The State of the State's Environment

Earth Day 2000 Report


Copyright Clean Wisconsin
122 State Street Suite 200
Madison, WI 53703-2500
608.251.7020 phone
608.251.1655 fax

Introduction and Summary

Each Earth Day, Clean Wisconsin releases its annual State of the State's Environment Report. This report examines many of the most important environmental issues of the past year-both the highs and lows-with an emphasis on policy decisions or actions which have a major impact on the environment. The year's report finds the state of the state's environment "Neglected."

We've neglected our lakes, streams, natural ecosystems and the air we breath for far too long. The Clean Water Act of 1970 set a goal of fishable and swimable waters by 1983; and we're still a long way from meeting that goal.

Environmental neglect is apparent when we examine the state of many of our natural resources and the impacts environmental degradation has on public health. There are numerous, too many, examples of environmental neglect in Wisconsin; here are just a few:

On the positive side, there are signs of hope. The budget bill last year contained a number of policies which made significant strides toward turning the corner on land use planning, clean energy, natural area protection and recycling. Nearly all of these accomplishments share the common theme of having been supported by a diverse coalition.

Environmental Low Point: Mercury Reduction Bill Dies

The DNR recently added 11 new lakes to the list of waters that anglers are warned not to eat certain gamefish from due to unsafe levels of mercury-- bringing the total number of lakes and rivers to 341. Mercury is a neuro-toxin, which means that it impairs the brain and nervous system, especially a danger for small children and pregnant women. The mercury fish consumption advisory is a well-intended, under-funded effort to hold down the number of children who experience mercury contamination impacts such as lower IQ, reduced memory abilities, reduce attention span and impaired coordination.

Last Spring Senate Bill 177 was introduced by Senator Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee) and Representative Dean Kaufert (R-Neenah) to address the mercury contamination problem in the state. Senate Bill 177 would cap mercury emissions at current levels from the largest sources including power plants, incinerators and chemical plants, and then require reductions from 60 to 90 percent over the next 15 years. This is a long period of time for utilities to adapt newer and more cost-effective technologies (several mercury reduction bills have been introduced in other states and in Congress which call for 70 to 90 percent reductions in five years).

SB 177 is cosponsored by several Republicans and several Democrats. More than 100 citizen groups, including more than 40 sport fishing and hunting groups, have passed resolutions supporting the bill. The bill received two hearings, one in August and one in January, where supporters outnumbered the opposition about 5 to 1. The only people to speak against the bill were utility representatives, while supporters included sport fishing representatives (5 statewide groups), Native American Tribes, resort owners, lake associations and individual concerned anglers. The DNR also strongly supports the bill after convening a yearlong stakeholder process to receive input from all parties. Despite having all of this going for it, the bill was voted down in February in the Joint Finance Committee by a 9 o 7 margin and is now dead.

How can a bill with such strong bipartisan and citizen support be killed by one special interest group-the utilities? Maybe we shouldn't be surprised; we've come to expect that interest groups able to make large campaign contributions to get their way most, if not all of the time in our state legislature. But in this case there's more to the story. The Wisconsin utilities in this case (with the notable exception, to their credit, of Madison Gas & Electric) launched a major misinformation campaign, and several of the key votes against the bill were based on false assumptions. For example:

  1. Utilities told legislators repeatedly that there are no control technologies capable of reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. This is completely false. Several groups testified to the exact opposite including the lead author of EPA's mercury report to Congress and a representative from the largest utility in the Nation.

  2. Utilities gave legislators the impression that coal-fired power plants in Wisconsin, and even nationwide, are insignificant sources of mercury emissions based on assumptions about "natural emissions" which ignore the fact that these natural emissions (primarily volatilization of mercury from ocean surfaces) are mostly, if not all, reemissions of mercury originally from human sources such as power plants. The truth is that power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in Wisconsin and nationwide and the only source which has successfully evaded any meaningful regulation.

  3. Utilities claimed that mercury reductions would further jeopardize electric reliability in Wisconsin to the extent that it encouraged switching some electric generation from coal to natural gas. In practice the exact opposite affect is much more likely. Fuel switching to gas in Wisconsin would meaning purchasing power from a gas plant and backing off generation from a coal plant by an equal amount which would leave that amount of coal generation in reserve for crunch time.

