Anticipating Scott Walker's 4/22/16 Earth Day activities

[Updated] Based on his Earth Day and environmental track records, including:

* Gov. Walker's official website offers just one minimal Earth Day mention:

Friday, April 20, 2012 - Press Release

MADISON – Governor Walker today issued a proclamation for Earth Day and announced that the Executive Residence will also undergo a shoreline restoration thanks to the help of a citizens’ group.  The citizen’s group restoration project will help boost wildlife habitat and water quality.   

There were no further references to Earth Day in the rest of the 13-paragraph news release.

*  His Department of Natural Resources announcement of staff layoffs on Earth Day, 2015.

*  The unresponsive 'clean-up-your campsite' comment, on video, to a seven-year-boy last year who asked what Walker was doing about climate change. Walker skedaddling from the scene after giving the kid a perfunctory handshake is priceless.

*  His well-known hostility to public interest water management and clean air in favor of corporate agendas.

So because we know that these people- - 

- - are calling the shots, don't be surprised - - though Earth Day was created by Gaylord Nelson a former Wisconsin Governor - - if Walker's Earth Day activities look like this:

'Discrepancies' in WEDC job claims via tax credits

'Discrepancies' and 'faulty calculations' in state job creation records used to justify awards of tax credits:

MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is reviewing its job-related tax credit programs because of possible discrepancies between the number of jobs created and the amount of tax credits claimed -- nearly $66 million since 2007. 

WEDC officials said Thursday they are still trying to understand the scope and magnitude of the problem.

If we had a real Attorney General, this whitewash applied at the already-politicized, freshly-troubled and pro-Scott Walker propagandistic WEDC (he was the agency's creator and first board chairman) would be Exhibit A in a charging document,

Scott Walker's successor available & is being carefully groomed

Walker could bolt at any time, and while Tea Party Republican Rebecca Kleefisch may not have been his first choice as Lt. Governor, Kleefisch has been steadily acquiring exposure and credentials that would make her a formidable incumbent should Walker find another job.

Look at how much better positioned and managed she is than other potential Walker successors like the drone-like Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald - - neither of whom are getting coverage like this:

Rebecca Kleefisch tapped to lead national Republican lieutenant governors group

Lt. Gov. Kleefisch calls Israel trip a success

Kleefisch: Millennials Key to Rural Economic Development

Will progressive forces have alternatives and answers should the need arise?

It's going to have to be more substantive than 'Kleefisch said horrible things' because several million dollars of outside right-wing paid media and the public's short attention span can remove any candidate's warts.

Walker notches two big Wisconsin 'wins'

He's got two new slash-and-burn trophies:

41,000 Wisconsinites cut from food stamp program 

State employees retirements a gusher

One photo speaks volumes about Walker, Waukesha, diversity

 

Governor WalkerVerified account‏@GovWalker

AG Schimel & I finished out the day with Waukesha Co Sheriff Severson as I signed more laws to protect children.

Scores of Great Lakes officials oppose Waukesha diversion

[Updated from 4/20/16, 10:29 p.m.] The Great Lakes governors meeting in Chicago today and Friday to consider Waukesha's application for a diversion of Lake Michigan water - - which includes a plan to make that water available to undeveloped land beyond its city limits to neighboring communities which have not expressed a need for Great Lakes water - - should take to heart some earlier opposition across the region to a previous but smaller diversion to another Wisconsin community.

And the regional officials should pay close attention to the more recent comments in opposition by the Wisconsin legislator whose relatively low income district's flood-prone river would be required to take Waukesha's daily treated waste water discharge.

And also to the studied findings of several Wisconsin environmental and conservation groups.

And pay close attention to the opposition by a key figure in the history of Great Lakes water management and also to fresh opposition to the Waukesha plan by dozens of US and Canadian elected officials, summarized yesterday, below:

Mayors Urge Governors and Premiers to Reject Waukesha Application

Historic, precedent-setting Great Lakes water diversion application to be discussed this week

April 20, 2016

Today, Mayors of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative call on the Governors and Premiers of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin to reject the Waukesha Water Diversion Application and uphold the Great Lakes Compact and Agreement. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Water Resources Regional Body, which is responsible for implementing the Compact and Agreement, is holding a special meeting on the Application in Chicago on April 21, which is the last formal opportunity for Ontario and Quebec to be heard.  To this day, 17 Canadian cities have passed resolutions opposing the water diversion (view resolutions at http://glslcities.org/initiatives/basin-management/compact-and-agreement/). 

