October 14, 2006
new blog link
...is here....
http://daviddempsey.typepad.com/
October 10, 2006
public waters, private agreements?
Wisconsin's waters are so basic to life, commerce and culture that they were considered a public trust before statehood.
This careful management of Wisconsin waters for the common good was codified as the Public Trust Doctrine by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and was incorporated into the Wisconsin Constitution in 1848.
In other words, you can trace the "public" foundation of water policy in Wisconsin from 1787 straight through the heavily attended Department of Natural Resources-sponsored meetings in 2004 and 2005, where the public spoke in favor of upgrades to the U.S.-Canada agreement that restricts diversions from the Great Lakes.
That is why a series of closed-door actions by the DNR - at times in coordination with the cities of New Berlin and Waukesha - to create or change water policy in Wisconsin undermines our long history of making water policy publicly and in the public interest.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=510487
October 09, 2006
wisconsin: front line in Great Lakes diversion wars
It's increasingly likely that leadership, or lack of same, in the fight to prevent needless Great Lakes water exports will come not from Michigan, the Great Lakes state, but Wisconsin, where diversion fights in two communities loom large. The good news is that Wisconsin has an articulate and determined conservation and environmental community that is mobilizing to protect the Great Lakes. A community that seems to understand that "public trust" is not an empty slogan but a legal doctrine that needs respecting for the health of the Lakes and the people who depend on them.
Waukesha officials have a new strategy in their quest for access to Lake Michigan water: find a lake tributary that can safely handle the city's treated wastewater.
That would save Waukesha water customers millions of dollars by shortening the distance needed to return treated sewage via pipeline to the Great Lakes Basin.
The city of New Berlin is twisting itself in regulatory and bureaucratic knots to meet a Dec. 8 federal deadline and supply all its customers with water that has had naturally occuring radium removed. But an August letter from the EPA shows the city first exceeded a federal radium standard 23 years ago, giving it plenty of time to avoid the now-looming deadline.
Though it signed a consent decree in January 2004 to meet a radium-removal deadline within 34 months (by Dec. 8 of this year), New Berlin has said it will miss the deadline in part because it doesn't want to spend about $4 million on the necessary equipment.
Instead, it hired the consulting firm of Ruekert/Mielke to work with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and convince the other seven Great Lakes states to allow a diversion of water from Lake Michigan to that portion of New Berlin that lies outside of the Great Lakes basin.
http://www.wisopinion.com/index.iml?mdl=article.mdl&article=5373
October 08, 2006
environment -- what's that?
I am disheartened to see that the environment does not make the Star Tribune's list of key issues in the U.S. Senate race. Politicians must be glad the media rarely force them to address it. It is a huge, pressing issue that we should not allow our legislators to ignore.
JENNY WARNER, MINNEAPOLIS
http://www.startribune.com/563/story/726846.html
October 06, 2006
no dioxin in dump
Way to go, Bay City Times.
Dow Chemical Co.'s interest in a dump on the Saginaw-Bay county line for Saginaw River dredgings spoils threatens to blow the whole project apart.
The Lone Tree Council is trumpeting memos from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the local activists claim is proof that Dow has considered the dredgings dump as a place to put hazardous chemicals if the company is forced to dredge contaminated ''hot spots'' in the river.
True, Dow officials say. In fact, they're making no secret of their interest in the dump.
http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1160147784304320.xml&coll=4
lake michigan ecosystem partnership meets
A newly developed environmental group hopes to tackle problems they say plague the Lake Michigan watershed area by specifically targeting instances of pollution and damaged ecosystems.
The Lake Michigan Watershed Ecosystem Partnership hosted its first meeting Thursday in Evanston to vote on members to lead in developing an action plan that could improve the Chicago area shoreline.
http://www.nwitimes.com/articles/2006/10/06/news/illiana/c5c733226d71a618862571fe0083cfc2.txt
October 05, 2006
hills of sand
On the eastern shores of several Great Lakes tower the world's largest freshwater dunes...another at risk species.
Known as Pigeon Hill, the Lake Michigan dune towered 30 stories high on the south side of Muskegon. Formed over thousands of years, it disappeared in three decades as its sand was mined for industrial use in the mid-20th century.
"You can only see Pigeon Hill in a museum now," said Tanya Cabala, an environmental consultant from Whitehall who has studied its history.
Michigan has regulated sand mining since then, although environmentalists want stronger controls. But Great Lakes dunes also face other threats, from invasive plant species to abuse by all-terrain vehicles, scientists and government officials said Tuesday.
During a conference funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, experts agreed to seek a regionwide strategy for protecting the ecologically unique chain of dunes stretching along many of the lakes' coastlines.
http://www.record-eagle.com/2006/oct/04dunes.htm
October 04, 2006
spin patrol on Great Lakes restoration
EPA: Great Lakes cleanup plan on track
By JOHN FLESHER
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - A comprehensive plan to tackle the Great Lakes' most pressing environmental problems — from invasive species to sewage overflows — is on track despite complaints about inadequate federal funding, an
Environmental Protection Agency official said.
A $20 billion ecosystem restoration blueprint crafted by a public-private coalition is boosting the Great Lakes' national profile and has favorable long-term prospects, said Gary Gulezian, director of the EPA's Great Lakes National Program Office.
"In the 30 years I've been working for the EPA, I've never seen as much national attention paid to the Great Lakes as in the past couple of years," Gulezian said in an interview with The Associated Press at a conference this week on protecting the region's coastal sand dunes.
Recent congressional approval of legislation authorizing $80 million over five years to restore fish and wildlife habitat addresses a primary goal of the restoration initiative, Gulezian said. The total is twice as much as previously authorized.
The money won't be spent unless included in separate appropriations bills. But Congress probably wouldn't have endorsed such a boost in Great Lakes funding without the plan, known as the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy, Gulezian said.
"I think it's paying off," he said, noting that President Bush's last two budgets had sought a combined $100 million to clean up contaminated Great Lakes sediments. "That's a lot of money to request. I don't think that would have happened if we didn't have this collaboration."
The plan's support from a wide range of interest groups is important because Congress wants the region to "speak with one voice" when seeking money, Gulezian said.
Bush appointed a Cabinet-level task force in 2004 to coordinate Great Lakes cleanup efforts. The task force oversaw the collaboration, which involved officials from federal, local and state governments as well as American Indian tribes, academics and activists.
The group released its strategy in 2005. It outlined a series of threats to the lakes' ecological health and proposed remedies and funding.
Among the proposals: tighter controls on oceangoing ships believed to ferry exotic species into the lakes; habitat restoration; improved drinking and waste water systems; quicker cleanup of heavily polluted sites; reducing toxic discharges and runoff.
While Bush championed Great Lakes cleanup during campaign visits to the region in 2004, critics accused him of backtracking after the election. His 2007 budget proposal called for a 9 percent reduction in lakes funding, including cutbacks in 14 of 22 programs tied to the restoration initiative.
Gulezian said the criticism was unfair.
headwaters of the great lakes running low
The water level in Lake Superior is nearing its lowest point in the past century, according to the latest government data.
The water level in the world's second-largest lake dropped in September to within 2.5 inches of the record low for September, which was recorded in 1926, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-10/115988851697200.xml&coll=8
October 03, 2006
the soft bigotry of low environmental expectations
But with experts warning that the Great Lakes, the world’s largest repository of fresh water, could be facing an ecological tipping point from which they may never be able to recover, President Bush cannot ignore a bill sent to his desk late last week. The measure would help to restore fish and wildlife habitats while keeping tabs on the Great Lakes region’s ecosystems with up to $16 million in grant programs. Senate and House appropriators would decide actual spending levels later this year, the Associated Press reported.
...The lack of money in the Bush budget was baffling. But the president still can make a Great Lakes great save by signing the bill now on his desk — and then by continuing to support such efforts.
The bill at issue here is a good thing. It will be a good thing if the Prez signs it. But as the editorial points out, the bill authorizes $80 million -- it appropriates zero dollars. The appropriating part (actual spending) will happen at another time, if at all.
So after 3 years of Bush rhetoric about "the national treasure" that is the Great Lakes we will still have zero new dollars appropriated for them as a result of his efforts. Let's hold the nation's CEO to a slightly higher standrard.
think globally, act with your burn barrel
Dioxin is one byproduct of burn barrels...
HURLEY -- Should the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' restriction on burn barrels around Lake Superior be more rigidly enforced?
Rick Schneider, from the Northwest Regional Planning Commission in Spooner, hopes to get an answer to that question from officials of four counties bordering Lake Superior -- Iron, Ashland, Bayfield and Douglas.
Schneider distributed survey questionnaires to the Iron County Board on Tuesday.
The four-county survey is being done through a $12,700 grant from the Great Lakes National Program office.
http://www.ironwooddailyglobe.com/0930burn.htm
October 02, 2006
Great Lakes states need to assert public ownership of water
As the court case drags on, Nestle is forging ahead with plans to make its Stanton bottling plant the hub of a sprawling water bottling business that is fed by a surrounding network of groundwater wells. The company also bottles water it buys from the city of Evart.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-10/11596977184010.xml&coll=8
The more Great Lakes Basin water that is containerized and turned into a so-called product without state legislation reaffirming that there is no private ownership of water, the greater the risk that the Great Lakes will be privatized and their fate turned over to water barons.
October 01, 2006
yeah, sure, right
WAUKESHA - The Waukesha Water Utility hopes to avoid a lengthy process of applying for Lake Michigan water access through a compact needing approval by all the region’s states by arguing its ground water system’s connection to the Great Lakes basin and easterly flow should deem it eligible with or without the new guidelines in place.
This overlooks the fact that Waukesha's groundwater may be linked to Lake Michigan because Waukesha's massive pumping of groundwater has drawn Lake Michigan tributary groundwater toward Waukesha. In other words, the city has been using water unsustainably, and that justifies giving it Lake Michigan water.
http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2006/Sept_06/09302006_01.asp
A slightly more nuanced view from today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=506616
September 30, 2006
20-2 vote equals uncertainty
Even though the current President was elected by a much smaller percentage.
