Wisconsin Republicans Coexist with Peninsula Paradise

Yoda has advice for white Wisconsinites voting Republican

Water and racist politics get around in the Wisconsin Peninsula

Updated - Nobody visiting Wisconsin likes cow shite in their beer and rightfully so.

But in their water, that's okay with a bare majority of folks who live here.

Consider the people living in Wisconsin's peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan, offering a political culture approximating the Badger State as a whole.

Two overwhelmingly white, sparsely populated counties—Door and Kewaunee—comprise the beautiful peninsula with a combined voting population of some 28,000 people in the 2016 presidential election, (Wisconsin Elections Commission, County by County Report - President of the United States Recount).

And no matter how clear the value of fresh, safe water may appear with the massive Lake Michigan staring these folks in the face every day, there is roughly 50 percent of the voting population of the peninsula that will vote anti-water Republican and Scott Walker-and-Jesus-loves-polluters, (Wisconsin Elections Commission) as the state abandons water protection under Republicans' anti-water agenda.

Political strategists looking for an effective counter to the white, rural and small-town Republican lock look at water politics with hope. But right now at this moment, despite huge organizing successes for clean and safe water citizen groups, electorally, polluting the water past safety and decency plays okay.

A reader today can visit the Kewaunee County webpage and read about the stunning natural resources, a new Revamped Tourism website, alongside of new Well Water Testing Presentations by Dr. Mark Borchardt, and Dr. Maureen Muldoon on the danger of cow feces in your drinking and bath water from Republican-supported factory farms, how to test for fecal contamination in your water, and how water wells work in different geological regions. Kind of sciencey so Republicans are not too thrilled with the presentations.

To be Republican in Wisconisn is as well to cast your lot consonant with the constant racist appeals to white Wisconsin that goes back decades. [In 1983 for example, Wisconsin supplied a full three of the 90 House votes against the establishment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: racists Reps Tom Petri, (R-Fond du Lac), Toby Roth, (R-Green Bay), and James Sensenbrenner (R-Whitefish Bay) (Gov Track), (Mal Contends)].

Racist politics are no problem as in no deal breaker. Northeastern and east-central Wisconsin remain white, racist and proud, for example.

Donald Trump could call for a final solution to the black and brown problem, and roughly 14,000 of the 28,000-voting gentle peninsula folk would go along.

This with, broadly speaking, heightened consciousness of the value of water and of Latino workers in the polluting factory dairy operations. Yep, Latino folks have a 'role to play' in Wisconsin, but this role has nothing to do with their humanity.

Two residents of the Wisconsin peninsula offer an analysis of Republican politics and the nascent destruction of safe water in northeastern Wisconsin: Don Freix, small business owner in Door County in the Door County Daily News, and Nancy Utesch, small farmer in Kewaunee County in the Capital Times. Both pieces are worth reading repeatedly.

Writes Utesch:

The Department of Natural Resources' recent low-key roll-out of help for Kewaunee County residents dealing with contamination so great that they cannot drink nor should they bathe in their water highlights the DNR’s continued failures, lack of integrity, and continued lack of urgency in responding to Kewaunee’s health and water crisis.

Lack of urgency, as in come to Wisconsin' peninsula but don't drink the water but at least there are plenty of white people and pretty leaves in the Fall.

Door County Wisconsin: GOP Defiles Martha's Vineyard of the Midwest

Two futures for Door County Wisconsin: Life is in bloom
v. Our growing dead zones. Only one works for Wisconsin.

Attorney Ted Olson appeared on the national news shows back when federal litigation engaged the question whether states could deny marriage to same-gender couples, (Mal Contends).

In several appearances Olson was seen from Door County Wisconsin, a gorgeous retreat and destination in the northeastern Wisconsin peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan.

Door County is another region of Wisconsin where generations-long families are attempting to sound the alarm about Republican-abetted water pollution and degradation, while at the same time telling vacationers to come to Door County. It's a mixed message.

If the Republican and Big Ag war on Wisconsin water continues apace, Door County will no longer face its public relations dilemma.

The war for clean, safe water will have been lost, as the lunatic in the White House continues to savage protections for clean water as well. Ted Olson will find another destination.

Former Door County Advocate editor out on his own since about last November, Lee Luft, is sounding the alarm. Wisconsin should listen.

From the Kewaunee County Comet:

In Door and Kewaunee Counties nearly every major waterway and water body is now listed on the EPA’s Impaired Waters List.

Not good. The column echoes concerns of 10,000s in the northeastern peninsula, yet reading Luft's prose resembles listening to a battered wife on TV afraid of retaliation from a felonious husband.

Luft laughingly presents the local Republican member of Congress as working to solve water-pollutions problems. Ahh, yeah.

Luft's warnings are necessary, but writing from fear of the toxic-toilet politicians and polluters is never a good posture

From the Door County Visitor Bureau comes word of Spring and early Summer, "Life is in bloom":

With 300 miles of shoreline, you can watch a sunrise and a sunset over the water without leaving the county. See thousands of acres of orchards, explore art galleries, devour delicious cherry pie, sip on local wines and brews, splash in the lake or paddle along the bluffs, stroll through five state parks or tour 11 historic lighthouses. No matter what you're looking to get out of your vacation, our 19 unique communities allow you to live life well.

Going to have to come up with a new slogan, if Republicans and polluters keep up their war against water.

Live life well just does not comport with millions of gallons of cow shit.

Susan Turner: Witnessed Wisconsin’s Water Degradation over 18 Years

Lynn Utesch is a clean water fighter in northeastern Wisconsin.
Utesch is running for state assembly against Big Ag's man in
northeastern Wisconsin, Republican state rep. Joel Kitchens.
Image by Coburn Dukehart
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

'Dreamed of retiring in Door County,' - No more

Iowa resident, Susan Turner, has a powerful letter in the Door County Pulse.

The Republican war against water is of course an act of insanity, even many Republicans may note water is necessary for life.

Yet, this fact does not stop Republicans from taking money from, and helping polluters pollute, driving families from their multi-generational homes with no remorse.

This is unacceptable.

Writes Turner:

The scale of industrial animal operations, concentration of manure produced in one location, makes this a crime against nature.

We shouldn’t be expected to compromise our water or hold our breath to accommodate agribusiness over community.

I’m a tourist of Wisconsin. I dreamed of retiring to the Door County area. That would be a foolish thing to invest in now. The idea of no swimming or consuming water, due to contamination, throws a wet blanket on vacations and investing in real estate.

April 29, 2013 at 1:30 pm, my three children and I were victims of hazardous gases as we headed south from the Wisconsin Dells on Highway12 between Baraboo and Prairie Du Sac. Center pivots spraying liquid nutrients made us close windows and speed faster as we searched for air that was not burning our lungs and nostrils. When we got a clean pocket of air, the caustic stench happened again. A service van on the opposite side of the road had pulled over with the driver sitting on the ground using an inhaler. He could not even operate his vehicle.

This past week my husband and I vacationed in Bayfield, Wisconsin. We chose Bayfield County because it has the cleanest water. We can swim, boat, fish, and drink the water, for now.

Republicans are destroying Wisconsin, and it's happening little by little, step by step, as implied by Turner. This ought to alarm everyone, particularly Door County, the Martha's Vinyard of the Midwest.

Two elections featuring leaders of the polluters' lobby in the capitol—state reps Joel Kitchens (R) and Scott Krug (R)—show toxic-toilet politicians against two lifelong environmentalists.

At some point, we will come to understand such environmentalists are saving Wisconsin.

Writes environmentalist, farmer, veteran and state assembly candidate, Lynn Utesch from Kewaunee County in northeastern Wisconsin, commenting on his run for Wisconsin's first district assembly race:

The 1st Assembly District is unique — an Island, a Peninsula, the Niagara Escarpment — all make this place we have chosen to call home special. Apart from the shared natural beauty that surrounds us, and the waters of Lake Michigan — the 1st Assembly District also has challenges that must be addressed.

Water is the #1 issue in the 1st Assembly District. Arriving in Kewaunee in 2004, one of the first things our family experienced was the poisoning of the Treml family due to the spreading of liquid manure tainting their well, affecting the entire family, and sending their infant daughter to intensive care.

In fall of 2014, in Jacksonport, a similar scenario played out with an infant and 16 people poisoned due to liquid manure spreading near a sinkhole. Currently in Kewaunee County 34% of the tested wells are unfit to drink due to high nitrates, e-coli, or both. 

Citizens would do well to heed the words of Ms. Turner and Lynn Utesch.

Big Ag's 'Feed the World' PR Message Is Playing with Disaster

By Jerome Viste

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin — It is almost amusing to see the trend of dairy farming in Wisconsin today under the urging of the University and Department of Agriculture claiming the need to expand to be able to keep up with demands to "Feed the World". Europe and Asia are at all-time high milk production and have surplus of their own and dropping prices to deal with.

It seems that there is a manifesto has been put in place to put small farmers out of business as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, for those leaders it is the small farms that have stabilized the industry through the decades and continue to do so, even while fewer in numbers. One of the advantages the small family farms enjoy is the ability to contain their operation within their own holdings and not have to spend a major part of their income in transporting field forage crops and the immense amount of manure that is generated at a central location. That’s a huge advantage and may save some of the small farm operations and make them sustainable.

