollars and cents alone.

I suspect that the PSC may have felt that the settlement boxed them in and took away some of their power to be fully in charge of rate-setting, and thus utility and public policy-making.

But let's not let bureaucratic territoriality trump decision-making that produced a deal all parties approved.

Keeping Manure, Phosphorus Out Of Water Supplies Is Ongoing Battle

You'd think it would be simple to keep manure runoff out of Wisconsin lakes and streams, but opponents are many, so the struggle continues.