Killing Light Rail In Milwaukee Killed Transit-Related Development, Too

A few years ago I wrote this piece for the Milwaukee Journal Crossroads section about the myriad consequences of the blockade by the suburbs put in front of Milwaukee-based light rail:

Had plans unfolded on schedule, the starter light rail, with an estimated 21,000 riders on weekdays, would have opened in 2006 and run about 10 miles from the Third Ward to Summerfest, downtown, Miller Park, the Milwaukee County Zoo and the County Grounds. 

Talk about a missed opportunity...

The system would have benefited from the city's condo-and-loft boom, a resurgent  Milwaukee Brewers' ballclub, the successful Potawatomi Bingo Casino and an expanding Milwaukee Regional Medical Center. 

Extensions to Milwaukee's north side and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee would have generated support, and light rail could have assisted Waukesha County commuters because years of Zoo Interchange and I-94 reconstruction are planned west of Milwaukee. 

Hard to miss the echoes to this story about relocating a proposed light rail stop in the Denver area to spur added development:

By putting it farther north on Fitzsimons Parkway, the city could develop the area around the new station with commercial, residential and office space, Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said. 

"It presents an opportunity for additional transit-oriented development," Hogan said. "It presents an opportunity for perhaps another hotel and restaurant...."

The new proposed stop at the northern edge of the medical campus would be the first light-rail stop heading south for the East Line from Denver International Airport after making a connection at Peoria Station, making it an attractive place for travelers to stay, Hogan said. 

Important Water Event Thursday At UW-Green Bay

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Ray Of Budget Sanity: High-Volume Well Water Giveaway Perhaps Postponed A Year

Readers of this blog know that for the last few weeks I have devoted several posts and links - - with some transferred to my Purple Wisconsin blog, and amplified in Crossroads - - documenting the damage to Wisconsin ground water supplies posed by a series of GOP-led initiatives, and particularly by an 11th-hour budget amendment forbidding consideration during high-volume well permit reviews of their cumulative impacts on nearby water supplies - - lakes, rivers, streams and other wells, too.

Even the key sponsor of the back-door legislating wouldn't answer questions about how and why he change to the permitting process got tucked into the budget.

It seems the outcry statewide has had a cumulative political impact - - GOP legislators appear to have agreed, though details are sketchy - - to put off the idea until next year, so cooler heads might prevail.

The state's waters, under Article IX of the State Constitution, belong to everyone; ground and surface supplies are linked and it's crazy to let large users deplete the water table for their own uses while disregarding water's common ownership and legally barring challenges from the public on this very point.

Wisconsin now has more than 3,000 of these high-capacity (100,000+ gallons-per-day) wells; some waterways in the central sands area are losing volume or drying up - - video, here - -  and more wells are planned there and statewide as huge dairies and frac sand mines expand rapidly.

Activists - - and props to the River Alliance of Wisconsin and Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, among many, for their great work these last few weeks  - - have got to keep up their educational and organizing on this issue with these goals:

* Retention of citizen power during the permit review process to insert cumulative impact data into the process.

* Retention of the DNR's authority to include cumulative impacts in the scientific and data evaluation of the permit.

Wisconsin waters have been held in trust for all the people since 1787. Let's keep it that way.

And let's all agree that bills and budgets that exclude people from the process, keep them from the table or force them to do things against their will are anti-democratic and extremist.

Ron Johnson Encouraging Distrust Of Government

Remind me again why this man is drawing a government paycheck?

"We are witnessing the IRS scandal, we are witnessing the lies surrounding Benghazi, we are witnessing the very legitimate concern and debate about the NSA. I wish Americans would take that outrage and concern about the loss of freedom that those examples represent, and I wish they would apply that in a broader sense. … We need to apply this dysfunction, this moment in history when America is rightfully distrusting the federal government over these other scandals. We have got to make sure that they apply that to the government in total."

In Walker's Wisc., One Thing Truely Has Certainty

Ah, certainty:

Gov. Walker and Republicans in the spin machine tell us endlessly that without it, we're doomed to stagnation - - in other words, the status quo - - because business will never come here and create jobs.

Well, you can take to the bank the certainty that when Walker speaks, there's a better-than-50-50 chance you might not be getting a straight story:

"False" findings continue to accompany more Walker statements vetted by PolitiFact than "true," even if you give him more credit than he deserves for a buncha half-truths.

Case in point, from just last Sunday, where the findings include "exactly two-thirds of the drop Walker mentions happened on his predecessor’s watch," and "muddies the water," and "misleading," and "critical facts are left out..."

Scott Walker says success in office reflected in 2-point drop in unemployment rate from time he decided to run for governor

We've tracked his truthiness deficits on this blog repeatedly since 2011- - and here is Walker's current, 56%-44% false-to-true record:

Walker's statements by ruling

Click on the ruling to see all of Walker's statements for that ruling.

• True7 (10%)(7)
• Mostly True8 (11%)(8)
• Half True16 (23%)(16)
• Mostly False13 (18%)(13)
• False21 (30%)(21)
• Pants on Fire6 (8%)(6)

Why Not Completely Abuse The WI Budget Process...

...And use it to spark a confrontation over treaty and water rights?

As I said, it's more of the GOP's sit down/shut up/dry out/go away legislating.

Square These Walker Boasts With Open Pit Mining, Womens Clinics' Shutdowns

Walker supports wetlands' filling, massive open-pit mining in the Bad River watershed and closing Planned Parenthood health-care clinics serving rural women through funding cuts and restrictive legislation, but left the Lakeland Times and local residents with this double-talk:

Monday, the governor made four stops across the state — including Ministry Saint Mary’s Hospital in Rhinelander — to focus on the health care aspects of his plan. Addressing a small gathering of Ministry Medical Group employees Monday, Walker said his budget plan will help with an ongoing issue rural medical facilities like Saint Mary’s Hospital are facing — attracting and retaining quality health professionals..... 

