lisamneff.com

Category: wisconsin

  • Wisconsin Assembly votes to lift barrier to new nukes

    “No nukes now. No nukes probably forever,” says environmental activist Kevin Moore.

    Moore, in the late 1980s, went to jail as a protester seeking to block the licensing of nuclear power plants.

    He’s remained active since. And, like many no-nuke demonstrators who committed to the cause in the late 1970s and 1980s, he’s baffled by the current campaign to build new plants.

    “Did I miss something?” the 72-year-old activist asked. “Did they figure out what to do with the waste?”

    The answer is no.

    Yet, the Wisconsin Assembly has passed AB 384, which would remove a barrier to building new nuclear plants enacted in 1983, four years after a meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and three years before the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. Current state law prohibits new plants until a federal storage facility for nuclear waste is constructed.

    A Senate committee held a hearing on its version of the pro-nuclear bill, SB288, on Jan. 5, but had not voted on the measure when WiG went to press.

    Republican state Rep. Kevin Petersen, in a memo introducing the bill, described nuclear power as affordable, clean, safe and necessary.

    Proponents also argue Wisconsin needs nuclear options to comply with the Obama administration’s clean power plan, requiring energy producers to reduce carbon emissions.

    But opponents say that’s a false argument.

    “Nuclear energy is a distraction from realistic, cost-effective methods to reduce carbon emissions in Wisconsin: energy efficiency and renewable energy,” the Clean Wisconsin environmental group said in a statement on AB 384. “Nuclear is exorbitantly expensive and new plants take decades to get up and running.”

    The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters refers to AB 384 as the “Nuking Wisconsin’s Energy Priorities Law” and has urged members to lobby their legislators.

    The Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter also opposes the measure.

    Meanwhile, the national Sierra Club has responded to a renewed nuclear energy push with a “nuclear-free future” campaign.

    “The Sierra Club remains unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy,” read a statement from the leading environmental group.

    “Although nuclear plants have been in operation for less than 60 years, we now have seen three serious disasters,” the statement continued, referring to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. “Nuclear is no solution to climate change and every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on truly safe, affordable and renewable energy sources.”

    The Sierra Club’s nuclear-free campaign emphasizes:

    • The issue of what to do with the long-lived waste created by the fissioning of uranium remains unresolved.

    • Uranium mining has contaminated large sections of the southwestern United States and many other areas in the world.

    • Older nuclear plants sit in areas more densely populated than when they were built and almost all leak tritium and other radionuclides into groundwater.

    • Newer nuclear plants remain expensive and need enormous amounts of water.

    • Despite what energy industry leaders claim, nuclear power has a huge carbon footprint. Carbon energy powers uranium mining, milling, processing, conversion and enrichment, as well as the formulation of fuel rods and the construction of plants.

    A letter that Sierra’s John Muir chapter sent to Wisconsin lawmakers on behalf of a Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free Coalition warned that passage of the pro-nuclear bill could lead to the state becoming a depository for nuclear waste.

    Elizabeth Ward of the Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter, Katie Nekola of Clean Wisconsin, Amy Schulz of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Peter Skopec of Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group and Al Gedicks of Wisconsin Resources Protection Council signed the letter, along with Chuck Baynton and Judy Miner.

    The coalition said passage of the bill could “send a strong message to the Department of Energy that Wisconsin is open to hosting a nuclear waste repository. In the 1980s, the DOE ranked Wisconsin’s Wolf River Batholith as No. 2 for a second high-level nuclear waste repository. A 2008 DOE Study on the Need for a Second Repository listed Wisconsin as one of the top potential states based on our granite geology. After the cancellation of the potential Yucca Mountain repository, the DOE is desperate to find an alternative.”

    Wisconsin’s energy mix

    Wisconsin has one operational nuclear power plant, Point Beach, north of Two Rivers.

    About 15.5 percent of Wisconsin’s electricity is nuclear-generated, 62.3 percent is coal, 13.2 percent natural gas, 3.4 percent hydroelectric and 5.5 percent renewable.

    — Lisa Neff

  • Milwaukee surfers making waves with sport, advocacy

    Eric Gietzen grew up in Shorewood, close to Lake Michigan, seeing the crashing waves and listening to the lore about famous shipwrecks.

    “When I woke up in the morning, if there would be big waves, I could hear them,” he recalls.

    Ryan Bigelow also grew up in the Milwaukee area.

    Neither of them imagined that as adults they’d surf on Lake Michigan.