The Cities Initiative, a group of 122 local government leaders from the United States and Canada representing over 17 million people, is opposed to the water diversion because it does not comply with the Compact in several ways.  First, the water service area goes well beyond the city limits of Waukesha. Second, there are reasonable alternatives for Waukesha to provide safe drinking water to its residents.  Third, there are significant questions about what the return flow would do to the Root River on its way back to Lake Michigan.  All of these add up to the bad precedent an approval would set when the Compact created a very strictly limited exception for cities and counties on the borders of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin. 

“We urge the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec to use this last opportunity to oppose this application and uphold the Compact”, said Mayor Mitch Twolan of Huron-Kinloss, ON, chair of the Cities Initiative. “The US and Canada came together to protect our lakes and river by creating the Compact and Agreement, and it is time to affirm our commitment to our shared resources by rejecting the application.” 

Mayor John Dickert, of Racine, WI, where the diverted water would be returned to Lake Michigan through the Root River, added: “The impacts on the Root River were not analyzed properly. We do not want Waukesha’s return flow to disrupt years of efforts and millions of dollars invested in making the river and our waterfront a key economic driver for our city.” 

Mayor Randy Hope, of Chatham-Kent, ON expressed his concerns by saying: “My fellow Canadian mayors and I look to the eight governors with a watchful eye. We want to protect our vital water resources and stop this effort that is contrary to the Compact’s limited exception. We do not want this dangerous precedent set by Waukesha.” 

“My city of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, along with many other members of the Cities Initiative, passed a resolution opposing the Waukesha Diversion Application”, said Salaberry-de-Valleyfield Mayor Denis Lapointe. “Cities have shown their leadership by protecting and respecting the water that travels to us via the St. Lawrence River. We urge the Regional Body members to oppose the Application.” 

The Cities Initiative is a binational coalition of 122 mayors, representing over 17 million people, who work together to protect, restore and sustain the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin. To learn more, visit our website at www.glslcities.org. 

David Ullrich                                                  

Executive Director

Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

312-480-6501 (Cell)

Simon Belisle

Program Manager

Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

773-512-3788 (Cell)

Mayor Mitch Twolan

Chair, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Mayor, Town of Huron-Kinloss, ON

Warden, County of Bruce, ON

519-881-1390

Mayor John Dickert

Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Mayor, City of Racine, WI

262-636-9111

Mayor Randy Hope

Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Mayor, Municipality of Chatham-Kent, ON

519-955-0664

Mayor Sandra Cooper

Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Mayor, Town of Collingwood, ON

705-445-8451 ext. 3226

Mayor Keith Hobbs

Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Mayor, Thunder Bay, ON

807-625-3600

Mayor Paul Dyster

Secretary-Treasurer, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

Mayor, Niagara Falls, NY

716-286-4310

Ex-GOP Ohio Gov: some Waukesha water diversion needless

[Updated, 12/10, 10:25 p.m.] Former Ohio GOP Gov. Bob Taft, who with Wisconsin Democratic Gov Jim Doyle led the successful regional push for the Great Lakes Compact, has penned a cautionary letter to the Chicago Tribune about Waukesha's precedent-setting diversion application and criticized a key element in it:

Waukesha’s demand for water has been decreasing since the late 1980s. The city’s diversion application proposes to needlessly divert Great Lakes water to nearby communities that already have a satisfactory existing supply of water.

That Waukesha proposes to send some diverted water to communities that didn't even ask for it - - as well as to land ripe for development - - has always been the application's biggest flaw, as I suggested in 2010:

The weakest link in the application - - and what will raise questions all the way from the Town of Waukesha to the City of Milwaukee, and with reviewers and regulators in all the eight Great Lakes states, is Waukesha's plan to send Lake Michigan water into parts of Pewaukee, Genesee and the Town of Waukesha.

Waukesha and Wisconsin officials have said that cutting back Waukesha's diversion request to its current boundaries is off the table: 

Waukesha has said state law obligates it to distribute water to the [Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning] Commission's designated future service area, and that is the area included in the city's Great Lakes water diversion application… 

Of equal significance to Waukesha, DNR Water Use Section Chief Eric Ebersberger has said in an interview and in informal conversations with Milwaukee representatives that the department will not accept a water deal that does not distribute water to the entire future service area.

The Great Lakes governors convene on the issue Thursday. 