A local fishing club board member described negotiations with the utilities on this bill as "dealing with the devil." Given the health impacts of mercury on children and the utilities apparent comfort level with intentionally misleading policy makers its hard to disagree with that characterization.

For more information contact Keith Reopelle, WED, 608.251.7020, reopelle@itis.com.

Environmental High Point: Clean Electric Energy Alternatives Get a Jump

There were a number of very important environmental policies and investments created by last year's state budget bill. One you may not have heard about is what is referred to as the electric utility "Public Benefits Fund." The Public Benefits Fund begins to address the need to invest in clean energy alternatives, particularly energy conservation. The law provides for approximately $190 million to be set aside each year for energy efficiency programs, renewable energy development, environmental research and low-income customer assistance.

Approximately $130 million, including $50 million for low-income weatherization, is authorized for energy efficiency investments. Energy service companies will compete on a productivity basis for access to the funds to underwrite conservation and efficiency programs designed to eliminate pollution and reduce electric bills, among other benefits. The money will go to firms who can demonstrate the most energy savings per dollar investment.

Seventy percent of the electricity generated in Wisconsin comes from 16 coal-fired power plants across the state. These coal-fired power plants are by far the largest point sources of air pollution including acid rain, smog, global warming gases and mercury that contaminates game fish. Energy efficiency investments are by far the most cost-effective way to reduce all of these harmful emissions.

The purpose of the Public Benefits program is to replace the historic electric utility funding for consumer benefits (e.g. low-income support and energy conservation programs) which has waned due to deregulation of the electric utility industry. For example, under the historic highly regulated monopoly industry structure, utilities have been allowed a guaranteed rate of return on energy conservation investments, much like investments in power plants to generate electricity and transmission lines to carry it. In a deregulated competitive industry the incentive to invest in programs aimed at reducing sales of electricity is greatly diminished, if not reversed. Indeed, across the nation as states have deregulated electric utilities, energy conservation programs have been slashed. While law makers have yet to deregulate the industry in Wisconsin, utilities began reducing their conservation investments in 1993 when the Public Service Commission initiated proceedings intended to lay out a framework and timetable for moving to deregulation. Between 1993 and 1999, utility investments in energy conservation programs dropped 64 percent.

Every state that has deregulated its electric utilities (i.e. allowed, or set a date certain to allow, retail competition among utilities) has also created some kind of public benefits fund. Wisconsin, however, is the only state to have created a public benefits fund without yet allowing retail competition. This is consistent with the view of a majority of stakeholders, including Clean Wisconsin, that numerous safeguards-including a Public Benefits Fund-need to be in place before deregulation occurs, in order to ensure that the benefits outweigh the downsides of deregulation for all customers, especially residential and other small customers.

The Public Benefits Fund was one part of a larger electric utility provision in the budget bill which addressed electric reliability. Another element of that package was a "renewable portfolio standard"-a requirement that an increasing percentage of each utility's electricity be generated from clean renewable energy sources such as wind power. The law begins requiring .5% of each utility's electric generation portfolio be derived from renewable resources by December 31, 2001 and increase to 2.2% by December of 2011. The law considers renewable energy sources to include electricity generated from wind power, solar technologies, energy crops, geothermal technology, fuel cells and tidal or wave action.

For more information contact Keith Reopelle, WED, 608.251.7020, reopelle@itis.com.

Environmental High Point: Statewide Recycling Program Reauthorized

Governor Thompson submitted a budget bill to the legislature last year which would have eliminated funding for Wisconsin's heavily touted, and indeed very effective, statewide recycling program. Votes on a compromise to keep the program funded by Senator Decker (D-Wausau) were split down party lines on the Joint Finance Committee-with Democrats supporting continued funding from a modest tipping (waste dumping) fee and other funding mechanisms. Senate Democrats subsequently adopted a stronger program which was completely funded from tipping fees (fees charged to waste haulers who dump in landfills). While Assembly Republicans took a position to not only cut the funding but also eliminate the policies that make up the program including any requirements to recycle, no matter how cost-effective the recycling opportunity might be.

