Public Waterways, Not Private Sewers, Say Wisconsin Fresh Water Fighters

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's assault on fresh and safe water is unprecedented in state history.

What type of psychopath would deliberately poison drinking and surface waters? In Wisconsin the psychopaths are many, they're called Republicans and without exception every Republican goes along with a pretty sick project.

"Safe drinking water is a prerequisite for protecting public health and all human activity," reads the Unites States Department of Homeland Security, (DHS), site on the Water and Wastewater Systems Sector. DHS protects our water systems from attack.

But threats and vulnerabilities in our water systems in America don't come from foreign terrorists. The enemy of water is domestic—industrial agricultural operations—so naturally the Trump administration is targeting major federal agencies like the EPA protecting our water, following similar action at the state level.

Republican attacks on water at the state level aim to displace the legal protection of, and cultural ethos associated with fresh water in Wisconsin. DHS cannot help these people. The Wisconsin people are organizing themselves in self-defense.

Though electoral wins have decidedly not panned out in Wisconsin's gerrymandered legislative races, (water protectors lost badly in the 2016 general elections), the organizing feats in central, northern and northeastern Wisconsin have been impressive.

No Republican politician in Wisconsin makes an electoral or legislative move without considering how to lie to and cheat citizen action on safe water.

Protecting water as a social movement is primed to grow, and most everyone from libertarians to Greens to multi-generational Wisconsin families hate industrialized agriculture, CAFOs. Though water polluters, called CAFOs, say their methods are modern agriculture, the operations work to displace water protections enacted the last 40 years with the Medieval practice of dumping untreated sewage into communities.

Recent updates on the clean water fight:

Citizens in Kewaunee County in northeastern Wisconsin are again escalating their fight for clean and safe water.


Central Wisconsin

In central Wisconsin, a clean water group is holing its general meeting tonight.

Protect Wood County and its Neighbors General Meeting

Date: Monday, February 27, 2017
Time: 6:30 PM
Place: Saratoga Town Hall

Agenda

• Introductory Remarks
• Historical Presentation, "Buried Treasure" -  Dave Patrykus
• Wisconsin Senate Bill 76
• CAFO Regulation from Wisconsin DNR to DATCP
• Violations at Central Sands Dairy
• League of Conservation Voters Lobby Day
• Rome, (Adams County Wisconsin) Concerned Update
• Wood County Board
• SE Wood County Groundwater Quality Group
• Portage County Groundwater Citizens Advisory Sub-Committee
• Questions?

Northeastern Wisconsin

In northeastern Wisconsin, CAFO owner John Pagel, is using his position in public office to corrupt local government. From Kewaunee County Star News comes Jodi Parins' letter to the editor published on February 18, 2017 on Pagel's latest scam:

Wisconsin Senate Bill 76

From Rome, Wisconsin in Adams County, citizen Don Ystad offers his latest work on the groundwater-depleting bill, Wisconsin Senate Bill 76:

Dear Senators,

A few weeks ago, over 400 of us showed up in the state capitol to ask that you consider water laws that benefit all citizens, not just those represented by industry lobbyists.

While we all value Wisconsin's agriculture heritage, we also understand that we have water issues that are affecting people's health and well being, as well as the commerce of Wisconsin's $20 billion tourism industry. Senate bill 76 falls short in a number of areas.

For me, living in a lakes area in Adams County, where 49% of residential value is tied to lakes area properties, I can only imagine the impact on county revenues if lakes are allowed to be decimated by over pumping and the billion dollars in lake property value is reduced as a result.

And, imagine the effect on the counties third of a billion in tourism revenue.

When you consider bills such as SB76, keep in mind that 225 lakes were added to Wisconsin's impaired list in 2016. It's time we pay attention to our recreation asset in our state, as well as agriculture.

We saw a proposed bill very similar to SB76 last session and fortunately it was not approved.

Upon review, the minor changes made in SB76 offer no real workable solutions or protections for citizens.

Citizens from all over the state delivered a respectful message on Feb 8th, asking that you consider the needs of all citizens when you consider water bills. We are your voting constituents and deserve at least that from you.

Thank you,
Don Ystad

Wisconsin Admin. Blacklists Clean Water Activists; Minnesota Gov. Says 'Clean Water' Ethic Needed at Summit

Good for Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) addressing clean water crises at his Minnesota Water Summit.

Right across the Mississippi, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is aggressively pursuing the interests of the polluters, and incredibly blacklisting Wisconsin clean water activists.

On the very weekend of the Minnesota summit, it was reported the Scott Walker administration maintained a blacklist of Wisconsin citizens about whom the Department of Natural Resources agency staff was ordered to not to respond with any communications, and to ignore all communications from these 16 Wisconsin citizens.

Report Jason Stein and Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The state Department of Natural Resources blacklisted a group of 16 citizens and activists with complaints about how the agency managed wildlife and administered clean water and other rules.

Being put on the 'do not respond' list was supposed to mean that going forward agency staff would not respond to the complainants except for those responses required by the state's open records law.

Blacklisting citizens now.

The news of the Walker administration's blacklisting of citizens follows by some two weeks Scott Walker's signing Republican-passed legislation "overhauling the state's century-old system of merit hiring and firing," which will incorporate a system where politically vetted state workers will have access to confidential citizen information maintained by the state bureaucracy, (Stein and Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Easy to contemplate a blacklist of citizens—viewed with suspicion and hostility—veering into an enemies list as state workers become political instruments of the Walker adminstration.

Criticism of the black list is already growing across the state, especially among clean water advocates.

Writes Criste Greening of the clean water citizens' group, Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors, in a widely circulated email this weekend:

Friends and concerned Citizens,

Once again, politics at its best when it comes to our current administration in Madison. Lynn and Nancy Utesch [of Kewaunee CARES (Facebook)] are great friends of mine and vocal advocates for the land and waters of the state that are becoming increasingly polluted by industrial agriculture. Please read the forwarded correspondences below and remember these tidbits of information when election time is upon us.

The Utesch family are family farmers in Kewaunee County, where 1/3 of private drinking water wells have been made unusable because of pollution attributed to manure runoff from the 16 dairy CAFOs in Kewaunee County. They, like 15 others, have been blacklisted by the DNR for requesting internal information pointing out the DNR's lack of enforcement.  Does anyone think this is a level playing field for citizens of Wisconsin?  With DNR enforcement down by half over the past few years, citizens are compelled to protect their water, and barring them from requesting information, or delaying it, contradicts the open records laws.

Agency people and politicians copied here, please explain how this is justifiable. Citizens blind copied here, please remember this when you vote.

Back in Minnesota, reports J. Patrick Coolican in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Gov. Mark Dayton sought to unify Minnesotans around solving the state’s emerging water challenges at a St. Paul summit Saturday that brought together hundreds of activists, farmers, lobbyists, legislators and regulators.

But even as those present spoke of hope and resolve, the costs and conflicts surrounding water issues were immediately evident, as a group of demonstrators interrupted Dayton’s opening remarks to protest the construction of oil pipelines they said would threaten water quality and cultural touchstones like wild rice farming in tribal lands.

After Dayton promised to meet with the protesters, they left the stage, and he continued, not by proposing laws or regulations, but by sounding more like a pastor, [preacher], of water.

'What we really need is to establish an ethic of clean water practices,' he said. 'I urge you, and I ask you, to spend today establishing our ethic: that clean water practices are every Minnesotan’s responsibility. That anything less is unacceptable. And that it’s achievable if all of us do our part.'

Can anyone imagine Scott Walker understanding much less preaching the ethics of fresh, clean water?

One has to ask is Scott Walker so deluded, so ignorant, this man-child is not aware clean water is the lifeblood of Earth?

The Scott Walker administration's BlackList includes the following Wisconsin citizens:

Greg Graunke
Mark Tillotson
Roger Kerr
Patricia Randolph
Paul Wennesheimer
John Weisbrod
Dennis Hoeser
Lyle Zimmerman
Armond Alsteen
Lynn and Nancy Utesch
Tom School
The Sprecher family: Terry, Dawn, and Milton
John Rasmuessen
Tom Miller
Owen Buske
Karen Gething