Wisconsin Environmentalists Punch Through on Protecting Water

Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter

When Wisconsin State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Wisconsin Rapids and ALEC) is so frightened of being exposed as a fraud and avowed enemy of the environment that Krug says he will file a libel suit against MAL Contends for pointing this out, you know the consciousness of the Wisconsin people on protecting our waters has expanded.

As Tribal leaders in northern Wisconsin meet with the EPA this week to stop the proposed "largest open-pit iron ore mine in North America" that would flow directly into the Lake Superior watershed, in central Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Friends of the Central Sands whom Krug and Scott Walker rightly fear politically, has put out a powerful video on declining water levels in Wisconsin (see below).

In south-central Wisconsin, the Center for Investigative Journalism has a new piece out by Kate Golden on the dangers cow manure presents to drinking waters aquifers: Poisoning our waters.

Big Ag, and any operation dumping cow manure into the environment, are poisoning Wisconsin citizens by draining water through the accelerated use of high-capacity water wells, encouraged by the Scott Walker administration's DNR, and sending back liquid cow manure into the environment.

"In Walker’s first year in office he turned the DNR into an 'enterprise agency' with 'increased operating flexibility to enable the agency to improve customer service and business support.' This shifted staff and resources away from monitoring, oversight and compliance with environmental regulations and created the Office of Business Support and Sustainability at a time when two major threats to clean air and water were ramping up: Frac sand mining and massive Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) with thousands of head of livestock," notes Rebecca Kimble in The Progressive Magazine (March 2013).

From Wisconsin Friends of the Central Sands:

Scott Walker's War against Local Control in Wisconsin Drawing Flak

Mining monster, GTac's Bill Williams is seen here leaving
the Wisconsin Assembly on January 26, 2012, the evening
that the first mining bill GTac authored, AB426,
was pushed through, behind the locked doors so
ordered by Rep. Bill Kramer (R-ALEC).
Photo by Rebecca Kemble

Discussing Scott Walker and what his Republican Party are trying to inflict onto Wisconsin this week, it's worth noting Walker has too much baggage and to be candid is too dumb to become the Republican Party's 2016 nominee for president.

These marks against Walker, however, do not disqualify him in his re-election bid for governor of Wisconsin—a fact that can get residents down somewhat on occasion.

There is one titanic issue in a democracy beyond Walker's jobs failure and Walker's stunning lack of character that spells defeat in November if only the presumptive Democratic Party challenger's campaign will fire the bullets in a near-constant stream: Walker's attack on local control.

Note the Wisconsin Republican Party is hierarchical and authoritarian in the way it runs its operation.

When Scott Walker evades and pretends he has no idea what the Republicans in the legislature are doing, Walker is lying.

Ask outgoing Wisconsin state senator Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center, Wisconsin) how Republicans react when one Republican does not get on board with the decisions made by the special interests funding the Party.

"When some think tank comes up with the legislation and tells you not to fool with it, why are you even a legislator anymore? You just sit there and take votes and you’re kind of a feudal serf for folks with a lot of money," said Schultz in an important piece in the Madison Capital Times, (Jack Craver. "The Last Moderate ...") last August when speculation ran that Schultz could not longer function in the Republican-controlled state legislature and be obedient to special interests.

These same special interests are after Wisconsin's natural resources and they brook no dissent, certainly not from Wisconsin towns, villages and other units of local control.

Wisconsin towns are worried about kids and the elderly breathing in crystalline silica from frac sand mines and processing plants; tell it to someone cares, people.

Republicans, led by state Sen. Tom Tiffany, (R-Hazelhurst, Wisconsin), are voting on legislation preventing Wisconsin towns and other municipalities from saying 'No.' This means no instituting safety rules, and this means invalidating existing rules in Wisconsin Senate Bill 632 and Assembly Bill 816. Local communities deserve no say in these matters, Wisconsin Republicans believe.

This same Republican aversion to local control applies to community living wage ordinances, community protection for tenants, community early voting for local residents, the infamous Act 10 outlawing public unions' working with local communities, ending "local residency rules statewide for all units of local government" (Don Walker. MJS), ending local control over water bill, and even the Wisconsin people's access to water inscribed in the Wisconsin Constitution as Article IX, "The Public Trust Doctrine."

One can go on and on. Mary Burke, Scott Walker's opponent for governor, should.