Environmental advocates had as their highest priority maintaining the program requirements and adequate funding for local municipalities. However, Clean Wisconsin and other environmental groups also pushed hard for as much of the funding as possible to come from tipping fees, a move waste haulers like Waste Management Inc. strenuously opposed. Wisconsin residents and businesses keep two million tons of waste out of our landfills each year by recycling only to have out-of-state waste haulers dump over 1 million tons of their garbage in our state. That's because tipping fees are, on average, $16 lower in southeastern Wisconsin than they are in the Chicago area and the average tipping fee in the Janesville area is $27 lower than those in Rockford. If the program were funded through an increase in tipping fees it would generate, and save Wisconsin taxpayers, $13 million from out-of-state waste haulers each year (that's more than half of the total amount being spent on aids to local community recycling programs).

A conference committee of both houses agreed in the final hours of budget negotiations to retain the recycling requirements indefinitely and to fund the program at a level slightly below what it had been over the past several years. However, rather than fund the program completely from tipping fees, which would have required a more than $10 per ton increase, a compromise of a $2.30 was reached to supplement the existing, or revived, tax surcharge on businesses. In the end, the waste haulers prevailed.

Environmental Low Point: Polluted Run-off Rules Don't Measure Up

The latest effort by the Department's of Agriculture and Natural Resources to curb polluted runoff from barnyards, crop fields and city streets appears destined to again fall far short of what is needed to restore water quality in our lakes and streams across Wisconsin. Polluted runoff of animal waste, nutrients, pesticides, soil and other contaminants has proved to be a vexing problem for nearly 20 years running now.

In 1982 Clean Wisconsin first recognized that the state's polluted runoff laws were not in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. The Decade and other groups petitioned the DNR to rectify the problem with little results. In the late 80s the state legislature created a special committee to address the polluted runoff problem. However, the political will existed to do little more than accelerate the actions of the existing voluntary and largely ineffective state polluted runoff program. In 1994, the Decade and other groups again petitioned the DNR to comply with the federal law that required "fishable and swimable waters" by 1983. In response the DNR created an animal waste advisory committee which made four commonsense recommendations all of which are still waiting to be written into law. The latest response by the agencies to the Decade's petitions, called " The Nonpoint (pollution program) Redesign" began with a stakeholder advisory committee process which seemed to give participants little hope that their input would have a meaningful effect on the new rules.

At this time, the DNR and DATCP have held a series of hearings on a proposed set of rules to address polluted runoff. The rules package consists of seven primary management recommendations and a variety of planning requirements intended to reduce water pollution from agriculture, urban areas and livestock production facilities. Unfortunately, as they now stand, the rules fall far short of what is necessary to restore and protect the state's water resources. For example, despite a large body of sound science supporting establishment of vegetated buffer strips along waterways, political pressure caused both agencies to remove language requiring buffer strips. At the same time, requirements for producers to prevent water pollution by diverting clean water away from livestock areas and feedlots have been limited to facilities in small strips of land along rivers and streams, rather then all facilities with the potential to pollute surface waters.

On the urban side, DNR has refused to promulgate rules to address the myriad carcinogens, mutagens and neurotoxins found in runoff from urban areas. In Wisconsin, urban runoff contributes enormous amounts of toxic materials, sediments and nutrients to waterways. And once again, despite clear and overwhelming evidence that runoff from urban and other developed areas are poisoning rivers, streams and lakes, the proposed rules fail to address the majority of these problems. Adding insult to injury, the proposed rules also contain loopholes that will allow municipalities and developers to violate runoff standards with a simple assertion that they cannot reasonably comply. Equally disturbing is DNR's refusal to address thermal pollution - heating up of runoff that destroys habitat quality for cold-water game species such as trout and salmon. One positive note is the requirement for buffer strips along rivers and streams in new developments. However, if runoff from these developments is contaminated (and it will be), then the buffers will not be sufficient to protect these waterways.

Environmental High Point: "Smart Growth" Land Use Planning Initiated

"Smart Growth" is the name that was given to a provision in last year's state budget bill which is the most comprehensive land use policy enacted in the past 50 years. The Smart Growth initiative is intended to provide local governmental units with the tools necessary to create comprehensive plans and more informed decisions, and encourage state agencies to create more balanced land-use rules and policies.

