Scott Walker, GOP Reps Probe Public's Gullibility on Clean Water

May 7, 2016

Scott Walker, GOP Reps Probe Public's Gullibility on Clean Water

Protect our water, say Wisconsin residents. No, says Big Ag
and its Republican protectors in Wisconsin.

Clean water is necessary for life, and is good business. Wisconsin Republican politicians won't listen.

Don Ystad, a retired business consultant living in Adams County Wisconsin, has penned 10,000s of words to Wisconsin policymakers and officials charged with protecting the water.

Ystad has met with success in forming alliances with local citizens across the political spectrum in central Wisconsin, but Scott Walker and the Republican Party remain in unified opposition to clean water advocates as 1,000s in central Wisconsin fight a proposed massive factory farm sited in the town of Saratoga in Wood County and the vile practice of dumping millions of tons of cow manure into the environment.

Wisconsin State Reps. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) and Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa) represent districts in which aquifers and surface waters are being depleted and toxified by industrialized agriculture.

Both legislators are notorious yes men to Big Ag polluters in northeastern and central Wisconsin respectively. Both run political interference for industrialized agriculture operations as children are literally being sent to the emergency room after bathing or drinking water contaminated by the massive amount of cow manure and associated pathogens vectored into the environment.

"When Doug Jones and his wife, Sherryl,
bought their home in Spring Green
15 years ago, they had a vision of a place
where their family could gather,
enjoy the beauty of a restored prairie,
and where their grandchildren could
experience fresh air and a peaceful, rural life.
Their land included an 11-acre oxbow lake
and sloughs connected to the
Lower Wisconsin Riverway."
(Midwest Environmental Advocates)

Clean water advocates and other citizen groups—Kewaunee Cares, Saratoga Concerned and Citizens Concerned about Lake Superior CAFOs, for example—have worked for years with municipal, county and state policymakers only to find themselves blacklisted by the Department of Natural Resources and besmirched by Republican legislators such as we-don't-need-the-EPA Joel Kitchens and Krug, and some have become the victims of threats and vandalism in their very homes.

Now, water advocates, (aka Wisconsin families), are fed-up and frustrated as children are poisoned, well water continually contaminated and property valuations plummeting.

"We have played nice with our County Board of Supervisors long enough, it is time to start calling them out publicly on their lack of leadership and accountability to citizen concerns," notes Saratoga Concerned Friday night on their Facebook page.

In a letter to the Wisconsin Rapids City Times, Criste Greening of Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors rips the Wood County Board (central Wisconsin) pointing to outright hostility from Scott Walker ally, Wood County Board Supervisor and Chairman Lance Pliml and other Board members politically allied with Big Ag in Wisconsin.

Citizen groups across the state are aligning, a phenomenon assisted by social media such as Facebook. Look for a change in tone this election cycle.

Following a report from northeastern Wisconsin that two schools in embattered Kewaunee County received letters warning of well contamination last week, (Karen Ebert Yancey, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin), Scott Walker, Kitchens and Krug were featured in a piece yesterday morning reporting:

In response to continued groundwater problems in Kewaunee County, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) expects to issue new administrative regulations for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and other farmers in karst areas, state Rep. Joel Kitchens said Thursday.

Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, met with Gov. Scott Walker Wednesday and said that they had agreed that different DNR rules governing agriculture were needed for 'unique geological areas of the state.'

'He understands that one size fits all doesn't work,' Kitchen said, referring to DNR regulations that govern statewide agricultural practices, particularly for manure spreading, (Karen Ebert Yancey, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

No activist reached expects anything to come from the latest lip service from Scott Walker and Republican representatives who have decimated the DNR, and who use the hyper-partisan Republican attorney general to further the aims of polluters, money donors and anybody willing to pay to play.

Will Republicans stop the proposed Wysocki factory farm? Will Republicans restore scientists and the autonomy of the DNR? Will Republicans restore the autonomy of administrative law judges?

One thing is certain: 'No' to all questions.

Said one clean water advocate from Door County, (aka 'Wisconsin's Martha Vineyard'): "I won't hold my breath on anything actually happening, but the heat is apparently on."