Super political Scott Walker dismisses politics...in Waukesha water bid

The most politically-driven Wisconsin official in memory - - the Scott Walker who is always running for a higher office, and who believes himself qualified to be President of the United States with opinions on everything from ISIS to the federal budget to 'right-to-work' legislation and wisdom nationally - - has injected and manipulated fact-free politics for personal advancement, partisan leverage and lobbying advantage in government at every level and public-policy making across Wisconsin about countless issues, including:

Collective bargaining to K-12 public school financing to voting rights to Amtrak and Medicaid funding refusals to higher education cuts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to UW faculty tenure rollbacks to corporatizing the Wisconsin DNR to food stamp availability tied unnecessarily to drug-testing to DNR science, clean air and water stewardship statewide, and more…

This 24/7/365 political game-player is quoted in yesterday's Waukesha Freeman eschewing such distasteful politicking and lobbying when it comes to the Lake Michigan diversion request by the City of Waukesha - - which has regional water quality, local border and development implications and about which Waukesha has been lobbying and politicking for..for years - - an application which calls for a daily average water withdrawal far in excess of its average daily use and proposes sending some of the diverted water to neighboring towns which have expressed no need for the diversion, nor asked for it, and tickets some water for delivery to underdeveloped acreage:

 "'Walker...said the “due diligence” of the city’s application process should stand on its own and that it’s important for it not to be viewed “as a political or lobbying effort.'”

All together now, as the Great Lakes governors convene later this week to review the Waukesha proposal - -  - - Give me a break. 

WI DNR release buries elk hunt planning

You have to read to the last paragraph and last word in this WI DNR news release - - "search keyword "elk.'" - - about elk reintroduction in Wisconsin

and click on the word "elk" to get to another site that says in its last paragraph that an new elk hunting season is possible:

Elk hunting in Wisconsin 

When the population size of the Clam Lake herd becomes large enough to be considered stable, a hunting season will be considered and written into the elk management plan. How many years away the prospect of hunting is will depend upon the speed with which the herd grows and whether or not further introductions occur.

Some background about the 'loss' of some of the animals.

And also about the relationship between elk and the wolf hunt:

County Grounds, Monarch Trail fundraiser tonight

Save the Monarch Butterfly!

Female

Male

Come to the Friends of the Monarch Trail's Annual Fund Raiser!

Wednesday, April 20, 2016, 5:30 pm to 8 pm., free entry
Bridgetowne Gallery, 7734 Harwood Ave, Wauwatosa, WI

Restoring the now fragmented County Grounds for the Monarch butterfly continues to be our primary goal.  Stop in after work to view our educational displays and bid on fabulous silent auction items, all benefiting the 2016 Monarch Habitat Restoration Project.  Mingle with Monarch enthusiasts, enjoy hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.

There is ample municipal parking under the Harmonee Bridge.  Look for signs.

All welcome!

Barb Agnew

Friends of the Monarch Trail
www.theMonarchTrail.org
Resident and business owner, Wauwatosa
Member: Habitat Restoration Plan Team
414-454-0222

A not-breaking news story: Walker would back GOP nominee Trump

Forget the criticism and jibes Walker sent Trump's way - - "we don't need an apprentice in the White House" - - when the two of them shared debate stages for a few seconds last summer.

Now that Trump looks like a winner, Walker says that apprentice will do just fine.

Could be big week for water news in WI

We could find out this week if the WI DNR will recommend permitting more groundwater sucking industrial scale animal feeding operations (CAFO) expansions - - background here - -  and we'll year some reaction to Waukesha's application for a precedent-setting diversion of Lake Michigan water when the Great Lakes Governors meet in Chicago April 21-22nd.

Stewardship has not been the Walker administration's DNR watchword.

Another day, another WI groundwater crisis story

This time we have fresh data that Big Ag is helping deplete the Little Plover River, a Class I trout stream.

Which is not news.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 3, 2014

Wisconsin's Little Plover River Running Low. Again.

Big agriculture and a DNR that lets corporations have their way with Wisconsin waters that belong to everyone are again enabling the same trout stream in Portage County to fall to worrisome levels:

The Little Plover runs about 6 miles before it empties into the Wisconsin River. It attracted national attention when parts of the river ran dry in 2005. American Rivers named the Little Plover one of the nation's 10 most endangered in an annual assessment in 2013.

It's a discouraging, infuriating, repetitive story.

The River Alliance of Wisconsin cites the River's situation as a warning about the consequences of state water misuse; I posted last year Alliance Little Plover photos, below, and mentioned the river's problems in a summary blog post from last May that included more than a dozen links cataloguing the many threats to public waters in Wisconsin.

Scott Walker and his party's obeisance to businesses which think the state's groundwater and surface water are theirs to deplete, pollute and otherwise expropriate have only intensified the state's water crisis.