The Smart Growth initiative was developed by diverse stakeholders including 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin (the leading environmental group on this issue), the Wisconsin Builders Association, regional planning organizations and many municipal associations such as the Alliance of Cities. Governor Thompson included a definition of comprehensive planning and money for planning grants in his budget proposal, which was expanded and strengthened by the legislature under the leadership of Senator Brian Burke (D-Milwaukee) and Representative Mike Powers (R-Albany).

The smart growth legislation requires that all program and actions of local governments that affect land use must be "consistent with" the comprehensive plan by January 1, 2010. In addition to land use, comprehensive plans must address:

The smart growth law also provides $3.5 million in grants to local governments over the next two years for land use related planning and transportation planning. Local planning activity grants will be prioritized on the basis of ability to meet the following criteria:

A: Identify "smart growth areas" defined as "an area that will enable development and redevelopment of lands with existing infrastructure and municipal, state and utility services, where practicable, or that will encourage efficient development patterns that are both contiguous to existing development at densities which have relatively low municipal, state and utility costs."

B: will be completed within 30 months

C: provide opportunities for public participation

D: provide implementing ordinances

E: describe how each of 14 comprehensive planning goals will be met:

  1. Promotion of the redevelopment of lands with existing infrastructure and public service sand the maintenance and rehabilitation of existing residential, commercial and industrial structures;
  2. Encouragement of neighborhood designs that support a range of transportation choices;
  3. Protection of natural areas, including wetlands, wildlife habitats, lakes and woodlands, open spaces and groundwater resources;
  4. Protection of economically productive areas, including farmland forests;
  5. Encouragement of land uses, densities and regulations that promote efficient development patterns and relatively low municipal, state government and utility costs;
  6. Preservation of cultural, historic and archaeological sites;
  7. Encouragement of coordination and cooperation among nearby units of government;
  8. Building of community identity by revitalizing main streets and enforcing design standards;
  9. Providing an adequate supply of affordable housing for all income levels throughout each community;
  10. Providing adequate infrastructure and public services and a supply of developable land to meet existing and future market demand for residential, commercial, and industrial uses;
  11. Promoting the expansion of stabilization of the current economic base and the creation of a range of employment opportunities at the state, regional, and local levels;
  12. Balancing individual property rights with community interests and goals;
  13. Planning and development of land uses that create or preserve varied and unique urban and rural communities;
  14. Providing an integrated, efficient, and economical transportation system that provides mobility, convenience and safety and that meets the needs of all citizens, including the transit-dependent and disabled.

For more information contact Dave Cieslewicz, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, 608.259.1000, dcies@1000friendsofwisconsin.com.

Environmental Low Point: Natural Resources Board Shot Down Mining Moratorium Rules

The highest of environmental high points in 1998, and perhaps the past decade, was the passage of the mining moratorium bill. But how much difference will the mining moratorium law make? Will it protect the resources of northern Wisconsin? The answer depends, at least in part, on how strongly the law is interpreted and implemented by the Department of Natural Resources. Last Spring Clean Wisconsin, the Sierra Club, the Menominee Nation and other groups petitioned the DNR to write administrative rules interpreting the new mining moratorium law. At their December meeting the Department of Natural Resources Board voted unanimously to reject the petition.

While the mining moratorium law is clear in its intent-don't permit a metallic sulfide mine in Wisconsin until the technology has been proven safe in at least one other site-important details need to be interpreted. The law says, for example, that an applicant to mine in Wisconsin must submit an example of another mine that has operated, and another mine that operated and been closed, for at least 10 years without "significant environmental pollution." Pollution is defined as "degradation that results in any violation of any environmental law." One of the example mines submitted by Nicolet Minerals (to permit the Crandon mine) to fulfill the law is in Arizona and was closed down before any laws on mine waste and water contamination from mines had been passed in the state. Furthermore, no monitoring of ground or surface waters near the mine was ever conducted. That mine could have polluted a million miles of streams without violating any law in Arizona. Our position is that the mine does not meet the test under the new law unless monitoring data shows that the mine never polluted nearby waters above the standards for ground and surface water protection in Wisconsin. What if the example mine were in another state which had water protection laws, but they were not as strong as Wisconsin's. Which state's standards would apply? This is just one of many questions which would typically be answered in administrative rules which the public and the various stakeholders would be allowed to comment on.

After the mining moratorium bill passed and was signed into law, DNR Secretary George Meyer stated that the DNR would begin to write rules, as agencies typically do, to interpret the new law. Secretary Meyer apparently had a change of heart and announced a short while later that the DNR would not be writing interpretive rules. This announcement troubled many in the environmental community because the DNR will interpret the law in any event; but the rule writing process at least affords public input and due process. Secretary Meyer and the Natural Resources Board argue that the law will be interpreted by the administrative law judge who presides over the permitting process for the Crandon mine (under Wisconsin's mining laws, a judge determines whether the applicant has sufficiently complied with the safeguards contained in the mining laws, including the mining moratorium law). While that's true, the judge's interpretation will be greatly influenced by the DNR's interpretation. The petition argued that the DNR's interpretation should, in turn, have the benefit of public input. But so far, it hasn't.

For more information contact Keith Reopelle, WED, 608.251.7020, reopelle@itis.com or Dave Blouin, Mining Impact Coalition, 608.233.8455.

Environmental Low Point: Duluth to Weston Transmission Line Proposal

Last October two utilities, Wisconsin Public Service Corporation of Green Bay and Minnesota Power, applied to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for permits to construct a transmission line from Duluth to Weston (a town just south of Wausau). The 345 kilovolt (kV) (very large) line would cut a 150 foot-wide swath 250 miles across 11 counties. Word of the proposed transmission line spread across northern Wisconsin like wildfire last spring and in its wake a grassroots opposition group sprang up equally fast. Save Our Unique Lands (SOUL) became incorporated in October as well and boasts more than 2,500 members from the 11 northwest counties. The stage is set for what promises to be a historic environmental battle over Wisconsin's northwoods.

The utilities argue the line is needed to address an electric reliability problem in eastern Wisconsin-on the warmest summer days the past two years electricity supplies were stretched to their limits requiring some businesses and homeowners to voluntarily conserve electricity to avoid "rolling brown outs." Opponents are concerned about a wide range of impacts including:

The Public Service Commission in Wisconsin and their counterparts in Minnesota must permit the project before construction can begin. Public hearings have begun in Minnesota while the Wisconsin PSC expects to hold hearings this summer. Three citizen groups have formally intervened in the PSC proceeding to date: SOUL, Clean Wisconsin and the Citizens Utility Board. All three groups recently received intervenor compensation funds from the PSC enabling them to hire expert witnesses and attorneys to make their cases before the Commission. In addition to addressing many of the impacts listed above, the groups will examine the need for the line, the cost of the line and alternatives to the line including the potential for addressing electric demand through energy conservation investments, renewable energy resources, small scale, local generation with natural gas and emerging technologies such as fuel cells and microturbines.

It is well known that the lakes in northern Wisconsin are particularly susceptible to impact from acid rain due to their reduced buffering capacity. This is generally true of upper Midwestern lakes located on the Canadian shield bedrock. This is, of course, the reason why Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to pass an acid rain cap law (1984) followed by acid rain reduction legislation (1986). At the time these laws were passed, the DNR estimated that roughly one half of the emissions which acidified rainfall in northern Wisconsin came from within the state. The other half originates outside of Wisconsin in up-wind states such as Minnesota and the Dakotas. The utilities in Wisconsin made considerable investments to comply with Wisconsin's laws and phase one of the 1990 clean air act revisions. Additional investments will need to be made to comply with phase two. Additional upwind coal combustion may negate progress made to date to reduce acid deposition in Wisconsin and generally negatively impact Wisconsin's lakes. There is no guarantee that the 1990 clean air act revisions will address this potential impact due to the nature of the SO2 trading program.

Mercury emissions are another good example of potential adverse impacts to Wisconsin resources resulting from increased upwind generation. Wisconsin currently has 340 lakes and rivers on the fish consumption advisory issued by the Department of Health and DNR warning anglers not to eat certain fish due to unsafe mercury levels. The number of lakes and rivers continues to grow as more lakes are tested. Coal-fired power plants are the largest source category of mercury emissions in Wisconsin (approximately 40 percent) and nationally (approximately 35 percent). As was the case with acid rain, Wisconsin may very well be the first state to pass legislation to reduce mercury emissions. Just such a bill has been introduced by bipartisan legislators, it is authored by a Democrat in the Democratically-controlled Senate; and it is authored by a Republican in the Republican-controlled Assembly. In its current form, it would require 20, 50 and 90 percent reductions of mercury by the years 2005, 2010 and 2015 respectively. Researcher estimates of the percent of mercury which is transported from long-range sources (outside the state) vary but generally fall between 10 to 50 percent. Certainly some portion of those emissions originate with coal combustion in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Coal-fired electric generation is also a major source of haze, particulate and climate-change emissions. WED is interested in reviewing the DEIS in regards to the potential for increased amounts of all of these emissions and their potential impacts on public health and natural resources in Wisconsin.

In addition to local impacts, this line would have major environmental impacts that occur or originate outside of Wisconsin. For example, the power carried by this line would, at least partially, come from increased output from coal-fired power plants in Minnesota and the Dakotas (which burn the dirtiest coal in the country). This would increase mercury emissions upwind from very susceptible lakes in northern Wisconsin (not to mention more acid rain, climate change, smog, etc. emissions).

Another set of impacts which would both originate and occur outside of Wisconsin are the impacts to the Cree Nation in Canada to the extent that this line eventually brings very cheap Canadian hydro power to Wisconsin (which is the hope and assumption of industrial customers). Canadian hydro-electric dams have flooded and displaced entire Cree communities. Manitoba Hydropower currently sells 40 percent of its power to the US and 90 percent of those sales are to Minnesota. The Cree have urged Minnesotans to boycott Northern States Power in Minnesota who has signed contracts to purchase the power. The Cree are adamantly opposed to this line and are looking to us for help.

For more information contact Keith Reopelle, WED, 608.251.7020, reopelle@itis.com.

Environmental High Point: Creation of an Environmental Law Center in Wisconsin

September 1999 marked the birth of the first public interest environmental law center in Wisconsin. After experiencing four years of weak environmental protection due to the demise of the Public Intervenor's Office and the transfer of the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources to the Governor's cabinet, Midwest Environmental Advocates has started to turn the tide.

Midwest Environmental Advocates is a legal and technical resource center for community groups across Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Upper Michigan, who are working for environmental justice. Midwest Environmental Advocates not only provides lawyers to protect and promote the basic human right to a clean and healthy environment, but is using the law to build the power of the grassroots environmental movement in this region and to build bridges between diverse groups.

MEA's main priorities are to improve water quality and rural development by reducing toxic pollution from incinerators and livestock factories. MEA has already provided direct representation to many rural communities and statewide family farm and environmental groups that are impacted by pollution from large livestock factories. MEA has uncovered numerous subsidies that are driving small farmers out of business, including a large environmental exemption subsidy that the DNR has been giving to livestock factories by not requiring them to meet basic federal and state water laws. In response, MEA has petitioned the US EPA to veto all of the proposed permits for livestock factories in Wisconsin because they are allowing runoff of manure into Wisconsin's lakes, rivers, and wetlands. MEA is also representing a fourth generation small dairy farmer and several sportsfishers in a case against the DNR for issuing a permit to a livestock factory that allows manure to leak from a waste pit into groundwater and nearby wetlands.

In addition to legal representation provided directly by MEA, the center also operates as a clearinghouse to connect community groups to pro bono and low cost legal services provided by attorneys who have joined MEA's Advocacy Network. With over a dozen Wisconsin attorneys in the Advocacy Network, the benefits to Wisconsin are already apparent. In the past six months, MEA has connected over 18 community groups and individuals with environmental problems to attorneys in the Advocacy Network. With the help of an Advocacy Network attorney, one urban community was able to stop the incineration of toxic soil near a school and apartment complex.

The founder and legal director of Midwest Environmental Advocates is attorney, Melissa K. Scanlan. She earned a Master of Science in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, then returned to her home state of Wisconsin to serve as a resource for community-based groups. While a graduate student, she worked in a variety of organizations, including San Francisco's Natural Resources Defense Council and Communities for a Better Environment.

For more information about Midwest Environmental Advocates, visit their website at http:\\www.midwest-e-advocates.org or call the Madison office at 608-251-5047.