A Vote Lost in the Smog
One person's consensus is another person's split vote, at least in Washington.
Last week, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson set new rules for the amount of fine particulate matter, or soot, that Americans can breathe in any given day. (He cut the existing standard of 65 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 35.) But the administrator decided to maintain the standard for the amount of soot Americans breathe on average over the course of a year, at 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
EPA's Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, by a 20 to 2 vote, had urged the agency last year to reduce the annual soot standard to 13 or 14 micrograms per cubic meter. When reporters pointed this out in a telephone conference call on Thursday, he emphasized that the panel's recommendation was not unanimous.
"We didn't ignore any recommendations. In fact, the opposite's true," Johnson said. "There was not complete agreement on the standard. This is complex science, and reasonable people can disagree."
Those comments did not please the advisory panel's chair, Rogene Henderson. This week, Henderson -- a senior scientist emeritus at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute -- called Johnson's comments "a little disingenuous," since "20 members were in total agreement" on the issue.
Given that level of agreement, she added, Johnson should have heeded the committee's advice. "The public is not well served by circumventing the scientific advisory process," she said.
Nonetheless, EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said her boss stands by his comments. "As Administrator Johnson said last week, wherever the science gave us a clear picture, we took clear action," Wood said.
-- Juliet Eilperin
September 29, 2006
from MPCA to MEPA
What was once called the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is now the Minnesota Ethanol Promotion Authority, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today. Well, not quite, but --
Buffalo Lake Energy had a problem.
Earlier this year, the company feared that its plan to build a large ethanol plant in this slowly shrinking prairie town was in danger of getting derailed by the state's environmental rules.
Help came fast.
Sheryl Corrigan, then the commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) sent the company a letter it could show to financial backers saying that the agency, which enforces environmental statutes, intended to issue permits for the plant by May 24.
...In Granite Falls, Minn., state officials let a company open an ethanol plant last year knowing that the well water it would need to operate might last only a few years, according to regulators and state records. Now, with the aquifer draining even faster than expected, the company is exploring the use of twice as much water from the Minnesota River so it ostensibly can double production to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year.
In Aberdeen, S.D., a proposal by Glacial Lakes Energy to build a large ethanol plant drew strong opposition from some farmers in the throes of a severe drought. But county commissioners approved a zoning change that enabled several local individuals, including farmer Levern Didreckson, to sell land to the proposed plant's developer.
...The MPCA is taking steps to speed up the time it usually takes ethanol plants to get permits. This spring, Corrigan established a new ethanol team to work with the industry with a " 'We are one' ethic," state records show. The agency also is considering rule changes that could make it easier for plants that do not meet state water-quality standards to get permits.
Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said the ethanol industry is using the promise of jobs and energy independence as cover to weaken state environmental laws. "Ethanol is big business, and they've got political clout," said Marty, chairman of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Marty said he was disgusted to learn that Corrigan had written a letter on Buffalo Lake Energy's behalf as her staff complained about the company's proposal. "It's absolutely inappropriate," he said.
...Minnesota's point man for ethanol development is Rocky Sisk, who works with a program called BizNice. He's an MPCA employee, but splits his time with the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Sisk says he advises companies on getting through the permitting process in ways that limit an ethanol plant's impact on the environment.
Some of his colleagues in state government see him mostly as an industry booster. "His position, whatever that is, it's truly rah-rah-rah, let's move forward on it," said Jay Frischman, a hydrogeologist with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
When will the environment get equal time? Place an environmental professional in the economic development agency -- and let her/him insist that any new businesses lured by that agency are environmentally sustainable.
Until then, let us not treat environmental protection agencies as toys to be pushed aside when a politically potent new industry comes to town.
http://www.startribune.com/10107/story/709124.html
water as a commodity not a right
This several-days old Canadian commentary is another alarm bell. The free market religion that has brought the U.S. a failed health care system, the contracting out of war and other misadventures has captured advocates of water sales here and north of the border, leading to such visions as:
"It would cost between $4-billion and $9-billion to build a pipeline of water to Texas from Manitoba," said Paul Wihbey, president of GWEST LLC of Washington. "Annual revenue could be $7-billion, which is about the current budget of the provincial government and City of Winnipeg government combined."
And now comes the real charge:
Ironically, Canada's wing-nut politicians -- Liberals and NDPers in particular -- have spoken out against water exports, as though it was somehow bad for the nation or that Canadians would die of thirst.
Some even spoke about water as the "hidden agenda" behind free trade with the United States. But water is in huge surplus in Canada and is, unlike oil or natural gas or metals and minerals, a renewable resource.
Renewable? Really? There is a finite amount of water in the world. What this thinker is discussing is really water mining -- taking a resource from one place and selling it somewhere at great profit. But water is part of the commons. If there is a profit, it goes to the public.
Wing-nuts indeed.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=dbb04244-e54d-48f7-bdbc-6d4d03383696