River Alliance of Wisconsin photos

Dead Brookie

23 states improved transportation funding since '12. Not Wisconsin

We could have predicted - - hat tip Transportation for America- - that Wisconsin would not be on the list.

Scott Walker enriches timberlands entitlement

Owners of timbered property in rural Wisconsin who were able to get a tax break if they opened their properties to hikers and hunters - - a justifiable trade off since the public was providing the tax break - - will now get to expand the acreage they assign to the program but will still receive a tax break even if they close some of the property to the general public.

The Walkerites did much the same thing when they closed public access to lands receiving the tax break on the periphery of the proposed open-pit mining zone in the Bad River watershed.

Additionally, logging fees on these lands which had previously been collected by the DNR will be transferred to local governments - - a nice new revenue stream locally, for sure - - but yet another way for Walker and his legislative allies who hate the DNR to starve it and justify more agency staff and program cuts statewide.

In this administration, special interests shall benefit at the expense of the general public even if the general public is supplying the benefit or takes a bigger picture hit.

And the Walker crowd doesn't miss a beat in directing public benefits and resources to special interests, especially where water and land are involved.

Great Lakes states asked tough questions about earlier WI diversion

As the Great Lakes governors prepare to meet next week in Chicago (on Earth Day, no less!) to begin a public discussion of Waukesha's application for a Lake Michigan diversion

you might want to remember that when the other Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces had a crack at reviewing just as a courtesy New Berlin's application for less Lake Michigan water than what Waukesha is asking for some years ago, the other states did not hold back, as I reported in 2007:

Also raising objections were the state of Illinois, and, in an advisory capacity, the Canadian province of Ontario, plus a long list of environmental and conservation organizations that raised significant questions of New Berlin and the DNR about the application's adequacy, accuracy, and completeness. 

The State of New York's criticisms were brutal: I summarized them this way in a Capital Times column last year, quoting from the New York document provided through Open Records from the DNR:
"New York officials said the application was without key studies, complete data, adequate water supply descriptions, enough system and geological maps and "descriptions of the situation and feasible options." 

"New York," I wrote, "opined that there was "no evidence that the applicant is aware of or familiar with the full range of applicable state and national regulations, laws, agreements or treaties," and cited other deficiencies or possible inaccuracies. 

"Additionally, New York observed that "the statement of no cumulative impacts is unsupported by any data in the document and does not address potential cumulative impacts to Lake Michigan water levels, shoreline, other users, water-dependent natural resources, etc.'" 

Pretty tough stuff for a document the DNR labeled at the time complete and comprehensive.

Karma? Key Great Lakes diversion session falls on Earth Day

So the eight Great Lakes Governors who have the final call on Waukesha's controversial and precedent-setting Lake Michigan water diversion application are holding their two-day meeting on the matter in Chicago on April 21 and 22nd - - the 22nd being the 46th anniversary of the first Earth Day celebration organized by former Wisconsin Governor Gaylord Nelson:

As the eight Great Lakes Governors continue to review Waukesha's application for a precedent-setting diversion of Lake Michigan water - - with their public discussions beginning next week in Chicago - - a County Executive in the Great Lakes State of Pennsylvania has urged her Governor to vote down the application because Waukesha's city leadership "failed to justify the need, did not consider all plausible alternatives and proposes to divert Great Lakes Water to communities that do not exhibit a need."

Other officials and media regionally have advised against the application's approval, and 99% of the more than 11,000 comments filed with reviewers are in opposition.

May his spirit be alive in the meetings which the public may attend, but only as observers; Nelson's conservation ethos sure has been in the public's 11,000+ comments which ran 99% across the eight-state, two province US-Great Lakes region.

Some background, here, and below is the meetings' schedule from the official public notice:

April 21, 2016 1:00 p.m. CDT	April 22, 2016 9:00 a.m. CDT
University of Illinois-Chicago Student Center East 750 S. Halsted – Illinois AB Chicago, IL 60607	University of Illinois-Chicago Student Center West 828 S. Wolcott Avenue – Thompson AB Chicago, IL 60612

If resolution is not reached by April 22, 2016, the Regional Body will recess and continue its meeting on May 10 and 11, 2016.  The location of the continued meeting will be announced on the Waukesha Diversion Website at www.waukeshadiversion.org.

No bump for Walker in Trump's new hire

I don't think the Trump campaign's hiring Rick Wiley - - ex-manager of Scott Walker's brief and failed 2015 presidential run - - boosts Walker's chances for the second spot on a Trump presidential ticket given how thoroughly Wiley spilled the beans after Walker abruptly quit the race last year - - purportedly to help stop Trump's rise - - and left Wiley at the curb:

Scott Walker's campaign manager had some choice words about his candidate's quick exit from the presidential campaign.

'You know, like, it's a f--king bitch,' campaign manager Rick Wiley said. 'Man it really is.'

The Wisconsin governor dropped out of the presidential race Monday, using the excuse that the field was too crowded and that he was making room for a 'positive conservative alternative,' who could break through and beat Donald Trump. 

Wiley gave a postmortem interview to Politico, where he slipped in this F-bomb, but also ticked off the three main problems with the campaign: They spent too much, they didn't raise enough money and the candidate, quite simply, was just too green.

The Politico piece discloses that Wiley wasn't in the room when a decision was made to shut the campaign down.

Multiple charges filed in Dane County dog killings

Do you remember the shocking killing at close range earlier this year of a veterinarian's pet dogs being walked on public land?

Note that the hunter was charged today with two felonies and a misdemeanor.

Here are the details:

Count No.	Statute	Description	Severity	Disposition
1	951.02	Mistreatment of Animals/Cause Death	Felony I
2	951.02	Mistreatment of Animals/Cause Death	Felony I
3	941.20(1)(a)	Endanger Safety/Use/Dangerous Weapon	Misd. A

View history and details of Charge(s)/Sentence(s)

Also note, as did Isthmus, that the WI DNR declined to press charges, despite what the owner of the dogs had to say in the record: 

“On Jan. 22, while enjoying a place I’ve found solace in three to five times per week the last few years, my world was turned upside down when Franny and Gary were shot and killed right in front of me, both wearing reflective vests.... The hunter shot recklessly while hunting in the dark without verifying his target."

PA local official urges "no" vote on Waukesha's water diversion

As the eight Great Lakes Governors continue to review Waukesha's application for a precedent-setting diversion of Lake Michigan water - - with their public discussions beginning next week in Chicago - - a County Executive in the Great Lakes State of Pennsylvania has urged her Governor to vote down the application because Waukesha's city leadership "failed to justify the need, did not consider all plausible alternatives and proposes to divert Great Lakes Water to communities that do not exhibit a need."

Other officials and media regionally have advised against the application's approval, and 99% of the more than 11,000 comments filed with reviewers are in opposition.

Under a multi-state Great Lakes management Compact also approved by Congress, all eight Great Lakes states must unanimously approve a diversion application like Waukesha's or the diversion cannot be implemented.

The Wisconsin DNR has a website devoted to the application and the review process.

Here's some background about the application's core problem and a very recent thumbs-down analysis of the application.

And here is the full text a letter from Kathy Dahlkemper, Erie County, (PA) Executive to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf urging him to vote "no" when the all the Governors' review are finished and two Canadian provinces finish submitting advisory comments:

April 8, 2016

The Honorable Tom Wolf

Governor of Pennsylvania 

508 Main Capitol Building

Harrisburg, PA 17120

Dear Governor Wolf:

On behalf of the residents of Erie County, I am writing to submit public comments concerning the proposed Great Lakes Water Diversion Application proposed by the City of Waukesha, Wisconsin, under the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (Compact).

As a coastal community along the Great Lakes, we understand the value of our location and its relationship to the cultural and economic integrity of the region. As an integral component of our composition, the Great Lakes must be maintained, preserved and protected. The ratification of the Great Lakes Compact in 2008 strengthens the resolve of each of the eight states within the Great Lakes to ensure the protection our invaluable assets.

Under the Compact, diversion of water from the Great Lakes –St. Lawrence River Basin (Basin) to areas outside the Basin are banned with limited exceptions that are available only when rigorous standards are met. Simply stated, diversions must be a last resort. 

The City of Waukesha proposes to divert up to 10.1 million gallons per day of Basin water, based on a projected average daily demand for its planned water service area. However, their leadership failed to justify the need, did not consider all plausible alternatives and proposes to divert Great Lakes Water to communities that do not exhibit a need.

As a proponent of conservation, I respectfully request your support and the support of the Regional Body and Compact Council to reject the application on the grounds that it does not meet the exception standard requirements of the Compact. Now is the time to ensure that we reaffirm the determination and dedication of those who worked tirelessly to negotiate, develop and implement the Compact. Our due diligence today will to protect the Great Lakes of tomorrow. I appreciate your consideration.

Sincerely,

Kathy Dahlkemper

Erie County Executive