“It takes a little nudge, but when they get here they love it,” Walker said in talking about the Northwoods and other areas of Wisconsin’s less densely populated north. He referred to the focus his office has put into spurring tourism in those areas in the past two years.

This Blog Has A Search Box, Upper Left Corner

By coincidence, several folks in the last few days have asked for a variety of posts, and while I am glad to find them I want to point out that I don't have a super-secret method or fully-functioning memory to recall them.

I simply use the search box in the upper left corner to find them.

Googling the subject and the name of the blog is another route.

Over and out.

Powerful Video About Threat To Wisconsin Water

Here is the link.

The Assembly is set to allow over-pumping of state groundwater by slipping that permission into the state budget tomorrow - - no hearings, no science, no data, no citizen challenges, or common sense allowed.

WTMJ Radio Talker Speaks Up For Offensive High School Indian Mascots

Righty talker, former Federal prosecutor and local control hypocrite Jeff Wagner is at it again, calling for the Legislature to bypass an 'activist' State Supreme Court and adopt a law to enable local school districts to keep their Native American mascots and nicknames.

He's long continued to call the Marquette Golden Eagles by their discredited "Warriors" nickname - - discarded by the school's more-enlightened Jesuit leadership as offensive.

And laughably - - what a hypocrite - - Wagner says it's a matter of local control - - the very principle GOP legislators and Scott Walker have have destroyed with Wagner's cheer-leading through Act 10 collective bargaining wipeouts, local residency ordinance overrides, and other imperious decrees from on high.

Milwaukee's proposed streetcar plan is a Wagner frequent topic: Shouldn't Milwaukee have the right to implement it under local control without interference from the Governor, legislature and PSC?

So the question is: Why does Wagner want the Legislature and others to go out of their way to offend this minority group?

Since when is deliberate offense anything to laud?

Would he take the same position if Catholics, Jews, Asians, African-Americans or others were similarly and intentionally targeted?

WI State Assembly To Approve 'Shut-Up' Budget On Tuesday

Wisconsin democracy is taking a cumulative beating at the hands of power-hungry Republicans imitating Scott Walker's imperious style while implementing a new state motto: Sit down, shut up, go away, dry up.
* Wisconsin GOP State Senate President Mike Ellis had a 'sit down, you're out of order' tantrum that went viral last week.

The long-time Republican from Neenah went on his World Class desk-pounding rant after Democratic Senators objected to GOP parliamentary maneuvering that abruptly cut off debate and quickly approved on a party-line vote a noxious bill Walker has said he'd certainly sign to force unnecessary ultrasound procedures on women seeking legal abortions.

* Some women sitting in the galleries during a subsequent Assembly session were then thrown out and arrested because they dared to take Ellis literally and sit with tape over their mouths - - proving again that the party in power is driven by a pathological need to control and shut people up and out of decision-making across the political spectrum. Here's a first-person account.

* Exceeding Ellis' vanity and insecurities, Walker personally shut up a 20-year-old UW-Platteville student who'd signed a Walker recall petition two years ago - - when still a teenager. Like those pesky women, and Democratic legislators, the kid had to be silenced! 

There are other examples of this GOP control addiction:

* GOP Legislators drafted the original version of the controversial open pit iron ore mining bill in secret - - much as they had written their legally-deficient, gerrymandering redistricting plan, too - - and were arrogant enough to make it known they intentionally kept the Bad River Ojibwe Band away from the table even though the Ojibwe hold treaty-protected land and water rights, live closely downstream from the mine and need clean water to grow wild rice that has defined and sustained its culture.

* The budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance, with a 12-4 GOP-and-thin-skinned-majority, had already used the state budget -drafting process to say 'get out' to a non-profit investigative journalism project it didn't like that works with the UW-Madison School of Journalism. 

Apparently, the legislators prefer the coverage they buy with our money through taxpayer-paid, self-generated and always-flattering news releases.

* And the finance committee, at the 11th hour and without a hearing - - let alone public notice - - slipped into the budget bill another 'no-talking-go-away'  legal provision that undermines state constitutional protections for water, and your rights to it, that date to 1787.

I'd suggest you read what even the DNR under Walker's reign still says about long-standing constitutional protections for water and the state government's obligation to defend your rights to it.

And copy it before the 'shut up' crowd shuts down that DNR webpage because it says too much logically and affirmatively about the public interest the Walkerites discount and dismiss - - preferring talking-point spin offered by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce on behalf of industrial-scale water users.

The budget amendment opening the spigots to big dairies and frac sand mines and other large users, made by a Sheboygan Assemblyman who declined my request for an interview, will prevent  - - by law - - a citizen, a business, a homeowners association, a municipality - - anyone - - from challenging the DNR's issuance of a permit to drill and operate a high-volume (100,000 gallons a day or more) well on the grounds that it would overburden the aquifer and harm nearby wells, streams, rivers or lakes through "cumulative impacts."

In fact, this is what the DNR says about its legal obligation to take "cumulative impacts" into project review consideration to defend properly your right as a Wisconsin citizen to water and its related benefits:

The [state supreme] court has ruled that DNR staff, when they review projects that could impact Wisconsin lakes and rivers, must consider the cumulative impacts of individual projects in their decisions. "A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices in their opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC.(2)

But soon, if the common sense cumulative impact of multiple wells is your issue - - be you a property owner, drinking water supplier, farmer, angler, or boater - - sneaky legislating for special interests by nearly-anonymous legislative water carriers will make sure you keep your concern, your science, your data, your opinion to yourself.

Or, as Mike Ellis and his GOP colleagues would say on their behalf, and Walker's: 

'You're out of order. Sit down,' and when it comes to your favorite trout stream or swimming hole, 'dry up.'

