|Water is worth protecting|
Deranged policy is what Wisconsin, with its abundant fresh waters, gets from Scott Walker and his allies in the Dairy Business Association (DBA), Big Ag in Wisconsin.
That legislation protecting water would pass the Wisconsin GOP legislature is about as probable as Scott Walker holding a series of unscripted, no-holds-barred, town-hall-style listening sessions (see Bergquist, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).
The Scott Walker-proposed budget is an exercise in policy by bomb, bombs filled with poison, with unprecedented power grabs by Walker as he consolidates power in the Department of Administration (DOA), or as it is known in the Capitol, the "Department of All."
From George Hesselberg, Wisconsin State Journal (and Democurmudgeon):
Researchers and supporters of a program that helps farmers run cleaner and more efficient operations say they were “stunned” and “blindsided” by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut a third of the project’s funding. Discovery Farms, UW-Extension program that dates to 2001, applies science … to control runoff, calibrate fertilizer use and employ techniques to conserve land and water.
It has a $750,000 budget, of which $248,000 would be cut in the governor’s proposed state budget. … UW-Extension noted the loss affects longstanding projects and the ability of the small program to leverage crucial additional grants and funds.
Now, why would Republicans and Big Ag intentionally pursue policies that poison Wisconsin children? For the money.
The DBA has big pockets and that its members poison water is not their concern.
Word is out to Wisconsin Republicans in the legislature: Deny, deny, and cry, we're the Dairy State (Lundstrom, Peninsula Pulse).
Of course if their child is hospitalized and nearly killed by E-coli poisoning, or Blue Baby syndrome, even Republicans may feel differently.
Anyone who is not concerned about poisoning children is a sociopath or, as it turns out, a Republican.
The 'modern farming' model, or CAFO (for Concentrated Agricultural Feeding Operation) in Wisconsin is accelerating under the Scott Walker administration.
The Scott Walker response to poisoning and polluting water: Kill the science that would measure poison and pathogens, get rid of the Wisconsin Idea, make the DNR part of the Walker administration, and take the administrative law judges that adjudicate complaints on DNR operations and transfer the ad law judges under the authority of Walker's DOA.
Two notes worthy of mention.
Former Governor Jim Doyle
Former Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Madison) (2003-2011) deserves condemnation for carrying the DBA's poisoned-water agenda leading to his seven-point reelection in 2006.
Doyle took in a hefty sum from Big Ag, even a contribution from the infamous polluter James Wysocki, a financier of the National Potato Council who has been upping his contributions of late to the National Republican Congressional Committee in the GOP quest to kill the federal EPA as Scott Walker is proposing to do to the Wisconsin DNR.
Wysocki's proposed massive CAFO in Wood and Adams counties has now so killed property valuations in Wood and Adams counties—an ideal site for tourism and recreation if local officials ever got their act together—that realtors, banks and property accessors on background say the area surrounding the proposed Wysocki CAFO site has been red-lined.
|Proposed Sand Valley Golf Resort|
in Adams County in Central Wisconsin
borders area red-lined over concerns
about pollution and poison from
massive, proposed Wysocki CAFO
White-knight developers are finding central Wisconsin, the bottom of an ancient glacial lake known as the Golden Sands, stuck in economic malaise as local Republican state representatives like Scott Krug remain in the pocket of Party and polluters while paying lip service to concerns about the proposed Wysocki CAFO.
Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law
Secondly, the Wisconsin Livestock Facility Siting Law that CAFOs use in litigation is pure political payoff by the DBA, signed into law by Jim Doyle, and which became effective in May 2006.
A Wisconsin Soil Survey by the U.S. Department of Agricultural-Natural Resources Conservation Service concludes: Central Wisconsin's sandy soil is susceptible to blowing hazards, high seepage of sewage lagoons, runoff during rain storms and snow melt, and high susceptibility to concrete corrosion, among other concerns.
Wonder what Jim Doyle has to say about getting the monstrous CAFO-industry juggernaut moving and polluting Wisconsin waters.