    Gietzen and Bigelow are board members of Surfrider Milwaukee. The chapter is part of a global Surfrider Foundation network, dedicated to promoting and protecting water resources and beaches with coastal cleanups, community outreach and sometimes legal battles.

    Membership begins at just $25 a year.

    “In Milwaukee, our mission has been to get people down to the beach and to show the lake is not just a resource for industry,” Gietzen says. “Our mission has been to get people in the water doing something they probably wouldn’t normally do. We hope they fall in love with the lake. Anything you fall in love with, you are going to protect. And now, more than ever, we need people to love our Great Lakes.”

    On Aug. 4, Surfrider Milwaukee holds its annual Surf@Water at — where else? — Atwater Beach in Shorewood.

    The event begins with a paddle onto the lake at about 5:45 a.m. to celebrate the sunrise. Then there’s a beach blessing, morning coffee with Colectivo, yoga with instructor Annie Melchior, a cleanup along the shore, surf and standup paddle board lessons in collaboration with Lake Effect Surf Shop, an evening picnic, Hawaiian-style music by Ocean Rush and a board swap.

    “People are getting stoked about it,” says Bigelow, who works as a radiologic technologist and UWM instructor.

    “It’s a fun day,” adds Gietzen, a high school English teacher who also operates a lifeguard service at Atwater Beach.

    INTO THE SURF

    Gietzen got into surfing in the mid-1980s at Atwater Beach after a buddy came home from Madison with a surfboard found in a garbage pile.

    “We decided to give it a go,” he says. “Unbeknownst to me, there was already a somewhat thriving surf culture in Sheboygan,” dating back to the 1960s.

    Sheboygan surfing has been documented in magazines and films. Travel writers have referred to the blue-collar community north of Milwaukee as the “Malibu of the Midwest.”

    “They had a pretty big crew doing their thing,” Gietzen says, adding that surf clubs also existed in Racine and other prime surf spots around the lake in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

    “But when I started, maybe five or six other guys in the Milwaukee area were surfing. The scene back then was not very big.”

    The Milwaukee scene has grown over the past two decades, boosted by shops such as Lake Effect in Shorewood, organizations such as Surfrider, advances in wetsuits and other equipment, and enthusiasts such as Gietzen and Bigelow.

    “Right now, this is the golden age of surfing on the Great Lakes,” boasts Gietzen.

    “We want to build a community that loves the lake,” Bigelow says. “We want to pass that along.”

    Bigelow became involved with Surfrider about six years ago.

    “We’re like-minded individuals,” he says. “We just love surfing. And this is a way to share our passion.”

    Bigelow remembers as a child watching surfing movies and putting up surf posters on bedroom walls, but he was a skateboarder and didn’t get into the water version until the early 1990s. At the time, he was serving in the U.S. Army and stationed on a base in Hawaii.

    “Every weekend, I was at the beach,” Bigelow says of those days.

    Observers from the shore might notice Milwaukee surfers use longer and thicker boards instead of shortboards. The reason is that freshwater is less buoyant than saltwater.

    “A longboard is definitely more soulful. There’s the ease of the glide,” Bigelow says.

    “You’ll catch more waves,” adds Gietzen, whose household — with two surfing sons — has 10 boards.

    CATCHING A BREAK

    Surfing on Lake Michigan is a year-round sport, but some seasons provide better conditions than others.

    Surf quality depends not only on geography but also on weather, which is why avid surfers track forecasts and learn about wind patterns.

    “On the Great Lakes, we usually have a quick wind swell. Waves appear and then it shuts down pretty fast,” says Gietzen. “You want to be in the right place at the right time.”

    Surf@water takes place in August, so beginners can learn the basics of the sport in milder conditions.

    For experienced surfers, more intense action comes in the fall and winter, maybe early spring.

    “It’s a winter lake,” says Bigelow. “More quality surf. More power. Winter waves hold up longer.”

    Improvements in wetsuits mean surfers stay warm — or warmer — in the winter, but they still emerge from the water with icicle beards.

    In the movies, ocean surfers live on the water. They’re out daily, dawn to dusk. Milwaukee surfers might get out three times a month if they’re lucky.

    “And sometimes we’re rewarded with really epic surf and sometimes we’re skunked,” Gietzen says. “But getting into the water with your friends, it’s such a joy.

    “Three or four times a year, you get a really epic swell that has a lasting impression.”

    The memory of a thrill ride, an awesome trick, an epic swell, or a perfect paddle can carry a surfer through months without action.

    Bigelow says such sessions keep the stoke tank full: “If you can get that session, just one session, it can carry you for months.”

    On the water: Save these dates

    Aug. 4, 5:30 a.m.–8 p.m. Surf@Water, Atwater Beach, 4000 N. Lake Dr., Shorewood. The “sun up to sun down celebration of surf, sun and fun” is presented by and benefits Surfrider Milwaukee. The event features a sunrise “paddle out” on Lake Michigan, along with a beach blessing, beach yoga, beach cleanup, surf and paddleboard lessons, a picnic, live music by Ocean Rush and a board swap. For more, visit milwaukee.surfrider.org.

    Aug. 5, 6:30–9 p.m. Fifth annual We Are Water Celebration, South Shore Park Beach, 2900 S. Shore Dr., Bay View. An all-ages event celebrating “Shared water/Shared humanity.” Presented by Milwaukee Water Commons, the “illuminating” event features music, poetry and light. For more, to visit milwaukeewatercommons.org.

    Aug. 11, 8 a.m. Cream City Classic, Public Pier at North Jackson and East Erie streets in the Third Ward. Milwaukee’s first open river swim offers prizes to finalists in the race on the Milwaukee River and raises money for swimming programs. Spectators can watch from the RiverWalk, and there will be festivities during and after the race in the MIAD parking lot. The event involves the University of Wisconsin/Sea Grant, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Milwaukee Water Commons and the Harbor District Milwaukee. For more, visit creamcityclassic.org.

    Note: This story originally published in the Wisconsin Gazette.

  • Big gulp: GOP advances water privatization

    “Aqua America” sounds like a water park on the shore of a great lake.

    Rather, Aqua America is the second-largest publicly traded water utility company in the United States, and someday the company — or Veolia or Suez — could take control of municipal water systems in Wisconsin.

    Republican lawmakers fast-tracked AB 554/SB 432, legislation that would diminish public influence and make it easier to privatize local water supplies.

    Environmentalists in the state call the measure the “Water Privatization Bill.” The Assembly approved AB 554 on Jan. 12. A Senate floor vote had not been held as WiG went to press on Feb. 10.

    Current state law allows for the privatization of systems, provided citizens have a say.

    The process currently works like this: A municipality must adopt an ordinance authorizing privatization, then secure approval from the state Public Service Commission and then put the proposal to the voters in a referendum.

    In 2008 and 2009, Milwaukee officials considered privatizing the city’s water. A coalition of community leaders, environmental groups and unions — KPOW/Keep Public Our Water — fought the plan, which would have privatized Milwaukee’s water system for up to a century.

    The new privatization bill puts the burden of bringing a referendum on citizens. A municipality would adopt an ordinance, but a referendum wouldn’t be held unless citizens wage a successful petition drive. And, with no referendum, the PSC would approve privatization.

    Democratic lawmakers worked through January to counter the measure and try to improve the bill. In a Senate committee vote in January, Sens. Chris Larson and Julie Lassa offered several unsuccessful amendments that would have reserved some control for local citizens.

    Larson, in early February, also was working with Reps. Amanda Stuck, D-Appleton, and Jonathan Brostoff, D-Milwaukee, to advance a measure — LRB 4602/1 — intended to keep water and sewer utilities under local control.

    “I am appalled that my colleagues across the aisle are trying to take Wisconsin down the dangerous path of privatizing water,” Brostoff said. “A one-time privatization scheme payoff pales in comparison to risking our public safety.”

    Pushing privatization

    Most Americans get their household water from publicly owned and operated services.

    The polls show most Americans want to keep these services. In Wisconsin, there’s been no public outcry from city and county officials for legislative change.

    “As a member of the Assembly Committee on Energy Utilities, I did not hear testimony from any municipal leader asking for expanding the ability of corporations to take over their water,” Stuck said. “Instead, what we heard was a desire to keep control of these vital utilities local, so that decisions about how to keep a cost-effective and safe water supply are made by the local community and not by the profit-seeking shareholders of private companies.”

    So, what’s driving a legislative push for privatization?

    The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reported in late January that AB 554, authored by Rep. Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva, and SB 432, written by Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, is akin to draft legislation — the Water/Wastewater Utility Public-Private Partnership Act — circulated by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

    ALEC is a special interest group of businesses and politicians that has advanced a series of anti-immigrant, anti-voter, anti-choice and anti-environment measures. Much of ALEC’s funding comes from trade groups, corporations such as Exxon Mobil and right-wing organizations like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

    Proponents argue privatization is a solution for municipalities burdened by capital improvements to systems that have been underfunded due to years of deflated rates.

    They also maintain that water utilities are businesses and companies can serve consumers better than gthe overnment.

    Some proponents of privatization illustrate their arguments by pointing to the water crisis in Michigan, where officials at nearly every level of government failed the people of Flint.

    Those arguments, however, unleash a flood of opposing positions from those who see the cost-cutting profit motive as the underlying cause of the Flint crisis.

    “The residents of Flint were stripped of their democratically elected authority and, in the name of saving a few dollars, have been forced to sacrifice their health in the process,” said the Rev. Allen Overton of Concerned Pastors for Social Action, part of a coalition seeking federal court intervention to secure safe water in Flint. “The community deserves accountability, transparency and justice, in addition to water that is safe to drink.”

    Opposing privatization

    “Government has a level of accountability to citizens that private companies do not,” stated Kerry Schumann, executive director of the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters.

    She continued, “Think about when you have a problem with your phone service. You typically spend hours being passed from faceless person to computer system and back to another faceless person who could be anywhere in the world. Sometimes it takes days, weeks or more to solve the problem.

    “Now imagine that water starts coming out of your tap brown, your family starts getting sick and you have to attempt to get help from a faceless, out-of-state private corporation that has no accountability to you or other voters living in the community. It’s bad enough running into this lack of responsiveness when you’re talking about a phone plan. The health of your family is certainly more important than phone service, and we should treat it that way.”

    The league is on record as opposing the privatization bill, as are other leading environmental, consumer and good-government groups in the state. Opponents include the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, Clean Wisconsin, the state Sierra Club, Midwest Environmental Advocates and Milwaukee Riverkeeper.

    “Not just across the country, but across the entire globe, water privatization has failed to increase the access to or quality of water supplies for communities time and time again,” read a statement from Milwaukee Riverkeeper intended to motivate members to urge their senators to reject the privatization bill.

    These groups take the position that access to water is a right and water should not be a source of windfall profits. They, and national watchdog organizations, such as Food and Water Watch and Public Citizen, offer these arguments against privatization:

    • Privatization leads to rate increases because corporations seek to maximize profits for investors.

    Investor-owned utilities typically charge 33 percent more for water, according to Food and Water Watch.

    After privatization, water rates increase at about three times the rate of inflation, with an average increase of 18 percent every other year.

    • Privatization undermines water quality, because the motivation for companies is profit, not the public good. Aqua America, headquartered in Pennsylvania, took in $769 million in revenues in 2013 for a $221 million profit. The company’s CEO received $3.2 million in compensation that year.

    • Privatization reduces public rights and allows the local government to abdicate control over a public resource.

    • Private financing costs more than public financing.

    • Privatization leads to job losses as companies minimize costs to increase profits. Food and Water Watch, which opposes any commodification of water, said privatization typically leads to a loss of one in three water jobs.

    • Privatization contributes to corruption because companies can restrict public access to information.

    • Privatization can contribute to sprawl because companies are motivated to expand infrastructure and extend services.

    • Privatization could lead to bulk water exports or changes in water use, including sales to the oil and gas industry for hydraulic fracturing.

    • Privatization is difficult to reverse.

    The crisis in Flint prompted people across the nation to focus on the quality of the water that comes out of their tap and the management of their utility.

    There’s also a global big picture to consider: The World Bank predicts that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will run short of fresh drinking water.

    Wisconsin will not run short of drinking water by 2025, but who or what will control how much water costs — or where it goes?

  • Wisconsin Republicans declare open season against environment

    Republicans took target practice in early January after declaring open season on Wisconsin’s environmental resources.

    The new year began with a bang, bang in the Capitol, where in just two days Republicans presided over a series of hearings on bills aimed at rolling back protections for air, land and water and at the same time curtailing the authority of local governments to protect natural resources.

    “From developing on lake beds to filling in wetlands to taking away local governments’ authority to protect the health of their communities, the Legislature is starting 2016 off with a pretty loud message to Wisconsinites,” said Kerry Schumann, executive director of the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters. The message, Schumann said, is lawmakers “are putting the wishes of big developers, factory farms, frac sand mining companies and other polluting interests above the needs of their constituents.”

    WLCV and the Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter, both nonprofit environmental advocacy groups, identified two measures of special concern — AB 600/SB 459, aka the “polluter grab bag,” and AB 582/SB 464, aka the “developer grab bag.”

    Supporters of the measures say they protect and advance “property rights.”

    Opponents say they further erode protections for Wisconsin’s natural resources.

    ‘Polluter grab bag’

    AB 600/SB 459 would allow developers to build on lake beds, provide incentives for developing a million acres of wetlands that lack federal protections and allow lakefront property owners to dredge up to three dump-truck loads of lakebed sediment every year.

    The Assembly Committee on Environment and Forestry held a hearing Jan. 5 on the bill, which is backed by Americans for Prosperity, League of Wisconsin Municipalities, Waste Management, Wisconsin Builders Association, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association and Wisconsin Realtors Association.

    Registered opponents include WLCV, Clean Lakes Alliance, Clean Wisconsin, League of Women Voters, River Alliance, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Wisconsin Association of Lakes, Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Association and Wisconsin Wetlands Association.

    “AB 600 undermines the public trust doctrine, allowing property owners on Wisconsin lakes, including the Great Lakes, to dredge material without any oversight and in most cases without even testing to make sure the dredged material is not contaminated,” said Bill Davis, director of the Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter. “And the bill gives away the public lake bed.”

    ‘Developer grab bag’

    AB 582/SB 464 would prohibit counties from placing moratoriums on new development. It also would prevent local governments from creating zoning requirements in response to a developer expressing an interest in locating there, according to the WLCV.

    The measure would provide financial incentives to develop land that is held in conservation easements and allow developers to shop around for a judge if there is a challenge to a permit.

    The Senate Committee on Insurance, Housing and Trade held a hearing on Jan. 5 on SB 464, which has the support of WEC Energy Group, Wisconsin Builders Association and Wisconsin Realtors Association.

    Opponents include Clean Wisconsin, League of Women Voters, River Alliance, Sierra Club, the town of Saratoga and WLCV.

    “The polluter and developer grab bags open the floodgates for developers, frac sand mining companies, factory farms and other special interests to make our water dirtier, fill in our wetlands and run roughshod over local communities and private citizens,” Schumann said.

    Elizabeth Ward, conservation programs coordinator with the Sierra Club, added, “This bill provides more giveaways to major corporations, like frac sand and oil pipeline companies, and removes the rights of landowners across Wisconsin to enjoy their land.”

    Also on the watch list this session …

    • SB 479 was the subject of a Jan. 5 hearing held by the Senate Committee on Insurance, Housing and Trade. Backers include a union local — the Madison Area Builders Association.

    Opponents maintain the measure would undermine Dane County’s authority on zoning and thus threaten local protections for wildlife and habitat.

    “This is another example of the state legislators attacking local control and making decisions that should be made at the local level,” said Dave Blouin, chair of Sierra’s Four Lakes Group.

    • SB 434 would open up more state forests to timber production. The bill also would prohibit the state Department of Natural Resources from offering guidance to property owners on wildlife action plans or requiring property owners to take action to protect species at risk.

    The state’s lobbying records show the Sierra Club joining WLCV in opposing the measure, which has support from Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association, Wisconsin Alliance of Forest Owners, Wisconsin Counties Association, Wisconsin County Forests Association, Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Association, Wisconsin Towns Association and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.

    The Senate Committee on Sporting Heritage, Mining and Forestry held a hearing on the bill on Jan. 5.

    • SB 432 would promote privatizing Wisconsin’s water by allowing communities to sell water utilities to private out-of-state companies. The Senate Committee on Workforce Development, Public Works and Military Affairs held a Jan. 5 hearing on the measure, which is backed by some labor groups and opposed by environmental groups.

    • AB 603 would prohibit counties from enacting stronger protections for waters if local authorities determined state minimum standards were insufficient.

    The Assembly Committee on Natural Resources and Sporting Heritage held a hearing on Jan. 6 on the bill, which is opposed by WLCV, Clean Lakes Alliance, Clean Wisconsin, River Alliance and Wisconsin Association of Lakes.

    • SB 288 would remove the nuclear moratorium, lifting barriers to constructing new nuclear power plants in the state. It includes the requirement that new plants have a plan of action for dealing with hazardous waste.

    Additionally, the bill would put nuclear energy on the list of preferred energy options in the state, despite high costs associated with production and major concerns about the disposal of waste and the dismantling of outdated facilities.

    The Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy held a hearing Jan. 5 on the measure, which has overwhelming support from energy companies, labor unions and trade associations.

    Opponents include the Citizens Utility Board, League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, and environmental groups.

    Action alert

    Track Wisconsin environmental issues at conservationvoters.org, the website for the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters.

    Track legislation at notify.legis.wisconsin.gov.