But before you go to your room like a good boy or girl, raise your voice through action plans run by the River Alliance of Wisconsin and The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters.

Also posted at Purple Wisconsin.

As Scott Walker Plans To Make Wolf Kill Fee Much Cheaper...

...The DNR, oblivious to the ironies, poses these questions about Timber Wolves on its educational site for kids:

Have you ever heard a wolf howl in the wild? Not many people have.

Once, the haunting sound of wolves echoed throughout North America. Three hundred years ago, somewhere between 3,000-5,000 wolves roamed all over Wisconsin. In 1960 there were no wolves here. It is estimated (2011) that there are more than 800 wolves across the state, most of them in the northern half of Wisconsin.

So, what happened to these animals?

Well, kids - - 240 of them were killed right here in Wisconsin just last year - - and the $100 permit fee is ticketed to be dropped for true bargain hunters by 50%, Walker says.

Some data, here.

Hunters and trappers killed 117 wolves in a season that ran from Oct. 15 to Dec. 23. The season ended when the harvest quotas were met or exceeded in each of the management units.

And here:

...123 additional wolves were also killed — hit by vehicles, killed by government agents as part of depredation control, killed illegally by hunters and trappers, or found dead from unknown causes.

Walker Probed By National Media

Joan Walsh makes the examination:

...if Walker goes ahead, as promised, and signs a bill mandating an ultrasound before a woman can have an abortion, he can kiss his 2016 hopes goodbye. It will be impossible for Gov. Ultrasound to “modulate himself” once he’s associated with the most notorious piece of legislation to brand his party as anti-women in 2012. (Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a slightly softened version of it into law last March.) 

“I don’t have any problem with ultrasound,” Walker said Tuesday. “I think most people think ultrasounds are just fine.” Actually, I think most people recoil physically at the idea of transvaginal ultrasounds, which the Wisconsin bill would require for anyone getting a first-trimester abortion, meaning many women. The bill would also close one of Wisconsin’s few remaining abortion clinics.

New Wisconsin Motto: Sit Down, Shut Up, Go Away, Dry Up

Wisconsin democracy is taking a cumulative beating at the hands of power-hungry Republican legislators who imitate Scott Walker's imperious style.

*  Wisconsin GOP Senate President and anger management dropout Mike Ellis had a 'sit down and shut up' tantrum that went viral last week.

The long-time Republican from Neenah had his gavel-damaging tantrum after Democratic Senators objected to GOP parliamentary maneuvering that cut off debate and quickly approved a bill forcing unnecessary ultrasound procedures on women seeking legal abortions.

*  Women sitting in the Assembly galleries in a subsequent session were then thrown out and arrested because they dared to take Ellis literally and sit with tape over their mouths - - proving again that the party in power is driven by a pathological need to control and shut people up and out of decision-making and participation - - from the personal to the professional to the political.

*  Exceeding Ellis' vanity and insecurities, Walker personally shut up a 20-year-old UW Platteville student who'd signed a Walker petition two years ago.

There are other examples, with more to come.

* GOP Legislators drafted the original version of the controversial mining bill, with industry input, in secret - - much as they had written their legally-deficient, gerrymandering redistricting plan, too - - and were arrogant enough to make it known they intentionally kept the Bad River Ojibwe Band away from the table even though the Ojibwe hold treaty-protected land and water rights, live just a few miles downstream from the proposed open-pit mine and polluted, waste rock dumping sites, and need clean water to grow wild rice that has defined and sustained its culture.

*  The budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance, with a 12-4 GOP-and-thin-skinned-majority, had already used the state budget to say get out to an investigative journalism non-profit project it didn't like that works with the UW-Madison School of Journalism.

*  And the finance committee, at the 11th hour and without notice, slipped into the budget bill another shut up and go away provision - - this one undermining state constitutional protections for water, and your rights to it, that date to 1787.

I'd suggest you read what even the DNR says about all that - - about long-standing constitutional protections for water and the state government's obligation to defend your rights to it - - before the shut up crowd shuts down that page on the DNR website because it says too much, preferring the talking-point spin offered by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce on behalf of industrial-scale water users.

The budget amendment made by a Sheboygan assemblyman who declined requests by this blog to be interviewed about it will prohibit a citizen, a business, a homeowners association, a municipality - - anyone - - from challenging the DNR's issuance of a permit to drill a high-volume (100,000 gallons a day or ore) well on the grounds that it would overburden the aquifer and harm nearby wells, streams, rivers or lakes through "cumulative impacts."

In fact, this is what the DNR says about its obligation to take "cumulative impacts" into project review consideration to defend your right as a Wisconsin citizen to water:

The [state supreme] court has ruled that DNR staff, when they review projects that could impact Wisconsin lakes and rivers, must consider the cumulative impacts of individual projects in their decisions. "A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices in their opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC.(2)

But soon, if the common sense cumulative impact of multiple wells is your issue - - be you a property owner, drinking water supplier, farmer, angler, or boater - - sneaky legislation will make sure you keep your concern, your science, your data, your opinion to yourself.

Or, as Mike Ellis would say, 'you're out of order. Sit down, shut up and dry out.'

But before you go to your room like a good boy or girl, raise your voice through an action plans run by the River Alliance of Wisconsin - - here - - and the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters.

Indiana Allows BP To Dump Mercury Into Lake Michigan

The company's expanding tar sand crude oil refinery at Whiting, IN - - not far from Chicago - - is being allowed by state regulators to dump relatively larger amounts of mercury into Lake Michigan, the AP reports:

BP received permission from IDEM [the Indiana Department of Environmental Management] in late 2011 for the refinery to discharge an annual average of 23.1 parts per trillion of mercury — nearly 20 times the water quality standard for the Great Lakes. Such mercury variances are allowed under state law.