The stewardship and ecological responsibility becomes secondary to the need to dispose of the massive amount of waste that is now a disposal problem all over. The reliance on maximum spreading amounts that were dictated by the voluntary nutrient management plans has shown that it does not work. Stewardship and ecological responsibility have been given a secondary role in large-scale production as brought out in the increasing problems of the last few years. There is a new effort to improve the enforcement capabilities of the nutrient management plans, but that same problem will remain regardless of the new regulations, that problem is enforcement - nothing will have changed – as before, Fridays and weekend spreading will be unchallenged, unless by citizen observation and recording, too often after-the–fact.

These comments are based on my own experience of 43 years of producing milk for the Grade A Chicago Fluid Milk Market, which historically paid substantially more than the Grade B market which consisted of cheese and other dairy product manufacturing. Grade A milk mandated an inspection twice yearly by Chicago Board of Health inspectors and quality had to be maintained. Under Wisconsin law for manufacturing milk – less than Grade A - producers, are inspected by the processor who buys the milk. In other words, if you are a producer who processes your own manufacturing grade milk, you are your own inspector for quality control.

You can see where this is going.

To continue to produce in excess of the market needs and not to respond to those needs with curtailed production is playing with disaster. This has been proven several times and Grade A farmers operated on a quota system that worked well all those years. There was no effort by unknown forces to get farmers to expand with entirely borrowed resources, other than the University push to 'get bigger', in order to compete with California for the Dairyland title, and help maintain the banking industry.

Scott Walker: Go Ahead and Pollute, Liquid Manure in Water is Good

The Dead Zone in Wisconsin -
In green in above shot in Green Bay
Brought to you by Big Ag and
Scott Walker, and off-year elections

One would believe that protecting Wisconsin's 15,000 lakes and aquifers is a no-brainier.

If not families' safe drinking water, tourism and recreation mandate a helicopter mom-like defense of water.

Not if you are Scott Walker

Lee Bergquist of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has the story:

As worries grow about water pollution caused by runoff from streets, yards and farm fields, Gov. Scott Walker's next budget calls for nearly 16% in spending cuts in programs that attack the problem.

The reductions have gone virtually unnoticed until now, overshadowed by Walker's higher profile environmental initiatives to freeze land purchases and strip the Natural Resources Board of its policy-making power.

Runoff is the state's most serious water pollution problem.

In Green Bay, pollutants from farm fields and other sources have helped create a dead zone, an area so low in oxygen that it can't support most aquatic life.

Wisconsin is not just a growing Dead Zone in the Great Lakes.

Wisconsin is becoming an economic Dead Zone.

Wisconsin's economy has been so trashed by the sociopathic governor that young people are fleeing Wisconsin because of lack of jobs.

Job creation was one of Walker's main campaign promises. So what happened?

Does Walker seek industry that creates many jobs. No.

Does he do the bidding of Dairy Business Association (DBA) that wants only farming factories with fewer jobs, and those are low-skill, low-paying jobs? Yes.

The DBA does not want challenges to its right to pollute. Scott Walker obliges.

The question is, does Walker favor campaign money more than the welfare of Wisconsin? Yes.

Industrial Dairy Threatens America's Dairyland, U.S.

At some point in the near future look for the PR mavens of industrial agriculture to assert liquid cow and swine manure are good for you and your children and that pathogens are beneficial.

This is because of the ascendency of industrial agriculture model (concentrated agricultural feeding operation (CAFO)) and the somnambulistic nature of American political culture.

Watch this space next week for a particularly appalling account of poisoning from a CAFO from Wisconsin.

In the meantime, I recommend the following account of a massive liquid manure spill in Door County, the Cape Cod of the Midwest, by John Bobbe in the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute (Dec. 15), and a story breaking that organic foods are not so organic in a comprehensive fraud investigation of CAFOs masquerading as organic small farmers, also appearing in the Cornucopia Institute (Dec. 11) revealing "... a systemic pattern of corporate agribusiness interests operating industrial-scale confinement livestock facilities providing no legitimate grazing, or even access to the outdoors, as required by federal organic regulations."

Sen. Frank Lasee tells folks with contaminated wells to just drill deeper!

Updated - Wisconsin State Sen. Frank Lasee (R-Unknown) has a solution for residents with wells contaminated by liquid cow manure: Drill Deeper.

"Nitrates in drinking water can cause the potentially fatal blue-baby syndrome, a concern for pregnant women and infants," notes Kate Golden, among other health concerns with vectoring liquid cow manure in areas with karst geology.

Restore Kewaunee notes Frank Lasee's absurd suggestion for the massive pollution in Door, Kewaunee and Brown counties. You're drilling for water "too shallow there," drill deeper.

Some wells in Kewaunee County run as far down as over 400 feet, and still are contaminated.

"Shite flows down," a reader notes, no matter how much political interference Republicans run

The Dairy Business Association, the Scott Walker administration, along with Lasee, Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa) all run this political interference for the poisoning of Wisconsin.

From the Peninsula Pulse Candidate Forum, Oct. 21, 2014, Baileys Harbor Wisconsin: