Wisconsin Clean Water Activists Post New Video, Enough Is Enough

Clean water advocates from across Wisconsin gathered
at the state capitol in Madison to demand clean and
safe water. Image is from a video filmed in November 2015
(Mal Contends)

Clean water assaults have citizens on edge

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Public Trust Doctrine Article 9, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution states the waters are in trust for public purposes. The Public Trust Doctrine is the foundation of water law in Wisconsin, and it is under full-spectrum attack by Republicans.

To politicians' claims of 'we didn't know,' the cesspool of Republican politics becomes clear as children are rushed to hospitals because mothers bathed infants and toddlers in toxic bath water, (Seely, WisconsinWatch),

A child at a Wisconsin clean water rally holds a
sign reading A CAFO poisoned my water.
Image is from the Video, Enough Is Enough, by Eric Peterson

Protect Wood County and Its Neighbors from central Wisconsin is out this week with a video chronicling the fight for clean water in the Badger State.

People want fresh water and protections for their families from Big Ag operations, CAFOs. CAFOs are massive factories that render tourism and recreational regions economic and environmental moonscapes by poisoning groundwater and surface water.

Clean water advocates face a sophisticated political machine protecting polluters. Two pro-pollution Wisconsin state representatives are betraying

Bill Iwen of Kewaunee County, Wisconsin has his retirement
cut short by corporate polluter

their communities to protect corporations that direct pathogens into families' homes and environments. This is a simple fact that caused one polluters' protector, State Rep. Scott Krug, to threaten a libel suit against this site in 2014. Krug backed down.

The pro-polluters are State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin) and State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa, Wisconsin). They are considered vulnerable Republicans despite representing gerrymandered districts drawn to elect Republicans, and are protected by their areas' corporate media.

From Criste Greening of Protect Wood County in central Wisconsin:

For those of us living in Saratoga and Rome and who have been in our fight from the beginning, it has been a long and emotional four years. Four years of frustration, long hours of travel, thousands of meetings, and complete mental and physical exhaustion.

Clean water drives are a common site in Kewaunee County
in northeastern Wisconsin.

However, there has also been life-long friendships made spanning the miles across our beautiful Wisconsin countryside. Connections that will not diminish and fade when this fight finally comes to an end.

Thank you Eric Peterson for producing such a heart wrenching video that brought me to tears. And thank you to all our brave citizen warriors across Wisconsin who are standing up and fighting back.
---

Lynn Utesch at center is a veteran, small farmer and clean water
activist. Utesch and family live in Kewaunee County
in northeastern Wisconsin. Utesch has launched a state assembly
campaign against a prominent political shill for water polluters,
State Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin).

The new video produced by Eric Peterson of Protect Wood County is below. It chronicles the fight for clean water from people in northern Wisconsin, northeastern Wisconsin and central Wisconsin as citizens now see the normalization of water poisoning.

"I watched the people watching the video at the meeting last night and the emotion was strong; frustration with the weakening of our protections, anger at the people supposed to be protecting our environment, and encouragement with the power of our group and like minded citizens successfully making progress around our state," writes Don Ystad of Rome, Wisconsin in an email this morning.

Enough is Enough

Clean Water Activists Carry Fight Across Wisconsin

Lovers of Lake Superior are banding together and saying 'no'
to a huge hog farm looking to call northern Wisconsin home.
The Bayfield County Board voted to ban aerial spraying of
manure on January 27, 2015. CAFO operations such as the
proposed hog farm produce millions of tons of manure annually

Across Wisconsin people are objecting to the fresh waters being polluted by pathogen-laden and oxygen-depleting liquid cow (and now proposed swine) manure fouling streams, rivers, and aquifers, creating growing dead zones in lakes where fish once swam.

Fresh water is under assault from Big Ag, and the Republican Party of Wisconsin—from Scott Walker to the Dairy Business Association—is not going lose any sleep over sick children, dead trout and the increasing numbers of water wells so befouled people are forced to used bottled water for drinking.

Welcome to modern agriculture, and and its mirco inhabitants, MRSA and friends. (The Cornucopia Institute)

"Many generations of my family were dairy farmers in Clark County, Wisconsin, and I continue to be supportive of family farms. But, I can't stand idly by and see a [Wood] county supervisor [Robert Ashbeck] blindly turn his back on a presentation that shows the health dangers of manure spraying, nor can I ignore the state Dairy Business Association lobby pushing for legislation that would bar you and me from taking photos or reporting on animal cruelty or polluting from these mega farms. That's not a democracy," said Rome, Wisconsin resident Donald Ystad in an email, referring to a presentation by Criste Greening of Protect Wood Coutny and Its Neighbors at Wood County's ad hoc committee studying aerial manure spraying last week.

From Bayfield County:

Lovers of Lake Superior are banding together and saying ‘no’ to a huge hog farm looking to call northern Wisconsin home.

An Iowa pig farmer has his sights set on a piece of land in Eileen Wis., but locals are worried about the millions of pounds of manure that they say will pollute nearby Lake Superior.

'Fresh clean water is so much more valuable to this planet than cheap bacon,' said protester, Mary Dougherty of Bayfield County. (Julia Russell, Fox 21-KQDS)

"For a long time, our community has been tolerant of watching the things we hold dear be degraded. Our soils, water and air have been greatly compromised due to these industrial operations and their polluting wastes, measuring in the millions and millions of gallons," writes Nancy Utesch of Kewaunee County. "The continued myth that we are feeding the world must be dispelled. We are not feeding the world. Most of the world is fed through subsistence farming, by women, on small acreages, where they live. The continued push for a "global economy" while our local economies continue to be impoverished by the factory farm model must stop." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

In Adams County, "Tri-Lakes Management District soon will begin monitoring Spring Branch Creek — which feeds into northern Adams County lakes — to measure its water quality and any potential effects a nearby proposed large scale dairy might have." (Lawder, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune)

Below is a presentation delivered by Wisconsin DNR runoff chief (2001-11), Gordon Stevenson, in January 2015 to the Wood County Manure Ad Hoc Committee.

Wisconsin ignores this public health crisis at its peril.

The Public Trust Doctrine Article 9, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution lays out Wisconsin's Public Trust Doctrine. This is a body of common and statutory law that says that the state holds the the waters of the state in trust for public purposes. This extremely important right, guaranteed by our state Constitution, is the foundation of water law in the state of Wisconsin.