Stop Legislature From Giving Away Wisconsin Waters

Remember: Under the State Constitution's Public Trust Doctrine, Wisconsin water belongs to everyone:

Action Alert: Assembly Vote On Controversial Groundwater Provision To Be Held This Tuesday. In a recent email we sounded the alarm over the slipping in of controversial and environmentally destructive language around permitting of high-capacity wells into the budget (you can read the language right here). The budget is now making its way to the Assembly to be voted on this coming Tuesday, June 18 and it still contains language that undermines citizens' ability to protect lakes, streams, drinking water and their private property rights from excessive groundwater pumping. What Can You Do? Our elected leaders need to know that both this motion and the way it was slipped into the budget in the dark of night is not how you want things done in Wisconsin. Please send a loud and clear message that controversial, and bad, policy has no business being slipped into the budget without debate, and you want the state to protect our groundwater and our lakes and rivers, not give it away to powerful industries. Contact your State Senator and Representative and ask them to support the removal of the high-capacity well motion from the budget. Find your representatives here: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/Pages/waml.aspx   Contact the Governor's office and ask him to veto the high-capacity well motion if the Legislature doesn't remove it. Email: govgeneral@wisconsin.gov Phone: (608) 266-1212  Online Contact Form: http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/Contact-Us    Talking Points: This motion will result in the overpumping of aquifers that provide us drinking water, and feed our favorite lakes and streams (as we've already seen in places such as Long Lake and the Little Plover River in central Wisconsin). This motion is unfair and probably unconstitutional because it prevents citizens from challenging the agency when it doesn't carry out a duty assigned to it by the constitution The state budget is no place to ram through controversial and bad policy with unknown political and legal consequences.

News From Iron Ore Mining Site, Confrontation

Looks like the local sheriff is making good decisions and keeping the peace:

“Let GTAC do what GTAC is doing and let the protesters do what the protesters are going to do,” said [Iron County Sheriff Tony] Furyk. “They just have to separate and protest in a peaceful manner. We’re OK with protesting. That’s their right. It just became a little too confrontational.”

Side note: Righty AM620 WTMJ radio talker Jeff Wagner - - an attorney and former federal prosecutor - - stirred the pot last week by gratuitously criticizing the lack of arrests.

Walker Embraced ObamaCare: The Argument And Possible Fallout

Update: PolitiFact gives "mostly false" to the way Walker's spokeswoman parsed it:

Interesting piece by health and welfare policy expert David Riemer that puts a fresh cast on Walker's rejection acceptance of expanded federal funding for the state's Medicaid program - - here:

Fortunately, Walker and the Legislature's budget-writing committee made a more liberal decision. They chose to expand our Medicaid entitlement program, known as BadgerCare, all the way up to 100% of the poverty line.

After that, they concluded, non-poor but still low-income Wisconsinites could obtain large federal subsidies that help them buy health insurance through the other major feature of Obamacare, the new health insurance exchange.

So we owe a debt of gratitude to Walker and his allies on the Joint Finance Committee for rejecting the conservative path, embracing Obamacare, expanding Medicaid up to 100% of the poverty line and helping non-poor adults to claim a subsidy to buy insurance via the new exchange.

There's just one problem. The way that the governor and legislators are going about it will cost Wisconsin's taxpayers and employers a bundle.

 And then comes this interpretation of the piece that reaches this political conclusion:

Sure, it’s an opinion piece by a Milwaukee policy wonk, but the case could be lifted to undercut Walker’s conservative credo.

Walker Did It! We're Officially #1 - - In Job Losses

Well played, Scott Walker: Perhaps a presidential run on this record?

In its article, "How did states create jobs?" Pew's Stateline news service presents a graphic showing Wisconsin leading the nation in job losses over the past 12 months — one of only three states with that dubious distinction. 

The graphic shows Wisconsin with 6,800 fewer total non-farm jobs in April 2013 compared to April 2012. Wyoming and Maine also lost jobs over the period, each down by 1,500 jobs. 

By comparison, all of Wisconsin’s neighbors added jobs over the period, according to cited figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jeff Wagner Calls Commanding SS-Led Unit "Bad Behavior"

Right-wing afternoon AM 620 WTMJ radio talker Jeff Wagner twice in his discussion of what to do with a former SS-led unit commander discovered illegally living in Minnesota framed the topic - - podcast beginning at 21:10 mark - - by asking "should there be a statute of limitations on bad behavior?"

Bad behavior?

"Bad behavior" better describes littering or gossiping or taking a cell phone call in a movie theater.

Here is how the AP describes it:

A top commander [Michael Karkoc, 94] of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press...

Though records do not show that Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes, statements from men in his unit and other documentation confirm the Ukrainian company he commanded massacred civilians, and suggest that Karkoc was at the scene of these atrocities as the company leader. Nazi SS files say he and his unit were also involved in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which the Nazis brutally suppressed a Polish rebellion against German occupation...

Members of his unit and other witnesses have told stories of brutal attacks on civilians.

One of Karkoc's men, Vasyl Malazhenski, told Soviet investigators that in 1944 the unit was directed to "liquidate all the residents" of the village of Chlaniow in a reprisal attack for the killing of a German SS officer, though he did not say who gave the order.

"It was all like a trance: setting the fires, the shooting, the destroying," Malazhenski recalled, according to the 1967 statement found by the AP in the archives of Warsaw's state-run Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates and prosecutes German and Soviet crimes on Poles during and after World War II.

Wagner also referred to the former unit commander as having been "involved with" or "associated with" the unit.

Which seems to minimize "a top commander," especially since the AP story also running in today's New York Times says Karkoc helped to create the unit in collaboration with the SS and later took direct orders from it:

However, in a Ukrainian-language memoir published in 1995, Karkoc states that he helped found the Ukrainian Self Defense Legion in 1943 in collaboration with the Nazis' feared SS intelligence agency, the SD, to fight on the side of Germany — and served as a company commander in the unit, which received orders directly from the SS, through the end of the war.

