Considerable progress has been made in the past decade to improve and protect Wisconsin’s water resources, but a panel of water experts said that momentum has stalled and even moved back a step or two during the administration of Gov. Scott Walker.
That assessment came during a Resilient Wisconsin gathering held Tuesday at Union South on the UW-Madison campus. The meeting was sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.
“We have made some great steps forward,” said Curt Mein, a conservation biologist and author. He lauded the Great Lakes Compact, which became federal law in 2008, the creation of standards to reduce phosphorus pollution and controls on aquatic invasive species.
“But there have also been steps to the side or even backward,” he said, citing changes in rules that deal with the Clean Water Act, state wetland laws, high-capacity well approval and staff reductions at the state Department of Natural Resources.
Environmentalists are also critical of rollback of phosphorus regulations in a bill signed by Walker this month that they say will slow the recovery of lakes, streams and rivers plagued by algae. The legislation was backed by business organizations and more than 100 municipal treatment plants operators who warned that the phosphorus rules could cost billions of dollars to meet.
Conservationists also worry about well contamination from huge dairies, excessive pumping of groundwater and they decry the push to open a huge iron ore mine in the Penokee Hills near Hurley near Lake Superior.
Meine, a conservation biologist and author, said Wisconsin does not have an integrated water policy and doesn’t understand the full worth of its water. Worse, he noted, public dialogue — like much in current political life — is marked by polarization. Meine, a senior fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation, said he is equally concerned about the long-term effects of climate change — swinging between flooding and drought — on Wisconsin’s water resources.
He urged the convening of a statewide forum to better understand the economic dimensions of water use and management. Equally important, he said, is the need to focus on the ethics of water use and its stewardship.
“How can we build resilience into our hydrologic systems and the ability to live within those systems?” he asked. “We need creative approaches to reach broader constituencies and expand this discussion. … Because as goes water, so goes Wisconsin.”
Ron Seely, a panel member and editor at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, said he, too, is concerned about rollbacks in environmental rules, political appointments made at the DNR and rules restricting the flow of information from that agency’s scientists.
Like Meine, however, he said there are success stories to celebrate, including the cleaning of paper mill discharges that have made the Wisconsin River healthier, and community conservation groups like one that has led the effort to improve Madison’s Lake Wingra.
“But I also get angry,” said Seely, an avid fisherman, “when I have to throw back fish that I catch because of mercury pollution. That gives me a terrible sense of helplessness. Water is an easy resource to lose. But some people are saying ‘I’m not going to take this anymore.'”
Todd Ambs, who headed the water division at the DNR for nearly eight years, praised the passage of Act 310, which deals with groundwater drawdowns from pumping. And he lauded other measures, including cleaning up PCBs in the Fox River and efforts to strengthen rules dealing with shoreland zoning, large animal feeding operations, commercial fishing, groundwater quality and dam safety.
“Unfortunately, there are gaps that remain and more to be done,” he said. “We still have rivers running dry and seepage lakes disappearing because of excessive pumping. And we certainly are going to have to deal with the effects of climate change.”
He said the greatest achievement of his tenure was the passage of the Great Lakes Compact at the state and federal levels in 2008.
“The compact … is a world class covenant between the states, provinces and our federal government to manage the Water Belt of North America – our Great Lakes — in a sustainable manner,” he wrote when he left the DNR.
“People will still be talking about this 50 years from now,” he said.
And while many lament the lack of political leadership on water and environmental issues at the state level in Wisconsin, Ambs said the lawmakers can be driven to lead by their constituents.
“As FDR once said to someone who was promoting legislation, ‘I am completely and totally with you, now go out there and make me do it,” he said.
— By Brian E. Clark
For WisBusiness.com