Extremist GOP Ideology On Full Display In Wisconsin Legislature

Contradictory, cruel and calculated is the new face and blueprint for GOP legislative behavior in Wisconsin. Senate presiding officer Mike Ellis sums it up:


GOP legislators running both houses are passing bills protecting women from domestic violence while passing bills restricting women's access to health and medical services and mandating invasive and unneeded procedures on women who opt for legal abortion.

In other words, some violence against women will come with the official state seal of approval.

And the GOP majority pushing these measures is using Wisconsin women as pawns in one of the most cynical and callous political maneuvers in state history.

The GOP cares less about the well-being of Wisconsin women - - and particularly low-income and rural women dependent on Planned Parenthood services directly targeted by the legislation - - than it does about serving fringe, right-wing advocacy groups and teeing up Scott Walker as the farthest-right candidate in 2016 presidential primaries.

WMC Offered Explanation Of Well-Siting Motion, Issues To Legislators

About Motion #375 affecting big water users' permits in Wisconsin approved in May by the Republican-controlled Joint Committee on Finance at the 11th hour to ban challenges to high-capacity well permits based on wells' cumulative impacts:

It's been hard to find out where and how the motion originated, but the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce offered a detailed supporting analysis to legislators after the finance committee approved it on a 12-4 party line vote:

To: Members of the State Legislature
From: Eric Bott, WMC Director of Energy & Environmental Policy
Date: May 28, 2013
RE: Cumulative Impacts – JFC Budget Motion 375 

The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has determined that, under current law, it has no statutory or other legal authority to consider cumulative impacts when determining whether to approve or deny a permit for a high capacity well.  That hasn’t stopped litigants from bringing challenges to permitting decisions based upon the failure of the Department to conduct such analyses. 

The Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) recently approved a motion to address this issue.  The JFC motion prevents litigants from challenging high capacity well permits or permit applications based on a lack of consideration of cumulative impacts by the DNR.  

Recent statements in the press have incorrectly implied that this motion would somehow prevent the DNR from considering the effects of a proposed high capacity well on neighboring wells, lakes, or streams. These statements are incorrect. 

In accordance with all relevant statutes and rules, DNR is obligated to continue reviewing and considering potential impacts from all proposed new high capacity wells; however DNR has determined that review must be limited to potential impacts from the proposed well.  By contrast, a cumulative impact analysis would require review of potential impacts that may result from all existing permitted wells, plus the new proposed well.  

There is no authority in current law to allow DNR to regulate high capacity wells based on potential cumulative impacts, and there is no framework or criteria in any statute or rule that establishes how DNR would even consider cumulative impacts. 

Just last week, a DNR water attorney filed a 14-page brief with the Division of Hearings and Appeals detailing its legal position and explaining why the agency does not have authority to consider cumulative impacts (“[T]here is no statutory language that gives DNR authority to consider the cumulative impacts of existing groundwater withdrawals from other properties when determining whether or not to issue an approval for a proposed high capacity well.” DNR brief, page 4.)

Under current law, all high capacity applicants must demonstrate that the proposed well will not impact an outstanding or exceptional resource water, a trout stream, a spring or a public utility well.  (Wis. Stat. §281.34, Wis. Admin. Code chapters NR 812, 820.) The DNR may also review and consider potential impacts from the proposed well plus any other wells located on the same property.  If a proposed well is located in the Great Lakes Basin, DNR has even greater regulatory oversight.  The recent JFC motion in no way alters these requirements.  

Instead, the committee’s action addresses a specific legal issue where environmental activists are litigating in an attempt to force the DNR to undertake significant technical analyses and make permitting decisions that have no basis in the law.  

This action preserves the legislature’s role as the policy making body in the state. 

For more information on this issue please visit the DNR’s High Capacity Well Information website at http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wells/HighCapacity.html...

Magnanimity Moment Missed

Politicians yearn for moments that allow for displays of magnanimity - - the more unscripted the opportunity, the better - - and Scott Walker had one handed to him when it turned out that the 20-year-old UW-Platteville student whom the Governor had nominated for a short-term slot on the UW Board of Regents had signed a Walker recall petition two years earlier.

There are two student seats on the UW Board of Regents in somewhat symbolic and relatively powerless spots on a large board of heavy-hitters; The board has 18 members; 14 of whom are gubernatorial appointees serving staggered, seven-year terms, who constitute the center of board power and through whom a Governor eventually establishes control.

There are also two student regents whom the Governor appoints, but only to two-year terms. Two more regents are higher-ed administrators.

Details, here.

This was not Walker discovering that the balance of power over UW affairs would be hanging in the balance, or that he had found out a Cabinet nominee or policy-maker in a key agency had committed a grievous act of political disloyalty.

Basically, this was a small embarrassment suddenly offering Walker an opportunity to put sharp-edged partisanship aside, throw his arm around a student who is half his age - -  a teenager at the time of the petition signing - -  and say, 'son, I'm going to give you a second chance to give me a second look.'

But Walker couldn't set aside his basic humorless and one-dimensional identity, so tossed the opportunity away by withdrawing the student's nomination.
Appearing intimidated by a 20-year-old.

Righty 620 WTMJ-AM radio talker Jeff Wagner Thursday afternoon said the episode was a self-inflicted wound laid on Walker by inept staffers.

I'd argue the self-inflicted occurred when Walker chose mundane over magnanimous.

Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.

Walker Intimidated By 20-Year Old

He discovers that a student he'd nominated for a seat on the UW Board of Regents had signed the recall petition two years ago - - Gasp!! - -  and withdraws the appointment.

Boy, Walker, a minister's son, showed that kid - - another minister's son - - who's boss.

There was another Republican who understood the value of a having a team of rivals, but Walker is without any sense of proportion and behaved as if intimidated by the suggestion of disagreement - - even surrounding an appointment unlikely to have any actual dissonant policy consequence.

The Face Of Wisconsin's GOP Leadership And Breakdown

Wisconsin, firmly in the grip of extremists with their ugliness on display. Hat tip, Madison Capital Times:

mike ellis

WisconsinEye

In this screen grab from a WisconsinEye video, Wisconsin Senate President Mike Ellis shouts at Democrats who were interrupting the roll call on the ultrasound bill before the Senate on Wednesday morning. 

MMSD Handled Recent Storm Overflows Better Than Chicago

The reason?

More green infrastructure to absorb storm water runoff, says the Journal Sentinel:

Wisconsin Legislators Join Arizona Lawmaker In Day Of Attacks On Women

This Arizona rape 'expert' bozo is in the news the same day GOP legislative bullies in Wisconsin angrily cut off debate and voted to limit geographical access to some rural Wisconsin women seeking reproductive health services, and to require an ultrasound for pregnant women seeking abortions.

Breathtaking Hypocrisy In Walker, GOP 'Conservative' Budget

The headline and 'deck' above the story says it all:

Property taxes would rise by $29 in each of next two years for average homeowner 
  
GOP budget also would mean a $500 million shortfall for 2015-'17

More Fouled Streams, Rivers Deepen Wisconsin Water Crisis

I'd written recently on this blog and in the Journal Sentinel's Sunday Crossroads section that Wisconsin waters - - though held in trust for all the people by the State Constitution - - were in crisis from political mismanagement, neglect and downright attack by state government..

The evidence was a string of new laws, proposals and administrative actions serving special interests since Scott Walker took office that removed or weakened protections for ground water, surface water, shorelines, construction sites, wetlands and woodlands that help hold and filter precipitation.

Now comes a stunning story by Lee Bergquist of the Journal Sentinel - - that more than 150 additional state bodies of water are so polluted they will be added to a list of impaired waterways needing fixing - - and that Walker tried unsuccessfully to 'address' the problem by holding up the implementation of state rules aimed at reducing levels of phosphorus run-off - - one of the main pollutants in impaired waterways making the list.

This is the same state and agency - - the DNR - - that says it can and will protect the Bad River and all surrounding waters from acid mine runoff at the proposed open pit iron mine near Lake Superior.

The same state by legislators who won't discuss why they are, for example, banning citizens who now have that right from challenging high-volume well permits.

The state's history and economy are tightly connected to clean, accessible water, just as plentiful ground water is tied to healthy streams, rivers and lakes on the surface.

Ignoring and tampering with such basic science and policies imperil everything from healthy drinking water to successful tourism to productive business recruitment and job retention.

Is the goal to make Wisconsin an imperiled and impaired water state?

Scott Walker's Jobs Plan Now In Full View

The headline tells the story:

State jobs agency hires its fourth CFO in less than two years

Backers Of WI Ground Water Giveaway Plan Go Mum

(updated from 12:00 a.m.) The last-minute and now widely-controversial Joint Finance Committee Motion #375 that bars citizen challenges and opens the door to potentially-damaging high-volume well drilling in Wisconsin has turned into something of an orphan.

The number of these so-called high-capacity wells in Wisconsin has exploded exponentially in recent years due to sprawl, expanding dairy and agricultural operations and dozens of new frac sand mines.

Though elected representatives usually enjoy touting their handiwork, neither Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, (R-Rochester), or State Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, (R-Town of Cascade), the relatively low-profile legislator who introduced Motion #375 (and an earlier version, #347) without a hearing, study or advance notice - - one GOP colleague said he was "blindsided" by the motion - -  have not exactly jumped at an offer to talk about the measure.

I had sent LeMahieu's office this Open Records request Saturday:

Pursuant to the Wisconsin Open Records statute, I am requesting at your earliest convenience access to all emails, letters, memos, reports and other written correspondence to or from you or your staff, or otherwise in your possession, or your staff's possession on the development of and introduction to the Joint Committee on Finance of motions #347 and #375 (resolutions covering high-capacity well permit applications and appeals).

I enclose a link to an ag publication making reference to these motions, should there be any confusion as to what items I am asking for - - http://www.wisconsinlakes.org/index.php/current-legislative-a-legal-issues/133-limits-to-challenging-high-capacity-well-permits#Links

LeMahieu's office on Monday morning responded with three items: The text of, and explanatory notes for Motions #347 and #375 and the text of an email from a constituent objecting to the motion.

In response to a follow-up inquiry from me, LeMahieu's office shortly after noon on Monday responded by bumping my request for an interview about Motion #375 to the office of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.

That interview request, along with an Open Records submission identical to the request to LeMahieu's office, was sent to Vos' office Monday afternoon and again on Tuesday afternoon, but the none of the Open Records or interview requests were acknowledged or answered by Vos or his office as of 10:00 a.m. Wednesday.

Here is the text of motion #347 provided by LeMahieu's office:

Move to specify that, in making a determination about whether a proposed high capacity well permit should be granted, DNR may consider only the environmental impact of that proposed high capacity well and may not consider the cumulative environmental impact of the proposed high capacity well together with existing wells.

Here is the text (and notes) for the more-expansive motion #375 provided by LeMahieu's office:

NATURAL RESOURCES - ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Cumulative Environmental Impacts of High Capacity Wells - Not Grounds to Challenge Permitting Decision

Move to specify that a person may not challenge an application for, or a permit for, a high capacity well based on the lack of consideration of the cumulative environmental impacts of the proposed high capacity well together with existing wells when approving the high capacity well permit.

This provision would apply to applications for high capacity well permits and high capacity well permits in effect before, on, or after, the effective date of the bill, and for applications and permits for which final administrative or judicial review has not been completed on the effective date of the bill.

Note:

Section 281.34 of the statutes requires an owner to obtain approval from DNR before construction of a high capacity well. A "high capacity well" means a well that, together with all other wells on the same property, has a capacity of more than 100,000 gallons per day.

Section 281.34 (4) relates to environmental review and requires that DNR shall review an application for approval of any of the following using the environmental review process in its rules promulgated under s. 1.11 of the statutes: (1) A high capacity well that is located in a groundwater protection area; (2) A high capacity well with a water loss of more than 95 percent of the amount of water withdrawn; or (3) A high capacity well that may have a significant environmental impact on a spring. If the department requests an environmental impact report under s. 23.11 (5) for a proposed high capacity well, the department may only request information in that report that relates to the decisions that the department makes under this section related to the proposed high capacity well. Section 281.34 (5) includes standards and conditions for approval of high capacity wells.

Issues have been raised in legal proceedings regarding the extent to which DNR must consider, may consider, or may not consider, the environmental impacts of existing wells when making a decision on whether or not to approve a permit for a proposed high capacity well related to both statutory requirements and Article 9, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution (known as the public trust doctrine). For example, a recent DNR decision to approve a high capacity well permit for a confined animal feeding operation is currently the subject of a contested case hearing, relating to whether DNR should have considered cumulative environmental impacts when it issued the permit.

Wisconsin Could Be Hit Tonight By Rare "Derecho" Windstorm

Produced by heat, and perhaps accelerated by climate change, a broad, straight line and potentially-dangerous thunderstorm system could spend time in Wisconsin tonight:

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Meteorologists are tracking a so-called derecho weather pattern in the Midwest that could spawn severe windstorms in several major metropolitan areas, with gusts as strong as 100 mph. 

The National Weather Service says derechoes occur once or twice a year in the central U.S. with winds of at least 75 mph. The storms maintain their intensity for hours as they sweep across vast distances, and can trigger tornadoes and large hail. 

Meteorologists say the windstorms could hit from South Dakota to Pennsylvania over the next two days, including the Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh metro areas.

The East Coast got smashed by one last summer.

Madison Flat Earth Club Declares Up Is Down...

...And down is up.

Good thing these people aren't in any leadership or influential posts.

Wait a minute...

WMC: Obama's killing the economy, but the economy's good because of Scott Walker

Milwaukee Sheriff Blows Another Public $10 K On Self-Promotion

Dan Bice tunes in on the latest airwave assault from The Local Government of One:

When Milwaukee County Supervisor Patricia Jursik proposed a ban on taxpayer-funded radio and TV ads starring elected officials, you knew exactly what Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. was going to do next. 

But let's let Clarke -- who is up for re-election next year -- describe his response to Jursik's proposal in his words, according to a report on the conservative website WND.com: 

“So you know what I did a few weeks ago?” Clarke laughed. “I took out another $10,000 and made a new ad.”

Massive Citizen Effort To Block Sneak Giveaway Of Wisc. Groundwater

Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters is announcing that 39 organizations and more than 4,000 citizens have, on short notice, contacted legislators seeking removal of the groundwater giveaway provision sneaked into the stage budget through a committee amendment without even minimal notice, let alone a hearing.

...Motion #375 was adopted by the Joint Finance Committee into the state budget on Tuesday, May 21st. The amendment prohibits a citizen from challenging an application for a new high capacity well, even if the state has not considered the cumulative environmental impacts of other high capacity wells. 

This amendment will have far-reaching implications for our state, including our multi-billion dollar tourism and outdoor recreation industries. Depleted groundwater levels translate directly to low lake levels, barely-flowing rivers, and dry wetlands. Well-managed groundwater resources are absolutely vital to the fishing, hunting, boating and other recreational activities that are at the heart of Wisconsin's $13 billion tourism industry. 

More about Motion #375 later today... 

More Discussion Of Waukesha's Lake Michigan Water Diversion Timeline

The Journal Sentinel addresses the diversion application timetable and obstacles, here:

Waukesha charts aggressive course in Lake Michigan water bid

I'd offered commentary earlier Monday, here

Waukesha Looks To Prompt Diversion Reviews; History Suggests Otherwise

Evasions In Walker's USA Today Interview

Walker was interviewed by US Today about the Tea Party Governors - - a label he's escaped in the past - - and I note a few more things in the paper's posted video:

*  Walker says those Governors will be evaluated come re-election time by their states' economic progress, and he focuses on falling unemployment rates - - a factor not entirely illustrative of a better jobs climate because a falling rate often speaks to significant numbers of discouraged long-term jobless having quit searching for work.

And a falling rate certainly does not address wages, or the growth in low-end service work, and other factors.

But Walker set himself up to be held to a unique, measurable performance standard than the other governors Tea Party will face in their 2014 races - - the 250,000 new private jobs' pledge he made and repeated since 2010  - - while data show Walker is 50% behind meeting the goal with Wisconsin bringing up the rear in the Midwest and close to the bottom in national job and growth rankings.

Interviewers have got to hold Walker accountable to the special measurement he created boastfully in his 2010 general and 2012 recall campaigns.

*  Secondly - - Walker tells the interviewer the Tea Party governors have appeal because they are keeping their promises - - but the truth is that in Wisconsin, Walker's signature move - - creating Act 10 and ending most public sector collective bargaining  - - was a scheme withheld from the public during the 2010 campaign rather than a promise made and a kept..

Which is as evasive or untrustworthy as making a promise and breaking it..

*  Finally - - I swear on the video Walker calls Florida Gov.Rick Scott Rich Scott.

Thanks to the Journal Sentinel for the link.

Waukesha Looks To Prompt Diversion Reviews; History Suggests Otherwise

The Waukesha Freeman reported last week that the city's water utility expected to clear a multiplicity of local, state, Canadian provincial and eight-US states' technical review and hearing hurdles in a matter of months - - the application is the first of its kind, so is in genuinely uncharted waters - - and will meet with diverted Lake Michigan water a federally-ordered June 2018 water supply provision deadline:

Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak said the application will be finalized and submitted to the DNR by July 8. Pending timely approvals, infrastructure construction is slated to begin March 1, 2015, he said.

Remember what happened when the City of New Berlin, as a courtesy not mandated by law (for Waukesha, however, all eight US states must assent; the Canadians get advisory status), had its request for a smaller diversion sent to the other Great Lakes and Canadian provinces sent for a review?

Michigan immediately said "no review."

MILWAUKEE -- While reams of copy and hours of meetings have been devoted to whether the City of Waukesha would -- or should -- apply for a controversial diversion of water from Lake Michigan, the City of New Berlin has, without fanfare, sent an application for diversion permission of its own to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Almost as quietly, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm refused to even consider the request, showing the easiest solution to Waukesha's water woes faces big hurdles.

Then there were more objections, so the process went slowly - - and Waukesha has long been advised to expect as a "certainty" that one or more states would say "no" because the application was insufficient:

In fact, at one early public discussion in the Waukesha Common Council chambers, Great Lakes water expert Peter Annin told the assemblage that if there was one certainty in the diversion review process, it was that at least one state would send the whole thing back for more work.

Some years ago, New Berlin asked for a relatively small diversion from Milwaukee, and even though the review required a lower-level of approval than what Waukesha will face because of geographical and legal factors, the initial draft needed a lot of revisions that delayed the eventual approvals.

...the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has advised the City of New Berlin that its 2006 application for a diversion - - touted last year by the DNR as "complete and comprehensive" - - must be clarified and expanded.

In at least 26 categories of "efficient water use," "water supply alternatives." and "environmental impacts," according to a letter received last month by New Berlin officials and consultants.

And when the DNR sent the New Berlin application to the other states for a mere advisory review - - Waukesha's will require a much tougher analysis, with the states actually formally saying "aye" or "nay," with unanimity required- - the reviews as submitted to the DNR, and summarized below, were downright ugly:

New York: On Aug. 15, 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 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.”

Illinois: On July 14, Illinois officials suggested the application could be strengthened with data of “forecasts of future water use, both inside and outside the Great Lakes basin.” Illinois also suggested that New Berlin extend its sprinkling ban, evaluate the effectiveness of its conservation planning, and expand its search for well-water alternatives to its proposed Lake Michigan diversion that could eliminate the need for a diversion.

Michigan: On Sept. 25, the state of Michigan said it would not begin a formal review until a full-scale diversion application was received. On Oct. 31, its attorney general said that without a formal application meeting federal standards provided by the U.S. Water Resources Development Act, New Berlin could not proceed.

Talk About A Throw Away Headline

Not much energy put into writing this one:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson appears on Fox News

Fresh Outrage In Santa Monica

A fifth person in Santa Monica has died in the wake of another mass shooting by a heavily-armed man.

I checked in with my friends there. They are all OK, but one reported his wife had driven past the Santa Monica College campus shortly before the shootings. Another friend's married son lives with his wife and two young kids just two blocks from the first crime scene where two died and a house was torched.

America held hostage by ubiquitous weaponry designed for the battlefield, yet in the hands of politically-enabled maniacs targeting innocents on our streets and in classrooms.

Some Progress On Blocking Predatory Carp From Great Lakes

An interesting development in what could be a long process - - if there's time:

The push to somehow plug the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to stop Asian carp and other noxious species from swimming between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River has picked up a major endorsement in Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.

 More here from Gary Wilson at Great Lakes Echo:

MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. – After eight years on the sidelines during one of the most dynamic periods for the Great Lakes, two governors took the first step aimed at getting their gubernatorial colleagues to engage on the Great Lakes.

Walker's Curious But Fake Complaints Over Opposition 'Attacks'

With Democrats pounding away on his failed jobs promises and falling state employment and growth rankings, Scott Walker responded with these curious words, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"What they are going to do, because they got nothing to offer in response, they are going to attack and attack and attack and attack and attack, and then attack again," he said.

What came to mind first was his repeating and repeating and repeating "attack and attack and attack..." That's a signature rhetorical device belonging to and amplified frequently by Mark Belling, the 1130 WISN-AM afternoon and often angry rightly radio talker.

Walker's words could have been the deliberate work of staff, or the Governor himself, to feed back a talk radio mantra to the faithful, or a subconscious homage to Belling on whose show Walker has often appeared.

Affirming the relationships between Walker and right-wing talk radio already noted:

But either way, his summoning, via complaining, of a staple of talk radio - -  itself an attacking forum and format - - is pretty ironic.

Secondly, is Walker looking for an exemption from a Poli Sci 101 axiom - - that incumbents must defend their record against challengers' attacks.

Which is precisely how Walker ran against the records of Tom Ament and Jim Doyle, though neither were on the ballot?

Scott Walker, Herbert Hoover 2.0

Turns out that while attributed to him, the politically-challenged Herbert Hoover did not actually say "prosperity is just around the corner" - - though you can see why it was laid at his historical doorstep.

But fact-challenged Scott Walker, despite dismal employment and growth rankings did just say he'd "we reformed our way to prosperity."

Where exactly does our own Herbert Hoover reincarnated see this prosperity in economically-stagnant Wisconsin, other than on talking point cards.?

George Orwell Cited Across WI Social Media Spectrum Today

There was this on Twitter from Charlie Sykes about noon today, probably tweaking talk radio host Mark Belling for lauding the WI legislature's hit on an investigative journalism project on the UW-Madison campus:

  Charles Sykes ‏@SykesCharlie 5h

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell

In the morning, I found a different way to reference Orwell:

Walker Double-Speak On 'Prosperity' He's Created

His Orwellian message - - "we reformed our way to prosperity" - - is contradicted by facts:

The numbers tell the story: