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Corruption & Hindering Efforts against Climate Change

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Corruption & Hindering Efforts against Climate Change

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https://www.transparency.org/files/content/publication/GCR_ClimateChange_UsersGuide_EN.pdf

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https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/evers-calls-for-higher-thresholds-to-block-land-stewardship-projects-in-wisconsin/
Quentin

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Gov. Tony Evers wants to make it harder for Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Legislature to stop conservationists and the state from buying land, proposing Feb. 8 to increase the thresholds for stopping stewardship projects.

Evers said his executive budget proposal will repeal the requirement that all projects north of Highway 64 be subject to legislative review and double the threshold of legislative review for grants and acquisitions under the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program from $250,000 to $500,000. The governor's budget also will require any member of the Legislature who objects to a purchase to be named publicly. Currently, lawmakers can object anonymously, delaying or even killing projects.

The proposal comes after Republicans on the Legislature's finance committee last month killed a state Department of Natural Resources plan to spend $15.5 million on an easement to preserve 56,000 acres of northern Wisconsin forest. About $11 million would have come from federal dollars with the remaining $4 million or so coming from the stewardship fund.

"The review process for these projects have been weaponized by members of the Legislature to indefinitely suspend critical projects from moving forward, leaving projects hanging in limbo," Evers' office said in a Feb. 8 statement.

Evers is expected to release his full budget proposal on Feb. 15. The Legislature's finance committee will spend the next four months reworking the spending plan. The full Senate and Assembly will then vote on the Republican version of the budget and send that document to Evers, who can use his partial veto power to rework the plan to his liking.

The stewardship program provides money, mostly through bonding, to conservation groups to purchase blocks of land for preservation. The state Department of Natural Resources, which is controlled by the governor's administration, also uses the stewardship fund to buy land.

Republicans have been trying for years to scale back stewardship purchases, complaining that it takes too much land off the tax rolls, robs northern Wisconsin municipalities of revenue and drives up state debt. GOP lawmakers almost certainly will oppose any attempts to loosen legislative controls on the program.

Sen. Mary Felzkowski, an Irma Republican who sits on the finance committee, said she was one of the Republicans who anonymously objected to the $15.5 million forest purchase in Jsnusty. She told Wisconsin Public Radio then that the state can't keep taking property off tax rolls because local governments need that revenue to provide services.

She said in an email to The Associated Press on Feb. 8 that Evers' plan to loosen legislative oversight of the program amounts to stealing power from the finance committee.

"It's the task of this committee to ensure taxpayer dollars are used wisely, and be a check on the spending of the executive branch," Felzkowski said. "Governor Evers is asking us to surrender our duty to the people of Wisconsin and would rather provide the DNR with a rubber stamp for irresponsible spending on unnecessary acquisitions of public land - acquisitions that ultimately harm the local communities who are directly affected."

A spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos referred a request for comment to finance committee co-chairs Sen. Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born. They echoed Felzkowski in an email to the AP, saying committee oversight of stewardship purchases has worked for decades and it's disappointing that Evers wants to strip away legislative authority and undermine a process that saves tax dollars.

Michael Pyritz, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, declined comment, saying LeMahieu doesn't plan to comment on individual budget proposals until Evers releases the entire spending plan.

Evers announced a number of other conservation-related budget proposals on Feb. 8 as well, including:

$4.4 million to encourage planting trees and growing forests across the state.

$2.7 million to combat invasive species that damage Wisconsin's forests, parks and other natural spaces.

$6 million on clean energy and conservation-related job training.

Evers has called for 100% of all electricity used in Wisconsin to come from carbon-free sources by 2050. The statement from his office said the initiatives will help speed the state toward that goal.
Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison contributed to this report.

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Evers calls for higher thresholds to block land stewardship projects in Wisconsin

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Gov. Tony Evers wants to make it harder for Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Legislature to stop conservationists and the state from buying land, proposing Feb. 8 to increase the thresholds for stopping stewardship projects.

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As lakes across the upper Midwest grow warmer year after year, cool-water species of fish are finding it harder to thrive. In Wisconsin, that trend is especially noticeable in struggling populations of walleye - important to many indigenous communities, a top target in the state's sport fishery, and a popular item on many restaurant menus.

Like many states, Wisconsin spends millions of dollars each year on efforts to keep the walleye fishery running. But it is time to rethink some of those efforts, according to a report published in June's special issue of the journal Fisheries Management and Ecology.

Fishery management practices put much of their resources into resistance, says Zach Feiner, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Limnology who was lead author on the report. Under such strategies, the goal is to "restore" struggling fish species, not accept and adapt to new conditions that now favor different species.

In Wisconsin, "we try to prevent and resist change and keep walleye coming out of lakes," Feiner says. That adds up to heavy investment in raising walleye in hatcheries and stocking them in lakes, as well as "a ton of harvest management, including strict regulations like closing walleye fisheries or severely limiting harvest."

According to Feiner, these efforts are not working very well. For example, in Wisconsin, lakes that have historically been havens for walleye are now so warm that the scales are tipped in favor of species of fish like bass and bluegill. No amount of effort is going to fix the fact that the walleye's living conditions have changed.

This is a fact that Holly Embke, a research fish biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, knows all too well. Embke recently completed a five-year research project aimed at giving walleye a boost in McDermott Lake in northern Wisconsin. Her primary objective was to remove from the lake as many bass, bluegill and other fishes in the warm-water family called centrarchids as she could. The thought was that - free of competition for food and habitat -walleye would have a chance to rebound and reestablish a healthy population.

Despite removing nearly 300,000 centrarchids from the lake, however, Embke's team has yet to detect any sort of improvement in walleye numbers. Her findings appear in the same special issue of Fisheries Management and Ecology as Feiner's.

"We threw tons and tons of effort out there -much more than would be feasible for a management agency - and we didn't get a response from walleye," Embke says.

It's clear that interactions between walleye and the warm-water species in the centrarchid family are "not something that's under the control of fisheries managers to fix," Embke says.

Most of the time, warm water species are simply going to come out on top in warming lakes.

The news isn't all bad for walleye fans. Even under the more extreme warming models, Embke and Feiner point out, there will still be lakes that provide cold-water refuges for walleye. In fact, Embke and Feiner are currently working on a project to identify these "bright spots" in hopes that fisheries managers can focus their limited time and money on supporting healthy walleye habitat and naturally reproducing populations in those lakes.

For the majority of lakes, however, it will take too much time and cost too much money to keep them all supplied with enough stocked fish to support a "grow-and-take" walleye fishery - which means it is time to accept the things we cannot change, Feiner says.

"Much of the work in the future is, I think, going to be on the social side, laying the groundwork for people to be able to accept changing fisheries," Feiner says.

It's a shift that is going to come with growing pains. Right now, walleye are tops in Wisconsin's recreational fishery in terms of desired species even though warm water fishes, like bass or bluegill, are what an angler is more likely to catch.

While bluegill are a popular panfish, there is a misconception that smallmouth and largemouth bass aren't suitable table fare.

"Bass are perfectly good to eat," Feiner says. It's just that, due to a combination of fishing attitudes and fisheries management decisions, they have become synonymous with catch and release.

"It's an attitude that can shift," Feiner says. "It already shifted one way and it can shift back. I think anglers are more flexible than a lot of people give them credit for."

Embke agrees that anglers can be flexible to changes in the fishery, citing numerous studies that have shown this in action.

"What comes out in the data is that angling harvest follows species abundance trends," she says. "When they're out fishing, people are going to catch what's available. The average angler when presented with a bluegill is going to catch a bluegill rather than only going for walleye."

That kind of fishing flexibility is going to be key.

"Within our lifetime, we're going to be at a place in our Wisconsin lakes where it's mostly a warm-water fishery," Feiner says. "The fishing we did as kids in Wisconsin is not the kind of fishing my daughter is going to be doing when she's my age. It's going to be a different landscape and there's going to be different opportunities and you've just got to be willing to take those opportunities."

"There will be fish," he says. "They will just be different fish."

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Report: Scales tipping against walleye; time to get hooked on new fish

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As lakes across the upper Midwest grow warmer year after year, cool-water species of fish are finding it harder to thrive. In Wisconsin, that trend is especially noticeable in struggling populations of walleye - important to many indigenous communities, a top target in the state's sport fishery, and a popular item on many restaurant menus.

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https://www.wpr.org/conservation-groups-farmers-voice-support-updates-farmland-preservation-program

I know people who can help with this topic!

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Conservation groups, farmers voice support for updates to farmland preservation program

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With bipartisan support, the legislation would increase tax credits and lower the minimum time required to participate. But the bill has failed to make it to a vote in previous sessions.

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Very nice people doing direct action to help the environment.

Use it to work BACKWORDS to identify environmental issues that interest you.

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Exploring How Movement & Mindfulness Shape Our Connection to Nature

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Writer Jeff Grygny has long been interested in how philosophy, culture, science, and spirituality intersect. His latest work, The Performance Ecology…

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In a ceremonial effort to discourage meat consumption, the Colorado governor declared March 20 "MeatOut Day." Then Nebraska's governor announced "Meat on the Menu Day," seeking to do just the opposite.

Nebraska and Colorado have issued competing proclamations, alternately encouraging and discouraging meat consumption on March 20. Credit... Sarah Kloepping/The Green Bay Press-Gazette, via Associated Press

Depending on which side of the Colorado-Nebraska state line you're standing on, the meat-related significance of March 20 varies drastically.

Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado recently declared the date to be "MeatOut Day," seeking to decrease meat consumption and encourage meat eaters to consider plant-based diets. Though Mr. Polis's proclamation was largely ceremonial, Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska took notice, and on Monday he declared March 20 to be "Meat on the Menu Day" in his state.

Thus began a carnivorous culture war complicated by the prominent agriculture industries in both states, where livestock accounts for meaty portions of the economy.

"That is a direct attack on our way of life here in Nebraska," Mr. Ricketts said at a news conference at Frank Stoysich Meats, a butcher shop in Omaha, where he announced the creation of Meat on the Menu Day.

MeatOut Day was started in 1985 by the Farm Animal Rights Movement, a nonprofit animal welfare organization. Since then, MeatOut Day proclamations have been issued by state and national authorities around the world.

The proclamation encourages people to "explore the benefits and flavors of a wholesome plant-based diet." It cites potential health benefits, including lowered risk of ailments including heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, various cancers and diabetes. It also lists environmental benefits, such as "reducing our carbon footprint" and "preserving forests, grasslands and wildlife habitats."

The initiative ruffled feathers in Colorado's agriculture industry, which contributes $47 billion annually to the state economy.

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Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado has faced fierce resistance from the state's agricultural interests to his office's recent declaration of MeatOut Day. Credit... David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Several legislators spoke out against it on the floor of the Colorado Senate, CPR News reported. "For our governor to say that we should have a meat-free day is the last straw," State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, Republican of Weld County, said. "It's just one more attack against my county."

The Colorado Cattlemen's Association, an industry group, said in a statement that the MeatOut movement was "harmful and falsely critical of agriculture and meat production."

The group announced a competing "Meat In" movement on March 20, encouraging Coloradans to "meet in a restaurant and order your favorite meat dish, meet your family and friends for a meal featuring meat."

"Let's focus on keeping meat in and on the breakfast, lunch and dinner table!" it said.

Other groups, including politicians, voiced support for similar events encouraging meat consumption. Three Republican officeholders announced plans to host a barbecue on March 20 in Calhan, Colo., that would feature beef from nearby Freeman Ranch. Another Facebook event simply urged participants to grill a rib-eye steak or smoke a brisket to show their support for Colorado ranchers and their displeasure with Mr. Polis, who is a Democrat.

"We say to hell with Polis and the leafy greens he rolled in on," the description of the event reads, suggesting that Coloradans treat themselves to a 32-ounce porterhouse, or visit their favorite steakhouse to "order the biggest slab on the menu with a splash of bourbon!"

Shelby Wieman, a spokeswoman for Mr. Polis, sought to downplay the significance of the MeatOut declaration by noting that the state issues "hundreds of proclamations a year" at the request of various groups, businesses and special organizations.

"Governor Polis is a strong supporter of Colorado jobs in the meat industry and was just in Greeley and Fort Morgan, where the state partnered to provide the lifesaving vaccine to meat processing workers," she said, also noting that "the previous administration issued a similar proclamation in 2011."

Across state lines, Mr. Ricketts, a Republican, made clear his support of meat, and not for the first time. In 2019, he declared May "Beef Month," to highlight the cattle industry.

Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska has previously shown support for the meat industry. Credit... Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated Press

At the news conference, he announced that March 20 would be designated Meat on the Menu Day to "highlight the importance of meat in a good diet as well as to provide an opportunity to support our farmers and ranchers."

"Agriculture is Nebraska's No. 1 industry and beef is our largest segment of production," Mr. Ricketts said in a statement. "While meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat, there are radical anti-agriculture activists that are working to end meat production and our way of life here in Nebraska."

In Nebraska, one in four jobs is supported by agriculture, said Steve Wellman, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. It contributes $21 billion to the state annually, $12 billion from meat products alone, he said.

According to the American Heart Association, red meat - including beef - contains more saturated fat, which can raise cholesterol and has been linked to heart disease, than other meats. For those reasons, health professionals recommend limiting red meat intake.

Environmentalists have rallied behind lowering meat consumption for years. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture accounts for about 10 percent of greenhouse emissions. Cattle in particular are known to have an environmental impact because they emit methane, a potent planet-warming gas. Studies have found that beef production generates about four to eight times as much carbon as pork, chicken or egg production, per gram of protein created. All meat production leaves a larger climate-change footprint than plant-based proteins like soy or other beans.

In response to the backlash, Kate Greenberg, the Colorado agriculture commissioner, issued an open letter to the state's livestock producers and clarified that the proclamation was "nonbinding" and did not create a new state holiday, The Sterling Journal-Advocate reported. She noted that a similar proclamation had been made by former Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2011.

"You, your families and your hard work are part of the backbone of Colorado's rural communities," she wrote. "I want you to know that I've got your back as you do what you do best. The livestock industry is an essential part of Colorado's past, present and future. No proclamation will change that."

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In a ceremonial effort to discourage meat consumption, the Colorado governor declared March 20 "MeatOut Day." Then Nebraska's governor announced "Meat on the Menu Day," seeking to do just the opposite. Depending on which side of the Colorado-Nebraska state line you're standing on, the meat-related significance of March 20 varies drastically.

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WISCONSIN-A year into the coronavirus pandemic, families in Waukesha and Milwaukee County are still struggling to make ends meet. Millions can't put food on the table for their families, while others frequently go to bed hungry.

The pandemic left a profound mark on families both here and throughout the world. Yet while millions of our neighbors go hungry, many of us are wasting and throwing away food at unprecedented rates, according to a recent United Nations report.

The report, released earlier this month, estimates that 17 percent of the food produced globally each year is wasted. That amounts to 931 million metric tons of food, the report says.

The United States is the world's greatest offender, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In this country, we throw away about 31 percent of our food annually. That amounts to 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food each year.

Yet Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization, estimates as many as 515,930 people are struggling with hunger in Wisconsin and of them 179,180 are children. Nationally, at least 42 million Americans could grapple with hunger this year, partly because of the pandemic.

Given the number of hungry people in our country, why - but, better yet, how - do we allow so much food to go to waste?

Here's a look at some truths behind food waste and what Wisconsin residents can do to curb it:
What Causes Food Waste
The average person in the United States tosses about 219 pounds of food each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food waste happens for many reasons and at all stages of the food cycle. However, three types of food waste generally exist: food that's spoiled, food we think is spoiled, and food we know is still consumable but no longer want.

Food waste also happens at the retail and production level for numerous reasons: weather, processing and storage problems, overproduction, overbuying, poor planning - the list goes on.

Still, a majority of food thrown away is perfectly safe to eat - about 90 percent of tossed food can still be consumed, according to The Economics Review at New York University.

Yet we throw it away anyway. What gives?

The first study to look at consumer attitudes about food waste came out in June 2015 from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. A second study by Ohio State University showed that while a majority of Americans think food waste is a problem, most find it difficult to reduce their own waste while others are "simply too busy to change."

Also, Americans spend less on groceries than people in most other countries, which means we can afford to throw away food.

The Worst State Offenders

While the United States ranks among the worst global offenders for food waste, which states contribute most to the country's total?

Official government data by state doesn't exist, but U.S. Shipping & Packaging determined which states likely have the most food waste by taking each one's total yearly grocery expenditure and assuming the national average of 31 percent will be wasted. That number was then divided by the state's population to show an average of how much every person in each state spent on food that will be wasted.

Doing this, the company concluded Vermont had the highest amount at more than $1,374 of wasted food per person. Behind Vermont were Maine and Hawaii, respectively.
Economic, Environmental Repercussions

Food production takes a significant amount of labor, material resources, time and energy; so when food is wasted, so is the money it takes to acquire these resources, according to The Economics Review at New York University.

In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently estimates at least $1 trillion in resource costs is lost annually.

Food waste produces enormous environmental consequences, too.

An alarming amount of wasted food ends up in our landfills each year. Food waste comprises about 22 percent of all waste in municipal landfills, according to data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Food that ends up in landfills also produces a large amount of methane - a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide. Methane and other greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation and heat up the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
How We Can Reduce Food Waste
In addition, food waste is responsible for more than 25 percent of all freshwater consumption in the United States each year. This means when we throw out food, we also waste the water it took to produce it.

Reducing food waste has to be a cooperative effort involving federal, state, tribal and local governments, faith-based institutions, environmental organizations, communities, and the entire food supply chain, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

To tackle the problem of food waste in the United States, the FDA joined the USDA and EPA in 2015 to set a goal to cut U.S. food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030. The agreement aims to improve coordination and communication across federal agencies in order to better educate Americans on the importance of reducing food loss and waste.

Still, the best way to cut back on food loss and waste is to not create it in the first place. Individuals can look for ways they can improve and change the way they cook, store and shop for food.
Where To Take Your Leftover Food
In its food recovery hierarchy, the EPA identifies source reduction as the first step to reducing food waste, followed by feeding hungry people, feeding animals, industrial use and composting. Landfills are identified as the last measure people should take in eliminating food waste.

While some food banks and pantries such as Feeding America do not accept most perishable or leftover food items, there are still ways to make sure food from your home doesn't go to waste.

The EPA created an Excess Food Opportunities Map, which supports keeping food out of the nation's landfills. The map identifies places that may generate extra food as well as more than 5,000 places that will take extra food, including anaerobic digestion facilities, composting facilities and food banks.
Patch has partnered with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2021, more than 42 million Americans won't have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.
Feeding America serves 200 member food banks that serve and supply 60,000 food pantries, kitchens and meal programs around the country.

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As Millions Go Hungry, Here's How To Reduce Food Waste In WI

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WISCONSIN-A year into the coronavirus pandemic, families in Waukesha and Milwaukee County are still struggling to make ends meet. Millions can't put food on the table for their families, while others frequently go to bed hungry. The pandemic left a profound mark on families both here and throughout the world.

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It's Time to Rethink America's Corn System

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It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System

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It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System

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The American corn system is not only not able to properly feed America, but it damages the environment and is a burden on taxpayers.

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This essay was posted initially on Ensia.com and is reprinted here with permission.

Nothing dominates the American landscape like corn.

Sprawling across the Midwest and Great Plains, the American Corn Belt is a massive thing. You can drive from central Pennsylvania all the way to western Nebraska, a trip of nearly 1,500 miles, and witness it in all its glory. No other American crop can match the sheer size of corn.

So why do we, as a nation, grow so much corn?

The main reason is that corn is such a productive and versatile crop, responding to investments in research, breeding and promotion. It has incredibly high yields compared with most other U.S. crops, and it grows nearly anywhere in the country, especially thriving in the Midwest and Great Plains. Plus, it can be turned into a staggering array of products. Corn can be used for food as corn flour, cornmeal, hominy, grits or sweet corn. It can be used as animal feed to help fatten our hogs, chickens and cattle. And it can be turned into ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup or even bio-based plastics.

No wonder we grow so much of the stuff.

But it is important to distinguish corn the crop from corn the system. As a crop, corn is highly productive, flexible and successful. It has been a pillar of American agriculture for decades, and there is no doubt that it will be a crucial part of American agriculture in the future. However, many are beginning to question corn as a system: how it dominates American agriculture compared with other farming systems; how in America it is used primarily for ethanol, animal feed and high-fructose corn syrup; how it consumes natural resources; and how it receives preferential treatment from our government.

The current corn system is not a good thing for America for four major reasons.

The American corn system is inefficient at feeding people. Most people would agree that the primary goal of agriculture should be feeding people. While other goals-especially producing income, creating jobs and fostering rural development-are critically important too, the ultimate success of any agricultural system should be measured in part by how well it delivers food to a growing population. After all, feeding people is why agriculture exists in the first place.

Although U.S. corn is a highly productive crop, with typical yields between 140 and 160 bushels per acre, the resulting delivery of food by the corn system is far lower. Today's corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported. Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup.

Yes, the corn fed to animals does produce valuable food to people, mainly in the form of dairy and meat products, but only after suffering major losses of calories and protein along the way. For corn-fed animals, the efficiency of converting grain to meat and dairy calories ranges from roughly 3 percent to 40 percent, depending on the animal production system in question. What this all means is that little of the corn crop actually ends up feeding American people. It's just math. The average Iowa cornfield has the potential to deliver more than 15 million calories per acre each year (enough to sustain 14 people per acre, with a 3,000 calorie-per-day diet, if we ate all of the corn ourselves), but with the current allocation of corn to ethanol and animal production, we end up with an estimated 3 million calories of food per acre per year, mainly as dairy and meat products, enough to sustain only three people per acre. That is lower than the average delivery of food calories from farms in Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam.

In short, the corn crop is highly productive, but the corn system is aligned to feed cars and animals instead of feeding people.

There are a number of ways to improve the delivery of food from the nation's corn system. First and foremost, shifting corn away from biofuels would generate more food for the world, lower demand for grain, lessen commodity price pressures, and reduce the burden on consumers around the world. Furthermore, eating less corn-fed meat, or shifting corn toward more efficient dairy, poultry, pork and grass-fed beef systems, would allow us to get more food from each bushel of corn. And diversifying the Corn Belt into a wider mix of agricultural systems, including other crops and grass-fed animal operations, could produce substantially more food-and a more diverse and nutritious diet- than the current system.

The corn system uses a large amount of natural resources. Even though it does not deliver as much food as comparable systems around the globe, the American corn system continues to use a large proportion of our country's natural resources.

In the U.S., corn uses more land than any other crop, spanning some 97 million acres- an area roughly the size of California. U.S. corn also consumes a large amount of our freshwater resources, including an estimated 5.6 cubic miles per year of irrigation water withdrawn from America's rivers and aquifers. And fertilizer use for corn is massive: over 5.6 million tons of nitrogen is applied to corn each year through chemical fertilizers, along with nearly a million tons of nitrogen from manure. Much of this fertilizer, along with large amounts of soil, washes into the nation's lakes, rivers and coastal oceans, polluting waters and damaging ecosystems along the way. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest, and most iconic, example of this.

And the resources devoted to growing corn are increasing dramatically. Between 2006 and 2011, the amount of cropland devoted to growing corn in America increased by more than 13 million acres, mainly in response to rising corn prices and the increasing demand for ethanol. Most of these new corn acres came from farms, including those that were growing wheat (which lost 2.9 million acres), oats (1.7 million acres lost), sorghum (1 million acres lost), barley, alfalfa, sunflower and other crops. That leaves us with a less diverse American agricultural landscape, with even more land devoted to corn monocultures. And according to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, roughly 1.3 million acres of grassland and prairie were converted to corn and other uses in the western Corn Belt between 2006 and 2011, presenting a threat to the waterways, wetlands and species that reside there.

Looking at these land, water, fertilizer and soil costs together, you could argue that the corn system uses more natural resources than any other agricultural system in America, while providing only modest benefits in food. It's a dubious trade-off-depleting natural resources to deliver relatively little food and nutrition to the world. But it doesn't need to be that way. Innovative farmers are exploring other methods for growing corn, including better conventional, organic, biotech and conservation farming methods that can dramatically reduce chemical inputs, water use, soil losses and impacts on wildlife. We should encourage American farmers to continue these improvements.

The corn system is highly vulnerable to shocks. Although a large monoculture dominating much of the country with a single cropping system might be an efficient and profitable way to grow corn at an industrial scale, there is a price to being so big, with so little diversity. Given enough time, most massive monocultures fail, often spectacularly. And with today's high demand and low grain stocks, corn prices are very volatile, driving spikes in the price of commodities around the world. Under these conditions, a single disaster, disease, pest or economic downturn could cause a major disturbance in the corn system.

The monolithic nature of corn production presents a systemic risk to America's agriculture, with impacts ranging from food prices to feed prices and energy prices. It also presents a potential threat to our economy and to the taxpayers who end up footing the bill when things go sour. This isn't rocket science: You wouldn't invest in a mutual fund that was dominated by only one company, because it would be intolerably risky. But that's what we're doing with American agriculture. Simply put, too many of our agricultural eggs are in one basket.

A more resilient agricultural system would start by diversifying our crops, shifting some of the corn monoculture to a landscape rich with a variety of crops, pastures and prairies. It would more closely mimic natural ecosystems and include a mixture of perennial and different seasonal plants-not just summertime annuals with shallow roots that are especially sensitive to dry spells. Furthermore, it would include conservation tillage and organic farming practices that improve soil conditions by restoring soil structure, organic content and water holding capacity, making farming landscapes much more resilient to floods and droughts. The overall result would be a landscape better prepared to weather the next drought, flood, disease or pest.

The corn system operates at a big cost to taxpayers. Finally, the corn system receives more subsides from the U.S. government than any other crop, including direct payments, crop insurance payments and mandates to produce ethanol. In all, U.S. crop subsidies to corn totaled roughly $90 billion between 1995 and 2010-not including ethanol subsidies and mandates, which helped drive up the price of corn.

Today, one of the biggest corn subsidies come in the form of federally supported crop insurance. In fact, for the 2012 season U.S. crop insurance programs will likely pay out an estimated $20 billion or more-shattering all previous records. Amazingly, these record subsidies are being paid as corn just had one of the most lucrative years in history. Even with the 2012 drought, high prices meant that U.S. corn broke record sales figures. Do record subsidies make sense during a year of record sales?

Naturally, some farmers were hit harder by the drought than others, and crop insurance programs are intended to help them make up these losses. That's a noble goal. But should taxpayers be paying higher prices for a crop that was never harvested?

It might be time to rethink our crop subsidy programs, to focus tax dollars where they will achieve the greatest public good. We should help farmers recover their losses during a natural disaster, making them whole again, but not gain from failed harvests at public expense. We should also consider helping all farmers who suffered losses, not just those growing only certain commodity crops. And we should look to support farmers for important things that markets don't address, such as reducing runoff and erosion, improving soil and biodiversity, and providing jobs for rural America. Farmers are the stewards of our nation's most fertile lands and should be rewarded for their work to carefully manage these resources.

Bottom line: We need a new approach to corn

As a crop, corn is an amazing thing and a crucial part of the American agricultural toolbox. But the corn system, as we currently know it, is an agricultural juggernaut, consuming more land, more natural resources and more taxpayer dollars than any other farming system in modern U.S. history. As a large monoculture, it is a vulnerable house of cards, precariously perched on publicly funded subsidies. And the resulting benefits to our food system are sparse, with the majority of the harvested calories lost to ethanol or animal feedlot production. In short, our investment of natural and financial resources is not paying the best dividends to our national diet, our rural communities, our federal budget or our environment. It's time to reimagine a system that will.

What would such a system look like?

This reimagined agricultural system would be a more diverse landscape, weaving corn together with many kinds of grains, oil crops, fruits, vegetables, grazing lands and prairies. Production practices would blend the best of conventional, conservation, biotech and organic farming. Subsidies would be aimed at rewarding farmers for producing more healthy, nutritious food while preserving rich soil, clean water and thriving landscapes for future generations. This system would feed more people, employ more farmers and be more sustainable and more resilient than anything we have today.

It is important to note that these criticisms of the larger corn system-a behemoth largely created by lobbyists, trade associations, big businesses and the government-are not aimed at farmers. Farmers are the hardest working people in America, and are pillars of their communities. It would be simply wrong to blame them for any of these issues. In this economic and political landscape, they would be crazy not to grow corn; farmers are simply delivering what markets and policies are demanding. What needs to change here is the system, not the farmers.

And no matter what happens, this won't mean the end of corn. Far from it. Corn crops will always be a major player in American agriculture. But with the current corn system dominating our use of natural resources and public dollars, while delivering less food and nutrition than other agricultural systems, it's time ask tough questions and demand better solutions.

Jonathan Foley, @GlobalEcoGuy, is the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. The views expressed here are his own, and do not reflect those of the University of Minnesota or any other organization.

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It's Time to Rethink America's Corn System

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This essay was posted initially on Ensia.com and is reprinted here with permission. Nothing dominates the American landscape like corn. Sprawling across the Midwest and Great Plains, the American Corn Belt is a massive thing. You can drive from central Pennsylvania all the way to western Nebraska, a trip of nearly 1,500 miles, and witness it in all its glory.

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How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

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The vast majority of plastics are buried, not recycled.

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Note: An audio version of this story aired on NPR's Planet Money. Listen to the episode here.
Laura Leebrick, a manager at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon, is standing on the end of its landfill watching an avalanche of plastic trash pour out of a semitrailer: containers, bags, packaging, strawberry containers, yogurt cups.

None of this plastic will be turned into new plastic things. All of it is buried.

"To me that felt like it was a betrayal of the public trust," she said. "I had been lying to people ... unwittingly."

Rogue, like most recycling companies, had been sending plastic trash to China, but when China shut its doors two years ago, Leebrick scoured the U.S. for buyers. She could find only someone who wanted white milk jugs. She sends the soda bottles to the state.

But when Leebrick tried to tell people the truth about burying all the other plastic, she says people didn't want to hear it.

"I remember the first meeting where I actually told a city council that it was costing more to recycle than it was to dispose of the same material as garbage," she says, "and it was like heresy had been spoken in the room: You're lying. This is gold. We take the time to clean it, take the labels off, separate it and put it here. It's gold. This is valuable."

But it's not valuable, and it never has been. And what's more, the makers of plastic - the nation's largest oil and gas companies - have known this all along, even as they spent millions of dollars telling the American public the opposite.

NPR and PBS Frontline spent months digging into internal industry documents and interviewing top former officials. We found that the industry sold the public on an idea it knew wouldn't work - that the majority of plastic could be, and would be, recycled - all while making billions of dollars selling the world new plastic.

The industry's awareness that recycling wouldn't keep plastic out of landfills and the environment dates to the program's earliest days, we found. "There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis," one industry insider wrote in a 1974 speech.

Yet the industry spent millions telling people to recycle, because, as one former top industry insider told NPR, selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn't true.

"If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment," Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, known today as the Plastics Industry Association and one of the industry's most powerful trade groups in Washington, D.C., told NPR.

In response, industry representative Steve Russell, until recently the vice president of plastics for the trade group the American Chemistry Council, said the industry has never intentionally misled the public about recycling and is committed to ensuring all plastic is recycled.

"The proof is the dramatic amount of investment that is happening right now," Russell said. "I do understand the skepticism, because it hasn't happened in the past, but I think the pressure, the public commitments and, most important, the availability of technology is going to give us a different outcome."

Here's the basic problem: All used plastic can be turned into new things, but picking it up, sorting it out and melting it down is expensive. Plastic also degrades each time it is reused, meaning it can't be reused more than once or twice.

On the other hand, new plastic is cheap. It's made from oil and gas, and it's almost always less expensive and of better quality to just start fresh.

All of these problems have existed for decades, no matter what new recycling technology or expensive machinery has been developed. In all that time, less than 10 percent of plastic has ever been recycled. But the public has known little about these difficulties.

It could be because that's not what they were told.

Starting in the 1990s, the public saw an increasing number of commercials and messaging about recycling plastic.

"The bottle may look empty, yet it's anything but trash," says one ad from 1990 showing a plastic bottle bouncing out of a garbage truck. "It's full of potential. ... We've pioneered the country's largest, most comprehensive plastic recycling program to help plastic fill valuable uses and roles."

These commercials carried a distinct message: Plastic is special, and the consumer should recycle it.

It may have sounded like an environmentalist's message, but the ads were paid for by the plastics industry, made up of companies like Exxon, Chevron, Dow, DuPont and their lobbying and trade organizations in Washington.

Industry companies spent tens of millions of dollars on these ads and ran them for years, promoting the benefits of a product that, for the most part, was buried, was burned or, in some cases, wound up in the ocean.

Documents show industry officials knew this reality about recycling plastic as far back as the 1970s.

Many of the industry's old documents are housed in libraries, such as the one on the grounds of the first DuPont family home in Delaware. Others are with universities, where former industry leaders sent their records.

At Syracuse University, there are boxes of files from a former industry consultant. And inside one of them is a report written in April 1973 by scientists tasked with forecasting possible issues for top industry executives.

Recycling plastic, it told the executives, was unlikely to happen on a broad scale.

"There is no recovery from obsolete products," it says.

It says pointedly: Plastic degrades with each turnover.

"A degradation of resin properties and performance occurs during the initial fabrication, through aging, and in any reclamation process," the report told executives.

Recycling plastic is "costly," it says, and sorting it, the report concludes, is "infeasible."

And there are more documents, echoing decades of this knowledge, including one analysis from a top official at the industry's most powerful trade group. "The costs of separating plastics ... are high," he tells colleagues, before noting that the cost of using oil to make plastic is so low that recycling plastic waste "can't yet be justified economically."

Larry Thomas, the former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, worked side by side with top oil and plastics executives.

He's retired now, on the coast of Florida where he likes to bike, and feels conflicted about the time he worked with the plastics industry.

"I did what the industry wanted me to do, that's for sure," he says. "But my personal views didn't always jibe with the views I had to take as part of my job."

Thomas took over back in the late 1980s, and back then, plastic was in a crisis. There was too much plastic trash. The public was getting upset.

In one document from 1989, Thomas calls executives at Exxon, Chevron, Amoco, Dow, DuPont, Procter & Gamble and others to a private meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington.

"The image of plastics is deteriorating at an alarming rate," he wrote. "We are approaching a point of no return."

He told the executives they needed to act.

The "viability of the industry and the profitability of your company" are at stake.

Thomas remembers now.

"The feeling was the plastics industry was under fire - we got to do what it takes to take the heat off, because we want to continue to make plastic products," he says.

At this time, Thomas had a co-worker named Lew Freeman. He was a vice president of the lobbying group. He remembers many of the meetings like the one in Washington.

"The basic question on the table was, You guys as our trade association in the plastics industry aren't doing enough - we need to do more," Freeman says. "I remember this is one of those exchanges that sticks with me 35 years later or however long it's been ... and it was what we need to do is ... advertise our way out of it. That was the idea thrown out."

So began the plastics industry's $50 million-a-year ad campaign promoting the benefits of plastic.

"Presenting the possibilities of plastic!" one iconic ad blared, showing kids in bike helmets and plastic bags floating in the air.

"This advertising was motivated first and foremost by legislation and other initiatives that were being introduced in state legislatures and sometimes in Congress," Freeman says, "to ban or curb the use of plastics because of its performance in the waste stream."

At the same time, the industry launched a number of feel-good projects, telling the public to recycle plastic. It funded sorting machines, recycling centers, nonprofits, even expensive benches outside grocery stores made out of plastic bags.

Few of these projects actually turned much plastic into new things.

NPR tracked down almost a dozen projects the industry publicized starting in 1989. All of them shuttered or failed by the mid-1990s. Mobil's Massachusetts recycling facility lasted three years, for example. Amoco's project to recycle plastic in New York schools lasted two. Dow and Huntsman's highly publicized plan to recycle plastic in national parks made it to seven out of 419 parks before the companies cut funding.

None of them was able to get past the economics: Making new plastic out of oil is cheaper and easier than making it out of plastic trash.

Both Freeman and Thomas, the head of the lobbying group, say the executives all knew that.

"There was a lot of discussion about how difficult it was to recycle," Thomas remembers. "They knew that the infrastructure wasn't there to really have recycling amount to a whole lot."

Even as the ads played and the projects got underway, Thomas and Freeman say industry officials wanted to get recycling plastic into people's homes and outside on their curbs with blue bins.

The industry created a special group called the Council for Solid Waste Solutions and brought a man from DuPont, Ron Liesemer, over to run it.

Liesemer's job was to at least try to make recycling work - because there was some hope, he said, however unlikely, that maybe if they could get recycling started, somehow the economics of it all would work itself out.

"I had no staff, but I had money," Liesemer says. "Millions of dollars."

Liesemer took those millions out to Minnesota and other places to start local plastic recycling programs.

But then he ran into the same problem all the industry documents found. Recycling plastic wasn't making economic sense: There were too many different kinds of plastic, hundreds of them, and they can't be melted down together. They have to be sorted out.

"Yes, it can be done," Liesemer says, "but who's going to pay for it? Because it goes into too many applications, it goes into too many structures that just would not be practical to recycle."

Liesemer says he started as many programs as he could and hoped for the best.

"They were trying to keep their products on the shelves," Liesemer says. "That's what they were focused on. They weren't thinking what lesson should we learn for the next 20 years. No. Solve today's problem."

And Thomas, who led the trade group, says all of these efforts started to have an effect: The message that plastic could be recycled was sinking in.

"I can only say that after a while, the atmosphere seemed to change," he says. "I don't know whether it was because people thought recycling had solved the problem or whether they were so in love with plastic products that they were willing to overlook the environmental concerns that were mounting up."

But as the industry pushed those public strategies to get past the crisis, officials were also quietly launching a broader plan.

In the early 1990s, at a small recycling facility near San Diego, a man named Coy Smith was one of the first to see the industry's new initiative.

Back then, Smith ran a recycling business. His customers were watching the ads and wanted to recycle plastic. So Smith allowed people to put two plastic items in their bins: soda bottles and milk jugs. He lost money on them, he says, but the aluminum, paper and steel from his regular business helped offset the costs.

But then, one day, almost overnight, his customers started putting all kinds of plastic in their bins.

"The symbols start showing up on the containers," he explains.

Smith went out to the piles of plastic and started flipping over the containers. All of them were now stamped with the triangle of arrows - known as the international recycling symbol - with a number in the middle. He knew right away what was happening.

"All of a sudden, the consumer is looking at what's on their soda bottle and they're looking at what's on their yogurt tub, and they say, 'Oh well, they both have a symbol. Oh well, I guess they both go in,' " he says.

The bins were now full of trash he couldn't sell. He called colleagues at recycling facilities all across the country. They reported having the same problem.

Industry documents from this time show that just a couple of years earlier, starting in 1989, oil and plastics executives began a quiet campaign to lobby almost 40 states to mandate that the symbol appear on all plastic - even if there was no way to economically recycle it. Some environmentalists also supported the symbol, thinking it would help separate plastic.

Smith said what it did was make all plastic look recyclable.

"The consumers were confused," Smith says. "It totally undermined our credibility, undermined what we knew was the truth in our community, not the truth from a lobbying group out of D.C."

But the lobbying group in D.C. knew the truth in Smith's community too. A report given to top officials at the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1993 told them about the problems.

"The code is being misused," it says bluntly. "Companies are using it as a 'green' marketing tool."

The code is creating "unrealistic expectations" about how much plastic can actually be recycled, it told them.

Smith and his colleagues launched a national protest, started a working group and fought the industry for years to get the symbol removed or changed. They lost.

"We don't have manpower to compete with this," Smith says. "We just don't. Even though we were all dedicated, it still was like, can we keep fighting a battle like this on and on and on from this massive industry that clearly has no end in sight of what they're able to do and willing to do to keep their image the image they want."

"It's pure manipulation of the consumer," he says.

In response, industry officials told NPR that the code was only ever meant to help recycling facilities sort plastic and was not intended to create any confusion.

Without question, plastic has been critical to the country's success. It's cheap and durable, and it's a chemical marvel.

It's also hugely profitable. The oil industry makes more than $400 billion a year making plastic, and as demand for oil for cars and trucks declines, the industry is telling shareholders that future profits will increasingly come from plastic.

And if there was a sign of this future, it's a brand-new chemical plant that rises from the flat skyline outside Sweeny, Texas. It's so new that it's still shiny, and inside the facility, the concrete is free from stains.

This plant is Chevron Phillips Chemical's $6 billion investment in new plastic.

"We see a very bright future for our products," says Jim Becker, the vice president of sustainability for Chevron Phillips, inside a pristine new warehouse next to the plant.

"These are products the world needs and continues to need," he says. "We're very optimistic about future growth."

With that growth, though, comes ever more plastic trash. But Becker says Chevron Phillips has a plan: It will recycle 100% of the plastic it makes by 2040.

Becker seems earnest. He tells a story about vacationing with his wife and being devastated by the plastic trash they saw. When asked how Chevron Phillips will recycle 100% of the plastic it makes, he doesn't hesitate.

"Recycling has to get more efficient, more economic," he says. "We've got to do a better job, collecting the waste, sorting it. That's going to be a huge effort."

Fix recycling is the industry's message too, says Steve Russell, the industry's recent spokesman.

"Fixing recycling is an imperative, and we've got to get it right," he says. "I understand there is doubt and cynicism. That's going to exist. But check back in. We're there."

Larry Thomas, Lew Freeman and Ron Liesemer, former industry executives, helped oil companies out of the first plastic crisis by getting people to believe something the industry knew then wasn't true: That most plastic could be and would be recycled.

Russell says this time will be different.

"It didn't get recycled because the system wasn't up to par," he says. "We hadn't invested in the ability to sort it and there hadn't been market signals that companies were willing to buy it, and both of those things exist today."

But plastic today is harder to sort than ever: There are more kinds of plastic, it's cheaper to make plastic out of oil than plastic trash and there is exponentially more of it than 30 years ago.

And during those 30 years, oil and plastic companies made billions of dollars in profit as the public consumed ever more quantities of plastic.

Russell doesn't dispute that.

"And during that time, our members have invested in developing the technologies that have brought us where we are today," he says. "We are going to be able to make all of our new plastic out of existing municipal solid waste in plastic."

Recently, an industry advocacy group funded by the nation's largest oil and plastic companies launched its most expensive effort yet to promote recycling and cleanup of plastic waste. There's even a new ad.

"We have the people that can change the world," it says to soaring music as people pick up plastic trash and as bottles get sorted in a recycling center.

Freeman, the former industry official, recently watched the ad.

"Déjà vu all over again," he says as the ad finishes. "This is the same kind of thinking that ran in the '90s. I don't think this kind of advertising is, is helpful at all."

Larry Thomas said the same.

"I don't think anything has changed," Thomas says. "Sounds exactly the same."

These days as Thomas bikes down by the beach, he says he spends a lot of time thinking about the oceans and what will happen to them in 20 or 50 years, long after he is gone.

And as he thinks back to those years he spent in conference rooms with top executives from oil and plastic companies, what occurs to him now is something he says maybe should have been obvious all along.

He says what he saw was an industry that didn't want recycling to work. Because if the job is to sell as much oil as you possibly can, any amount of recycled plastic is competition.

"You know, they were not interested in putting any real money or effort into recycling because they wanted to sell virgin material," Thomas says. "Nobody that is producing a virgin product wants something to come along that is going to replace it. Produce more virgin material - that's their business."
Cat Schuknecht contributed to this report.
And they are. Analysts now expect plastic production to triple by 2050.

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How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

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An NPR and PBS Frontline investigation reveals how the oil and gas industry used the promise of recycling to sell more plastic, even when they knew it would never work on a large scale.

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KATE! AIDEN! Anyone who  wants to do something political.

ALSO: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2022/03/17/cedar-gorge-preservation-area-lake-michigan-dealt-setback/9319808002/

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The anonymous buyer seeking to purchase an environmentally sensitive area of land along the Lake Michigan shoreline is doing so to keep the property on the tax rolls, instead of allowing it to become a "never-ending expense."

In a letter signed only "Interested Buyer," the person attempting to purchase the Ozaukee County property known as Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs for development likens the land to a "free puppy" sign.

"The puppy is only free the day you take it home," the letter says. "Once the land is acquired by (the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust) it comes off the tax tolls forever and becomes an expense forever."

The Cedar Gorge property is 131 acres of largely undisturbed waterfront property on the south end of Port Washington, including a steep gorge down to the lake dotted with old cedar trees, and pristine clay bluffs dropping down to a thin strip of shoreline. It is near the popular Lion's Den Gorge Nature Preserve.

The Ozaukee Washington Land Trust has been working for years to raise the $5 million needed to purchase the property for the restoration of native plants and preservation of a rare land feature.

After years of fundraising, the trust approached the Department of Natural Resources for a Knowles-Nelson Stewardship grant to complete the purchase, but despite a recommendation from the agency, the funding was blocked by an anonymous legislator on the Joint Finance Committee.

Since then, the trust has been looking for ways to persuade the legislators to release the funds before the contract with the current owner, Waukesha State Bank, expires in September. But legislators have remained silent about Cedar Gorge, pointing to a potential interested buyer and the fact that the funding has already been rejected.
More: Conservationists hoped to protect Cedar Gorge on Lake Michigan, but an anonymous legislator objected to block funding
The anonymous letter was given to Rep. Rob Brooks, R-Saukville, to share with the Ozaukee County Board, Port Washington city officials and the "Ozaukee County community." Brooks said his office dug into the issues surrounding the property after hearing from constituents, and was able to find the buyer eventually. He declined to identify the party.

Buyer touts 'very real appreciation for nature'

The buyer in the letter said they are a resident of the state and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They also highlight a "very real appreciation for nature, the environment, and the need to protect it over time."

They then go on to list their thoughts for the property, including developing it in conjunction with the city and county, a pledge to protect the bluffs and gorge as well as address water runoff, and a promise that the development wouldn't rely on investors or a bank for completion.

The letter ends with a contention that allowing the property to be developed instead of turned into a park would be a win-win for local governments and residents.

"If OWLT can raise the necessary funds from private sources to buy the land, so be it," the buyer said. "But a private/public partnership with the City of Port Washington and Ozaukee County can protect the bluffs and gorge, generate a large economic benefit for the local contractors and businesses while also creating a large and growing perpetual tax revenue stream."

Buyer's attorney helped Kanye West bid to run for president

Also sent to Brooks was an email from the attorney representing the anonymous buyer, Lane Ruhland, who is most recently known for representing former president Donald Trump's 2020 campaign in Wisconsin and for her involvement in attempting to get rapper Kanye West on the ballot in the state for the same election.

Ruhland said the interested buyer is remaining anonymous not to avoid scrutiny by the public, but "rather to ensure that a purchase as important as this is done correctly."

"There is nothing underhanded about a private citizen protecting their privacy," she said in the email to Brooks.

She also alleged that the county was planning to fund the purchase of the property using funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, and insinuated that could be outside the allowed uses for the money.

"At the very least the county must do their due diligence to justify the use of taxpayer dollars and ensure they are spent appropriately and within the confines of the law," she said.

More This Greenfield creek is in desperate need of restoration. The city has a nearly $3 million plan to do just that

Andrew Struck, the director of Planning & Parks for Ozaukee County, said there is a resolution at the County Board to use some of the Rescue Act funds for a series of capital projects, some that have been languishing for as long as 20 years. A few board members are planning to amend the resolution to allocate some of the funding for Cedar Gorge.

Those behind the conservation of Cedar Gorge pointed to the fact that the anonymous buyer has presented no concrete plans for conserving the land's unique features, nor for the proposed development.

"This last-ditch effort by secret developers is really just a distraction," said Tom Stolp, the executive director of the land trust. "There's no real substance or actual plans. Not even a sketch of a plan on the back of an envelope to detail what sort of conservation or development this individual sees for the property."

He said community members have indicated their unwavering support for preserving the property, with more than 500 households donating to the project, in addition to local governments. Stolp also pointed out that the land trust's work together with the county is a public-private partnership, which stands to benefit residents more directly than a development would.

"We do have a public and private and balanced plan," he said.

As far as the claims that the park would become a burden on the county and its taxpayers, Struck said that the county only stands to benefit from having an area like Cedar Gorge.

"We just see it has a huge asset to our community," he said. "We know that it will draw tourism dollars and other revenues."

Struck also pointed out that plans to preserve only the bluffs and the gorge while developing the rest of the property could end up only harming the ecology of the land.

"It's all tied together," he said.

The team fundraising for the nature preserve is planning to keep pushing for the last $1 million needed to purchase the property.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura.
"This project is still going to happen," Stolp said. "The community has already raised 80% of the funds to forever conserve this property. I just don't see the prospect of development happening. We're simply too close and too far along in the process."

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Anonymous buyer seeks to prevent lakefront nature preserve in Ozaukee County, says it would be 'never-ending expense'

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The anonymous buyer seeking to purchase an environmentally sensitive area of land along the Lake Michigan shoreline is doing so to keep the property on the tax rolls, instead of allowing it to become a "never-ending expense."

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Wausau offers residents bottled water as a temporary solution after PFAS has been found in the citys water supply

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Wausau residents will have new options for safe drinking water after the City Council voted to fund distribution of water filters and bottled water to residents.

The vote comes just over a month after the city discovered that all of its city wells contained the harmful "forever chemicals" known as PFAS at rates above recommendations from the state's Department of Health Services.

Wausau is one of dozens of communities to find elevated levels of the chemicals, scientifically known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are found in some household and industrial products. Over time, the chemicals can build up in the body and lead to problems such as infertility in women and testicular cancer in men.

Wausau is in the process of building a new water treatment plant that city officials said will remove PFAS from city water. Officials said that plant is expected to come online in August or September, but it wasn't designed with PFAS treatment in mind, and the city is still working on designs that will give it that capability.

In the meantime, the city will spend up to $150,000 on bottled water and home water filters that will be made available to residents as a partial short-term fix.

For low-income individuals, free bottled water is already being distributed locally by nonprofit agencies. The city has yet to release details on how it will distribute the filters.

Wausau's latest actions to address its water problem came just after state Attorney General Josh Kaul announced a lawsuit against two companies officials say caused water in northeastern Wisconsin to be polluted with PFAS.

Wausau hasn't disclosed the potential source of its PFAS contamination.

The effects of PFAS exposure are cumulative, and the amount that constitutes an unsafe standard is contested. DHS recommends people take steps to reduce their exposure to water with PFAS at more than 20 parts per trillion, and Wausau took action last month after testing found that all city water sources exceeded that amount. At that time, officials with the state Department of Natural Resources also recommended a standard of 20 parts per trillion.

But late last month, the state's Natural Resources Board, or NRB, rejected that recommendation and voted to weaken state standards, adopting the federal standard of 70 parts per trillion rather than the lower levels already in place in some other states.

At that meeting, NRB member Terry Hilgenber mocked DHS and what he called the "People's Republic of Madison" for various health restrictions - including COVID-19 precautions and PFAS regulation. Fred Prehn, another NRB member and former chair who is a Wausau dentist has refused to leave his position on the board even though his term expired in May, said Wausau's actions had incited "hysteria" among residents.

There was little evidence in Wausau for that claim. At a meeting this month of a Wausau City Council committee, Council Member Lisa Rasmussen said her constituents were mostly looking ahead to Wausau's new water treatment facility.

"I think I've had one or two people out of my neighborhood who have really wanted an alternative source in the interim," Rasmussen said.

At the same time though, she said the city is facing what she called a "a crisis of confidence in our utility," which the plan to distribute water and water filters is meant to address.

In a statement, Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg said the city will continue to work toward the goal of providing water at less than 20 parts per trillion of PFAS "as quickly as possible."

The next step for Wausau will be to ensure that its new water treatment plant can remove the chemicals from its water. At a Wausau City Council meeting, Eric Lindemann , public works director, said the city is pioneering a new approach.

"There are no PFAS-removal drinking water treatment systems in Wisconsin. There are none. And so right now, Wausau is at the forefront of this," Lindemann said.

The city will fund a pilot study to determine how best to treat its water for PFAS at the new plant.

In her statement, Rosenberg said Wausau's "long-term goal is to provide drinking water with no detectable levels of PFAS."

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Wausau will offer residents filters, bottled water as city seeks long-term fix for PFAS in water

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Wausau residents will have new options for safe drinking water after the City Council voted to fund distribution of water filters and bottled water to residents. The vote comes just over a month after the city discovered that all of its city wells contained the harmful "forever chemicals" known as PFAS at rates above recommendations from the state's Department of Health Services.

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A controversial dairy farm has been prevented from growing beyond its current size and strengthening water testing

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A controversial dairy farm in Kewaunee County won't be able to expand beyond its current size under a wastewater permit issued Friday by the state.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources initially approved a proposal by Kinnard Farms that set a maximum limit of 21,450 animal units, or roughly the equivalent of 15,000 cows, under changes to its wastewater permit.

The proposed changes were tied to a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision last year that found regulators can require operating conditions on so-called factory farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs.

Under the permit issued Friday, the farm can't grow beyond 11,369 animal units or its current size of roughly 8,000 cows. The permit also strengthens groundwater monitoring at the site.

Residents in Kewaunee County have struggled with drinking water contamination of private wells from agriculture for years. The region is susceptible to pollution from manure runoff due to thin soils and fractured bedrock that allow contamination to more easily seep into groundwater.

Jodi Parins, a neighbor of Kinnard Farms, told WPR on Friday the permit delivers the kind of operating conditions that residents first sought around a decade ago. She expressed frustration with the agency over its initial approval of the farm's plans.

"Shame on the DNR. They had all of the same information that we presented," said Parins. "They had that information to have done it right the first time."

In an email, Tyler Dix, the DNR's CAFO permitting program coordinator, said Kinnard Farms must submit an off-site groundwater monitoring plan in two months.

"The animal unit cap is representative of Kinnard Farms' future plans. It was stated during the permit reissuance inspection that the farm has no intent to expand," wrote Dix.

Midwest Environmental Advocates, or MEA, argued the initial cap approved by regulators didn't safeguard water quality.

"We are pleased that the DNR listened to experts and chose to revise the draft permit to include commonsense clean water protections that respond to the serious and ongoing nature of groundwater contamination in Kewaunee County," said MEA Senior Staff Attorney Andrea Gelatt in a statement.

The permit now requires the farm to monitor two fields that are south and west of the farm with three wells on each field. The permit also requires hourly water level and temperature monitoring for at least one well.

In a March 15 memo, the DNR said the monitoring plan should account for the shallow karst bedrock of the area and recharge eventsto accurately determine the risk of contaminating private wells. A recharge event is when water is added to the aquifer following a storm or rain event.

"It is critical that the plan developed on behalf of Kinnard Farms include a component of continuous monitoring (hourly) for temperature, conductivity, and depth to groundwater," the memo states. "A sudden and drastic change for these parameters will identify when recharge events are occurring, and should be correlated with snowmelt and/or major precipitation events."

Kinnard Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled the DNR had authority to impose permit conditions on Kinnard Farms to protect water quality as part of a case that challenged a permit issued by the DNR. The decision stemmed from a 2012 request by the farm to add a second site and more than 3,000 dairy cows, almost doubling the size of its operation at the time. Nearby residents challenged the permit, setting off years of litigation.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling upheld a 2014 decision by an administrative law judge that ordered the DNR to require a limit on animals for Kinnard Farms in addition to offsite groundwater monitoring, citing "a crisis with respect to groundwater quality in the area."

Since then, the DNR reissued the farm's water quality permit in 2018, which was also challenged by residents. The agency reached a settlement with the farm that required changes to the permit if the state Supreme Court affirmed the DNR's authority to require a cap and offsite monitoring.

The permit expires Jan. 31 of next year.

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Controversial dairy farm limited to its current size under permit issued by the DNR

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A controversial dairy farm in Kewaunee County won't be able to expand beyond its current size under a wastewater permit issued Friday by the state. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources initially approved a proposal by Kinnard Farms that set a maximum limit of 21,450 animal units, or roughly the equivalent of 15,000 cows, under changes to its wastewater permit.

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With Wisconsin's gray wolves once again protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, big questions loom over the state's effort to manage its relationship with the species.

On Feb. 10, a federal judge for the Northern District of California restored protections to wolves across most of the United States, including in Wisconsin. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had erred in delisting wolves from the federal law meant to protect vulnerable species. The agency did so during the final stretch of the Trump administration.

The federal judge's ruling came about a year after a state court ordered the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to immediately hold a wolf hunt, citing a state statute mandating an annual hunt between November and February when the species is not federally protected. Hunters far exceeded quotas set by the agency during the hastily planned hunt, sparking an outcry from tribal treaty rights advocates and some wildlife organizations.

The February 2022 ruling restoring federal protections came just hours after the DNR released a final report of a committee tasked with advising the agency as it seeks to update its wolf management plan that was issued in 1999 and last revised in 2007. When wolves aren't subject to federal protections, the plan provides a framework for the DNR as it makes management decisions, including planning for hunts.

The DNR had been planning to incorporate the committee's report into an updated management plan that the agency intended to release in draft form for public comment sometime later in February or March. The DNR did not respond to a request to comment on whether the federal court decision might affect that timeline or the broader work to update its approach to wolves. Its original timeline would put a final plan up for review and approval by the state Natural Resources Board in June 2022.

Either way, the committee's report does not provide a clear set of priorities for the agency to pursue. The 248-page document summarizes four meetings held in 2021 along with responses to a survey sent to committee members.

The committee was made up of nearly 30 individuals representing tribal nations within the state, hunting organizations, wildlife advocacy organizations and agriculture groups. As the report noted, some of these groups represent interests with "fundamentally opposing views and value systems on topics such as whether to hunt or not to hunt wolves, wolf population goals, etc."

As a result, the committee did not come close to a consensus for how the state should manage its wolf population should the species lose federal protections again.

The DNR asked members to rank their top five management priorities from a list of potential priorities generated through their discussions. Only one priority received a top-five ranking from more than half of the committee: pursuing options to minimize human-wolf conflicts.

However, with members at odds over how to appropriately minimize human-wolf conflicts, the report does not spell out how the DNR should pursue that goal.

"The updated management plan must focus on coexistence," said Megan Nicholson, Wisconsin director for the Humane Society of the United States, in an email to PBS Wisconsin. Nicholson represented the wildlife advocacy organization on the committee. She cheered the restoration of federal protections for wolves and said that while she believed the DNR should still work toward an updated management plan that emphasizes coexistence with the animals, it should take the opportunity to be more deliberate in its approach.

"We've seen Minnesota take two years to update their management plan and hope the [Wisconsin] DNR does not rush through this extremely important process," Nicholson stated.

Charlie Rasmussen, a spokesperson for the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, also said he hoped the court decision would prompt the DNR to slow down its management plan process. The Ojibwe treaty rights group has been critical of the agency's handling of the wolf population, in particular the February 2021 hunt, which occurred during the height of its breeding season.

"It's important that Wisconsin takes the time to get this plan right," Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen argued that the DNR's process as it updates its management plan has not satisfied its treaty rights obligations to the state's Ojibwe communities. While tribal representatives made up about a quarter of committee members, including four Ojibwe representatives, Rasmussen said tribal treaty rights demand a more formal and direct negotiation process between the state and tribes.

"What really needs to happen is formal government-to-government consultations between the state and the tribes," Rasmussen said.

Other committee members representing hunting organizations said they would prefer the DNR act more swiftly on wolf management decisions that spell out clear population goals and consistent harvest regulations for a time when wolves are once again delisted.

"I don't believe the Wisconsin DNR was in any hurry to complete the [wolf management plan update] to begin with while this case was pending, but I would encourage them to continue working on the [plan] following the original timeline in preparation for the next delisting," stated Matt Lallemont, a committee member who represented the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, in an email to PBS Wisconsin.

Lallemont suggested the DNR should maintain its goal in the 1999/2007 management plan of statewide population of 350 wolves or fewer, adding he was concerned the agency would move away from a number-based population goal.

While the DNR has kept mum on its plans since the federal court ruling, it has already moved to refund prospective hunters who applied for licenses for the 2021-22 winter hunt.

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The future of Wisconsin's wolf management is unclear following federal ruling

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With Wisconsin's gray wolves once again protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, big questions loom over the state's effort to manage its relationship with the species. On Feb. 10, a federal judge for the Northern District of California restored protections to wolves across most of the United States, including in Wisconsin.

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Renewable energy is the future. It will create approximately over 162k new jobs, save over 21 billion dollars, and provide a cheaper alternative for gas

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Clean Wisconsin | Your Environmental Voice Since 1970

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A look inside the first and only net-zero electricity solar neighborhood in the state of Wisconsin!

All of these New Berlin, Wisconsin homes are certified through Focus on Energy's New Home Certification Program, but there is much more work to be done. We need more state & federal investment to make solar more accessible and affordable for everyone. Now is the time to fight the climate crisis and build a clean energy future.

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Supporting Renewable Energy | Clean Wisconsin

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A look inside the first and only net-zero electricity solar neighborhood in the state of Wisconsin! All of these New Berlin, Wisconsin homes are certified through Focus on Energy's New Home Certification Program, but there is much more work to be done. We need more state & federal investment to make solar more accessible and affordable for everyone.

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For the first time in decades, bald eagles begin to take up residence in Milwaukee County

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Eagles begin to nest in Milwaukee after being almost driven to extinction

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You could say it was her eagle eye, but it was more like her eagle brain. Beth Berger Martin, a volunteer with Madison Audubon's Bald Eagle Nest Watch program, was trying to think like an eagle.

The Geneva resident routinely monitors eagle nests throughout Walworth, Racine and Kenosha counties. After reports of possible nest sightings in a Milwaukee County park, Berger Martin was one of several people watching the area for eagle activity earlier this year.

During her weekly wanderings, she had spotted smaller, partially constructed nests and figured an active nest had to be close.

"I looked at a map and I thought, 'If I were an eagle, where would I think would be a good place for me to build a nest?' And within two minutes of deciding, 'This is where I'd go,' turning onto the road, I found it," Berger Martin said. "I was extremely excited."

Perched high atop a tree in a massive nest was a pair of bald eagles - the first known pair to take up residence in Milwaukee County in decades.

With the discovery of this nest, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Madison Audubon and Milwaukee County Parks Department jointly announced that bald eagles are officially nesting in all 72 Wisconsin counties - a remarkable comeback considering they were on the brink of extinction just 50 years ago.

"For the eagles to be able to come back from such a bad state of population decline into now being in every county in Wisconsin with an active nest, it's really remarkable," said Brenna Marsicek, director of communications and outreach for the Madison Audubon and co-organizer of their nest watch program. "(It's) something that bald eagle lovers and nature lovers in general have been hoping for for so long."

After the discovery of nests in Kenosha County in 2017 and Walworth County in 2018, Milwaukee County was the last holdout.

As Wisconsin's most densely populated area, Milwaukee County is not exactly an easy place for eagles to find a suitable nesting site. They need tall trees to support their large nests, a steady food supply and ideally a source of open water.

Still, advocates said it was only a matter of time.

According to Brian Russart, natural areas supervisor for Milwaukee County Parks, the number of bald eagle sightings in the county has increased significantly over the past five years. They had to build nests sometime, he said.

The nest Berger Martin spotted is on park land in the southern part of the county. Russart said it was actually built last year, but this is the first time eagles are using it for egg tending, indicated by their round-the-clock presence in the nest.

And Russart said it's now one of three known nests in the county. A second nest was constructed this year on public land but is not yet occupied. And a third nest, on private land in the eastern part of the county, is housing a second pair of bald eagle parents-to-be.

"It really showcases how urban areas can have a great deal of ecological diversity to them," Russart said. "Our natural areas aren't black holes (where) ecology can't exist."

Over the past 10 years, his team has documented nearly 2,000 native species of plants, wildlife and fungi within the urban park system.

"Eagles are just one of, at this point, 22 different species of birds breeding in the park system," Russart said. "Definitely the cherry on top, though."

'We've come a long, long way'

According to Sharon Fandel, southeast field ecologist with the DNR, the 1880s were likely the last time eagles were nesting throughout the state.

When the bald eagle was adopted as the country's national bird in 1782, there were an estimated 100,000 nesting pairs. At one point, they were so numerous and frequently hunted that the government even offered a bounty for shooting them in Alaska.

Overhunting quickly decimated the population and in 1940, the federal government enacted the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, making it illegal to hunt eagles or harm their nests or eggs. But by then, eagles faced a new threat.

Widespread use of the pesticide DDT after World War II damaged the shells of many bird species and further decimated the eagle population. By 1963, there were only 417 nesting pairs in the country and the bald eagle was in danger of extinction.

But decades of recovery efforts, including the banning of DDT in 1972 and protections under the Endangered Species Act, have helped the eagle make a comeback. In 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the list of threatened and endangered species. Since then, their population in the lower 48 states has quadrupled to more than 71,000 breeding pairs.

And Wisconsin sits within the lower 48's most populous region - the Mississippi Flyway.

The most recent eagle population survey for Wisconsin in 2019 found 1,684 known active nests. In 1973 there were just 108.

"We've come a long, long way," Fandel said. "It really punctuates the storyline in terms of a great conservation success story for all of us."

While eagle populations in northern Wisconsin have more or less stabilized, the numbers are still growing in the southern half of the state, as the new nests would indicate.

Fandel said eagles generally return to the same nest, especially if they were successful hatching and raising chicks in the previous year. So she expects to see continued growth in southern Wisconsin's bald eagle population.

"We have yet to find out where the endline is," Fandel said.

Generally the DNR conducts an eagle population survey each spring. Staff use low-altitude aircraft to confirm the presence of actively nesting adults. But not all nests are visible or accessible from aircraft. That's why they also rely on programs like Madison Audubon's Bald Eagle Nest Watch.

The Eagle Watchers

During eagle nesting season, roughly February through June, volunteer "nest watchers" monitor active nests for an hour a week and report their findings to Madison Audubon and the DNR.

"The DNR does one flyover a year. They get a little snapshot of what's going on at the nest. We provide them with more of a complete story of what's going on for the season for that nest," said Drew Cashman, a volunteer and co-organizer of the program.

Cashman, who helped start the program, said he caught "the eagle bug" while living in Colorado and doing similar work. In 2018, after moving to Wisconsin, he approached Madison Audubon and asked if they would be interested in starting a bald eagle nest watch program.

They started with about a dozen nests in Dane County. Now, in their fifth season, they have grown to 300 volunteers monitoring 136 nests in 28 counties.

Volunteers are trained to recognize eagle behavior and body language. Co-organizer Marsicek said over their months of observation, volunteers observe eagles building their nest, hunkering down and rolling eggs to keep them warm, then sitting higher to accommodate new hatchlings. Eventually, they start to see little heads peeking over the edge of the nest.

"That is such a thrill to be able to see these chicks that you've been waiting and watching for every week for how many months," Marsicek said. "They'll start flapping wings and practicing flying and then eventually they'll take their first flight and the volunteers get to see all of that process throughout the season."

Because they are based in Madison, Marsicek said most of their monitoring happens in southern Wisconsin. But last year they partnered with 1000 Islands Environmental Center to start a nest watch program in the Fox Valley and this year they have expanded to central Wisconsin. Eventually, they want to bring the program to all of Wisconsin.

Berger Martin is one of their most active volunteers.

"She has the eagle eye for locating new nests," Cashman said.

When Berger Martin found the nest in southern Milwaukee County, one of the first people she called was her husband Ken, a fellow eagle enthusiast.

Together they sat in the car squinting through binoculars and a telephoto lens, watching the pair of birds soar on the thermals above the treetops. And they got to witness a pretty thrilling moment.

"(The female) just started to drop very quickly and went into the nest. And that was it. She must have been ready to lay an egg," Berger Martin said. "One bird is on the nest continuously since that moment."

But as much as Madison Audubon and the DNR rely on observations from volunteers like Berger Martin, she said nest watchers often depend on private homeowners to provide access to nests and keep their locations confidential for the protection of the eagles.

"We couldn't do it if we didn't have the support of homeowners who got us off the road so that we didn't have to look suspicious with a long lens hanging out of a window and let us come and go at will at their properties so that we can observe these nests and do what we do," Berger Martin said. "When you think about it, it's just a really beautiful chain of trust."

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For the first time in decades, bald eagles begin to take up residence in Milwaukee County

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You could say it was her eagle eye, but it was more like her eagle brain. Beth Berger Martin, a volunteer with Madison Audubon's Bald Eagle Nest Watch program, was trying to think like an eagle. The Geneva resident routinely monitors eagle nests throughout Walworth, Racine and Kenosha counties.

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Milwaukee might soon be welcoming a new team of landscapers - albeit a little gruff and a bit rough around the edges - to help maintain the county's parks.

After a unanimous vote from Milwaukee's Parks, Energy and Environment Committee on Tuesday, the county is aiming to use goats to maintain parks by having them eat weeds and invasive species across the county.

"I just absolutely love this idea," said Vice Chairperson of the committee and County Supervisor Steven Shea. "The thought of using natural remedies rather than herbicides is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that I wish more government would embrace."
More: Milwaukee County parks face looming 'fiscal cliff.' Other communities may offer a path forward.
Having seen the success of a similar use of environmentally friendly goats in Wausau, Mayor Katie Rosenberg was invited to speak before the committee about the benefits she and her city have had by using goats to maintain Wausau's Barker-Stewart Island.

With issues of controlling honeysuckle and buckthorn without using herbicide that could wash into the water surrounding the island, goats were the best option.

"As it turns out, it was cheaper to use the goats than to have people, which are harder and harder to hire right now to do the remediation," said Rosenberg, who also noted that residents "freaking loved" having the goats as it became an educational experience.

"Everyone in Wausau is now an expert on goats and invasive species, which is actually pretty neat," she said. "They're checking their yards. They're checking their garden. So, it became this whole kind of educational thing."

This method is also tried and tested in other cities and municipalities across Wisconsin.

In June 2020, Mequon began goat landscaping in the five-acre Pukaite Woods area of the Rotary Park and over the course of two weeks, 38 goats were able to remove all of the honeysuckle and buckthorn.

During the same period, the City of Madison Parks Department employed a herd of 40 goats to also clear out honeysuckle and buckhorn across a two-acre park.

Some of the benefits of using the goats were "that we don't have to use chemicals and there isn't as much of an erosion risk because we don't have to bring in large equipment," according to staff from the city's department.

The concern of goat droppings was on the minds of many committee members, but Rosenberg and Jamie Polley, Marathon County's Director of Parks, Recreation and Forestry, were quick to assure everyone that it has never been an issue, particularly with regards to the smell.
Contact Vanessa Swales at 414-308-5881 or vswales@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vanessa_Swales.
The Milwaukee County Board will take up and review the committee's recommendation. The board will next meet on Dec. 12.

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Milwaukee County wants to introduce a new type of landscaper to maintain its parks: Goats

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Milwaukee might soon be welcoming a new team of landscapers - albeit a little gruff and a bit rough around the edges - to help maintain the county's parks. After a unanimous vote from Milwaukee's Parks, Energy and Environment Committee on Tuesday, the county is aiming to use goats to maintain parks by having them eat weeds and invasive species across the county.

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PFAS Cleanup Study

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Major promise, big questions flow from a PFAS cleanup study in Madison

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Soil and water polluted with PFAS present a daunting challenge. A class of more than 5,000 chemicals, PFAS include compounds that can stay in the environment indefinitely and have been ...

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Scientists have hailed the new common name for Lymantria dispar, now known as spongy moth. But they're still trying to keep the invasive insect from spreading.

The moths can cause significant damage or death to numerous trees and shrubs by eating away leaves.

So, the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection is preparing for its annual series of airborne spraying against the moth.

The agency has identified 57 sites in 17 counties for treatment this spring. Starting in May, planes will drop a naturally occurring soil bacteria to kill the moth's caterpillars.

A second round of flights in the summer targets adult moths, said Christopher Foelker, a supervisor ofDATCP's Forest Pest Survey and Control Unit.

"The small waxy droplet releases the pheromone of this insect - it's the chemical cue that the male uses to find the female - limiting the male's ability to find the female and mate," he said.

Foelker said neither round of spraying is harmful to anything except moths.

"There's no concern for human health, pet health, anything like that," he said.

As for the planes?

"They are loud, so you will notice them in that sense," Foelker said.

In 2021, the Entomological Society of America dropped the name "gypsy moth" because it includes a term that's considered offensive toward Romani, or Roma, people.

The new common name, announced earlier this year, removes the offensive language, and aligns the English name with those in other languages, which refer to the spongy-looking egg masses the moths leave on trees.

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Scientists want the spongy moth's new name to spread ⁠- not the insects

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Scientists have hailed the new common name for Lymantria dispar, now known as spongy moth. But they're still trying to keep the invasive insect from spreading. The moths can cause significant damage or death to numerous trees and shrubs by eating away leaves.

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'Poor animal.' Deer with arrow piercing head spotted in Wisconsin park, video shows

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A doe with an arrow through its head was recently spotted wandering in a Milwaukee park, Wisconsin video shows.

Collin Buth was on a morning bike ride at Whitnall Park when he saw some deer milling about in the woods, he said in a video posted on April 2.

One of those deer "looked a little weird," Buth said, and as he moved closer it became clear why. An arrow could be seen sticking from its head.

"That poor animal," he says.

The arrow appears to have been shot from behind.

When the doe turns to face the camera, the bright green fletching at the end of the shaft vanishes from view, and a fuller extent of the damage is revealed. The arrow's pointed tip can be seen head-on, having gouged a hole through the left side of the deer's face before it finally stopped.

A cyclist recorded video of a deer spotted wandering a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, park with an arrow through its head. Collin Buth.

"It's definitely illegal to hunt in Milwaukee County," Buth says in the video.

There are some designated areas for bow hunting with a permit in the county, but it is not allowed in the park where the doe was spotted, according to Patch. Poachers have been known to take shots at wildlife in Whitnall Park, state Conservation Warden Samuel Haferkorn told the outlet. Haferkorn's office has received multiple reports of illegal hunting in that area over the last year, he said, adding that state officials are aware of the wounded deer.

It's not clear if the deer was shot at Whitnall Park, or if it wandered in later on after a brush with death somewhere else.

Buth isn't the first person to have seen the doe, officials told WDJT. Others have reported sightings to the Wisconsin Humane Society in recent months.

Gruesome as the injury may be, the deer has apparently carried on despite it and will probably continue to do so, Humane Society Vice-President Angela Speed told the TV station.

"The deer sounds to be very mobile and active. It's a very odd situation as it sounds like a terrible injury at face value, but hasn't seemed to impact the deer's ability to survive," Speed said.

People have asked the organization to take action, but Speed said their hands are more or less tied, WDJT reported.

"We've referred callers over the past few weeks to the DNR, as we do in most cases involving deer," Speed said. "We are unable to treat deer in-field or intake adult deer for rehabilitation because of both resource and regulatory issues."

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'Poor animal.' Deer with arrow piercing head spotted in Wisconsin park, video shows

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A doe with an arrow through its head was recently spotted wandering in a Milwaukee park, Wisconsin video shows. Collin Buth was on a morning bike ride at Whitnall Park when he saw some deer milling about in the woods, he said in a video posted on April 2.

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Opinion | Corporate America Is Lobbying for Climate Disaster

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Corporations Are Lobbying Against Climate Change Efforts

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Corporations Are Lobbying Against Climate Change Efforts

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Corporations are lobbying against infrastructure plans aimed to lessen to effects of climate change.

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Credit... Emily Kask for The New York Times

Why does Mickey Mouse want to destroy civilization?

OK, that's probably not what Disney executives think they're doing. But the Walt Disney Company, along with other corporate titans, including ExxonMobil and Pfizer, is reportedly gearing up to support a major lobbying effort against President Biden's $3.5 trillion investment plan - a plan that may well be our last chance to take serious action against global warming before it becomes catastrophic.

To say what should be obvious, the dangers of climate change are no longer hypothetical. The extreme weather events we've recently seen around the globe - severe drought and forest fires in the American West; intensified hurricanes, catastrophic flooding in Europe; heat waves pushing temperatures in the Middle East above 120 degrees - are exactly the kinds of thing climate scientists warned us to expect as the planet warms.

And this is just the beginning of the nightmare - the leading edge of a wave of disasters, and a harbinger of the crisis heading our way if we don't act quickly and forcefully to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

What can be done to avoid catastrophe? Many economists favor broad-based incentives to limit emissions, such as a carbon tax. There's an interesting, serious economic debate over whether that's really the best policy, or at any rate whether emissions taxes would be a sufficient policy on their own. As a practical matter, however, that debate is moot: Carbon taxes, or anything like them, won't be politically feasible any time soon.

What might be politically feasible - just - is a set of more targeted measures, in particular an effort to decarbonize electricity generation. Generation is, in economic terms, a relatively soft target, because near-miraculous declines in the cost of renewable energy mean that we already have the technology needed to move away from fossil fuels fairly cheaply. And electricity generation isn't just directly responsible for about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; if electricity becomes a clean power source, that would open the door to large reductions in emissions from vehicles, buildings and industry via widespread electrification.

The good news is that Biden's proposals would provide a big push toward decarbonization. As the climate journalist David Roberts points out, there are two major climate-related elements in these proposals: a set of fines and subsidies that would give power companies strong incentives to stop burning fossil fuels, and expanded tax credits for various forms of clean energy. These policies would fill only part of environmentalists' wish lists, but they would be a very big deal.

The bad news is that if these proposals aren't enacted, it will probably be a very long time - quite possibly a decade or more - before we get another chance at significant climate policy.

Let's face it: There's a good chance that Republicans will control one or both houses of Congress after the midterm elections. And at this point climate denialism has a deathlike grip on the G.O.P. - a grip unlikely to loosen until complete catastrophe is upon us, and maybe not even then. Look at the way anti-mask-mandate, anti-vaccine-mandate Republican governors are doubling down in the face of soaring Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths.

So the Democratic reconciliation bill that will either succeed or fail in the next few weeks may well be, in effect, our last chance to do something meaningful to limit climate change.

Why, then, is corporate America mobilizing against the bill? Because Democrats are proposing to offset new spending partly with higher taxes on corporate profits, and to a lesser extent by using the government's bargaining power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs. This approach is necessary as a political matter: If taxes must be raised, the public wants to see them raised on corporations. But corporations, not surprisingly, don't want to pay.

So corporate opposition to the Biden plan is understandable. It's also unforgivable.

And maybe something can be done about it. Republicans, I fear, are completely unreachable at this point. But corporations and the handful of Democrats tempted to carry their water may still be susceptible to pressure.

After all, we're no longer living in the era when William Henry Vanderbilt, the railroad tycoon, declared, " The public be damned." Today's corporations want to be seen as socially responsible; they run gauzy ads proclaiming the good they do.

But it's hard to think of anything more irresponsible than torpedoing efforts to avoid a civilization-threatening crisis because you want to hold down your tax bill.

So the corporations joining this effort need to be named and shamed. So do the handful of Democratic "moderates" carrying their water. ("Mercenaries" would be a better term for politicians opposing measures that they should know are both necessary and popular.)

Remember, this isn't an ordinary policy dispute, which can be revisited another day. This is zero hour, and those who don't do the right thing now won't get a second chance.

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Opinion | Corporate America Is Lobbying for Climate Disaster

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Why does Mickey Mouse want to destroy civilization? OK, that's probably not what Disney executives think they're doing. But the Walt Disney Company, along with other corporate titans, including ExxonMobil and Pfizer, is reportedly gearing up to support a major lobbying effort against President Biden's $3.5 trillion investment plan - a plan that may well be our last chance to take serious action against global warming before it becomes catastrophic.

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A Guide to Sustainable Eating (Published 2019)

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Have you considered the effects of what you eat on the planet, and made changes that will protect not only the Earth but also your health and the well-being of generations to come?

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https://www.wuwm.com/2021-12-13/menomonee-river-oil-spill-causes-concerns-for-milwaukee-waterways

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Komatsu issued an official media statement Dec. 13, 2021 stating:

"At this time, we estimate we have been able to recover about 80% of oil residue on Milwaukee's waterways, and we are working rapidly to address the remainder."

The oil is reported, according to the statement, "to be a combination of spent cutting, hydraulic and lubrication oils generated from our manufacturing process."

A company spokesperson told WUWM "our hired contractors have been out there with boats - we just don't have Komatsu boats."

Komatsu reports the following cleanup activity over the last several days:

- Friday, 2 boat crews deployed.
- Saturday, 3 boat crews deployed.
- Sunday, 2 boat crews deployed.
- All three days, a land crew access oil pockets and sheen at difficult locations along shorelines with a vacuum truck.
- Monday, 4 boats crews deployed.

The company said all efforts to address the spill "are being considered and aggressively implemented."
WUWM's earlier story published on Dec. 13, 2021 follows below.
Last week, word spread that a concerning amount of oil had made its way into the Menomonee River.

It was later learned that Komatsu, the mining company, had discharged 400 gallons of used oil through a stormwater outfall near the company's Menomonee Valley site.

The outfall empties directly into the river.

While Komatsu has taken responsibility for the spill and the clean up, some worry about removing the oil. There are also concerns about its potential impact on the river and the life in and around it.

That includes concerns from Milwaukee Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn. She stood along the Menomonee River Friday, just east of the Brewers' stadium, and looked straight into the storm sewer that delivered the equivalent of eight 50-gallon drums of oil into the river one week earlier.

"We are east of the American Family stadium and just south of the pedestrian bridge that most people use to walk to games," Nenn said. "We're a few miles upstream from the confluence with the Milwaukee River...the [spilled] oil is all the way down from this site through the lower Menomonee and has spread in a pretty large section of the Milwaukee River."

If anyone knows Milwaukee's rivers, it's Nenn. Her job title is riverkeeper and she coordinates ongoing water quality monitoring on the Milwaukee, Kinnickinnic and Menomonee rivers.

When people notice something weird going on, they often call Nenn. This spill was no different.

"We actually started getting calls on Monday [Dec. 6] about oil sheen on the Milwaukee River and worked with the City of Milwaukee," Nenn said. "And looking at stormwater pipes and went to look to see if oil was coming from tour boats that are still in the water...there aren't many boats left in the water."

Nenn said it wasn't immediately clear where the spill started, because of Lake Michigan's influence.

"The lake is often pushing water upstream. If the wind is coming from the east or northeast, you get sort of this sloshing back and forth of the lake and based on the wind, you can get quite a significant current that pushes upstream," Nenn said.

In this case, the lake is pushing spilled oil with it.

Komatsu issued a release stating that on Friday, December 3, saying "our staff....became aware of what we thought at that time was a relatively small spill of waste oil from a container." Clean up procedures, the statement continues, began immediately and Komatsu reported to the regional EPA office and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

An agency spokesperson said the DNR received notification on December 4 "of a petroleum sheen on the Menomonee River."

The DNR said Komatsu has hired environmental response companies to perform cleanup on its behalf.

A Komatsu spokesperson told WUWM the company "immediately began cleanup upon becoming aware of the spill" and that clean up includes vacuuming oil.

Cheryl Nenn worries time and weather are working against cleanup.

"I had heard boats would be on the river [Thursday] and didn't see any. But I'm guessing they're going to need to get out onto the river with some sort of equipment that can vacuum that oil up because I don't think absorbent pads and other things will probably work very well at this point." Nenn said.

WUWM's Susan Bence and Nenn looked at some absorbent material incorporated into the boom that stretches across the outfall where the spill met the river.

"I can tell here - there is oil getting past the boom, unfortunately. They did replace this yesterday, we were out here, and they put a new one in. The problem is, it's very hard to deal with these types of spills, which is why prevention is key," Nenn said.

Nenn worries about immediate impacts to birds and waterfowl.

"There was a story in the [Journal] Sentinel about a snowy owl that was covered in oil, which I'm fairly confident came into contact with this product and we did find a few geese yesterday that were covered with oil. I was here yesterday and there were a bunch of mallards playing in that back water, they like kind of slow water. I was trying to clap and shoo them away and they mostly ignored me," Nenn explained.

Nenn said there's much more to be learned, including exactly what type and how much oil was spilled. Despite the unknowns, the riverkeeper fears the ripple effects of oil that makes its way down to the river's bottom of the food chain.

"We're definitely concerned about long-term impacts to the macroinvertebrates, the little critters on the bottom of the river, and the fish and the birds and humans eating the fish," Nenn said.

She said anglers love this stretch of the Menomonee.

"If you come out here in the spring and fall, there's normally dozens of fishermen lined up in here catching salmon and trout," Nenn said.

After the initial conversation with Nenn, a couple of things happened.

A Komatsu representative had a lengthy conversation with Nenn's boss, Jennifer Bolger Breceda, inviting Milwaukee Riverkeeper to provide input throughout the cleanup process. The company pledged to cover damage costs and increase monitoring efforts.

Later, wind and rain buffeted the region, thwarting clean up efforts some believe should have come sooner.
Have an environmental question you'd like WUWM's Susan Bence to investigate? Submit below. (If the module isn't appearing, please refresh the page.)

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Menomonee River oil spill causes concerns for Milwaukee waterways

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Komatsu issued an official media statement Dec. 13, 2021 stating: "At this time, we estimate we have been able to recover about 80% of oil residue on Milwaukee's waterways, and we are working rapidly to address the remainder." The oil is reported, according to the statement, "to be a combination of spent cutting, hydraulic and lubrication oils generated from our manufacturing process."

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Plans to conduct exploratory drilling for gold and copper in north-central Wisconsin appear to be moving ahead now that a Canadian mining company has received an exploration license.

GreenLight Metals, a Toronto-based company, submitted a $5,000 bond to the state and received an exploration license on Feb. 17 doing business as Green Light Wisconsin. The license expires June 30, but can be renewed.

The company also filed technical reports with Canadian authorities this month on the Reef and Bend mineral deposits in Taylor and Marathon counties, stating the deposits contain copper and gold reserves of "economic interest" that warrant further exploration.

The Bend deposit, located within the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Taylor County, contains 4 million tons of mostly copper and gold. The Reef deposit, which is roughly 12 miles east of Wausau in Marathon County, contains around 454,000 tons of gold reserves.

According to the reports, the company plans on conducting an exploration program "in due course" for the Bend deposit and begin compiling data on the Reef site this year. Even so, the company would need more approvals before it begins drilling, according to Ben Callan, chief of the integration services section at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

"They would have to take another step of filing a notice of intent with the department," said Callan. "Then, in that submittal, they would detail what their plan is."

Callan said the company plans to collect updated information on wetlands and surrounding habitat during the growing season that would be incorporated into its plan. Additional permits might be necessary.

In a statement, GreenLight Metals President and CEO Dan Colton said officials haven't finalized a timeline around their plans.

"GreenLight is in the process of filing the paperwork required to obtain the necessary permits and authorization for work to begin so we can provide a significant economic boost to the region while protecting our environment and transitioning our country as it accelerates toward green, clean energy," said Colton.

Colton said the company looks forward to helping meet a rising demand for "clean energy metals" nationwide.

The transition to clean energy technologies is set to increase demand for minerals like lithium, nickel and copper, according to the International Energy Agency. Gold isn't listed among them.

A 2021 report by the agency said demand for copper is expected to grow more than 40 percent to reach goals under the Paris Climate Agreement, adding existing mines would supply 80 percent of copper needs by 2030.

GreenLight Metals bought interests in the deposits for roughly $5.5 million last year from Toronto-based Aquila Resources.

The company has four prospecting permit applications that are pending with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which officials hope to receive this year.

The company's geological consultant recommended drilling seven boreholes in two phases at the Bend site. At the Reef site, drilling would be conducted in grids at six sites with 15 boreholes in each grid. The cost of the exploration is expected to run around $1.3 million combined.

Metals like gold and copper that occur in sulfide ore bodies haven't been mined in Wisconsin since the Flambeau mine shut down in 1997. The mine served as a catalyst for the state's sulfide mining moratorium that was repealed in 2017 under a law passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature.

The moratorium required companies to prove other mines operated and then were closed for 10 years without causing environmental harm. Industry officials hope the 2017 law will open the door to mining and bring high-paying jobs, while environmental groups and tribes fear it will lead to environmental degradation.

"Mining naturally digs into groundwater and exposes groundwater and drinking water to potential contamination," said Dave Blouin, mining committee chair of Sierra Club's Wisconsin Chapter.

Both the Bend and Reef deposits are near water resources that include the north branch of the Yellow River in Taylor County and Eau Claire River in Marathon County.

The pending permits at the Bend site would cover sections of the Kidrick Swamp State Natural Area. The state's nonferrous metallic mining law includes state natural areas as land deemed "unsuitable" for mining. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported residents near the Reef site have feared any development of that deposit may pollute another state natural area: The Dells of the Eau Claire River.

Blouin said technical reports filed by the company are early estimates of resources that exist.

The company's consultant cautioned its findings relied on historical data, saying verification and redrilling are necessary. The reports added there can be no assurance the resources might become economically viable.

GreenLight Metals is among many companies that have showed interest in the deposits.

Aquila Resources last explored the Bend and Reef mineral deposits in Taylor and Marathon counties a decade ago.

Aquila is the same company that sought to build the Back Forty mine near the Menominee River on the Michigan-Wisconsin border. The project experienced setbacks on its mining and wetlands permits last year, and Gold Resource Corp. bought Aquila in December. Gold Resource is conducting a feasibility study of the project and hopes to obtain permits next year.

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Canadian mining company receives license to conduct exploratory drilling in Wisconsin

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Plans to conduct exploratory drilling for gold and copper in north-central Wisconsin appear to be moving ahead now that a Canadian mining company has received an exploration license. GreenLight Metals, a Toronto-based company, submitted a $5,000 bond to the state and received an exploration license on Feb.

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When wolves attacked cattle on his farm two years ago, Mark Liebaert said it's the closest he ever came to giving up farming.

"I'd go out there at 3 in the morning in the dark and try to scare the wolves off, try to keep the cattle from going through the fence," said Liebaert, who is also chair of the Douglas County Board.

Liebaert said he lost cattle to wolves on his farm, and the behavior of the remaining animals changed. They bunched together in the pasture rather than spreading out to feed. He noticed his cows lost weight and didn't produce as much milk.

During that time, only non-lethal methods like flagging, electric fences and flashing lights could be used to keep wolves at bay. That changed when the wolf was delisted as an endangered species in January of last year. Now that a federal judge has restored protections, Liebaert said he believes farmers in northern Wisconsin will suffer.

"I agree they belong on the landscape, but they belong on the landscape in numbers and in an area where you don't have so much conflict between the people who live here," he said.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources estimates the state had around 1,100 wolves prior to last year's February wolf hunt, during which hunters killed 218 wolves in less than three days.

The DNR verified 108 of 182 reported wolf conflicts last year, marking a slight increase in confirmed conflicts from the two previous years. Most verified complaints came from Douglas and Bayfield counties, according to Brad Koele, the DNR's wildlife damage specialist. Overall, Koele said 69 problem wolves were killed, and the state has paid out $3.1 million in depredation payments since 1985.

The number of livestock killed by wolves is small compared to the 3.45 million cattle in Wisconsin.

Amid the rise in conflicts, Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin recently introduced a rare bipartisan proposal to delist the gray wolf in the Great Lakes region.

"In the western Great Lakes region, state wildlife agencies should manage the recovered population so the wolf's ongoing role in the ecosystem does not come at the expense of farmers, loggers, sportsmen and people who simply live in these areas," said Johnson in a release announcing the legislation.

In a statement, Baldwin said the bipartisan bill is the best solution because it's driven by science.

"I have supported a bipartisan effort to delist the gray wolf in Wisconsin since 2011 because of the scientific conclusion that the population has recovered in the Great Lakes region," said Baldwin. "People across Wisconsin have worked hard to help the gray wolf come back from the brink of extinction, and now our state is home to many wolves."

Not all scientists agree with Baldwin that the wolf has recovered, including Adrian Treves, professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"I feel in this case, the senator is making a value judgment, which is her prerogative as an elected official," said Treves. "But, she shouldn't be cloaking it behind science because the science does not support her position."

He pointed to a peer review by five scientists, including Treves, that found shortcomings with the science in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to delist the wolf across most of the nation under the Trump administration.

Former DNR wolf biologist Adrian Wydeven, who also took part in the review, agreed there were weaknesses in the agency's argument for delisting. Even so, he said three of the five reviewers agreed that gray wolves had recovered in the Great Lakes region.

"I think the statement that Sen. Baldwin has made is correct," said Wydeven. "I think Sen. Johnson has kind of gone beyond that in that wolves are such an issue for loggers and hunters and farmers and sort of an exaggerated claim there. Certainly, they're of concern to some farmers, but the vast majority of farmers are not impacted by wolves."

Three reviewers, including Wydeven, agreed it was reasonable for the agency to conclude that the proposed rule along with state management plans in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin would maintain a viable wolf population in the region. Although, one reviewer noted it was not his area of expertise.

Treves maintains the science doesn't support the gray wolf's recovery nationwide, adding states' ability to manage a viable wolf population is not the same as the species' recovery.

Treves said scientists are divided over wolf management, and Wydeven agreed there's a greater split among the scientific community over wolf conservation. Both noted federal courts have ruled against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in previous attempts to delist the wolf as a distinct population segment in the Great Lakes region.

Wildlife advocacy groups and Wisconsin tribes want to maintain federal protections for wolves. In lawsuits filed last year, they argued the state violated tribal treaty rights and failed to properly manage wolves based on science.

More than a half dozen bills have been introduced by Wisconsin's Congressional delegation to delist the wolf since 2015. So far, the wolves have only been successfully delisted by Congress in Idaho, Montana and parts of nearby states in 2011. Wyoming was delisted in 2017.
Editor's note: This story was edited on March, 28, 2022, to clarify the position of scientists' remarks on the wolf's recovery.

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Wolf conflicts grew last year as bipartisan proposal seeks to delist wolves

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When wolves attacked cattle on his farm two years ago, Mark Liebaert said it's the closest he ever came to giving up farming. "I'd go out there at 3 in the morning in the dark and try to scare the wolves off, try to keep the cattle from going through the fence," said Liebaert, who is also chair of the Douglas County Board.

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https://www.wuwm.com/2022-01-03/2022-begins-with-little-progress-on-pfas-contamination

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2022 begins with little progress on PFAS contamination

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The Wisconsin DNR reported 92 PFAS contamination sites around the state. While work is underway to regulate two of the estimated 9,000 chemicals, communities, including the Town of Peshtigo grappling with contamination, do not yet have safe, sustainable drinking water sources.

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The nature of the industrial food system makes us vulnerable to outbreaks of disease.

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The Way We Live Now

Soon after the news broke last month that nearly 200 Americans in 26 states had been sickened by eating packaged spinach contaminated with E. coli, I received a rather coldblooded e-mail message from a friend in the food business. "I have instructed my broker to purchase a million shares of RadSafe," he wrote, explaining that RadSafe is a leading manufacturer of food-irradiation technology. It turned out my friend was joking, but even so, his reasoning was impeccable. If bagged salad greens are vulnerable to bacterial contamination on such a scale, industry and government would very soon come looking for a technological fix; any day now, calls to irradiate the entire food supply will be on a great many official lips. That's exactly what happened a few years ago when we learned that E. coli from cattle feces was winding up in American hamburgers. Rather than clean up the kill floor and the feedlot diet, some meat processors simply started nuking the meat - sterilizing the manure, in other words, rather than removing it from our food. Why? Because it's easier to find a technological fix than to address the root cause of such a problem. This has always been the genius of industrial capitalism - to take its failings and turn them into exciting new business opportunities.

We can also expect to hear calls for more regulation and inspection of the produce industry. Already, watchdogs like the Center for Science in the Public Interest have proposed that the government impose the sort of regulatory regime it imposes on the meat industry - something along the lines of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (Haccp, pronounced HASS-ip) developed in response to the E. coli contamination of beef. At the moment, vegetable growers and packers are virtually unregulated. "Farmers can do pretty much as they please," Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, said recently, "as long as they don't make anyone sick."

This sounds like an alarming lapse in governmental oversight until you realize there has never before been much reason to worry about food safety on farms. But these days, the way we farm and the way we process our food, both of which have been industrialized and centralized over the last few decades, are endangering our health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that our food supply now sickens 76 million Americans every year, putting more than 300,000 of them in the hospital, and killing 5,000. The lethal strain of E. coli known as 0157:H7, responsible for this latest outbreak of food poisoning, was unknown before 1982; it is believed to have evolved in the gut of feedlot cattle. These are animals that stand around in their manure all day long, eating a diet of grain that happens to turn a cow's rumen into an ideal habitat for E. coli 0157:H7. (The bug can't survive long in cattle living on grass.) Industrial animal agriculture produces more than a billion tons of manure every year, manure that, besides being full of nasty microbes like E. coli 0157:H7 (not to mention high concentrations of the pharmaceuticals animals must receive so they can tolerate the feedlot lifestyle), often ends up in places it shouldn't be, rather than in pastures, where it would not only be harmless but also actually do some good. To think of animal manure as pollution rather than fertility is a relatively new (and industrial) idea.

Wendell Berry once wrote that when we took animals off farms and put them onto feedlots, we had, in effect, taken an old solution - the one where crops feed animals and animals' waste feeds crops - and neatly divided it into two new problems: a fertility problem on the farm, and a pollution problem on the feedlot. Rather than return to that elegant solution, however, industrial agriculture came up with a technological fix for the first problem - chemical fertilizers on the farm. As yet, there is no good fix for the second problem, unless you count irradiation and Haccp plans and overcooking your burgers and, now, staying away from spinach. All of these solutions treat E. coli 0157:H7 as an unavoidable fact of life rather than what it is: a fact of industrial agriculture.

But if industrial farming gave us this bug, it is industrial eating that has spread it far and wide. We don't yet know exactly what happened in the case of the spinach washed and packed by Natural Selection Foods, whether it was contaminated in the field or in the processing plant or if perhaps the sealed bags made a trivial contamination worse. But we do know that a great deal of spinach from a great many fields gets mixed together in the water at that plant, giving microbes from a single field an opportunity to contaminate a vast amount of food. The plant in question washes 26 million servings of salad every week. In effect, we're washing the whole nation's salad in one big sink.

It's conceivable the same problem could occur in your own kitchen sink or on a single farm. Food poisoning has always been with us, but not until we started processing all our food in such a small number of "kitchens" did the potential for nationwide outbreaks exist.

Surely this points to one of the great advantages of a decentralized food system: when things go wrong, as they sooner or later will, fewer people are affected and, just as important, the problem can be more easily traced to its source and contained. A long and complicated food chain, in which food from all over the countryside is gathered together in one place to be processed and then distributed all over the country to be eaten, can be impressively efficient, but by its very nature it is a food chain devilishly hard to follow and to fix.

Fortunately, this is not the only food chain we have. The week of the E. coli outbreak, washed spinach was on sale at my local farmers' market, and at the Blue Heron Farms stand, where I usually buy my greens, the spinach appeared to be moving briskly. I tasted a leaf and wondered why I didn't think twice about it. I guess it's because I've just always trusted these guys; I buy from them every week. The spinach was probably cut and washed that morning or the night before - it hasn't been sitting around in a bag on a truck for a week. And if there ever is any sort of problem, I know exactly who is responsible. Whatever the risk, and I'm sure there is some, it seems manageable.

These days, when people make the case for buying local food, they often talk about things like keeping farmers in our communities and eating fresh food in season, at the peak of its flavor. We like what's going on at the farmers' market - how country meets city, how children learn that a carrot is not a glossy orange bullet that comes in a bag but is actually a root; how we get to taste unfamiliar flavors and even, in some sense, reconnect through these foods and their growers to the natural world. Stack all this up against the convenience and price of supermarket food, though, and it can sound a little. . .sentimental.

But there's nothing sentimental about local food - indeed, the reasons to support local food economies could not be any more hardheaded or pragmatic. Our highly centralized food economy is a dangerously precarious system, vulnerable to accidental - and deliberate - contamination. This is something the government understands better than most of us eaters. When Tommy Thompson retired from the Department of Health and Human Services in 2004, he said something chilling at his farewell news conference: "For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply, because it is so easy to do." The reason it is so easy to do was laid out in a 2003 G.A.O. report to Congress on bioterrorism. "The high concentration of our livestock industry and the centralized nature of our food-processing industry" make them "vulnerable to terrorist attack." Today 80 percent of America's beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company. Keeping local food economies healthy - and at the moment they are thriving - is a matter not of sentiment but of critical importance to the national security and the public health, as well as to reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Yet perhaps the gravest threat now to local food economies - to the farmer selling me my spinach, to the rancher who sells me my grass-fed beef - is, of all things, the government's own well-intentioned efforts to clean up the industrial food supply. Already, hundreds of regional meat-processing plants - the ones that local meat producers depend on - are closing because they can't afford to comply with the regulatory requirements the U.S.D.A. rightly imposes on giant slaughterhouses that process 400 head of cattle an hour. The industry insists that all regulations be "scale neutral," so if the U.S.D.A. demands that huge plants have, say, a bathroom, a shower and an office for the exclusive use of its inspectors, then a small processing plant that slaughters local farmers' livestock will have to install these facilities, too. This is one of the principal reasons that meat at the farmers' market is more expensive than meat at the supermarket: farmers are seldom allowed to process their own meat, and small processing plants have become very expensive to operate, when the U.S.D.A. is willing to let them operate at all. From the U.S.D.A.'s perspective, it is much more efficient to put their inspectors in a plant where they can inspect 400 cows an hour rather than in a local plant where they can inspect maybe one.

So what happens to the spinach grower at my farmers' market when the F.D.A. starts demanding a Haccp plan - daily testing of the irrigation water, say, or some newfangled veggie-irradiation technology? When we start requiring that all farms be federally inspected? Heavy burdens of regulation always fall heaviest on the smallest operations and invariably wind up benefiting the biggest players in an industry, the ones who can spread the costs over a larger output of goods. A result is that regulating food safety tends to accelerate the sort of industrialization that made food safety a problem in the first place. We end up putting our faith in RadSafe rather than in Blue Heron Farms - in technologies rather than relationships.

It's easy to imagine the F.D.A. announcing a new rule banning animals from farms that produce plant crops. In light of the threat from E. coli, such a rule would make a certain kind of sense. But it is an industrial, not an ecological, sense. For the practice of keeping animals on farms used to be, as Wendell Berry pointed out, a solution; only when cows moved onto feedlots did it become a problem. Local farmers and local food economies represent much the same sort of pre-problem solution - elegant, low-tech and redundant. But the logic of industry, apparently ineluctable, has other ideas, ideas that not only leave our centralized food system undisturbed but also imperil its most promising, and safer, alternatives.

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The Way We Live Now Soon after the news broke last month that nearly 200 Americans in 26 states had been sickened by eating packaged spinach contaminated with E. coli, I received a rather coldblooded e-mail message from a friend in the food business.

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Bats are in trouble - including in Wisconsin. Meet some researchers hoping to help

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Bats are in trouble. This week, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed shifting one species, the northern long-eared bat, from its current threatened status to endangered. This is a result of white-nose syndrome.

Once abundant in Wisconsin, the number of northern long-eared bats in the state has declined by 99% - and that's just one of many species impacted by a deadly fungus.

But scientists are looking for solutions to save bats, including a team from Virginia Tech.

Recently five researchers clustered outside the bat hibernation location in southwest Wisconsin. They don head-lamped helmets, disposable gloves and hazmat suits - to keep them from spreading disease from one hibernaculum to another.

This bat hibernation site is one of 250 in Wisconsin. Associate professors Kate Langwig and Joe Hoyt along with their grad students survey in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Many of the sites are privately owned. The DNR tries to keep the locations hush-hush because it's critical the bats remain as undisturbed as possible during their hibernation period, October through mid-May.

Why is bat hibernation so important? Well, some bats, depending on the species, only take a breath every 10 minutes and their heart beat as little as four times per minute. Disturbing the bat can trigger a slow and laborious waking up process that can result in much-needed fat reserve being burned.

All I can say about this site in southwest Wisconsin is its caverns are beneath a large, old building with plenty of opportunities for bats to find their way inside, and the property owner has become a bat advocate and is delighted to see the researchers return.

Once underground, the researchers quietly set to work, searching every chilly crevice for drowsy bat - often tucked out of sight. The team notes the temperature.

From a distance the bats appear to be little reddish-brown balls of fur.

The team inspects each bat for evidence of fungal invasion. That means looking for areas covered with the white-colored fungus or for wing damage caused by it.

One team member takes a sample of the bat's skin by swabbing its muzzle and forearm and then weighs it.

This one weighs 15.42 grams - that's just more than a half an ounce - the weight of three quarters. A bat can lose up to a third of its body weight during hibernation.

This bat is already banded, but if it weren't, an aluminum lipped bracelet would be affixed around its forearm.

Then the bat is gently placed back where it came from.

Over the years, four bat species have been monitored at this site, including the northern long-eared. Sometimes as many as 16 bats have been found hibernating here. This year, only six were found - all of them of the big brown species.

Scientists have learned the deadly white-nose fungus thrives in the same dark wintery conditions in which bats hibernate, and bats are really good at spreading the fungus around.

In addition, the fungus lives on - even if bats aren't there.

Back in the open air, Kate Langwig says although they weren't able to stop white-nose syndrome in its tracks, by getting to Wisconsin in 2012 before the fungus struck, they started amassing useful information. "About what does the disease do to populations as it first invades, how do we see prevalence of infection change, how do we see the intensity of infection change," she explains.

Now they're focusing on characterizing the survivors. "With this really, really virulent disease that killed 95% of bats when it first arrived. Individuals that are surviving, so we have a couple of bats here that are survivors, right? What's special about the? How are they able get through this?"

Langwig's team is studying how temperatures and humidity where those bats hibernate factor into the puzzle. "Our research has found that within the range that bats hibernate, the warmer temperatures, the warmer caves, the fungus grows a little faster, kills the bats faster."

At the same time, her lab is uncovering evidence that surviving bats are developing resistance to the disease.

Langwig has been studying bats for 15 years, ever since white-nose syndrome first emerged in the U.S. and has a long list of reasons why bats fascinate her, beyond the volume and variety of insects they consume.

"They're, of course, our only flying mammal. [They have] one of the most diverse diets of any taxa on the planet. They're having a sort of double affect at helping out crops and probably forests and other ecosystems. They're really an important species."

Langwig believes it's profoundly important to save the creatures. "They only have one baby a year, so unfortunately it will take them a really long to recover but I hope it also demonstrates to people how interesting they are."

She's cautiously optimistic. Her team is seeing individual bats with the disease survive the winter, and she hopes to help uncover what makes their survival possible.

As for the northern long-eared bat, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is holding a virtual public information meeting and hearing on April 7.
Have an environmental question you'd like WUWM's Susan Bence to investigate? Submit below.

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Bats are in trouble - including in Wisconsin. Meet some researchers hoping to help

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Once abundant in Wisconsin, the number of northern long-eared bats in the state has declined by 99% - and that's just one of many species impacted by a deadly fungus. But scientists are looking for solutions to save bats, including a team from Virginia Tech.

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The state veterinarian with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection believes wild birds are the source of the highly pathogenic bird flu detected at a Jefferson County egg-laying facility and a backyard flock in Rock County.

In a virtual media briefing Wednesday, state veterinarian Dr. Darlene Konkle said they've been looking closely at movements and information from flock owners to determine the source of infection.

"We think each of them is introduction from a wild bird contact of some sort," Konkle said. "There is no connection between these two facilities."

Last Thursday, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources confirmed the virus in half a dozen wild birds across five counties, including Dane, Columbia, Grant, Milwaukee and Polk counties. Konkle said state officials are on "high alert" as birds continue their spring migration.

The detections at the commercial egg-laying facility and backyard flock are the only known cases among domestic birds in Wisconsin to date. State agriculture officials have worked with both sites to cull those flocks.

The highly contagious bird flu doesn't pose an immediate threat to public health or threaten food safety because the virus is killed when birds or their eggs are properly handled and cooked, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No infections among people have been reported in the U.S.

The department first discovered the highly contagious H5N1 strain on the Cold Spring Egg Farm in Palmyra on March 14. Work is ongoing to compost nearly 3 million birds culled at a nearby site. That is expected to take another week to complete and monitoring will be ongoing.

A representative of the farm declined to comment on the process, referring comments to DATCP and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

State health and environmental regulators said during the briefing that they're confident there's no risk of groundwater contamination from composting the birds as neighbors have raised concerns about the process.

Natasha Gwidt, a field operations director with the DNR, said the disposal site in Palmyra fits requirements for composting related to its distance from private wells or other bodies of water. She said a 14-inch layer of carbon material is being laid on the ground, and the birds will be mixed with sawdust and other material before it's covered by at least a foot of woody material like mulch.

The DNR has been working with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to provide testing kits to nearby well owners and advising them on what to monitor.

"We have a lot of confidence and know how (the) DNR put the compost piles together, (and)all of the steps they took to identify proper compost areas. We're very confident that we're going to be safe," Tom Haupt, a respiratory epidemiologist with DHS, said.

In the meantime, Konkle said they've contacted all poultry owners in a 10-kilometer radius of the two sites, asking them to monitor birds closely. Two commercial farms within that area are doing frequent testing and have so far tested negative for the highly contagious bird flu. There are no commercial operations near the Rock County flock.

Haupt added that health officials tested several workers at the Jefferson County farm who were in the area of infected birds, but none have tested positive.

Konkle estimated it may be 60 to 80 days before the farm can restock birds. She noted cleaning, disinfection and environmental sampling need to occur to determine the virus is no longer present.

"They used to do supervised ranging. We're keeping them in the (chicken) run right now," Atia said.

Now, she and her mom change jackets and shoes when they're working with the birds.

Atia always wanted a backyard flock, and she likes to cuddle with her egg-laying hens that have colorful names like Frieda Lay and Taco Bella Chickoletta. She writes a newsletter called Chicken Feed News that she shares with friends and family, including the latest news about the bird flu and tips on how to keep them safe.

Amy said they've been trying to minimize risk as much as possible, noting they've avoided putting out bird feeders or bird baths that may attract wild birds. They're also planning to add on to their chicken run to help prevent the possibility of infection from wild bird droppings.

She said they were sad to learn that the strain had been detected at a backyard flock in Rock County.

"If you have kids, it's like their pets. It's good responsibility for them," Amy said. "I know they'd be pretty devastated if something had to happen to their flock."

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State veterinarian: Wild birds are the source of bird flu detections at Wisconsin egg farm, backyard flock

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The state veterinarian with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection believes wild birds are the source of the highly pathogenic bird flu detected at a Jefferson County egg-laying facility and a backyard flock in Rock County.

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Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.
December is a season of consumption, and in the last two decades shoppers have filled their closets with what's known as fast fashion: inexpensive clothing inspired by runway looks.

But in our haste to find the latest holiday sweaters and party dresses, the hands dyeing the yarns or sewing the hems on those dresses are often an afterthought.

On Sunday, in a special print section, " Stare Shopping in the Face," editors at The New York Times set out to examine the people involved in manufacturing and buying contemporary fashion.

Reporters looked at the low wages of garment workers; interviewed young women who covet inexpensive clothing; detailed efforts by the retailer H&M to become more transparent about its supply chain; and profiled a designer making "trashion:" new clothing from used fabrics.
What made this a topic you wanted to address right now?
Vanessa Friedman, the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times, discussed the special section and what she hoped readers would take away from it. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What changes have we seen in sustainable fashion over the last decade?
We've been talking about sustainability and fashion for a very long time. Clearly, it's a topic that has become more pressing for people, whether they are consumers, or just people who like fashion, or people who are interested in the environment. This seemed like a good moment to pull the threads together and really look at it.

In 2009, Copenhagen held the first really recognized sustainable fashion conference. At that time, no one in the industry was thinking about this question at all.
What surprised you most to come out of the reporting?
In fashion, just in the last year, brands and consumers and designers have really woken up to the need to act more responsibly about their designs and their manufacturing costs. They have begun to talk about it in a way they never had before.
What topics do you want to explore going forward?
The role social media has played in all of this really surprised me. We know that lots of people sell stuff on Instagram, and it's very important to brands for marketing. But so many consumers are buying things because of what they see on Instagram. It was a real shock to understand how much the psychology of buying and the behavior of buying have changed.

I think we'll look a lot more at what is happening in fashion in terms of repurposing waste material or old garments - what they call upcycling. I think that's all going to become an increasingly important part of the fashion cycle. There are companies that are doing that already, but I think it will happen more.
What do you hope readers take away from this reporting?
And also watching how companies try to take control of their own supply chain and to be transparent about it and let consumers and watchdogs in on that process. I think in the past there's been a real fear in fashion that if companies weren't perfect they would get attacked. Now, brands are willing to say, "We're not perfect, but we're trying, and here's what we're trying to do." Holding them to it is a really important part of this too.

I hope it makes them think, maybe before they make a purchasing decision, about the human effort and the human touch that have gone into making everything they own, even if it's a really cheap T-shirt. I hope that they think a little bit more about something they probably knew, but may not have fully embraced, which is that it is really hard to make clothes that can sell for very cheap prices and turn over very quickly in a way that is responsible. If it seems unbelievable and too good to be true, it probably is - and consumers have the power to change that.

Follow the @ReaderCenter on Twitter for more coverage highlighting your perspectives and experiences and for insight into how we work.

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Tracing the Path From Fast Fashion to 'Trashion' (Published 2019)

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Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. December is a season of consumption, and in the last two decades shoppers have filled their closets with what's known as fast fashion: inexpensive clothing inspired by runway looks.

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Wisconsin attorney general sues Johnson Controls, Tyco for PFAS contamination

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Wisconsin attorney general sues Johnson Controls, Tyco for PFAS contamination

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Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced a lawsuit against Johnson Controls and Tyco Fire Products. The lawsuit alleges these companies violated the state’s spills law by failing to notify the DNR about PFAS contamination.

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These 2 women are making a special product that can be subbed for plastic wrap (beeswax painted on cloth).

I'm a geek and want to do this too! What can we learn about solving environmental problems from these can-do ladies?

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You never know what will happen when you start trash-talking.

For two moms in Oconomowoc, it led to Beejou Wraps, their homegrown company that makes reusable beeswax-coated cloths that are an alternative to cling wrap and plastic bags.

"Our children go to school together, so we bonded over our kids and our busy lives," said Denise Sadler. "And sometimes we would talk about the things we struggled with, and one of those things was single-use plastic."

Sadler and business partner Lydia Poehls have four young children each, so that's a lot of lunches to pack.

And that got them thinking. "We have to pack lunches for the kids, and we were dismayed by how much plastic goes into the garbage," said Lydia.

So, these two friends - who like to do crafts - decided to try making these colorful wraps that can be used to surround anything from sandwiches to cheese to a cut piece of fruit. Or they can cover a bowl of leftovers - the warmth of your fingers molds the wraps into place.

RELATED: In 2019, resolve to 'just say no' to plastics in the kitchen - and help fight a growing pollution problem

RELATED: Yes, plastics pollution is encroaching on the Great Lakes, too

The two women launched BeeJou Wraps in March 2018.

Beejou wraps can be used over and over to enclose leftovers the way plastic wrap would. (Photo: Justus Poehls)

"What a huge mess, but so much fun the first time we made them," said Denise, noting that using beeswax for food preservation dates back to ancient Egypt.

The ones they went to market with are made with organic cotton that meets the Global Organic Textile Standard, organic Wisconsin honey, organic jojoba oil and sustainably sourced tree natural resin.

No surprise, the wraps smell pleasantly of bee's wax - with the smell dissipating after a couple of uses.

To wash them, use cold water and a mild soap. Then hang or drape to dry.

Beejou wraps hang up to dry for reuse. (Photo: Justus Poehls)

Depending on use and care, you can expect them to last for up to a year. Then once they lose their waxiness, you can cut them up and put them in the compost or just dispose of them with the garbage.

In addition to reducing plastic use, both women see other good things resulting.

"The wraps are so pretty when you look in the refrigerator. We enjoy bringing that sense of style to our lives and our homes," said Denise.

Warmth from your hands molds the beeswax-coated cloth into place. (Photo: Justus Poehls)

And they both love that their kids are learning to reduce waste.

"As a mother, it's my responsibility to teach my children how to take care of the earth," says Lydia, who is delighted when one of her youngsters says, "Don't use a straw!"

Beejou Wraps - the name is a riff on "bijou," the French word for jewel - can be purchased online or at an increasing number of area shops.

A four-pack of various sizes is priced at $22, while a single sandwich wrap with a button and string closure is $10.

Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/food/2019/01/08/oconomowoc-moms-sell-beeswax-cloths-reusable-alternative-cling-wrap/2454705002/

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Oconomowoc moms market reusable - and pretty - food storage wraps made with beeswax

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You never know what will happen when you start trash-talking. For two moms in Oconomowoc, it led to Beejou Wraps, their homegrown company that makes reusable beeswax-coated cloths that are an alternative to cling wrap and plastic bags. "Our children go to school together, so we bonded over our kids and our busy lives," said Denise Sadler.

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For the first time in decades, bald eagles begin to take up residence in Milwaukee County

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You could say it was her eagle eye, but it was more like her eagle brain. Beth Berger Martin, a volunteer with Madison Audubon's Bald Eagle Nest Watch program, was trying to think like an eagle.

The Geneva resident routinely monitors eagle nests throughout Walworth, Racine and Kenosha counties. After reports of possible nest sightings in a Milwaukee County park, Berger Martin was one of several people watching the area for eagle activity earlier this year.

During her weekly wanderings, she had spotted smaller, partially constructed nests and figured an active nest had to be close.

"I looked at a map and I thought, 'If I were an eagle, where would I think would be a good place for me to build a nest?' And within two minutes of deciding, 'This is where I'd go,' turning onto the road, I found it," Berger Martin said. "I was extremely excited."

Perched high atop a tree in a massive nest was a pair of bald eagles - the first known pair to take up residence in Milwaukee County in decades.

With the discovery of this nest, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Madison Audubon and Milwaukee County Parks Department jointly announced that bald eagles are officially nesting in all 72 Wisconsin counties - a remarkable comeback considering they were on the brink of extinction just 50 years ago.

"For the eagles to be able to come back from such a bad state of population decline into now being in every county in Wisconsin with an active nest, it's really remarkable," said Brenna Marsicek, director of communications and outreach for the Madison Audubon and co-organizer of their nest watch program. "(It's) something that bald eagle lovers and nature lovers in general have been hoping for for so long."

After the discovery of nests in Kenosha County in 2017 and Walworth County in 2018, Milwaukee County was the last holdout.

As Wisconsin's most densely populated area, Milwaukee County is not exactly an easy place for eagles to find a suitable nesting site. They need tall trees to support their large nests, a steady food supply and ideally a source of open water.

Still, advocates said it was only a matter of time.

According to Brian Russart, natural areas supervisor for Milwaukee County Parks, the number of bald eagle sightings in the county has increased significantly over the past five years. They had to build nests sometime, he said.

The nest Berger Martin spotted is on park land in the southern part of the county. Russart said it was actually built last year, but this is the first time eagles are using it for egg tending, indicated by their round-the-clock presence in the nest.

And Russart said it's now one of three known nests in the county. A second nest was constructed this year on public land but is not yet occupied. And a third nest, on private land in the eastern part of the county, is housing a second pair of bald eagle parents-to-be.

"It really showcases how urban areas can have a great deal of ecological diversity to them," Russart said. "Our natural areas aren't black holes (where) ecology can't exist."

Over the past 10 years, his team has documented nearly 2,000 native species of plants, wildlife and fungi within the urban park system.

"Eagles are just one of, at this point, 22 different species of birds breeding in the park system," Russart said. "Definitely the cherry on top, though."

'We've come a long, long way'

According to Sharon Fandel, southeast field ecologist with the DNR, the 1880s were likely the last time eagles were nesting throughout the state.

When the bald eagle was adopted as the country's national bird in 1782, there were an estimated 100,000 nesting pairs. At one point, they were so numerous and frequently hunted that the government even offered a bounty for shooting them in Alaska.

Overhunting quickly decimated the population and in 1940, the federal government enacted the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, making it illegal to hunt eagles or harm their nests or eggs. But by then, eagles faced a new threat.

Widespread use of the pesticide DDT after World War II damaged the shells of many bird species and further decimated the eagle population. By 1963, there were only 417 nesting pairs in the country and the bald eagle was in danger of extinction.

But decades of recovery efforts, including the banning of DDT in 1972 and protections under the Endangered Species Act, have helped the eagle make a comeback. In 2007, the bald eagle was removed from the list of threatened and endangered species. Since then, their population in the lower 48 states has quadrupled to more than 71,000 breeding pairs.

And Wisconsin sits within the lower 48's most populous region - the Mississippi Flyway.

The most recent eagle population survey for Wisconsin in 2019 found 1,684 known active nests. In 1973 there were just 108.

"We've come a long, long way," Fandel said. "It really punctuates the storyline in terms of a great conservation success story for all of us."

While eagle populations in northern Wisconsin have more or less stabilized, the numbers are still growing in the southern half of the state, as the new nests would indicate.

Fandel said eagles generally return to the same nest, especially if they were successful hatching and raising chicks in the previous year. So she expects to see continued growth in southern Wisconsin's bald eagle population.

"We have yet to find out where the endline is," Fandel said.

Generally the DNR conducts an eagle population survey each spring. Staff use low-altitude aircraft to confirm the presence of actively nesting adults. But not all nests are visible or accessible from aircraft. That's why they also rely on programs like Madison Audubon's Bald Eagle Nest Watch.

The Eagle Watchers

During eagle nesting season, roughly February through June, volunteer "nest watchers" monitor active nests for an hour a week and report their findings to Madison Audubon and the DNR.

"The DNR does one flyover a year. They get a little snapshot of what's going on at the nest. We provide them with more of a complete story of what's going on for the season for that nest," said Drew Cashman, a volunteer and co-organizer of the program.

Cashman, who helped start the program, said he caught "the eagle bug" while living in Colorado and doing similar work. In 2018, after moving to Wisconsin, he approached Madison Audubon and asked if they would be interested in starting a bald eagle nest watch program.

They started with about a dozen nests in Dane County. Now, in their fifth season, they have grown to 300 volunteers monitoring 136 nests in 28 counties.

Volunteers are trained to recognize eagle behavior and body language. Co-organizer Marsicek said over their months of observation, volunteers observe eagles building their nest, hunkering down and rolling eggs to keep them warm, then sitting higher to accommodate new hatchlings. Eventually, they start to see little heads peeking over the edge of the nest.

"That is such a thrill to be able to see these chicks that you've been waiting and watching for every week for how many months," Marsicek said. "They'll start flapping wings and practicing flying and then eventually they'll take their first flight and the volunteers get to see all of that process throughout the season."

Because they are based in Madison, Marsicek said most of their monitoring happens in southern Wisconsin. But last year they partnered with 1000 Islands Environmental Center to start a nest watch program in the Fox Valley and this year they have expanded to central Wisconsin. Eventually, they want to bring the program to all of Wisconsin.

Berger Martin is one of their most active volunteers.

"She has the eagle eye for locating new nests," Cashman said.

When Berger Martin found the nest in southern Milwaukee County, one of the first people she called was her husband Ken, a fellow eagle enthusiast.

Together they sat in the car squinting through binoculars and a telephoto lens, watching the pair of birds soar on the thermals above the treetops. And they got to witness a pretty thrilling moment.

"(The female) just started to drop very quickly and went into the nest. And that was it. She must have been ready to lay an egg," Berger Martin said. "One bird is on the nest continuously since that moment."

But as much as Madison Audubon and the DNR rely on observations from volunteers like Berger Martin, she said nest watchers often depend on private homeowners to provide access to nests and keep their locations confidential for the protection of the eagles.

"We couldn't do it if we didn't have the support of homeowners who got us off the road so that we didn't have to look suspicious with a long lens hanging out of a window and let us come and go at will at their properties so that we can observe these nests and do what we do," Berger Martin said. "When you think about it, it's just a really beautiful chain of trust."

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For the first time in decades, bald eagles begin to take up residence in Milwaukee County

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You could say it was her eagle eye, but it was more like her eagle brain. Beth Berger Martin, a volunteer with Madison Audubon's Bald Eagle Nest Watch program, was trying to think like an eagle. The Geneva resident routinely monitors eagle nests throughout Walworth, Racine and Kenosha counties.

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Corporate farming practices, lobbying, and the subsidization of crops like corn are “disrupting our economy and environment in favor of special interests”.

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The environmental and economic travesty of subsidized crops

"Big Ag" in the United States has little to do with supplying people with needed food and much to do with using political force to perpetuate profits at the expense of consumers and biodiversity.

If your farm grows corn and sells it locally to people who actually eat your produce, this article is not pointed at you! (Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash)

Let me preface this story by saying that it is neither meant to be disparaging to those who work the land...

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The environmental and economic travesty of subsidized crops "Big Ag" in the United States has little to do with supplying people with needed food and much to do with using political force to perpetuate profits at the expense of consumers and biodiversity.

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Wisconsin’s No. 1 mink farming industry now seen as a COVID-19 risk - WisconsinWatch.org

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Wisconsin’s No. 1 mink farming industry now seen as a COVID-19 risk - WisconsinWatch.org

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State officials knew little about the secretive industry until the pandemic struck; now they are scrambling to keep mink farmers and their animals safe

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Conservation group asked DNR to pull wetlands an waterway permits for transmission line and ask for a complete environment impact report

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Conservation groups are asking state environmental regulators to halt construction of the $492 million Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line in southern Wisconsin and revoke the project's wetlands and waterway permits.

The Environmental Law and Policy Center sent a March 21 letter to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on behalf of the Driftless Area Land Conservancy, Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and other groups. They're requesting the agency immediately stop work on the 345-kilovolt transmission line until the DNR and Public Service Commission conduct a "lawful" environmental review.

The letter follows a federal judge's ruling that blocked the line's crossing through the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge. U.S. District Judge William Conley overturned the project's environmental impact statement and sent it back for review after finding the Rural Utilities Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act. He ruled the agency's federal environmental review of alternatives was too narrow.

The project's co-owners - American Transmission Co., ITC Midwest, and Dairyland Power Cooperative - are asking a federal appeals court to put a hold on the judge's ruling until an appeals panel decides the case.

"Wisconsin DNR has the obligation and duty under Wisconsin law to stop this orchestrated trainwreck, pause the construction spree, and provide for the proper environmental process to take its course without the specter of a rushed construction process and a forced decision leading to wasteful costs and unnecessary environmental harms and property damages," wrote Howard Learner, the center's executive director.

Learner, lead attorney for conservation groups, said the DNR has authority to revoke a wetlands and waterway permit issued in 2019 because the federal environmental impact statement is no longer valid. He said the state's environmental impact statement "contains the same fundamental flaws" as the federal review.

"For the Cardinal-Hickory Creek permit in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Public Service Commission based their state environmental impact statement on the federal one," Learner told Wisconsin Public Radio in an interview. "The federal one has now been found to be illegally flawed. The foundation of it was skewed against the consideration of alternatives. And if the federal environmental impact statement is invalid, the fact of the matter is the state environmental impact statement is invalid for the same reason."

Learner said the federal judge's decision to overturn the federal environmental impact statement directly undermined the state's review under the Wisconsin Environmental Policy Act. He noted WEPA requires state agencies to follow guidance under federal environmental law.

The DNR is working with its legal team to review the groups' request to revoke the permits, according to Ben Callan, the agency's chief of the integration services section.

"We're looking into the requests that are in there to determine how best to respond," said Callan.

Callan noted the agency's decision to issue the permit in 2019 wasn't challenged by groups, which had 30 days to file a petition for judicial review.

A spokesperson for the Public Service Commission said it may be premature for the PSC to take any action regarding the project while an appeal of the federal judge's ruling is still pending. Learner contends the federal judge's decision is now in effect unless a federal appeals court rules otherwise.

The project's owners appealed the judge's ruling on March 21, arguing that federal agencies fully complied with federal environmental law. They contend the project can cross the refuge with "appropriate environmental conditions."

"Although legal proceedings continue, we have the regulatory authorization to move forward with construction activities and project construction will continue in areas outside of the Refuge," said Alissa Braatz in a statement, a spokesperson for the project's co-owners. "Renewable generation developers and distribution utilities are depending on the Cardinal-Hickory Creek project to facilitate our region's transition from fossil fuels."

Utilities began construction last fall on the Wisconsin side of the transmission line, which runs more than 100 miles from Dane County to Dubuque County in Iowa. The project's owners have already spent $161 million on the line's construction in Wisconsin and Iowa.

Conservation groups, Wisconsin's Citizens Utility Board, state Rep. Sondy Pope, D-Mount Horeb, and state Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, say utilities are recklessly spending ratepayer money without a clear path across the refuge. They've pushed for a full review of alternatives that may include other crossings, modernizing existing transmission lines, energy conservation and renewable energy projects that include battery storage.

Utility executives argue there aren't economical alternatives to the transmission line that would tie renewable energy into the power grid, saying battery storage and energy conservation are insufficient. They also warn a delay in the line's in-service date could cost some utilities that are building renewable energy projects tens of millions of dollars.

Utilities contend 114 renewable generation projects rely on the line's construction in order to tie into the regional power grid, adding the project would cut carbon emissions by up to 1.2 million tons each year. The project's owners want to build the line and place it in service by December of next year.
Editor's note: American Transmission Company is an underwriter of Wisconsin Public Radio.

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Conservation groups ask DNR to revoke permits for controversial transmission line

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Conservation groups are asking state environmental regulators to halt construction of the $492 million Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line in southern Wisconsin and revoke the project's wetlands and waterway permits. The Environmental Law and Policy Center sent a March 21 letter to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on behalf of the Driftless Area Land Conservancy, Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and other groups.

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Regulators approve natural gas plant near Wausau

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WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) - State regulators have approved plans for a $171 million natural gas plant near Wausau, despite opposition from ratepayers, environmentalists and renewable energy advocates.

Two of the state's largest utilities, We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service, say the plant is needed to maintain the power supply when renewable energy is unable to meet demand.

Opponents say the plant is not necessary and will raise rates as well as delay a shift away from fossil fuel.

But, the utilities say the 128-megawatt plant is a key part of a $3.5 billion plan to retire 1,600 megawatts of fossil fuel and replace it with wind, solar and battery storage power, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.

WEC Energy Group, which owns the two utilities, has pledged to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.

As part of the transition, they plan to keep a "modest amount" of natural gas in their power mix that includes the new plant.

Commissioner Ellen Nowak argued regulators need to "be the adults" to ensure reliable and affordable power throughout the clean energy transition.

"The record here shows that we have to build these units. They're necessary," Nowak said. "If you like renewables, then ... you need these units. They are a necessary part of the transition."

However, Commissioner Tyler Huebner, the lone dissenting vote, noted utilities currently have more than 3,000 megawatts of natural gas in their power mix.

The commission voted 2-1 Thursday in favor of the plant.

For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, Wisconsin Public Radio.

Get local news delivered to your inbox!

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Regulators approve natural gas plant near Wausau

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WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) - State regulators have approved plans for a $171 million natural gas plant near Wausau, despite opposition from ratepayers, environmentalists and renewable energy advocates. Two of the state's largest utilities, We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service, say the plant is needed to maintain the power supply when renewable energy is unable to meet demand.

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Opinion | The U.S. and China Should Compete on This

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The two biggest countries who contribute to climate change should compete to create less.

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A Nio electric car factory in Hefei, China. Credit... Keith Bradsher/The New York Times

Dr. Seligsohn is an assistant professor in the political science department at Villanova University.

If you are in the market for an electric vehicle today, there's a good chance you'll buy a Tesla.

Fast forward a couple of years, and this may no longer be true. Traditional automakers like General Motors and Toyota - as well as a slew of Chinese companies like BYD, Nio, Xpeng and Li Auto - are making their own electric models available to U.S. consumers.

Indeed, as the rapidly growing market for electric cars surpasses 500 manufacturers, cross-border competition is only getting fiercer. Although Tesla's U.S. market share of all-electric vehicles was 79 percent in 2020, it may drop to 56 percent by the end of the year. Meanwhile, several Chinese companies are expected to announce large expansion plans to build more electric vehicle factories. Tesla took 12 years to produce 100,000 vehicles. Nio and Xpeng reached that milestone in half the time.

But what could become a headache for Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive, is good news for both international climate goals and Sino-American diplomacy. Despite the recent fanfare over climate cooperation coming out of the Glasgow talks last month, it is competition - and not cooperation - between American and Chinese companies that will be the real driver of decreased greenhouse gas emissions around the globe.

At the COP26 conference in November, the United States and China - the two biggest polluters in the world - issued a joint statement in which they pledged to bilaterally confront the climate crisis. The countries listed a number of areas in which they intend to cooperate, including green design, the decarbonization and electrification of swaths of the economy, and the societal benefits of the clean energy transition. When Presidents Biden and Xi met virtually in November on the heels of the Glasgow conference, they confirmed their intent to work together on climate change.

Policy experts were quick to applaud these commitments to greater cooperation, especially when significant ideological differences still hamper the U.S.-China relationship, over human rights, the legal status of Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the protection of intellectual property. Overall, the U.S. and China are hard-pressed to find common ground.

So climate seems to be a rare opportunity to work together toward common goals. However, this emphasis on cooperation is missing the mark.

Critically, the two countries have agreed on certain climate goals, including trying to hold the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius and reducing methane emissions. The bulk of the actual transition, however - including building renewable-power plants, selling electric vehicles and insulating buildings - will be performed by private companies. And companies compete with one another.

Cooperation, then, isn't the linchpin for driving down emissions to net zero. And indeed, cooperation without competition has its limits. The bilateral Clean Energy Research Center under the Obama administration, for instance, produced a lot of good research and great ideas. But without greater involvement by the private sector, much of this progress - including work done on carbon capture and storage - remained in the lab, too short on funding to spur private-sector demonstration projects and competition.

The best analogy to illustrate an efficient network of competing businesses operating under international agreements and ultimately getting to an outcome beneficial to everyone might be the World Trade Organization. There, member countries cooperate in the sense that they set global rules for trade. Companies then compete in a variety of sectors, from electric vehicles to telecommunications, for market share around the world.

To be sure, one of the W.T.O.'s main challenges has been friction between the United States and China regarding the interpretation of the trade rules. Nevertheless, the pledges coming out of Glasgow could serve as a blueprint for a set of standards both countries would feel pressured to follow. The private sector would then compete to sell the best green-energy options at the best price.

There are hints of this competitive progress in the electric-vehicle market. Cross-border competition between manufacturers like Tesla and BYD provides consumers with more choice while driving down prices over time.

And the electric-vehicle market is bigger than just cars. China has led the way in popularizing electric bikes with leading start-ups like Bafang and Xiaomi. In response, a growing number of American and European companies have jumped into this space, triggering a steady stream of improvements such as lightweight, off-road and folding bike designs. The market also includes battery production and charging-station design - two subindustries where companies like G.M. and Tesla are now trying to bring production back to the United States.

U.S. participation in the global E.V. market is encouraging. Unfortunately, it's the exception rather than the rule. Although the United States has led the world in developing renewable technologies, it has been inconsistent in providing the tax and other financial incentives needed to support their steady growth in the market. As a result, China, South Korea and many European countries have caught up in a number of renewable technologies as U.S. progress has slowed.

President Biden's Build Back Better plan is seeking to change this. It envisions creating demand for clean energy through both regulatory requirements and procurement decisions. While aspects of the president's climate provisions await a Senate vote, some key parts of the infrastructure bill signed in November - including financial support for more electric-vehicle charging stations, power grid upgrades and rail improvements - are now law. This puts American businesses committed to green technology in a better position to be able to compete with their Chinese rivals. Consistent, long-term support for projects based in the United States is the key to building up U.S. industrial capacity in other renewable-energy markets such as wind and solar.

Competition does not mean teetering at the edge of conflict. The key in this process will be for the United States to respect its rivals, including China. It's also important to give credit where credit is due. China has greatly reduced both its air pollution and coal use as a percentage of its total energy supply in the past decade. Its reforestation efforts are even more impressive: Forest cover in China has grown to over 23 percent today from just 8.6 percent in 1949.

Of course, there is so much more to do. But things are looking up, and responsible competition is our best hope for global climate progress.

Deborah Seligsohn is an assistant professor in the political science department at Villanova University, a senior associate in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Woodrow Wilson Center China fellow.
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | The U.S. and China Should Compete on This

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Dr. Seligsohn is an assistant professor in the political science department at Villanova University. If you are in the market for an electric vehicle today, there's a good chance you'll buy a Tesla. Fast forward a couple of years, and this may no longer be true.

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2022 begins with little progress on PFAS contamination

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2022 begins with little progress on PFAS contamination

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The Wisconsin DNR reported 92 PFAS contamination sites around the state. While work is underway to regulate two of the estimated 9,000 chemicals, communities, including the Town of Peshtigo grappling with contamination, do not yet have safe, sustainable drinking water sources.

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UN: 18 nations have gone green on climate, raked in green

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Proponents of clean energy and thinks tanks have long said it's possible to reduce emissions and keep an economy growing. Now the latest report from the world's top climate scientists says 18 countries have done just that, sustaining emissions reductions "for at least a decade" as their economies continued to grow.

The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) did not name the countries, citing inconsistency in the data.

But using figures from Global Carbon Project, which are not part of the report, The Associated Press found 19 nations where the pre-pandemic annual carbon dioxide emissions were at least 10 million metric tons less in 2019 than in 2010. They are the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Ukraine, France, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Mexico, Finland, Singapore, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Poland, Romania and Sweden.

The IPCC identified three common factors for countries that have been able to decarbonize: They used less energy, transitioned away from fossil fuels to renewable energy and increased the energy efficiency of their products.

Such countries "can export a model that shows we can reduce emissions and still have high levels of well-being," said Greg Nemet, a professor of energy and public policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs. "We can export policies that have played a role in achieving that."

While the list of countries points a way forward, it also raises questions of equity. The United States, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom are among the largest contributors to historical carbon emissions. Their residents already have electricity and to a large degree, vehicles.

Nemet, who is also a lead author of the IPCC report, added that developed countries that have been historical contributors to climate change and have been able to decarbonize need to take a "leadership" role in helping developing countries do the same.

Historic emissions and discussions of responsibility are always discussed during U.N. climate conferences. But getting industrialized countries to agree on whether compensation for damages is warranted or how much they should pay to help poorer countries invest in green technologies, has all proved elusive.

The least developed countries in the world are estimated to have emitted just 3.3% of global greenhouse gases in 2019, Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, pointed out in a statement to the AP. Some experts note that developing countries often are forced to borrow money at higher rates of interest than developed nations, which can make large capital projects prohibitive.

"The 18 countries that have balanced emissions reduction and economic growth are indeed examples that give us hope for the future but... all developed nations have a historic responsibility to ensure that they lean in - whether on the Paris Accord targets of delivering $100 billion a year in climate finance, on ensuring poorer countries have access to technology and knowledge to make these shifts," or by leading, making these transitions first, she said.

Michael Grubb, a lead writer on the IPCC report and professor of energy and climate change at the University College of London, said in the report that scientists ran economic and emissions scenarios to see what would happen globally at different levels of carbon pollution reduction. In nearly every scenario -- including the "most aggressive" ones to cut carbon emissions -- the global gross domestic product still nearly doubled by mid-century. Even in the scenario with the deepest emission cuts, GDP jumped 96%, Grubb said.

"The point is in practice, what we do in climate mitigation in macroeconomic terms is really going to be lost in the noise of the overall effectiveness of our economic policies," he said.

Grubb said the IPCC report declined to name the 18 countries because the data for some counted only carbon dioxide while for others included all greenhouse gases. Baseline years also differed. Depending on the parameters, there are more nations that reduced emissions while growing their economies, he said.

Patricia Romero-Lankao, a senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and lead author of the portion of the IPCC report on national and subnational policies, said she's optimistic. But she stressed how much more must be done to aid disadvantaged communities and regions in decarbonizing and repairing the impacts of climate change.

"This is not a technical problem," she said. "We need to understand what they need, what challenges they face and how we can adapt our toolset to help us respond to that."

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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UN: 18 nations have gone green on climate, raked in green

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Proponents of clean energy and thinks tanks have long said it's possible to reduce emissions and keep an economy growing. Now the latest report from the world's top climate scientists says 18 countries have done just that, sustaining emissions reductions "for at least a decade" as their economies continued to grow.

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Plastic is difficult to escape. Many products are wrapped, sealed and mailed in some sort of plastic material.

And it can be difficult to know what to do with plastic bags, especially since curbside programs in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin don't accept plastic bags. However, they can be put in collection bins at some grocery stores and other businesses.

But turns out, lots of people are confused about what sorts of plastic bags can be dropped off in those collection bins. As long as they're clean and dry, the items listed below can be dropped off:

Grocery bags

Bread bags

Case overwrap

Dry cleaning bags

Newspaper sleeves

Ice bags

Wood pellet bags

Ziploc and other resealable bags

(Those are all considered plastic film: soft, flexible polyethylene packaging.)
But there's still a pressing question: Are the plastic bags we're dropping off really recycled?
Beats Me: What Questions Do You Have About Getting Rid Of Stuff You Don't Want?
To find out, we headed 30 miles west of Milwaukee to a Roundy's Supermarket distribution center. It coordinates pick ups and deliveries to 150 grocery stores, including Pick 'n Save and Mariano's in Wisconsin and Illinois. So, whatever plastic bags you drop off in the collection bins at the Roundy's stores it serves, end up at the center.

Senior Supply Chain Manager Richard Bridwell is in charge of everything that happens under the facility's enormous roof. He says plastic film recycling is just one part of the corporation's green initiatives.

And Roundy's recycles more plastic than what customers drop off. Back at the distribution center, the long rows of shelving are stacked with plastic-encased dry goods. Eventually, that plastic wrap is removed and recycled, Bridwell says.

"It's the forklift guy's job to cut the plastic off, he places it in the bag here. The sanitation guy picks them up and takes them down to the baler," Bridwell says.

Bridwell estimates 60% of the plastic film his center processes is generated within the walls of the Roundy's distribution center. The next biggest chunk accumulates within the corporation's 150 grocery stores. After that, it's the plastic customers drop off.

Four truckloads of baled plastic leave Bridwell's dock every week. Last year, the distribution center passed along nearly 1,176 tons of plastic film to Trex in Winchester, Va.

Trex partners with businesses around the country to create products, primarily outdoor decking and railing. Some of its Wisconsin partners include Copps Food Center, Festival Foods, Hyvee, Meijer, Piggly Wiggly and Target.

The products Trex makes are composed roughly of 50% plastic and 50% scraps from wood milling operations, says Trex Senior Director of Material Management Dave Heglas. Heglas compares the process to a big Play-Doh machine.

"You mix the two together, heat it up, continue to mix it and then squirt out decking and railing products," Heglas says.

Trex has a second manufacturing plant in Nevada. It partners with more than 30,000 retailers around the country. That sounds like a lot, but Heglas says Trex is just scratching the surface of the amount of single-use plastic film generated around the country.

"For plastic in general, there's estimates from two to three years ago that only about 9% was being recycled. Now, with the current market conditions, that number will probably will be significantly lower," Heglas says. "My guess would be somewhere in the 3-4% range."
READ: Wisconsin's Largest Landfill Wants To Expand
He says while Trex has grown, and therefore its capacity to recycle more plastic film has grown with it, there's still a lot of plastic that's not being recycled.

"We're in the hundreds of millions and the plastic that is available is in billions. So yes, we're growing, but we're a small player if you consider all of the plastic that's being generated and not being recycled," he explains.

Heglas says he's exploring new products so his company can collect and use more plastic film.
Other plastic resources
A number of organizations have funneled energy into encouraging and clarifying plastic film recycling. Some encourage consumers to move away from picking up or purchasing the material altogether.
Recycle, reuse, throw away: What questions do you have about getting rid of the stuff you don't want? Submit below.
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Plastic is difficult to escape. Many products are wrapped, sealed and mailed in some sort of plastic material. And it can be difficult to know what to do with plastic bags, especially since curbside programs in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin don't accept plastic bags.

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Highly contagious bird flu found in 'backyard flock' in Rock County, authorities say

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It’s crazy

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Another case of the highly contagious bird flu that has been spreading in wild birds across Wisconsin has been found in a domesticated flock, the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said.

This strain of "highly pathogenic avian influenza," called EA H5N1, is deadly to captive and domesticated birds - such as those found in farms, zoos and in people's homes - but is not as dangerous to the wild birds that are spreading it.

The newest case, found in a "backyard flock" in Rock County, resulted in the euthanizing of all the birds on the property to prevent the spread of the disease, DATCP said.

It was the second confirmed case in a domestic flock. The first was found at a chicken farm in Jefferson County March 14, and resulted in the euthanizing of nearly 3 million chickens.

The continued spread of the virus in Wisconsin could threaten birds in zoos, pet birds and the egg and poultry industry. Dane County's Vilas Zoo closed its bird exhibits March 22 because of the outbreak.

On Thursday, the Department of Natural Resources said the strain has been found in several wild bird species across southern Wisconsin.

The virus does not pose a public health concern because the virus is not spreading to humans. Cooking poultry and eggs to an internal temperature of 165 degrees kills the virus, DATCP said.

What to watch for

DATCP is encouraging residents to report signs of bird flu by calling (608) 224-4872 during business hours or (800) 943-0003 after hours and weekends. Signs of infected birds include:

Sudden death without clinical signs.

Lack of energy or appetite.

Decrease in egg production; soft, misshapen eggs.

Purple discoloration of wattles, comb, and legs.

Difficulty breathing.

Runny nose, coughing, sneezing.

Stumbling or falling down.

Diarrhea.

Tremors.

Circling movement.

Holding head in strange positions.

Photos: The Maple Syrup Festival returns to the MacKenzie Center

Dane County's Vilas Zoo closed its bird exhibits March 22 because of the outbreak.

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department of agriculture trade and consumer protection

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Highly contagious bird flu found in 'backyard flock' in Rock County, authorities say

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Another case of the highly contagious bird flu that has been spreading in wild birds across Wisconsin has been found in a domesticated flock, the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said.

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Opinion | Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot More Elon Musks.

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We need more musks who can make new inventions to help reduce climate change

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Opinion | Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot More Elon Musks. (Published 2021)

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To slow climate change, Father Profit and New Tech must innovate, fast.

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Opinion | Can We Turn a Desert Into a Forest?

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New way to help Africas environment to have more trees

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New way to help Africas environment to have more trees

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Adding more trees and creating a better environment could possibly lead to new jobs

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Credit...

Raul Roman, Lauren Kelly, Rafe H. Andrews and

In the last decade, millions of Africans in the Sahel, a region of semiarid land that stretches for thousands of miles below the Sahara, have been displaced by violence and food and economic insecurity. Climate change is partly to blame - droughts and floods are growing longer and more frequent. But surging population growth, deforestation and overgrazing have also contributed to denuding much of the land.

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Many Africans in countries in the Sahel, like Niger, live in rural areas with limited access to education. Credit... Photographs and video by Nick Parisse/Dawning

In the mid-2000s, African leaders envisioned creating a huge swath of green that could help combat desertification and land degradation. The project, called the Great Green Wall, began in 2007 with the aim of planting a nine-mile-wide belt of trees and shrubs that would extend from the coast of Senegal on the Atlantic to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. These newly forested areas could create seasonal jobs, help farmers feed their families and offer a way to fight climate change by capturing carbon dioxide in plants.

The World Bank and the Global Environment Facility, in partnership with 12 African nations, have poured over $1 billion into this endeavor, and the initiative's scope has grown to include efforts to fight poverty, reduce inequality and build climate-resilient infrastructure. In ecological terms, the program has been a huge success. As of 2020, nearly 400,000 hectares (990,000 acres) of land has been restored to arability in Niger alone, according to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.

After years of planting trees and experimenting with methods to capture water, farmers in Niger have begun to see results - soil health has improved, and crops are growing again. In 2019, we visited the country to see how the program's ambition translated in a country where most people depend on the land for their livelihood.

"Nine years ago, the land was a disaster," said Nomao Alkali, a farmer in Fada, a village about 130 miles southeast of Niamey, the capital of Niger. "If you put seeds in the ground, you would have almost nothing, the soil was so poor."

Mr. Alkali hoped the program could help transform his father's acres of red rock desert to fertile land. Indeed, in addition to acacia trees, the property now supports millet, peanuts, beans and sesame crops. But it's worth noting that too often land restoration efforts mainly benefit men like Mr. Alkali, who have access to large tracts and can take a gamble on a program that may seem mystifying or threatening to others.

In a society where land often lies in the hands of elders, young men must wait their turn to profit from tree-planting efforts. Given population growth, there may not be much left to go around. When faced with this reality, many young men, like Bahari Salisu in Nigeria, decide to leave.

At 17, Mr. Salisu left his 15 brothers and sisters and his village, in Gamji, to sell newspapers on the streets of the northern city of Damaturu. When he returns to help on the family farm, it's only temporary. "I came back home to help plant as the rainy season starts. If I finish the work here on my family's farm, I will go back. We are jobless," he told us.

With few opportunities in farming available, many young men leave their rural villages in search of work and end up in informal settlements like this one in Niamey.

Tassala Naïno at her home in Fada. She is among the few women in her village who own land.

Cash for work programs used for planting trees puts money directly into the pockets of poor farmers during lean seasons, giving them a safety net. But cultural norms can often exclude groups from these programs. Women need formal permission from their husbands to participate. Some women are not allowed to work alongside men in the fields. Others are forced to fend for themselves because their husbands and children left to find work elsewhere.

Salle Ibrahim's family has grazed animals in Gamji since long before he was born. Now he has to keep a close eye on his goats and sheep to make sure they didn't eat the ever-encroaching millet crops. His way of life is "nearly finished because farmers have taken almost all of the land that was once reserved for grazing," Mr. Ibrahim said.

Salle Ibrahim herds his animals along the pastoral corridor. More and more of the land once used for grazing has been transformed into farmland, and keeping grazers away from the crops is a challenge. Credit... Rafe H. Andrews/Dawning

The news from the recent climate change summit in Glasgow was encouraging. Pledges were made to continue funding the expansion of the Great Green Wall. Still, figuring out how to balance the needs of different people is key if the program is to succeed.

The initiative must also propose alternative income-generating options to ensure equity. It could expand programs that train women to nurture the saplings that are the building blocks of the wall, and create agribusiness opportunities that allow young people to make a living in their hometowns. Pastoral grazing corridors should also be reinforced and respected to ensure that nomadic herders as well as farmers can benefit from the Great Green Wall.

Video

Credit Credit... TBD

Mr. Alkali near his farm in the Great Green Wall.
Across the Great Green Wall there are communities that are already working together to eke out a living. Having hundreds of thousands of hectares of restored land, with trees, water and a thriving landscape, affords the chance to develop a more diverse and productive set of economic opportunities tailored to the different groups of people who live amid the wall. But regreening the Sahel will mean little if the gains will be reaped only by a lucky few.

Raul Roman is the founder and executive director of Dawning, a multimedia investigative reporting organization. Lauren Kelly is a lead evaluation officer at the World Bank. Rafe H. Andrews is the assistant director and chief curator at Dawning, where Nick Parisse is the director of photography.
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | Can We Turn a Desert Into a Forest?

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Credit... Raul Roman, Lauren Kelly, Rafe H. Andrews and In the last decade, millions of Africans in the Sahel, a region of semiarid land that stretches for thousands of miles below the Sahara, have been displaced by violence and food and economic insecurity.

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Straw bans? Composting buckets? Wisconsin campuses adopt dramatic 'green' changes

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This was interesting because it shows how Wisconsin is handling environmental issues across their universities. This was fire

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Before heading to class, Jenessa Gilarski tucks silverware, a nonbreakable plate that belonged to her grandmother, a silicone straw, a water bottle and a stainless steel travel mug in her backpack.

The daily ritual is to avoid plastic.

Fueled by concerns over the environment - underscored by a new United Nations report on the imminent effects of climate change - dramatic changes are taking place on college campuses, whether in the construction of buildings or the habits of students like Gilarski.

"Especially in America, we live with a 'throw-away' mindset and once we can't see something, we think it is no longer our problem, which is an unethical way to think," said the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point senior.

Across Wisconsin, universities are banning plastic straws, nonrecyclable takeout containers and plastic bags in campus dining halls. They are composting food scraps and collecting uneaten food for food pantries. And they are supporting local food growers or tending campus gardens to reduce the distance food travels.

The latest move by student associations is putting student fees toward solar energy shares from community "solar gardens." Wind power has arrived on campuses, too.

The developments are changing campus life and go way beyond green roofs and bicycle rental stations.

Last spring, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse elected a student association president and vice president who campaigned on banning plastic straws. After the election, a student referendum approved various student-funding initiatives for environmental sustainability and overwhelmingly sealed the straw ban.

At tiny Northland College in Ashland, on the shores of Lake Superior, most if not all students have a compost bucket in their dorm room or apartment. Once or twice a week, community residents, in addition to students,come to campus with buckets of food waste to dump in the enormous campuscomposter, which turns it into nutrient-rich fertilizer.

The liberal arts school with about 580 students is staking its future on environmental science. Northland in 1971 became one of the first colleges in the nation to offer an environmental studies degree. And its board of trustees just made sustainability its niche mission to attract more students in an increasingly competitive market.

"We're an environmental college living our sustainable mission every day," the new mission statement says. "What sets us apart from other colleges and universities is our commitment to deliver a liberal arts education with critical 'green skills' that employers and graduate schools are looking for."

Sierra magazine this fall included Northland on its "Coolest Schools" list for commitment to the environment and sustainability initiatives, ranking it 55th overall, 14th among undergraduate colleges and first in Wisconsin.

"I think when students come to Northland, they realize it's easy to live more sustainably when you live in a culture and environment that supports it and makes it a norm," said Northland Student Association President Jenise Swartley, a senior from suburban Philadelphia. "These decisions quickly become part of your daily consciousness."

And yes, she has a compost bucket under the kitchen sink in her off-campus apartment.

Hopes and worries

Since 2008, when the Princeton Review first started asking college applicants and their parents about environmental concerns on its annual "College Hopes and Worries" survey, roughly two-thirds consistently have responded that information about a college's commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school.

Northland also made Princeton Review's "Green Colleges" list this year, as did Lawrence University in Appleton, Edgewood College in Madison, Western Technical College in La Crosse and University of Wisconsin campuses in Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Menomonie (UW-Stout) and Whitewater.

Environmental worries were further fueled by a report earlier this month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders. The report projected worsening food shortages and wildfires, negative impact on economic growth and health, and a mass die-off of coral reefs in this fast-warming world as soon as 2040.

"I am very concerned about climate change and the rapid rate at which it is occurring due to human activity," said Gilarski, the UW-Stevens Point senior. "It's something I think about almost every day and the more I learn about the consequences of climate change, the more concerned I am. I have no doubt that in my lifetime I will be seeing, firsthand, some of these consequences."

Green funds and Eco U

Many college campuses now have Green Funds created by student government associations to direct student fees toward environmental-sustainability projects.

UW-La Crosse bought a vermicomposter through its Green Fund.

Tens of thousands of worms in the vermicomposter break down food scraps into nutrient-rich fertilizer. For now, scraps are collected from the Whitney Center - the main dining hall - but the campus has set a goal of collecting from other dining areas on campus, as well.

Last year, 3,439 pounds of food waste from the Whitney Center was transformed into fertilizer by the vermicomposter's army of worms. Western Technical College, the People's Food Co-op and Mayo Clinic Health Systems-Franciscan Healthcare also use the vermicomposter, which Mayo Clinic now owns.

UW-Stevens Point's Green Fund purchased reusable "Green on the Go" containers this fall and gave them to all students in residence halls.

Lawrence University employs sustainability peer-educators in its residence halls who provide programming for students, help with energy and water reduction goals, and make sure waste is sorted properly.

Among UW-Oshkosh's Green Fund projects are two bicycle fix-it stations, an OZZI machine for the reusable container program at Reeve Union and recycling containers at the Oshkosh Sports Complex.

UW-Green Bay went so far as to trademark itself as Eco U. The campus has diverted nearly a million plastic water bottles from landfills by replacing water fountains with hydration stations that encourage reusable water bottles.

Students at UW-Green Bay also have collected 5,452 pounds of plastic film. Through this initiative, they diverted over 2.5 tons of plastic from the landfill, the equivalent of 494,605 plastic grocery bags. Those bags are now being used in backyards as TREX composite decking.

Capturing sun, wind, rain

Instead of burning fossil fuels onsite to heat its buildings, Marquette University uses "waste" heat from the nearby Valley Power Plant - a steam byproduct of electricity.

Marquette's Engineering Hall and under-construction Athletic and Human Performance Research Center have underground stormwater collection systems. The student commons not only has a green roof, it has a green wall, growing hops.

UW-Eau Claire, UW-Stout, UW-LaCrosse and Northland College all recently started using solar energy.

At UW-Stout, the student association funded the campus's first solar panel project on a student-funded building, the Merle Price Commons. They have set aside additional money for more panels in the next year or two.

Built in 2012, UW-Eau Claire's student union is 100 percent powered by renewable energy from wind farms in Minnesota and four solar panels on the roof, which reduce water heating costs.

A green roof on the union terrace retains rainfall, absorbing much of the rain and allowing the rest to drain more slowly through the drainage system into Little Niagara Creek. The drainage system protects creek banks from erosion.

A lengthy section about the student union on UW-Eau Claire's website touts the building as a model of sustainable design.

Northland College's student association recently tapped a student-administered grant program to purchase 100 200-watt solar shares (20 kW) for $32,000. Solar energy will power a greenhouse and the Larson-Juhl Center for Science and the Environment once a solar garden is built by Xcel Energy.

Solar shares purchased by the student association are expected to save the college $53,000 to $67,000 in electricity bills over the next 25 years.

Straw votes

If there's any issue that seems to galvanize students, however, it's straws.

This fall, 86 percent of students voting in a UW-La Crosse referendum supported a campuswide ban of plastic straws through a campaign that noted Americans use 500 million straws every day and many end up in drainage systems that directly flow into waterways such as the Mississippi River.

UW campuses in La Crosse, River Falls, Stevens Point, Stout (Menomonie) and Eau Claire have all taken up the plastic straw issue, though straws may still be available when requested.

Straws at UW-River Falls are made from biodegradable corn-based plastic. UW-Madison's straws are compostable, too, and the university is exploring paper straws.

UW-Milwaukee still uses plastic straws, but the student association is promoting a ban on plastic bags.

Lawrence University was way ahead of the anti-straw movement. It hasn't used plastic straws in food service for nearly a decade and now uses recyclable paper straws.

Reusable to-go containers and strategies for curbing food waste are a big thing on campuses, too.

The state's flagship campus just started using reuseable to-go containers. At the Gordon Dining & Event Center - the largest dining facility on campus - between 400 and 500 containers are processed a day.

Northland College, which shifted from plastic straws to paper straws last year, went trayless in 2009 to discourage students from piling on food they won't eat. Reusable to-go containers came on board there in 2012.

The student referendum at UW-La Crosse on a straw ban also asked which investments in renewable energy and environmentally sustainable projects should get Green Fund support through student fees.

Students voted in favor of solar water heaters, wind power, and composting systems for food waste, among other things. They agreed to purchase renewable energy or energy efficiency systems by contributing no more than $7 per semester to the Green Fund.

College students should set a good example for those who are younger, said Ben O'Connell, the student who was elected president of the UW-La Crosse Student Association after campaigning with his running mate to ban straws.

"It's going to be even more important that the next generation works toward more environmentally sustainable practices," O'Connell said.

Going straw-free isn't an option for UW-Whitewater because part of its mission is to serve students with disabilities, who may need straws.

The campus instead focuses on projects like a campus garden, which has grown more than 2,000 pounds of produce this year alone and collected another 2,900 pounds from vendors at the local farmer's market to donate to the Whitewater Community Food Bank.

Taking it home

What young people learn in college, they take with them into the world.

After graduating from UW-Whitewater last spring, Blake Fontana returned to his hometown of Freeport, Illinois, to do digital marketing and sales for his family's business, Frank Jewelers.

Fontana had volunteered at the campus garden and nature preserve as a student. Now he tends his own vegetable garden at his parents' house.

And most weeks during the growing season, Fontana and his girlfriend buy locally grown fruits and vegetables from the town farmer's market.

"I like fresh food, and I like to support local businesses," he said.

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Straw bans? Composting buckets? Wisconsin campuses adopt dramatic 'green' changes

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Before heading to class, Jenessa Gilarski tucks silverware, a nonbreakable plate that belonged to her grandmother, a silicone straw, a water bottle and a stainless steel travel mug in her backpack. The daily ritual is to avoid plastic.

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Get free beer for volunteering at river cleanup, plus more Earth Day events in the Milwaukee area

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You could join an outdoor cleanup during Earth Month (April) because you care about the environment.

Or if you need a little more motivation, you could do it for free beer (or soda).

Milwaukee-area breweries are teaming up for a special cleanup on the trails along the Milwaukee River corridor on April 2 and are offering volunteers a free pint at each of the breweries for volunteering.

The participating breweries are Amorphic Beer, 3700 N. Fratney St.; Black Husky Brewing, 909 E. Locust St.; Company Brewing, 735 E. Center St.; Gathering Place Brewing Co., 811 E. Vienna Ave.; Lakefront Brewery, 1872 N. Commerce St.; and Sprecher Brewery, 701 E. Glendale Ave., Glendale.

Volunteers can head to any of the breweries at noon on April 2 where they'll get trash bags and gloves (thanks to Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful), directions and maps of the clean-up route along the river, and a voucher for a free pint at each of the participating breweries.

All of the breweries have a history of giving back.

Lakefront - which regularly hosts cleanups along its stretch of the Milwaukee River between E. Pleasant St. and N. Humboldt Ave. - was the first Wisconsin brewery to achieve Certified B Corporation status, which recognizes businesses that "demonstrate high social and environmental performance," among other criteria. The brewery also has a Green Professional designation from the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council's Green Masters Program, which ranks companies' sustainability efforts across nine categories.

Since 2015, Sprecher has partnered with Milwaukee County Parks to bring a Traveling Beer Garden to parks across the county. The partnership has raised $224,000 for park improvement projects. In 2020, the brewery created ParkLife, a limited release honey lager that raised money for Love Your Parks, an initiative by the Milwaukee Parks Foundation to encourage people to volunteer, donate and "give their parks some love."

This winter, Black Husky auctioned off sculptures created from the city Christmas tree to raise money for the Milwaukee Urban Forestry Fund. Both Gathering Place and Company donate a portion of certain sales to local nonprofits. Amorphic - which opened in Riverwest in December - offers a free pint to anyone who brings in 10 four-pack can holders in an effort to reuse the PakTechs.

For more on the cleanup, see the Facebook event at bit.ly/brewerycleanup.

The brewery-run cleanup isn't your only chance to give back this Earth Month, which is anchored by Earth Day on April 22. The annual day dedicated to the environment is now celebrated across the world but has strong ties to Wisconsin. In 1969, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson had the idea of hosting an environmental teach-in at college campuses across the country. In 1970, 20 million Americans - 10% of the nation's population at the time - participated in the first Earth Day at demonstrations and protests for a cleaner environment across the country.
RELATED: Born in Wisconsin 50 years ago, Earth Day launched a transformative era. Could coronavirus renew appreciation of science, the environment?
More than 50 years later, Earth Day continues to be a time to draw attention to environmental issues and give back through cleanup events. Here are a handful of events around Milwaukee this year.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper Spring Cleanup

The 27th annual cleanup will take place April 23 at more than 80 sites across the Milwaukee River basin. Riverkeeper will provide trash bags, gloves and T-shirts for volunteers. The group is also hosting a photo contest for volunteers to share a photo of unique, unusual or inspirational things they find during the cleanup; winners get a Patagonia bag filled with goodies. After cleaning up, volunteers can head to Rock the Green, a free concert featuring Bendigo Fletcher with V Funk from 12 to 3 p.m. at the Harley-Davidson Museum. Find more information at milwaukeeriverkeeper.org.

Urban Ecology Center

The Urban Ecology Center's three locations will host a variety of events the week after Earth Day, including a Green Resource Fair with Nearby Nature and the Sierra Club following the Riverkeeper cleanup at Washington Park from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 23, a Pull-a-thon to remove invasive garlic mustard at Riverside Park from 9 to 11 a.m. daily April 25-30, and a neighborhood cleanup from 4 to 6 p.m. April 26 at the Menomonee Valley site. For more, see urbanecologycenter.org.

Waukesha County Parks

Waukesha County Parks is looking for volunteers to help remove garlic mustard during Mission: Possible from 9 a.m. to noon April 23 at Menomonee, Minooka, Mukwonago and Muskego parks, and Retzer Nature Center. Families are encouraged to volunteer at Retzer, where there will family-friendly activities including a community art project, native wildflower seeds to plant at home and planetarium shows. The rest of the sites are recommended for volunteers age 13 and older, who should bring their own work gloves. Park admission is free for volunteers; registration is requested by April 20.

Other Earth Week events in the parks include a Habitat Restoration Workday & Wildflower Hike from 9 to 11 a.m. April 19 at Muskego Park (recommended for ages 8 and up, register by April 15), a Candlelight Hike from 7 to 9 p.m April 22 at Retzer, and an Arbor Day Volunteer Tree Planting from 9 a.m. to noon April 29 at Minooka Park (recommended for ages 10 and up, register by April 27).

For more on Earth Week events in Waukesha parks, including registration links, see waukeshacounty.gov/earthweek.

Kettle Moraine State Forest

Help clean up the Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive and other spots in the forest's northern unit during the Earth Week Litter Pick Up from 8:30 a.m. to noon April 23. Bring your own gloves and meet at the forest's headquarters, N1765 County Road G, Campbellsport, where garbage bags and assignments will be provided. After cleaning up, volunteers are welcome to return to the headquarters for snacks and refreshments.

Groups are encouraged to participate and can register by calling (920) 533-8322. For more information, see dnr.wisconsin.gov/events/52606.

More Earth Day events in southeast Wisconsin

Storm Drain Stenciling, Grafton: Clean and stencil storm drains with the Community Rivers Program to raise awareness about stormwater discharge and the health of the Milwaukee River from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. April 19. Meet at Paramount Plaza. See the Facebook event for more information.

Adopt-a-Trail Pickup, Pewaukee: Join the Waukesha County Green Team to clean up the Lake Country Trail near the Ingleside Hotel from 10 to 11 a.m. April 23. Gloves and bags will be provided. Meet at the trailhead at 2240 Golf Road, Pewaukee. See waukeshacountygreenteam.org for registration information.

Bugline Trail, Sussex: The Sussex Green Team will lead a cleanup along the Bugline Trail from 1 to 3 p.m. April 24. Bring work gloves and bags and meet outside Loca Latte, N63W23217 Main St., Sussex. See the group's Facebook page for more information.
Contact Chelsey Lewis at clewis@journalsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter at @chelseylew and @TravelMJS and Facebook at Journal Sentinel Travel.
Free Trees for Earth Day, Lisbon: Lisbon's parks department will give away free tree saplings at Lisbon Community Park on a Saturday close to Earth Day in April. Tree varieties include red oak, bur oak and swamp white oak. See the Facebook event in April for details on a specific day and time.

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Get free beer for volunteering at river cleanup, plus more Earth Day events in the Milwaukee area

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You could join an outdoor cleanup during Earth Month (April) because you care about the environment. Or if you need a little more motivation, you could do it for free beer (or soda). Milwaukee-area breweries are teaming up for a special cleanup on the trails along the Milwaukee River corridor on April 2 and are offering volunteers a free pint at each of the breweries for volunteering.

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Asian Carp Still Pose Threat To Great Lakes Basin

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People have been talking for years about Asian carp and how the invasive fish might impact the Great Lakes.

In 2002, Asian carp were detected 60 miles from Lake Michigan, in the upper Illinois River. Seven years later, using a new monitoring method called eDNA testing, evidence of the invasive showed up even closer to the Great Lakes basin. That made people worried about its $7 billion fishery and already altered ecosystem even more nervous.

But finding Asian carp DNA in the environment - be it through skin cells or feces - does not mean the dreaded invader is about to slip into Lake Michigan. Amy McGovern, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wants to make that point abundantly clear.

"It's tricky with eDNA because ... there's genetic material everywhere. We've done studies that have shown that eDNA can persist in the gut of a bird for eight days and be able to be picked up through excrement," McGovern tells a group of journalists, just steps from the Chicago River on its watery path to Lake Michigan.

But during a recent routine monitoring in the Chicago River, crews found a record number of Asian carp hits - 73 to be exact. So, they launched two weeks of intensive fishing. While she and her federal and state colleagues don't anticipate finding a live carp, McGovern says they can't be too careful.

"We've got three crews - one from Illinois DNR, one from Fish and Wildlife Service, one from the Corps - electrofishing crews and then two commercial crews with nets. So they're going to work together to sample that area," she says.

As of the time this story was filed, crews have netted no Asian carp from the Chicago River.

Near Romeoville, Ill., the Army Corps of Engineers manages what has been the primary line of defense to keep Asian carp from pushing into Lake Michigan: a series of electric barriers. They send pulses of power across a section of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The first electric barriers went online in 2002.

Charles Shea, Corps project manager, says his team has no reason to believe any carp are challenging the series of barriers.

"We've never captured or sited a carp in the immediate vicinity of these barriers," he explains.

Yet construction of a fourth, even more powerful electric barrier is underway. Shea says Congress authorized the addition in 2007, and says the new barrier will ensure the Corps never loses power in the water. He says one reason some of the advocates wanted the new barrier is for more redundancy.

"Plus, it's gonna have higher power. The new barrier is gonna have two 4.3 megawatt power sources. That gives us the flexibility to potentially getting the smaller sizes of fish," Shea explains.

He anticipates fine tuning the new barrier sometime in 2021.

Meanwhile 10 miles south of Romeoville, fellow Corps member Andy Leichty is overseeing the creation of a multipronged system below the Brandon Road Lock and Dam.

It's still in the "on paper only" phase. But Leichty says it's meant to deter Asian carp and other aquatic invasives by subjecting them to a barrage of electricity, flushing, bubbles, and noise.

"The blue represents the acoustic barrier, the red is the electric barrier and then there's a air bubble curtain at the end of the engineered channel," Leichty says. "That's the current proposed plan, this is in the report that's publicly available."

Leichty estimates it will take eight years to construct and cost approximately $830 million.

Some, including Joel Brammeier who's with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, fear time for effective action is running out, pointing to the recent flurry of eDNA hits in the Chicago River.

"It's another flashing red alarm in a series of alarms that we've had over the last decade telling us that what we're doing isn't enough. That finding, or the next live fish that we catch is not the reason to build Brandon Road. We've already got [the reasons] and it's just another signal that we need to keep moving," Brammeier says.

Thursday the Alliance and 39 other environmental and conservation groups delivered a petition to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. His signature would signal the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' move into the Preconstruction, Engineering and Design phase of the Brandon Road project.

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Asian Carp Still Pose Threat To Great Lakes Basin

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People have been talking for years about Asian carp and how the invasive fish might impact the Great Lakes. In 2002, Asian carp were detected 60 miles from Lake Michigan, in the upper Illinois River. Seven years later, using a new monitoring method called eDNA testing, evidence of the invasive showed up even closer to the Great Lakes basin.

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Opinion | We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So.

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War in Ukraine is leading to climate change

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War in Ukraine is leading to climate change

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Opinion | We’re in a Fossil Fuel War. Biden Should Say So.

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To win it, we need to shift to clean energy now.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTsvroEnC9wKVltJC8-_DY7oZD_V6TtKKsRr2_4wG9tTYO2v1DCxrm_BNSyCjoACK04BqZ9Pq7oYWvL/pub

Corporation SunVest pairs with Waukesha County Green team to help educate the community about solar power and installing solar panels on residents houses for a discount.

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This article says that the people of La Crosse voted by 86% to guarantee a right to clean water.  Noah and Alonso - project on PFAS - talked about here. Remind me of "Flow" movie.

https://madison.com/news/state-and-regional/wisconsin-should-establish-a-right-to-clean-water-la-crosse-county-voters-say/article_e54f786c-70db-5e51-ab58-8bbadd389eb9.html

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La Crosse County voters made their voices heard on the only county-wide referendum, an advisory question on if the state should establish a right to clean water.

86 percent of voters said yes to this question:

"Shall the State of Wisconsin establish a right to clean water to protect human health, the environment, and the diverse cultural and natural heritage of Wisconsin?"

The county's unofficial vote count showed 16,304, or 86 percent, in favor of the advisory referendum and 2,576, or 14 percent, against. All precincts were reporting.

The responses from the referendum plan to be sent to various groups around the state and to the office of Gov. Tony Evers. The question stemmed from a statewide campaign known as "Clean Water Now."

"Voting YES to the question is a way for voters to show they care about protecting clean drinking water from threats like nitrate, lead, and PFAS contamination," said River Alliance of Wisconsin Water Advocates Organizer Johnson Bridgwater, as quoted by wispolitics.com.

"Wisconsin just isn't Wisconsin without the clean water resources that are essential to healthy families and our healthy economy."

Late last month about 100 French Island residents gathered for a listening session with community and state leaders over the ongoing PFAS crisis.

So far, more than 500 wells on French Island have been shown to be contaminated with above-recommended levels of PFAS, a toxic group of "forever chemicals" that are believed to have stemmed from the La Crosse Regional Airport.

This initiative has passed elsewhere. In the spring 2021 elections, voters in Marquette County (73%), Portage County (77%) and Wood County (76%) approved referendums. The Monroe County Board has approved a resolution on the right to clean water.

In Photos: The Great River Road in Wisconsin and Minnesota

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Wisconsin should establish a right to clean water, La Crosse County voters say

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La Crosse County voters made their voices heard on the only county-wide referendum, an advisory question on if the state should establish a right to clean water. 86 percent of voters said yes to this question: "Shall the State of Wisconsin establish a right to clean water to protect human health, the environment, and the diverse cultural and natural heritage of Wisconsin?"

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Eating sustainably is more complicated than just cutting out whole food groups. A project could analyze how different ways of eating affect the enviornment

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Is a vegetarian diet really more environmentally friendly than eating meat? - CNN

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We're increasingly encouraged to eat less meat to tackle climate change. But can we really label vegetables as more sustainable?

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Stories by a talented environmental reported.

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Susan Bence entered broadcasting in an untraditional way. After years of avid public radio listening, Susan returned to school and earned a bachelor's

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Before heading to class, Jenessa Gilarski tucks silverware, a nonbreakable plate that belonged to her grandmother, a silicone straw, a water bottle and a stainless steel travel mug in her backpack.

The daily ritual is to avoid plastic.

Fueled by concerns over the environment - underscored by a new United Nations report on the imminent effects of climate change - dramatic changes are taking place on college campuses, whether in the construction of buildings or the habits of students like Gilarski.

"Especially in America, we live with a 'throw-away' mindset and once we can't see something, we think it is no longer our problem, which is an unethical way to think," said the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point senior.

Across Wisconsin, universities are banning plastic straws, nonrecyclable takeout containers and plastic bags in campus dining halls. They are composting food scraps and collecting uneaten food for food pantries. And they are supporting local food growers or tending campus gardens to reduce the distance food travels.

The latest move by student associations is putting student fees toward solar energy shares from community "solar gardens." Wind power has arrived on campuses, too.

The developments are changing campus life and go way beyond green roofs and bicycle rental stations.

Last spring, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse elected a student association president and vice president who campaigned on banning plastic straws. After the election, a student referendum approved various student-funding initiatives for environmental sustainability and overwhelmingly sealed the straw ban.

At tiny Northland College in Ashland, on the shores of Lake Superior, most if not all students have a compost bucket in their dorm room or apartment. Once or twice a week, community residents, in addition to students,come to campus with buckets of food waste to dump in the enormous campuscomposter, which turns it into nutrient-rich fertilizer.

The liberal arts school with about 580 students is staking its future on environmental science. Northland in 1971 became one of the first colleges in the nation to offer an environmental studies degree. And its board of trustees just made sustainability its niche mission to attract more students in an increasingly competitive market.

"We're an environmental college living our sustainable mission every day," the new mission statement says. "What sets us apart from other colleges and universities is our commitment to deliver a liberal arts education with critical 'green skills' that employers and graduate schools are looking for."

Sierra magazine this fall included Northland on its "Coolest Schools" list for commitment to the environment and sustainability initiatives, ranking it 55th overall, 14th among undergraduate colleges and first in Wisconsin.

"I think when students come to Northland, they realize it's easy to live more sustainably when you live in a culture and environment that supports it and makes it a norm," said Northland Student Association President Jenise Swartley, a senior from suburban Philadelphia. "These decisions quickly become part of your daily consciousness."

And yes, she has a compost bucket under the kitchen sink in her off-campus apartment.

Hopes and worries

Since 2008, when the Princeton Review first started asking college applicants and their parents about environmental concerns on its annual "College Hopes and Worries" survey, roughly two-thirds consistently have responded that information about a college's commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school.

Northland also made Princeton Review's "Green Colleges" list this year, as did Lawrence University in Appleton, Edgewood College in Madison, Western Technical College in La Crosse and University of Wisconsin campuses in Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Menomonie (UW-Stout) and Whitewater.

Environmental worries were further fueled by a report earlier this month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders. The report projected worsening food shortages and wildfires, negative impact on economic growth and health, and a mass die-off of coral reefs in this fast-warming world as soon as 2040.

"I am very concerned about climate change and the rapid rate at which it is occurring due to human activity," said Gilarski, the UW-Stevens Point senior. "It's something I think about almost every day and the more I learn about the consequences of climate change, the more concerned I am. I have no doubt that in my lifetime I will be seeing, firsthand, some of these consequences."

Green funds and Eco U

Many college campuses now have Green Funds created by student government associations to direct student fees toward environmental-sustainability projects.

UW-La Crosse bought a vermicomposter through its Green Fund.

Tens of thousands of worms in the vermicomposter break down food scraps into nutrient-rich fertilizer. For now, scraps are collected from the Whitney Center - the main dining hall - but the campus has set a goal of collecting from other dining areas on campus, as well.

Last year, 3,439 pounds of food waste from the Whitney Center was transformed into fertilizer by the vermicomposter's army of worms. Western Technical College, the People's Food Co-op and Mayo Clinic Health Systems-Franciscan Healthcare also use the vermicomposter, which Mayo Clinic now owns.

UW-Stevens Point's Green Fund purchased reusable "Green on the Go" containers this fall and gave them to all students in residence halls.

Lawrence University employs sustainability peer-educators in its residence halls who provide programming for students, help with energy and water reduction goals, and make sure waste is sorted properly.

Among UW-Oshkosh's Green Fund projects are two bicycle fix-it stations, an OZZI machine for the reusable container program at Reeve Union and recycling containers at the Oshkosh Sports Complex.

UW-Green Bay went so far as to trademark itself as Eco U. The campus has diverted nearly a million plastic water bottles from landfills by replacing water fountains with hydration stations that encourage reusable water bottles.

Students at UW-Green Bay also have collected 5,452 pounds of plastic film. Through this initiative, they diverted over 2.5 tons of plastic from the landfill, the equivalent of 494,605 plastic grocery bags. Those bags are now being used in backyards as TREX composite decking.

Capturing sun, wind, rain

Instead of burning fossil fuels onsite to heat its buildings, Marquette University uses "waste" heat from the nearby Valley Power Plant - a steam byproduct of electricity.

Marquette's Engineering Hall and under-construction Athletic and Human Performance Research Center have underground stormwater collection systems. The student commons not only has a green roof, it has a green wall, growing hops.

UW-Eau Claire, UW-Stout, UW-LaCrosse and Northland College all recently started using solar energy.

At UW-Stout, the student association funded the campus's first solar panel project on a student-funded building, the Merle Price Commons. They have set aside additional money for more panels in the next year or two.

Built in 2012, UW-Eau Claire's student union is 100 percent powered by renewable energy from wind farms in Minnesota and four solar panels on the roof, which reduce water heating costs.

A green roof on the union terrace retains rainfall, absorbing much of the rain and allowing the rest to drain more slowly through the drainage system into Little Niagara Creek. The drainage system protects creek banks from erosion.

A lengthy section about the student union on UW-Eau Claire's website touts the building as a model of sustainable design.

Northland College's student association recently tapped a student-administered grant program to purchase 100 200-watt solar shares (20 kW) for $32,000. Solar energy will power a greenhouse and the Larson-Juhl Center for Science and the Environment once a solar garden is built by Xcel Energy.

Solar shares purchased by the student association are expected to save the college $53,000 to $67,000 in electricity bills over the next 25 years.

Straw votes

If there's any issue that seems to galvanize students, however, it's straws.

This fall, 86 percent of students voting in a UW-La Crosse referendum supported a campuswide ban of plastic straws through a campaign that noted Americans use 500 million straws every day and many end up in drainage systems that directly flow into waterways such as the Mississippi River.

UW campuses in La Crosse, River Falls, Stevens Point, Stout (Menomonie) and Eau Claire have all taken up the plastic straw issue, though straws may still be available when requested.

Straws at UW-River Falls are made from biodegradable corn-based plastic. UW-Madison's straws are compostable, too, and the university is exploring paper straws.

UW-Milwaukee still uses plastic straws, but the student association is promoting a ban on plastic bags.

Lawrence University was way ahead of the anti-straw movement. It hasn't used plastic straws in food service for nearly a decade and now uses recyclable paper straws.

Reusable to-go containers and strategies for curbing food waste are a big thing on campuses, too.

The state's flagship campus just started using reuseable to-go containers. At the Gordon Dining & Event Center - the largest dining facility on campus - between 400 and 500 containers are processed a day.

Northland College, which shifted from plastic straws to paper straws last year, went trayless in 2009 to discourage students from piling on food they won't eat. Reusable to-go containers came on board there in 2012.

The student referendum at UW-La Crosse on a straw ban also asked which investments in renewable energy and environmentally sustainable projects should get Green Fund support through student fees.

Students voted in favor of solar water heaters, wind power, and composting systems for food waste, among other things. They agreed to purchase renewable energy or energy efficiency systems by contributing no more than $7 per semester to the Green Fund.

College students should set a good example for those who are younger, said Ben O'Connell, the student who was elected president of the UW-La Crosse Student Association after campaigning with his running mate to ban straws.

"It's going to be even more important that the next generation works toward more environmentally sustainable practices," O'Connell said.

Going straw-free isn't an option for UW-Whitewater because part of its mission is to serve students with disabilities, who may need straws.

The campus instead focuses on projects like a campus garden, which has grown more than 2,000 pounds of produce this year alone and collected another 2,900 pounds from vendors at the local farmer's market to donate to the Whitewater Community Food Bank.

Taking it home

What young people learn in college, they take with them into the world.

After graduating from UW-Whitewater last spring, Blake Fontana returned to his hometown of Freeport, Illinois, to do digital marketing and sales for his family's business, Frank Jewelers.

Fontana had volunteered at the campus garden and nature preserve as a student. Now he tends his own vegetable garden at his parents' house.

And most weeks during the growing season, Fontana and his girlfriend buy locally grown fruits and vegetables from the town farmer's market.

"I like fresh food, and I like to support local businesses," he said.

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Straw bans? Composting buckets? Wisconsin campuses adopt dramatic 'green' changes

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Before heading to class, Jenessa Gilarski tucks silverware, a nonbreakable plate that belonged to her grandmother, a silicone straw, a water bottle and a stainless steel travel mug in her backpack. The daily ritual is to avoid plastic.

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Small invasive crustaceans have a major impact on water quality

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Small invasive crustaceans have a major impact on water quality

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Daphnia, a small crustacean native to Wisconsin lakes are a large consumer of algae. These little crustaceans help keep algae blooms to a minimum and improve the water quality. However, a new invasive, the spiny water flea threatens the daphnia and other fish species in Wisconsin lakes.

How can we control this invasive animal?
Could the daphnia be a key to improving water quality despite nutrient pollution?

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LAKE MENDOTA - Tiny crustaceans in Lake Mendota are distant cousins of sea monkeys - but they are more like the cattle of the lake.

These creatures, Daphnia, improve the quality of the water as they graze on the algae that bedevils lake users and managers.

On a boat in the middle of the lake, University of Madison-Wisconsin researcher Steve Carpenter holds up a jar of Daphnia and marvels at their power: "Those little animals in the jar are about the only thing that's keeping a lid on the algae."

But the Daphnia and their good works are in danger. Each year their population is now crashing in the late summer as they are decimated by a voracious new predator called the spiny waterflea.

And when the population drops, the water quality does, too.

This invasive species, originally from Eurasia, got a lift to Lake Mendota, most likely on a recreational boat from Lake Michigan. They got settled - and fundamentally changed the food web in Lake Mendota.

For decades, too much phosphorus has flowed into the lake; currently, it's mostly from manure runoff and erosion of fertilizer-rich soils, with additions from urban stormwater and other sources. Phosphorus makes the algae bloom - both the kind that makes water hazy and green, as well the kind that produces gloppy surface scums. The algae are not only annoying but potentially toxic.

Experts agree that in cleaning up the Yahara lakes, job one is reducing the phosphorus load by a massive amount. The plan to do so will cost millions of dollars and is not guaranteed to succeed.

While promising new cleanup plans are afoot, lake data show that so far the years of efforts have not resulted in a noticeable improvement in lake water quality. Climate change likely played a role; heavy rainfalls, which wash pollution into the lakes, have become more common.

Lake managers already know they have to redouble their efforts.

The spiny waterflea is making that job even harder.

Jake Vander Zanden, UW-Madison professor at the Center for Limnology, said it "undoes a lot of the work that went into keeping phosphorus down."

"It's really a shame," he said.

It was late summer, 2009, when Vander Zanden discovered the spiny waterflea, out in a boat on a routine field trip with undergraduate students of limnology, the study of lakes.

The students took a conical net and dipped it into the water to see which invertebrates it would catch.

It came up teeming with spiny waterfleas.

"I freaked out," Vander Zanden said. "I used language that would be considered coarse. This was a lake I felt would never be invaded by spiny waterfleas."

Until then, he knew, spiny waterfleas were known to like clear, deep, cold lakes, like some in Canada.

Vander Zanden's first thought was: "What will these things do to the ecosystem?"

Since then, he and Jake Walsh, a doctoral student who arrived around when the spiny waterflea did, have been studying the waterflea's effects on the populations and water quality of the lake.

Their findings are bad news.

Daphnia have been particularly abundant since the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources stocked the lake in 1987 with a massive amount of walleye and northern pike. They ate the smaller fish that preyed on Daphnia. That single experiment in manipulating the food web hugely improved the lake's water quality.

Now, Vander Zanden and company have found Lake Mendota to have the highest densities of spiny waterfleas ever seen in the world.

The waterflea population is perhaps in the hundreds of billions, ramping up in late summer and peaking in fall. That is also why the water has gotten cloudier since 2009.

Carpenter and coauthor Richard Lathrop, a DNR scientist, found that for a given amount of phosphorus, the water quality is worse when Daphnia are not around to eat the algae.

Walsh likens the waterflea to a velociraptor. The waterflea pounces on Daphnia and shreds it to pieces.

To the waterflea, the Daphnia is "like a nice, slow-moving piece of steak," Walsh says.

They are nasty even as prey, puncturing the guts of and even killing hapless little fish that try to eat them.

Fishermen may have noticed the spiny waterflea, because the spines can catch on their fishing gear and clog them up.

But beach users may not notice this drama playing out in the middle of the lake.

That is because even though algae-clogged beaches and green, hazy lake water are symptoms of the same problem - too much phosphorus - on any given day the shoreline conditions may vary from the middle.

Lathrop, who is now retired and has an honorary position at the Center for Limnology, said beaches may have actually been better off as a result of the waterflea. When Daphnia are not around to eat the small algae that makes water green, that type flourishes instead of the large stuff that causes scums.

That does not make the waterflea a good thing, he said. The hazy green small algae can produce toxins just as the scum-producing kind can.

And now the spiny waterfleas of Lake Mendota can head to other area lakes.

Right now, six or maybe seven of Wisconsin's 16,000-plus lakes are known to harbor the waterflea.

That includes the Madison-area Yahara chain lakes Mendota, Monona, Waubesa and Kegonsa. They may just be getting washed downstream to the second two, rather than living there, and they have not been found in Lake Wingra. Up north, waterfleas have invaded the recreational lakes Stormy Lake, the Gile Flowage and possibly Star Lake.

But as of now, experts have no tools for eradicating the spiny waterflea, according to Vander Zanden.

What is needed, he said: "They're only in seven lakes. Keep them in seven lakes."

You may also be interested in these stories:

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Water-cleaning crustacean devoured by new predator in Lake Mendota | WisconsinWatch.org

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Daphnia, tiny crustaceans in Lake Mendota that graze on algae, and their good works are in danger. Each year their population is now crashing in the late summer as they are decimated by a voracious new predator called the spiny waterflea.

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Residents in Marinette, Wis., and neighboring Peshtigo have been calling for action on PFAS chemicals for years. On Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced that a well outside that area has been contaminated.
READ: Marinette Residents Want To Get PFAS Chemicals Under Control
PFAS is short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of thousands of synthetic chemicals that don't break down in the environment and bio-accumulate. That means they become concentrated inside the bodies of living things, like humans.

PFAS are found in the firefighting foam that, since the 1960s, has been produced and tested in Marinette. In 2017, Wisconsin DNR announced the factory that produces the foam had the state's highest known contamination of these "forever" chemicals. The operation is now owned by Johnson Controls.

"PFAS contamination has been detected in the Marinette and Peshtigo area in soil, sediment, groundwater, surface water, private drinking water wells and biosolids," according to the Wisconsin DNR website.

Johnson Controls started testing for PFAS contamination and offered bottled and filtered water for people who live within 10-square-miles of its operations.

But on Friday, the DNR announced it was delivering emergency water to someone living approximately a half-mile southwest of the monitoring area.

Two years ago, the homeowner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It's not clear if the cancer is linked to PFAS.
Editor's note: This is a developing story.

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PFAS Contamination Wider Than Thought In Marinette Well Water

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Residents in Marinette, Wis., and neighboring Peshtigo have been calling for action on PFAS chemicals for years. On Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced that a well outside that area has been contaminated.

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What would you do if you were required to work in dangerous jobs such as mining in order to help your family?

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What would you do if you were required to work in dangerous jobs such as mining in order to help your family?

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Children every day put their life in danger to help their families out with some money. Mining is one of the most dangerous jobs anybody could work in, some people in fact don’t make it out alive.

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An estimated 1 million children worldwide work as miners. These are 10 facts about child miners in the world today.

Key Child Miners Facts

1. Child miners can be found in parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. Most of these children, from economically downtrodden backgrounds, are either uneducated or school-dropouts, with the exception of a few who attend both work and school. They work in inhumane and dangerous conditions to extract minerals and ores in high demand in the global market.

2. Mining is considered one of the worst forms of child labor as the hazardous working conditions in mines adversely affect the safety and health of children.

3. One of the facts about child miners working in the artisanal mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is they contribute to the production of cobalt, coltan, copper and tin. These materials are used in the fabrication processes of modern electronics like laptops and cell phones. Of the 2 million miners in DRC's artisanal mines, 40 percent are children and their earnings range from $0.75 to $3 a day. In 2017, Amnesty International warned the world of the use of child labor in cobalt mining and urged large companies to be wary of purchasing unethically mined cobalt.

4. Poverty, lack of educational and economic opportunities, corruption, lenient law-enforcement and the soaring demands for mined materials in the global market are primary reasons for the prevalence of child labor in mines.

5. Cobalt mining often involves injuries, death and health hazards. Stone mining causes dehydration, respiratory infections and accidents. Gold mining exposes children to toxic vapors and mercury-poisoning, and mining salt exposes child miners to dizziness, skin problems and iris discoloration.

6. Stone quarries in Guatemala are often found along public shores, where poor families set up camps to mine volcanic river rocks. These are then sold to construction companies at low prices. According to reports by the International Labour Organization (ILO), it takes three days for a 13-year-old boy to produce one cubic meter of gravel that sells for $7.50. Children as young as five are found collecting and breaking rocks with hammers in these mines. Both adults and children work eight hours a day, six to seven days a week. The quarries in Nepal are reported to have child miners between ages 10 to 12. Girls and boys in Madagascar's stone quarries also work long hours collecting and crushing blocks of stones.

7. Of the 10 facts about child miners in the world, gold mining deserves a special mention as it exposes children to mercury-poisoning, which is extremely likely due to the nature of gold extraction. Child gold miners are often found in the Sahel region of Africa (mainly in Burkina Faso and Niger). High levels of poverty in the region forces families to send children under 18 to work in the mines. They constitute 30 to 50 percent of the entire gold-mining workforce. These children work with heavy and primitive equipment to break rocks and transport them to washing, crushing and mineral processing. Children often work underground in narrow shafts and galleries.

8. The ILO estimates 10,000 children are involved in gold mining in Ghana and more than 65,000 children work in the mines of Bolivia, Peru and Equador. According to a study by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), many instances of illegal mining occur in Côte d'Ivoire, where children are often trafficked from neighboring areas and held in slavery-like conditions. Mongolia and the Philippines are some of the other countries with child miners.

9. IPEC has been working hard to ensure that children in areas like Niger and Senegal are protected from joining the salt mining business. A highly labor-intensive process, mining salt includes harvesting (digging pits, filling and lifting sacks) and distilling salt alongside transporting ore and fuel to aid the process. Children participate in all stages of salt mining.

10. Child labor is also widely used in the mica mining industry in India and Madagascar; talc mining in Brazil; coal, salt and gemstone mining in Pakistan; gold mining in China; gem mining in Sri Lanka.

Most countries in the world have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes the right to protect children from economic exploitation. Human Rights Watch believes boycotting goods produced from these mines is not the solution, as it would adversely affect the economy of these nations. Instead, in accord with U.N. Guiding Principles, it proposes that international companies that buy these products initiate programs to ensure they do not benefit from child labor in any manner. Consumers from developed nations like the U.S. and the U.K., which provide the main markets for these products, should also become more aware of where the products come from. These 10 facts about child miners do not represent all the complexities that involve the lives of child miners. International nonprofit organizations are still working to create awareness and acquire more data on the use of children in the mining industry.

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10 Facts About Child Miners | The Borgen Project

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An estimated 1 million children worldwide work as miners. These are 10 facts about child miners in the world today. Key Child Miners Facts Child miners can be found in parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.

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I read an article about how Gov. Scott Walker is planning on cutting the budget for recycling in half. It was talking about how he had proposed similar ideas in the past but this one is the most recent and he plans on doing it over a period of five years. The cut would cause a lot of problems.

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"Kids are terrified, anxious and depressed about climate change. Whose fault is that?"

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The teenagers pour off buses near Denver's Union Station under a baking September sun. Giggling with excitement at skipping out on Friday classes, they join a host of others assembled near the terminal. Native American drummers and dancers rouse the crowd, and there's a festive feeling in the air. But this is no festival. The message these young people have come to send to their city, to their state, to the nation - to the world of adults - is serious. Deadly serious. "We won't die from old age," reads one of the signs they hoist above their heads. "We'll die from climate change."

High school sophomore Sophie Kaplan is marching in a bright yellow flowered sundress, but the sentiment on her poster is hardly so sunny: "Why Should I Study For a Future I Won't Have?" She thinks about climate change every day, she tells me. She reads "about how we're on the brink" and hears her teachers and parents tell her that it's up to her generation to fix things. "I don't understand why I should be in school if the world is burning," she says. "What's the point of working on my education if we don't deal with this first?"

As the estimated 7,500 marchers converge on the state capitol, I come upon Chris Bray and his children, sixth-grader Arianna and second-grader Colin. Dressed in plaid shorts and blue sunglasses, Colin hovers shyly behind a homemade sign (a picture of coal with the word "Why?" and a shining sun with the words "Why not?"). The boy is "scared about the planet," he tells me, but it feels good to be surrounded by so many other people who care, since he can sometimes feel as if nobody else is worried.

Climate change, say Chris and his wife, Amber, is a big topic of discussion in their home. Colin and Arianna have always shown an interest in the environment. They've cried over nature documentaries about the destruction of the coral reefs and sought out coverage of 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Chris and Amber are proud that their children are so aware, and of the way their kids' interest has informed their own actions. But at the same time, like many parents, they're concerned that their children could be overwhelmed by predictions about the environment that seem to be growing ever more dire.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2018 that policymakers have just 12 years to avert the worst consequences of global warming; news coverage is constantly filled with apocalyptic stories of storms and wildfires. Young people, absorbing the gravity of these warnings, have become the defining face of the climate movement - marching, protesting and berating their elders for bequeathing them an uncertain, unstable future. Underlying their anger, though, is another a-word: anxiety. And it's something they're increasingly voicing. Teachers hear their students talk about panic attacks when wildfires break out, and psychologists face young patients weeping about their fear of never having a family. Amber Bray recalls Colin solemnly telling her on his eighth birthday, "My life would be better without climate change."

How to handle such fears? The adult world seems unsure, at best. The Brays, for their part, think it's important to work through the anguish and keep talking to their kids. "We've decided to be open and honest. They have feelings, we validate them," Chris says. At the same time, he admits, "It's sad, it's hard."

As climate change continues unabated, parents, teachers and medical professionals across the country find themselves face-to-face with a quandary: How do you raise a generation to look toward the future with hope when all around them swirls a message of apparent hopelessness? How do you prepare today's children for a world defined by environmental trauma without inflicting more trauma yourself? And where do you find the line between responsible education and undue alarmism?

The nexus between climate change and the mental health of children is rarely at the forefront of the discussion around environmental politics, but it's very real: In a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of American teenagers released in September, 57 percent said that climate change made them feel scared and 52 percent said it made them feel angry, both higher rates than among adults. Just 29 percent of teens said they were optimistic. Reports like the U.S. government's National Climate Assessment have cited mental health concerns as a side effect of climate change. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement in 2015 warning that climate change poses threats to "children's mental and physical health," and that "failure to take prompt, substantive action would be an act of injustice to all children."

In expert testimony for the plaintiffs from 2018 in Juliana v. United States - a lawsuit filed by a number of young people seeking to force the U.S. government to adopt policies to fight climate change and end fossil fuel subsidies - psychiatrist Lise van Susteren wrote that children will be "at the center of the storm" as climate change worsens and that they may already be feeling mental health impacts. "Day in and day out worrying about the unprecedented scale of the risk posed by climate change ... takes a heavy toll on an individual's well-being, wearing them down, sending some to the 'breaking point,' " she wrote. "Children are especially vulnerable." Those words, she told me, were "really painful" to write. Interviewing children about their fears for nature and their worries about their future families, she says, left her with "a sense of shame."

"Eco-anxiety" or "climate depression" is playing out in real terms among young people, sometimes in extreme ways: A 2008 study in an Australian medical journal chronicled the case of a 17-year-old boy who was hospitalized after refusing to drink water during a nationwide drought, in what the authors called the first case of "climate change delusion." A psychiatrist I interviewed told me a patient had confessed that she secretly wished a pandemic would strike to ease stress on the planet.

But the anxiety can manifest in subtler ways as well. Sarah Niles, an 18-year-old from Alabama, told me that her fears about climate change have simply become a part of her life. "I feel like in my peer group, you just go right from talking about polar bears dying to 'Did you see what Maya posted on Snapchat?' Nobody has a filter to adjust," Niles says. "It's like, the ice caps are melting and my hypothetical children will never see them, but also I have a calculus test tomorrow."

According to the National Institutes of Health, nearly 1 in 3 people ages 13 to 18 experience an anxiety disorder, and a study published in April 2018 in the Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics found that anxiety diagnoses in children ages 6 to 17 increased 20 percent between 2007 and 2012. There's no single cause: A nonstop barrage of social media, a heightened political climate and the threat of school shootings are all stressors. And that's on top of being a teenager, with all the tumult that entails.

But the often apocalyptic nature of the news about climate change is perhaps uniquely paralyzing. Elizabeth Haase, a psychiatrist in Nevada, describes how some of her patients can be overwhelmed by the scale of the problem: "I'm supposed to be emotionally hopeful in a hopeless situation, and I'm supposed to act powerful when the source of power is collective power and it's overwhelming, and I'm supposed to feel faith and do things to be sustainable when nature is declining around me." Overcome by a sense of powerlessness, they simply feel stuck in a situation, with no way out.

Park Guthrie knows about this paralysis in climate-change-spooked kids. A sixth-grade teacher in Sonoma County, Calif., he has seen the toll that the state's raging wildfires can take on the generally enthusiastic 11- and 12-year-olds in his classes. He has witnessed panic attacks triggered by the mere smell of smoke. When smoke from a nearby controlled burn once drifted to the school, he recalls, one boy smiled blankly and announced, "I think I'm having PTSD." Last year, after the Kincade Fire burned nearly 78,000 acres in the county in late October, Guthrie found himself, not for the first time, comforting students worried about their homes and their relatives.

Guthrie understands how much climate change troubles his students, but he doesn't shy from talking about it. He confronts not only their fears, but also the political reality of denial and decades of inaction, all of which is disturbing to his students. "It's like there's a paradigm shift, like when you learn that Santa Claus isn't real," he says. "Everything we teach them, that science is a tool for understanding the world, that adults are protecting you, falls apart. There's nothing to prepare them for this enormous problem that we simply haven't solved."

An Army brat who lived as a high schooler in Berlin, Guthrie recalls going to East Berlin to watch a tribute to the Berlin Wall, a Communist display of propaganda. Back then, it made him believe that the wall would never come down, but today he realizes how much that "fictional exercise" reinforced the wall's symbolic power. Now, he fears that by not speaking up forcefully about climate change as a generational issue, institutions are "propping up this fictional story that you can care for kids in our country while neglecting or ignoring the climate." As a teacher, Guthrie is a "mandated reporter," someone legally required to speak up about signs of child abuse and neglect. If climate change will harm his students and is causing them anguish, isn't silence on the issue a violation of that duty?

Guthrie has taken his views national as the co-founder of the nonprofit Schools for Climate Action (S4CA), which asks schools and other educational groups to pass resolutions highlighting the effects of climate change on children. Since December 2017, more than 100 resolutions have been passed, 66 by school boards and 29 by student councils. Many set sustainability goals or call on Congress to take climate action. Most are shepherded by students, who write the resolutions with the help of administrators and school board members.

Though they don't commit organizations to any specific action, the resolutions send a signal that there are support networks for students struggling with climate change. They also bolster the idea that students can at least make a difference by raising awareness: Jordyn Bauer, a 20-year-old sophomore at California's Sonoma State University who worked to pass a resolution in her California school district in 2018, said it helped validate her ability to do something. "Too many people are just standing by," she says. "I felt like it was my responsibility to take charge."

Not everyone, however, is on board with Guthrie's agenda. Last spring, Guthrie and a number of S4CA partners - including several students - lobbied the National Association of School Psychologists to adopt a resolution stating that climate change is a children's issue, as the group's California chapter had done. But the organization declined. The group's executive director, Kathleen Minke, responded in an email to Guthrie that her group focuses on "issues that have a very direct impact on schools, student learning and children's mental and behavioral health." Climate change, she said, "falls outside this professional focus." When I interviewed her later, Minke told me that her organization isn't ignoring climate change and has dedicated resources to help school psychologists deal with kids affected by natural disasters. But when it comes to managing anxiety, their focus is on coping, not causes. "You're not going to develop an entire curriculum around anxiety related to 'x,' " she says. "There are too many x's for that to be efficient."

Likewise, S4CA's efforts to get national school board groups to lobby on climate change have come up short. Chris Ungar has been a school board member for 20 years in California's San Luis Coastal Unified School District. Last spring, he proposed language to the National School Boards Association recognizing climate change as a threat and asking Congress for funding to help schools affected by natural disasters. It easily passed a policy committee, but before the full association the resolution was, in Ungar's words, "gutted" - the climate change language stripped because delegates from some states worried that it could obscure the natural-disaster funding request.

That outcome underscored one of the biggest barriers to Guthrie's work: Education and youth groups don't always see climate change as having a direct link to children if they're not being displaced by a disaster - and sometimes not even then. Still, more schools have picked up the S4CA resolution model, and in September, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced a nonbinding resolution acknowledging climate change as a social justice issue and supporting more climate education. "By failing to address climate change in a meaningful way, we are failing our children," she said in a floor speech, "and they know it."

Although there's little question that climate change will harm younger generations, there's considerably more debate about a related concern - that the rhetoric surrounding the issue is equally injurious. When young people seize on the U.N. warning that governments need to take action in 12 years to conclude, incorrectly, that the planet has only a decade remaining (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said last year that millennials fear "the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don't address climate change"), or when the website of the U.K.-based activist group Extinction Rebellion warns that "societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices," it can be terrifying. Some voices are now sounding the alarm about alarmism, suggesting that we'd all be better off if we dialed down some of the hyperbole.

"This message of 'We're all going to die, how dare you say there might be something we can do' ... that's just not supported by the science," says Kate Marvel, a climate scientist and mathematician at Columbia University. "I'm not saying we can all rest, and I'm not saying we live in the best of all possible worlds. But one can have a sense of optimism by working towards a solution."

Many of the adults I talked to said the heightened rhetoric around climate change reminded them of the panic around nuclear weapons during the Cold War, when school lessons were interrupted by "duck and cover" drills and there was perpetual fear that the world might end at any moment. The 1983 TV movie "The Day After," which dramatized the fallout from a nuclear attack on the Midwest, emerged as an apocalyptic touchstone; surveys after the film aired found viewers were more depressed about their chances of survival and were less optimistic about their ability to influence nuclear weapons policy.

Michael Shellenberger, an author and founder of the California-based nonprofit Environmental Progress, which promotes nuclear energy, remembers how panicked he felt after watching the movie. Now, he considers it "bizarre" that adults would have decided "to traumatize teenagers with that." Today, he says, some in the environmental movement are making climate change "the new apocalypse."

"These scenarios of apocalypse, of really cataclysmic climate change that people are scaring children around, are in the realm of an extreme, unpredictable event," he told me. He has reflected on eco-anxiety while observing his 14-year-old daughter and her friends grow more worried about the planet; his book on the topic, "Apocalypse Never," is due out in June. He's not advocating that children be shielded from the science, but rather that it be presented seriously. The headline-grabbing threats of mass extinctions and deaths may motivate action, he says, but at what cost?

"We have people that know the power of fear manipulate consciously the psychology of young people in a way that is wrong and should stop," he argues. "What people need to understand is that there are extreme scenarios ... and they are not the same thing as predictive science." Indeed, scientists say that while some warming is baked in, action now could avert the worst consequences. Marvel puts it this way: "There are so many futures between doomed and fine."

Even the lower end of that range of futures, however, can mean destructive storms, displacement and economic upheaval, and that's the reality that teachers have to communicate. To Meghan Duffy, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, the climate change lecture in her introductory biology course is the "most important" class she teaches. But, worried that the class might be overwhelming or not communicated well, she surveyed her students for a study published in 2019. After the climate change lesson, students knew more but felt worse: Only 4 percent of the class thought humans would successfully address climate change. One student wrote in an anonymous survey, "I understand that global warming is an important part of learning from this class, but at some point one of the lectures gave me an anxiety attack, so that wasn't fun."

Studying that emotional response forced Duffy to reevaluate her syllabus. This past fall, she added a second lesson about solutions, highlighting the drop in the cost of renewable energy and improvements in battery technology for storing clean energy. It's a strategy Duffy says is necessary for any climate communicator, but especially one working with young minds. "There's a danger in having the instruction emphasize climate catastrophe," she says. "It's tempting to say how bad things are, how much we need to stop it. But at some point you've accidentally said this is a foregone conclusion. We can overemphasize how scary it is to the point where people feel hopeless and panicked."

Working toward a solution, in fact, is the consensus approach to calming young people's fears about the future. The key to addressing eco-anxiety at any age, says psychiatrist Haase, is getting "unstuck," losing that feeling of paralysis in the face of the problem's magnitude. Haase is a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, an ad hoc group that has sprung up to offer patients and doctors advice on discussing climate anxiety. It's one of a number of such groups that are tackling the growing rate of patients panicked about the state of the world: The Good Grief Network was launched in 2016 to offer group counseling sessions to the climate-anxious.

The emphasis, doctors say, should be on personal responsibility and empowerment. For an overwhelming problem like climate change, being able to take some action - whether eating less meat or switching to an electric vehicle - can help fight paralysis and get patients to recognize that the worst of climate change is not a fait accompli and that some progress can be made. Haase says patients can often end up at one of two poles: one focused on catastrophe, the other essentially ignoring the problem. Recognizing the middle space "can open up your thoughts. By going back and forth, it creates a larger space for you to think in and feel in," she explains, "and out of that come innovative solutions."

As the ones usually tasked with bringing climate change information to their students, teachers are increasingly taking on the weight of the psychological implications. Lisa Balazs, a science teacher at a private school outside Birmingham, Ala., told me she persuaded her school to offer a specialized climate change class last year. She wanted to walk students through the physics and chemistry of the changing climate, but also focus on solutions. "I wanted them to feel like they were empowered in the way you could have an intelligent conversation," she says. "The scary part is feeling like there's nothing you individually can do, especially when you look at the government. So turning it around and putting it back in your personal control, this is what you can vote for and work for."

Balazs highlighted how politicians even in her conservative state have promoted clean energy, and she encouraged her students to take political action. Sarah Niles, who took Balazs's class as a senior, says it was "inspiring" to learn about solutions to climate change, especially since, so often, the subject "felt like devastation with no hope." She recalls "days after class where we would go to the common room and just sit because we didn't know what to do." Now, she's taking a gap year before college and volunteering in Rockport, Tex., to help rebuild the community, which was devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. It's a way, she says, to put "a face and a name to things you learn about in class," and feel as if she's making a small difference.

Of course, before you can bring up solutions, you have to be able to bring up climate change at all. Schools, however, have sometimes been slow to bring climate change into the classroom, especially in conservative areas. Lawmakers in states such as Florida and Texas have pushed bills that would strip climate change from curriculums entirely. In Pennsylvania's Central Bucks School District in 2017, a Republican school board member used fears about rising anxiety among the young in lobbying to remove textbooks that discussed climate change.

Moreover, many teachers are unequipped to deal with it. A survey from the National Center for Science Education and Penn State's Survey Research Center during the 2014-15 school year found that fewer than half of the teachers responding had taken a formal course on climate change. The same survey found that only two-thirds of teachers said they emphasize that human activity is the primary driver of climate change, despite the scientific consensus that humans are the cause. (Jeanne Kaidy, a high school science teacher in Rochester, N.Y., told me she gets a "distressing" amount of pushback from students and teachers disputing the science.)

But many teachers told me they're supported by the Next Generation Science Standards, written in 2013 to overhaul science teaching. Created by officials from 26 states and several national science education organizations, the standards take climate change as a given, expecting students to be taught that human activities contribute to global warming and that the phenomenon is having a dire effect on human life. They also go deep on solutions, such as clean energy. So far, though, only 20 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the standards, although 24 other states have drawn up their own guidance based on them.

Renee Belisle, a curriculum specialist for Denver Public Schools, says that the standards, which passed narrowly in Colorado, have played a "hugely significant" role in a rewrite of the district's high school science curriculum, which now integrates climate change into biology, physics and chemistry classes. Each climate change unit contains an action item; as early as middle school, students are taught that steps such as changing your diet or turning off the lights can have an effect. "That arc of ending with the empowerment is a way to help mitigate that pessimism that could develop," Belisle says, "particularly with kids, who might feel disenfranchised."

And yet the seemingly best approach - making young people feel enfranchised to deal with climate change - comes with both upsides and potential downsides. On the one hand, what better way for young people to process climate change worries than to pressure adults to actually do something about the crisis? Campaigns like the youth-led Sunrise Movement, founded in 2017, have pursued this strategy, placing young people on the front lines of the fight over the Green New Deal; the group gained Internet notoriety in February 2019 with a video of students, some as young as 11, confronting Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California over her lack of support for the plan.

On the other hand, high schoolers are still high schoolers, with homework and soccer practice and dates and part-time jobs. And teenagers I spoke with admitted that activism can be a burden. "I'd love to not be doing this. I'd much rather be hanging out with my friends, watching something stupid on Netflix," says Jonah Gottlieb, 17, a high school senior in California. "I have to because adults have left us no choice."

That feeling of responsibility, of being let down by prior generations, permeated the conversations I had - and there probably isn't a good solution, aside from actually solving climate change itself. For now, parents are left to walk a tightrope between being honest and being comforting, between empowering their kids and weighing them down with the responsibility of saving the world.

The Bray family, at least, is erring on the side of not underplaying the situation - or the need for everyone to contribute to solutions. Amber Bray recalls the day the U.N. panel issued its 12-year warning. When Arianna came home from school, Amber told me, she hugged her daughter tight and, with tears in her eyes, apologized. Both said that day changed their perspective and rallied the family to work harder to reduce its environmental impact. "Some parents might think they should shield their children from the realities," Amber says. "I believe it's my job as a parent to prepare my children to be ready, make good choices, be part of the solution. It's a disservice to our children if we don't teach them about life's dangers and how to protect themselves, even as we pray it is never necessary."
Jason Plautz is a writer in Denver. Photo editing by Dudley M. Brooks. Design by Christian Font.

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Eco-anxiety is overwhelming kids. Where's the line between education and alarmism?

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The teenagers pour off buses near Denver's Union Station under a baking September sun. Giggling with excitement at skipping out on Friday classes, they join a host of others assembled near the terminal. Native American drummers and dancers rouse the crowd, and there's a festive feeling in the air.

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Black and brown people are disproportionately affected by environmental problems

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Black and brown people are disproportionately affected by environmental problems

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What are we going to do about it?

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By Antoine M. Thompson

While we often hear and read about police brutality, housing and employment discrimination, there is simply inadequate media coverage of an equally destructive form of racism....environmental racism. The pollution of air, land and water are all environmental injustices that often shorten the life expectancy of Black people. This lack of attention to environmental racism has social and economic consequences.
Black Neighborhoods Contain More Air Pollution
One of the biggest tragedies of the Jim Crow era was the decision by federal, state and local governments to place highways directly through the middle of many black neighborhoods in the U.S. Not only did this decision reduce property values, and destroy many communities, Black residents that currently live near expressways have higher rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Seniors and kids inhaling fumes from the tens of thousands of cars that pass by their home and many idling on the expressway is a fixable problem that requires advocacy from Black civic, faith, business, and political leaders. It is not a surprise that there are so many Black kids having asthma attacks and black seniors on respiratory machines. Equally important, factories and warehouses that pollute the air are more likely to be located in or near Black neighborhoods.
Black Neighborhoods are less walkable
Whether it's high crime or violence, sub-standard sidewalks, abandoned lots and eye-sore properties, inadequately lined-cross-walks, scarce handicapped access ramps at street corners for wheel chairs or strollers, such environmental barriers shorten the lives of Black residents. Too often, black kids can't play in the parks or ride their bikes in their neighborhoods which leads them to have fewer opportunities to burn off youthful energy and calories. In some predominantly black neighborhoods kids walk in the street because of crumbling sidewalks. The investment by local governments in curbs, sidewalks, street markings, street-lighting, play a direct role in whether Black residents from kids to seniors will walk to the store, library, church, school, or to the subway. This lack of walkability contributes to higher rates of obesity, diabetes and other illnesses in Black neighborhoods.
Black Homes More Likely Contain Lead Paint
In the 1980s and 1990s there was more public outrage over lead in the homes. It is not that the problem of lead paint has gone away in the U.S., the persons most likely to suffer from lead-poising are low-income black children. The effects of lead-poisoning contribute to learning deficiencies and disruptive behavior for Black children. According to the Environmental Protection Agencies the black neighborhoods twice as likely to live in homes with lead contamination. Making matters worse, very little funding goes to Black led or run organizations to educate parents and communities to help prevent this problem.
Toxic Water is not only a Problem in Flint
In the 2016 Presidential Election, the national media focused on the contamination of the water in Flint, Michigan, a city with a population of over 90,000 people. Most people did not pay attention to a report by Reuters that same year which noted over 3,000 communities have lead contamination levels in their water higher than in Flint. There is simply not enough focus on water quality in Black neighborhoods. The health effects of water pollution on children and seniors is quite severe according to reports from State Health Departments and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Environmental racism is not a myth, it's a reality that requires our attention because it is truly a silent killer in many Black neighborhoods.

Antoine M. Thompson, is a columnist, and partner with Creative PMO Solutions. He is also the National Executive Director for the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) and New York State Senator (2007-2010).

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Environmental Racism - A Quiet Killer in Black Communities - Milwaukee Community Journal

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By Antoine M. Thompson While we often hear and read about police brutality, housing and employment discrimination, there is simply inadequate media coverage of an equally destructive form of racism....environmental racism. The pollution of air, land and water are all environmental injustices that often shorten the life expectancy of Black people.

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"Among the voices calling for action on climate change are some young evangelicals, despite the fact that church elders have portrayed environmentalism as anti-Christian.

"Who does religious faith play into how we see environmental problems?

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Among the voices calling for action on climate change are some young evangelicals - this despite the fact that church elders have portrayed environmentalism as anti-Christian. NPR's Gregory Warner has been digging into the origins of the divide between environmentalists and evangelicals.

GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Rachel Lamb is the co-founder of the group Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. But throughout her childhood, she'd always been taught to be suspicious of mainstream science. And then in high school, she decided to take an environmental studies class.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

RACHEL LAMB: I was like, you know, I've inherited a skepticism about this. So I took it, and I was like, oh, wow. Like, as a Christian, I had to take this seriously, and I had to do something about it.

WARNER: Protecting the Earth seemed completely in line with the values she learned in the church.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

LAMB: It's biblical and so connected fundamentally to what it means to be a Christian. Why is it that all of these Christians that I knew didn't see it that way?

WARNER: And that question - why is there a divide between environmentalists and evangelicals? - it led me to meet a guy who actually helped create that divide.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

WARNER: Who's this?

RICHARD CIZIK: That's me.

WARNER: That's you, right?

CIZIK: Yeah. That's Richard Cizik at about 12 years of age.

WARNER: For most of his life, Richard Cizik was what he calls a lobbyist for 30 million evangelicals. He represented the National Association of Evangelicals, the NAE. Cizik had been there since Reagan and helped create the political partnership between evangelicals and the Republican Party. And then in 2002, he went to an international conference on global warming, and there, he had a conversion.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: It was a conversion to the science.

WARNER: Help me understand. What's the difference between just going and having your mind changed - you know, hearing some convincing science and being persuaded - to actually having a conversion?

CIZIK: My conversion was a repentance for all the disbelief and wrong-headed attitudes I had. It's a repentance that says I have disobeyed God's very commands about what I'm to do and be.

WARNER: As much as evangelicals didn't see eye to eye with scientists, there was a growing eco-theology known as creation care.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And Jesus says...

WARNER: This is a Creation Care TV ad from 2005.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Maybe we should ask, what would Jesus drive?

WARNER: So Cizik, the evangelical lobbyist, started throwing his lobbying muscle behind creation care. He'd cite Bible passages like Revelation 11:18 - the time has come to destroy those who destroy the Earth. He gave a college tour and found that climate issues were energizing young evangelicals, and he started persuading some environmentalists to use language that would appeal to a wider set of Americans. Even Al Gore started speaking creation care lingo.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

AL GORE: I believe that the purpose of life is to glorify God, and you cannot do it while heaping contempt on God's creation.

WARNER: Cizik hoped to build a bridge between environmentalists and evangelicals, and he wanted to show that evangelicals could stand up for a broader set of issues than just the so-called culture wars. And so he was excited to get a call in early 2006 from Vanity Fair magazine. They asked him to be part of their green issue of environmentalist influencers.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: I go up to this brownstone with my suit on - pinstripe suit, you know - and ready for a photo shoot. And I go into the room, and I'm just shocked. There's this whole room that's filled with water.

WARNER: The celebrity photographer tells him, now take your shoes off.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: And he explains to me that I have to walk on these clear bricks so that it looks like I'm walking on water.

WARNER: But did you feel at any point during that photo shoot that, maybe walking on water may be a bad idea for my image?

CIZIK: The thought occurred to me.

WARNER: Republican lawmakers and evangelical conservatives saw their opportunity to attack.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JIM INHOFE: And you know, I'd have to say this to...

WARNER: Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe took the stage at the next Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC. And he held up a copy of Vanity Fair, that magazine.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

INHOFE: So here's Richard Cizik. This was his portrait on the front of a very liberal magazine. And if you see, he's dressed like Jesus. He is actually walking on water. He's barefooted, but you can see the little ripples if you look down close. Now, I have to say this. It was a brilliant idea - divide and conquer.

WARNER: The way the senator put it, Cizik was not just trying to expand the evangelical tent to include a broader set of issues; he was trying to break up the marriage between Christians and the Republican Party.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

INHOFE: If they can somehow drag the evangelicals away from their pro-life stance and all their conservative agenda, their core values, and put an end to this environmental stuff, then they win, and we lose.

WARNER: It's like, as a Christian, you're either pro-life or pro-environment. You can't be both. And the very same day as that speech, 25 leaders of the Christian right published an open letter demanding that Cizik be sacked. His advocacy around climate change was, quote, "contributing to a growing confusion about the very term evangelical."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: See, you key in on what was my motivation here.

WARNER: Cizik says he wanted to invite that confusion. He wanted it to be possible as a political Christian to vote Republican on some issues and Democrat on others. And he says he recognized in climate change an issue that might have enough biblical appeal to Christians to blur those lines.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: My motivation wasn't solely about climate change. No, no, no. There was something more at stake, which was who we are as evangelicals and where we fit in the American scene, politically.

WARNER: The amazing thing was his gambit worked. His employer, the National Association for Evangelicals, with all its conservative board members, voted to support him. In 2008, Cizik was listed in Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the year. And that December, he sat down for a radio interview.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: Richard Cizik, welcome back to Fresh Air.

WARNER: President Obama had just been elected but not yet sworn in.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: So I'm going to ask you who you voted for, knowing that it's your right to not tell us (laughter). So...

WARNER: Now, at this point, Richard Cizik, like King David from the Bible, had outlasted everything that his opponents had thrown at him. They called on him to be sacked. He wasn't sacked. He dipped his toes in controversy - actually, his whole foot - and on camera. And now, Terry Gross is asking him, which side are you on?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: Terry, let me answer it this way. In the Virginia primary, I voted for Barack Obama.

WARNER: Days after that interview aired, Cizik was fired from the job he'd held for 28 years. He admits that these days, it is much harder for an evangelical leader to come out in support of climate action.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

CIZIK: If I'm a divider, I'm a divider. Better it be over an issue like the survival of the planet than over something less significant.

WARNER: There's another legacy of Richard Cizik - that eco-theology creation care. A recent poll found that evangelicals, more than any other Christians, feel that God expects people to be good stewards of nature. And so Rachel Lamb, the young evangelical we met at first - she never uses divisive labels like environmentalist, even to describe herself. And she always opens up conversations about the planet by talking about the Bible, like Psalm 24:1 - the Earth is the Lord's and everything in it.

KELLY: That is Gregory Warner. He's the host of NPR's Rough Translation.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHARON VAN ETTEN SONG, "COMEBACK KID")

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Why There's A Divide Between Environmentalists And Evangelicals

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Among the voices calling for action on climate change are some young evangelicals - this despite the fact that church elders have portrayed environmentalism as anti-Christian. NPR's Gregory Warner has been digging into the origins of the divide between environmentalists and evangelicals.

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Got an old t-shirt? Turn it into a tote!

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Got an old t-shirt? Turn it into a tote!

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This is how you can upcycle old sentiment-holding t-shirts you’ve probably worn once into something you can use every day!

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Over my four years of high school theater, I accumulated over a dozen show shirts, each screen-printed with a student-drawn show poster and the performance dates. Even though they each cost $10 and rendered the wearer as a living ad-plastered city bus, I wore the shirts proudly, even after the performances had passed.

When I moved to New York City for college, I self-consciously wondered whether it might be passé (or worse - dorky) to wear my non-professional theater garb around campus. I gathered my show shirts in a plastic bag and left them in the basement to deal with later.

When I came home for Christmas, they were gone. My mom mistook the bag for trash and "accidentally" threw them away.

I was upset for sentimental reasons, but also because it seemed like an enormous waste to just chuck perfectly good (if a little lovingly worn) t-shirts. Even in the early stages of my sustainability fanaticism (we all go through different journeys in college, don't judge mine), I knew those shabby shirts could have been used as rags, pillowcases - or even to create a no-sew t-shirt bag battalion, nullifying my need to ever buy reusable bags again.

I knew then that between the resources used to create the shirts (at such a low price point, no less) meant that the environmental cost of my t-shirts was likely quite higher than what I paid for them. Simply throwing them away - especially when there are so many ways to upcycle t-shirts and extend the life of those materials - rubbed salt into that sustainability wound.

Add that to the fact that a number of studies have revealed that reusable bags can be less eco-friendly than their single-use plastic counterparts when considering the environmental impact of their production compared to their use and disposal.

Reusable bags may reduce plastic waste, but that they actually need to be reused (and not just sit in the trunk of your car) for their environmental cost to be worthwhile. Bags that are made from repurposed materials - ones that have already contributed to their useful life in a different way - are even more likely to have a net positive planetary impact.

Making a no-sew t-shirt bag helps reduce textile waste and plastic waste. Plus, it seems much more likely that you'll remember to actually use a bag that has sentimental value that you made with your own two hands. Two birds: fear my one stone.

Now that I am moving to a new, more professional stage of my adulthood (she wrote, as she tried to select which silly video clips to include along with theme song), I have once again accumulated a number of t-shirts with lots of memories and little daily use. In honor of the high school show shirt bags that could have been, I decided to learn how to turn a few into quick, handy no-sew t-shirt bags.

Learning to try

Even though I recently purchased a sewing machine for myself (I'm a short, curvy girl, and it is so easy to hem pants when you have a little mechanical help), I wanted to try a no-sew t-shirt bag. Sewing machines can be prohibitively expensive, so not everyone has one, but this DIY should be accessible to everyone. Plus, my hand sewing is embarrassingly bad.

I chose this DIY from Mommypotamus because the finished products pictured on the blog looked both cute and structurally-sound.

When I went home for Thanksgiving, I dug two old t-shirts out of my dresser - a bright green one from a college open house event, and another from a campaign I worked on when I lived in Washington, D.C. - to bring back to Maine. My mom, apparently, has since learned not to touch my old clothes, no matter how ratty and unflattering they may be.

I purchased a pair of fabric scissors (my scissor skills are bad enough already, so I might as well wield a sharp blade to help me along), but a sharp pair of regular scissors would suffice for most thin t-shirt fabric. I also grabbed a colored pencil to help mark where I would be cutting so my no-sew t-shirt bag would be as even as possible.

A trying experience

For those of you who don't know: fabric scissors are magic. They cut straight and evenly through my stretchy t-shirt like a knife through butter.

The bag "handles," formed when I cut the sleeves and collar off my shirt, seemed a bit structurally unsound, but I decided to wait until I tested the bag to pass any judgment. Without these elements, I could have worn my old t-shirt as an awkwardly-shaped muscle shirt and left it at that, but I decided to continue with my DIY commitment.

I sized the bottom based on the size of another reusable bag I had (though I think I actually would have sized it larger given the opportunity to do it again) and marked the line to which I would cut the vertical strips.

The most challenging part was tying the strips at the bottom of the no-sew t-shirt bag (or not-yet-bag) so that there were no gaps. Gaps are the enemy of heavy groceries, after all.

The instructions explained that, after forming three knots at the end of the fabric strip row, the leftmost strand from the middle knot should be tied to the adjacent strand in the left knot, and vice versa. After you tie the next knot in the series, the rightmost strand of the rightmost knot - as of yet, untethered - should be tied to its neighboring strand in the new knot, and so on until all the strands are tied.

At first, my clumsy fingers couldn't figure out the pattern. I misread the instructions initially and I kept retrying the one same strand all the way over until it was nothing but a nub. At points, I thought it might have just been easier to suck it up and sew the bag instead of weaving together the knots.

After a few tries, though, I got the hang of it and developed a relaxing rhythm. Once I was done, the bottom seemed pretty structurally sound, and I quickly whipped up another bag to test.

I went to Hannaford to pick up some ingredients for my contribution to the office holiday party (I made coleslaw) and to my book club (key lime pie tartlets). The bagger was hesitant to use my no-sew t-shirt bags, especially for eggs and glass Dijon mustard jar (I passed him a store-bought reusable bag for those).

All the produce and some canned goods, though, went into my no-sew t-shirt bags. There was some dramatic stretching and sagging - I was certain on my walk bag to the car that I would have a can of condensed milk wiggle its way between the knots and find its way to the asphalt - but my DIY bags held up. The thought also occurred to me, as the bottom of my bag accumulated cabbage condensation, that these no-sew t-shirt bags would be much easier to wash than their stiff, plasticky store-bought counterparts.

Successfully making a no-sew t-shirt bag that I can use every day won't bring my high school theater shirts back. In their memory, though, I can now ensure that no t-shirt of mine shall ever meet such an ignoble fate again.

My tried-and-true takeaways

No-sew t-shirt bags are easy to make and fairly durable, though admittedly they do not quite have the structural integrity of other reusable bags. I do not know if I would use a no-sew t-shirt bag for bulk shopping, but it will definitely be useful - and turn the heads of other upcycling aficionados - at a farmers market for produce.

Functionality aside, making a no-sew t-shirt bag is a fun way to preserve old memories while making your daily life a little more sustainable.

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I tried to make a no-sew T-shirt bag. Here's how it went.

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Over my four years of high school theater, I accumulated over a dozen show shirts, each screen-printed with a student-drawn show poster and the performance dates. Even though they each cost $10 and rendered the wearer as a living ad-plastered city bus, I wore the shirts proudly, even after the performances had passed.

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Deforestation not only effects wildlife but us as well.

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Deforestation and Forest Degradation | Threats | WWF

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Learn how you can help support WWF’s conservation work which addresses direct and indirect threats, including deforestation, in order to conserve biodiversity and reduce humanity’s ecological footprint.

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how climate change impacts the Artic Ocean

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how climate change impacts the Artic Ocean

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This article by Daniel Merino and Gemma Ware, features Dr Karen Filbee-Dexter from UWA's School of Biological Sciences and originally appeared in The Conversation on 4 March 2021.
In this week's episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, two experts explain how melting ice in the far north is bringing more light to the Arctic Ocean and what this means for the species that live there. And we hear from a team of archaeologists on their new research in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge that found evidence of just how adaptable early humans were to the changing environment.

Every summer, the sea ice in the Arctic melts - but it's melting more and more each year. In September 2020, the ice covered 3.74 million square kilometres in the Arctic. That might sound like a lot, but it was actually the second smallest measurement ever - and roughly half of what was measured in 1980. This dramatic loss is because the Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the planet.

Scientists are studying what climate change means for the various species that live in the Arctic Ocean. One of the things they're looking at is light: as the sea ice shrinks, that means more light can get down to the depths, but also more ships can venture into the far north, bringing with them more artificial light.

We speak to two researchers who spend their time diving down into the ocean to study what this increase in light means. Karen Filbee-Dexter, research fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Western Australia, talks to us about how the increase in sunlight is good news for the Arctic's underwater kelp forests. "We're already way into the climate change future along our Arctic coastlines," she says, "so it's not surprising that our ecosystems are responding because these changes are really dramatic and they're noticeable."

And Jørgen Berge, professor of Arctic marine ecology, at the University of Tromsø in Norway, says that even during the polar night, when the Sun doesn't come up for months, light plays an important role. "The polar night is certainly not just dark. It's actually all about different kinds of lights, both background illumination from the Sun, the aurora borealis, the Moon, also biological lights." He explains his recent research which found out just how disruptive artificial light can be to the creatures that live in these ecosystems.

In our second story, we head to the warmer climes of the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, known as the birthplace of humanity. We speak to a team of researchers, Julio Mercader, professor of anthropology and archaeology at the University of Calgary in Canada, and Pastory Bushozi, director of Humanities Research Centre and Makarius Peter Itambu, lecturer in the College of Humanities, both at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, about their recent discoveries in the gorge. They found new evidence of just how adaptable early humans were to the changing environment around 2 million years ago.

And Laura Hood, politics editor and assistant editor at The Conversation in London, recommends a couple of stories by academics in the UK.

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.

News clips in this episode from Euronews, Global News and DW News.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

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What climate change is doing to the Arctic Ocean

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This article by Daniel Merino and Gemma Ware, features Dr Karen Filbee-Dexter from UWA's School of Biological Sciences and originally appeared in The Conversation on 4 March 2021. In this week's episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, two experts explain how melting ice in the far north is bringing more light to the Arctic Ocean and what this means for the species that live there.

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Invasive species hitch hiking on aquarium plants

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Invasive species hitch hiking on aquarium plants

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Marimo Moss balls, a popular addition to home aquariums have been found to have zebra mussels within them. If disposed of improperly the invasive mussels can enter aquatic ecosystems where they do not belong.

Is this a problem with other pets introducing pests?

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Officials are asking aquarium owners to make sure an invasive species of mussels didn't hitch a ride into Wisconsin via balls of moss sold at pet stores.

Zebra mussels have been found within moss balls sold at pet stores across 21 states - including Wisconsin and Michigan, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The tiny black and white mussels, about the size of a fingernail, were found in moss balls imported from Ukraine on March 2.

Moss balls, popular aquarium plants, are made up of Marimo moss, a form of algae found in Northern Europe and Asia. The algae is popular because of its ability to generate oxygen and remove nitrates from tanks, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The moss balls were sold at stores including Petco and PetSmart.

Even though the moss balls are most often a part of an indoor home aquarium, if an owner improperly disposed of one, zebra mussels could easily get into the environment.

"The issue is that somebody who purchased the moss ball and then disposed of them could end up introducing zebra mussels into an environment where they weren't present before," USGS fisheries biologist Wesley Daniel said in a statement. "We've been working with many agencies on boat inspections and gear inspections, but this was not a pathway we'd been aware of until now."

The USGS recommends anyone who discovers zebra mussels within a moss ball remove it from their aquarium and either freeze it for 24 hours, place it in boiling water for at least one minute, put it in undiluted chlorine bleach or submerge it in undiluted white vinegar for at least 20 minutes to kill off the mussels.

The Michigan DNR said there is evidence people have been dumping aquariums into waterways because goldfish and other aquarium species have been found in them. Employees warned against doing so with any aquariums including moss balls, to ensure the zebra mussels aren't able to add to the current infestation facing Michigan and Wisconsin.
RELATED: How invasive species changed the Great Lakes forever
Zebra mussels originated in the Caspian and Black seas regions and are famous for their ability to glue themselves to any hard surface in clusters. They were found in the Great Lakes in the late 1980s, likely having traveled over in freighter ballast tanks.

The small mussels spelled disaster for the Great Lakes, not only because they filtered essential plankton from the water at highly efficient rates, but also because of their ability to clog industrial water intake pipes with ease. Though the mussels may make water cleaner, they leave behind little subsistence for native species in state waters.

Since infesting the Great Lakes, zebra mussels have infested hundreds of lakes and rivers across Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin DNR.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura.
The USGS is currently studying ways to remove the mussels from the environment, with methods such as low-dose copper applications, carbon dioxide and microparticle delivery of toxicants.

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Make sure to check your moss balls: Invasive zebra mussels hitch a ride to Wisconsin inside popular aquarium plant

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Officials are asking aquarium owners to make sure an invasive species of mussels didn't hitch a ride into Wisconsin via balls of moss sold at pet stores. Zebra mussels have been found within moss balls sold at pet stores across 21 states - including Wisconsin and Michigan, according to the U.S.

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Learn about all the dangers turtles have to worry about every day. The long list will shock you.

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The following effects of climate change will have critical implications for sea turtles:
Severe Storms
More severe storms, such as hurricanes and tropical cyclones, could increase beach erosion rates, endangering sea turtle nesting habitat. Often severe storms could increase the chance that sea turtle nests will flood, decreasing nesting success rates.
Hotter Sands
The sex of sea turtle hatchlings is influenced by the temperature of the sand in which the eggs develop. Climate change can cause increased temperature. Higher temperatures cause the sand to heat up and lead to a higher proportion of female to male hatchlings. One study concluded that it is likely that southern populations of turtles in the U.S. will become ultra-biased towards female populations if temperatures increase by even 1 C.
Sea Level Rise
As climate change melts ice and warms the oceans, sea levels rise. Sea level rise for the end of the 21st century range from 0.18 to 0.59 meters. Even a small rise in sea level could result in a large loss of beach nesting habitats..
Changing Currents
Climate change is altering ocean currents, which are the highways that sea turtles use for migration. With changes in ocean circulation, sea turtles may have to alter their movements and possibly shift their range and nesting timing.
Other Threats to Sea Turtles
Along with fishing gear and climate change, there are numerous human activity threats to sea turtles. These threats include coastal development, pollution, direct harvest, invasive species and vessel strikes.
Coastal Development
With the encroachment of hotels, parking lots and housing along nesting beaches, female turtles are forced to use suboptimal nesting habitats. After emerging from their nests at night, newborn hatchlings find their way from nest to sea using the light of the moon.

Artificial lighting, such as street lamps and hotel room lights, confuses these hatchlings, sending them landward in the wrong direction. This is a lower chance for survival due to dehydration, exhaustion, predators and automobiles.
Pollution
Solid waste, chemicals and pollutants from human activities enter the ocean, causing injury, illness and even death to sea turtles. The pollution sources range from wastewater discharge released by cruise liners to fishing nets that are lost by fishermen to fertilizer runoff that comes down rivers from farms. This means that even people living in the middle of the European Union can have an impact on the health of the oceans and sea turtles.

Thousands of chemicals contaminate the marine environment, many of which accumulate in the tissues of sea turtles, affecting their locomotion, brain functioning and reproductive success. Sea turtles also consume plastics and marine debris which are harmful to their digestive systems. Scientists believe that there may be a link between exposure to agricultural pollutants and the spread and prevalence of fibropapillomatosis, a disease in sea turtles that causes tumors to grow on the eyes, intestinal tracts, lungs, mouth, heart and other organs.
Plastics
Each year, more than six million tons of trash enters the oceans, with plastics comprising up to 90 percent. Marine trash poses an entanglement and ingestion hazard to turtles, threatening their ability to forage, grow and, ultimately, survive. A study conducted on young loggerhead turtles found that 15 percent of the turtles had ingested large amounts of plastics that blocked their stomach from functioning.
Invasive Species
Invasive species are non-native species of plants, animals or insects that have been introduced into an area where they are not found naturally. They can wreak havoc on native species by competing them for space and food or by acting as predators.

Examples of invasive species include a stowaway barnacle from a ship ballast, a hidden plant seed in the sole of a hiking boot worn on a remote island or a pet iguana released in the wild. For sea turtles, non-native species, such as fire ants, rats, red foxes and domestic dogs, can be very dangerous on the beach, where they dig up nests and eat sea turtle eggs.
Vessel Strikes
Sea turtles cannot breathe under water and their regular ascent to the surface puts sea turtles directly in the path of boats. Commercial and recreational vessels are major turtle harzards, particularly in shipping lanes and during peak tourism months when millions of recreational boaters congregate in coastal areas.

Boat collisions are one of the main identified source of trauma for turtles found stranded and dead on Mediterranean beaches. Injuries from boat propellers include amputated flippers, fractured shells, brain injuries and broken bones. Although not all of these injuries cause immediate death, they may provoke elevated levels of stress or injuries, which ultimately affect a sea turtle's ability to forage, migrate, escape from predators and reproduce.
Fishing Gear Trawls
A trawl is a large net that is pulled through the water column or along the seabed, catching anything that is not small enough to pass through the net's mesh openings. This fishing gear is typically used to catch fish or shrimp. Catching unwanted species is a problem for trawlers because it is a very indiscriminant form of fishing. Trawling can occur with one boat pulling a net or by two boats, each pulling an end of a much larger trawl net.

Sea turtles are prone to drowning when they are caught in trawl nets and are crushed or are unable to escape to the surface to breathe. Turtle excluder devices (TEDs) were designed to protect sea turtles and are required in shrimp trawls in US but not in EU. A TED is a grid of bars in the neck of the net with an opening, reminiscent of an escape hatch. The bars are spaced far enough apart to allow shrimp and fish to pass through to the tail of the net while allowing large species, such as sea turtles, to escape from the net through the opening.

The mandated use of these devices has greatly reduced the death of sea turtles in shrimp trawl fisheries but there are several other trawl fisheries which are not currently required to use TEDs.
Dredges
Sea scallops, clams and other animals which live on the ocean floor are caught using a method known as dredging. Dredging is a destructive method of fishing that involves dragging a dredge, or heavy metal frame and bag made of heavy metal chain links, often weighing several thousand pounds, along the seafloor. Dredges rake up bottom habitat, including corals and sponges, while collecting scallops and other bottom-dwelling species. Dredges also entrap or crush other organisms that rest and forage on the seafloor, including sea turtles.
Longlines
Longline fishing is a commercial fishing technique that uses thousands of baited hooks hanging from fishing line, often miles long. Swordfish, tuna mackerel, snapper and grouper are commonly targeted by this gear type. Longlines can be set to hang at varying depths depending on the targeted species.

Leatherbacks, which primarily inhabit the open ocean, are especially threatened by longlines hung near the surface. Loggerheads are often caught by longlines on the ocean bottom since they forage on bottom dwelling species.

Longlines are often set in the water for extended periods of time. By the time deeper set longlines are removed from the water, the hooked turtles may have drowned. Even if a sea turtle survives being hooked on a longline, it will have injuries that can be very serious. There are ways to disentangle turtles from fishing line and to remove hooks, but the process can be time-consuming, complicated and dangerous depending on the size of the turtle and weather conditions at sea.
Gillnets
Gillnets are long walls of netting hung in the water to trap and hold fish. Gillnets can be fished in a variety of ways: anchored, so they float in one space at the top of the water column, set on the ocean bottom or left drifting in the current. A fish swims into the invisible netting and as it swims in reverse to try to dislodge itself, its gills become caught in the twine.

Sea turtles, like fish, become entangled in the netting. Because sea turtles need to come to the surface to breath, they die if held under water for too long. If they are alive when the net is retrieved, they are often injured and stressed. Turtles can lose flippers from entanglement in gillnetting. If a turtle survives from a gillnet, the turtle is then more vulnerable to predation and has reduced ability to carry on normal activities.
Purse Seine Nets
Purse seines are typically fished using two boats -- a small skiff and a launch vessel. The skiff encircles a school of fish, dragging one end of the net behind it. After a complete circle is made, the launch vessel tightens a rope to close the bottom of the net. Purse seines are not generally left underwater for extended periods of time, so the resulting risk of turtle mortality from forced submergence is relatively low compared to other gear types. However, bycatch in seines presents an ongoing problem for turtles and other marine wildlife, such as dolphins and sharks.
Pound Nets
Pound nets are stationary fishing devices that can extend more than 15 feet in length and are used to catch a variety of species including striped bass, bluefish, crab, croaker and flounder.

The pound net system is divided into three sections: a perpendicular leader that acts as a partition to block fish and other ocean critters from swimming past; a heart-shaped wall of nets that forces animals to swim in the direction of the pound; and a pound net that serves as the actual entrapment basin where fishermen can collect and sort their catch.

The tops of the nets poke out of the surface of the water, making sure that fish and other animals do not escape. As sea turtles swim parallel to shore, their path is blocked by the fence-like leader, where their fins or heads can be entangled, causing serious injury or death from drowning. Recent studies have shown that decreasing mesh size and increasing net stiffness can lower sea turtle bycatch rates in pound nets.

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The following effects of climate change will have critical implications for sea turtles: Severe Storms More severe storms, such as hurricanes and tropical cyclones, could increase beach erosion rates, endangering sea turtle nesting habitat. Often severe storms could increase the chance that sea turtle nests will flood, decreasing nesting success rates.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Hot and dry. These are the watchwords for large fires. While every fire needs a spark to ignite and fuel to burn, the hot and dry conditions in the atmosphere determine the likelihood of a fire starting, its intensity and the speed at which it spreads. Over the past several decades, as the world has increasingly warmed, so has its potential to burn.

This visualization shows carbon emissions from fires from Jan. 1, 2003, through Dec. 31, 2018. The color bar reflects the quantity of carbon emitted. Credit: NASA

Since 1880, the world has warmed by 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.09 degrees Celsius), with the five warmest years on record occurring in the last five years. Since the 1980s, the wildfire season has lengthened across a quarter of the world's vegetated surface, and in some places like California, fire has become nearly a year-round risk. The year 2018 was California's worst wildfire season on record, on the heels of a devasting 2017 fire season. In 2019, wildfires have already burned 2.5 million acres in Alaska in an extreme fire season driven by high temperatures, which have also led to massive fires in Siberia.

Whether started naturally or by people, fires worldwide and the resulting smoke emissions and burned areas have been observed by NASA satellites from space for two decades. Combined with data collected and analyzed by scientists and forest managers on the ground, researchers at NASA, other U.S. agencies and universities are beginning to draw into focus the interplay between fires, climate and humans.

"Our ability to track fires in a concerted way over the last 20 years with satellite data has captured large-scale trends, such as increased fire activity, consistent with a warming climate in places like the western U.S., Canada and other parts of Northern Hemisphere forests where fuels are abundant," said Doug Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Where warming and drying climate has increased the risk of fires, we've seen an increase in burning."

A Hotter, Drier World

High temperatures and low humidity are two essential factors behind the rise in fire risk and activity, affecting fire behavior from its ignition to its spread. Even before a fire starts, they set the stage, said Jim Randerson, an Earth system scientist at the University of California, Irvine who studies fires both in the field and with satellite data.

He and his colleagues studied the abundance of lightning strikes in the 2015 Alaskan fire season that burned a record 5.1 million acres. Lightning strikes are the main natural cause of fires. The researchers found an unusually high number of lightning strikes occurred, generated by the warmer temperatures that cause the atmosphere to create more convective systems - thunderstorms - which ultimately contributed to more burned area that year.

Hotter and drier conditions also set the stage for human-ignited fires. "In the Western U.S., people are accidentally igniting fires all the time," Randerson said. "But when we have a period of extreme weather, high temperatures, low humidity, then it's more likely that typical outdoor activity might lead to an accidental fire that quickly gets out of control and becomes a large wildfire."

For example, in 2018 sparks flying from hammering a concrete stake into the ground in 100-degree Fahrenheit heat and sparks from a car's tire rim scraping against the asphalt after a flat tire were the causes of California's devastatingly destructive Ranch and Carr Fires, respectively. These sparks quickly ignited the vegetation that was dried out and made extremely flammable by the same extreme heat and low humidity, which research also shows can contribute to a fire's rapid and uncontrollable spread, Randerson said. The same conditions make it more likely for agricultural fires to get out of control.

A warming world also has another consequence that may be contributing to fire conditions persisting over multiple days where they otherwise might not have in the past: higher nighttime temperatures.

"Warmer nighttime temperature allow fires to burn through the night and burn more intensely, and that allows fires to spread over multiple days where previously, cooler nighttime temperatures might have weakened or extinguished the fire after only one day," Morton said.

Climate Systems at Work

Hot and dry conditions that precede fires can be tempered by rain and moisture circulating in the atmosphere. On time scales of months to years, broader climate patterns move moisture and heat around the planet. Monitoring these systems with satellite observations allows researchers to be able to begin to develop computer models for predicting whether an upcoming fire season in a given region will be light, average or extreme. The most important of these indicators are sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that govern the El Niño Southern Oscillation ( ENSO).

"ENSO is a major driver of fire activity across multiple continents," Randerson said, who along with Morton and other researchers have studied the relationship between El Niño events and fire seasons in South America, Central America, parts of North America, Indonesia, Southeast Asia and equatorial Asia. "The precipitation both before the fire season and during the fire season can be predicted using sea surface temperatures that are measured by NASA and NOAA satellites."

An ongoing project, Randerson said, is to now extend that prediction capability globally to regions that are affected by other ocean-climate temperature changes and indicators.

The Human Factor

In studying the long-term trends of fires, human land management is as important to consider as any other factor. Globally, someplace on Earth is always on fire - and most of those fires are set by people, either accidentally in wildlands, or on purpose, for example, to clear land or burn agricultural fields after the harvest to remove crop residues.

But not all fires behave the same way. Their behavior depends on the fuel type and the how people are changing the landscape. While fire activity has gotten worse in northern latitude forests, research conducted by Randerson and Morton has shown that despite climate conditions that favor fires, the number of fires in grassland and savanna ecosystems worldwide are declining, contributing to an overall decline in global burned area. The decline is due to an increased human presence creating new cropland and roads that serve as fire breaks and motivate the local population to fight these smaller fires, Morton said.

"Humans and climate together are really the dual factors that are shaping the fires around the world. It's not one or the other," Randerson said.

Fire Feedbacks

Fires impact humans and climate in return. For people, beyond the immediate loss of life and property, smoke is a serious health hazard when small soot particles enter the lungs. Long-term exposure has been linked to higher rates of respiratory and heart problems. Smoke plumes can travel for thousands of miles affecting air quality for people far downwind of the original fire. Fires also pose a threat to local water quality, and the loss of vegetation can lead to erosion and mudslides afterwards, which have been particularly bad in California, Randerson said.

In June and early July 2019, a heat wave in Alaska broke temperature records, as seen in this July 8 air temperature map (left). The corresponding image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the Aqua satellite on the right shows smoke from lightening-triggered wildfires. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

For the climate, fires can directly and indirectly increase carbon emissions to the atmosphere. While they burn, fires release carbon stored in trees or in the soil. In some places like California or Alaska, additional carbon may be released as the dead trees decompose, a process that may take decades because dead trees will stand like ghosts in the forest, decaying slowly, Morton said. In addition to releasing carbon as they decompose, the dead trees no longer act as a carbon sink by pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In some areas like Indonesia, Randerson and his colleagues have found that the radiocarbon age of carbon emissions from peat fires is about 800 years, which is then added to the greenhouse gases in that atmosphere that drive global warming. In Arctic and boreal forest ecosystems, fires burn organic carbon stored in the soils and hasten the melting of permafrost, which release methane, another greenhouse gas, when thawed.

Another area of active research is the mixed effect of particulates, or aerosols, in the atmosphere in regional climates due to fires, Randerson said. Aerosols can be dark like soot, often called black carbon, absorbing heat from sunlight while in the air, and when landing and darkening snow on the ground, accelerating its melt, which affects both local temperatures - raising them since snow reflects sunlight away - and the water cycle. But other aerosol particles can be light colored, reflecting sunlight and potentially having a cooling effect while they remain in the atmosphere. Whether dark or light, according to Randerson, aerosols from fires may also have an effect on clouds that make it harder for water droplets to form in the tropics, and thus reduce rainfall - and increase drying.

Fires of all types reshape the landscape and the atmosphere in ways that can resonate for decades. Understanding both their immediate and long-term effects requires long-term global data sets that follow fires from their detection to mapping the scale of their burned area, to tracing smoke through the atmosphere and monitoring changes to rainfall patterns.

"As climate warms, we have an increasing frequency of extreme events. It's critical to monitor and understand extreme fires using satellite data so that we have the tools to successfully manage them in a warmer world," Randerson said.

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national aeronautics and space administration

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By Ellen Gray,
NASA's Earth Science News Team

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Satellite Data Record Shows Climate Change's Impact on Fires - Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Hot and dry. These are the watchwords for large fires. While every fire needs a spark to ignite and fuel to burn, the hot and dry conditions in the atmosphere determine the likelihood of a fire starting, its intensity and the speed at which it spreads.

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Buscar alternativas a la explotación animal parece ser la única posibilidad de que nuestra especie subsista.

Un ganado pasta en una zona deforestada de Paraguay en 2013. Credit... Mauricio Lima para The New York Times

MADRID - Llevo tiempo planteándomelo: ¿debería dejar de comer carne? Para mí hoy luce imposible. No soy vegana ni vegetariana y hasta hace poco me irritaba bastante una actitud que me parecía tan puritana como abusiva: pretender hacerte sentir como un asesino cuando optas libremente por comerte un bistec, como han hecho los humanos hace miles de años.

Empecé a reflexionar sobre el tema por lecturas de filosofía moral, donde lo que se ha llamado la "cuestión animal" se ha vuelto ineludible. Por lo visto el mercado también ha advertido un cambio de mentalidad en la gente (o en los "consumidores", como prefieren llamarlos). El estudio The Green Revolution, realizado por una compañía de estrategia empresarial y centrado en España, revela la novedad en un país que tradicionalmente fue un gran consumidor de carne. Como en muchos otros lugares prósperos, aquí también los negocios serán verdes o no serán.

Limitar la reflexión a las directrices de la oferta y la demanda no parece bastar, sin embargo. El argumento económico para apoyar la industria verde y sostenible, que se ha usado mucho en las últimas dos décadas, es necesario. Para tener éxito masivo, las alternativas al consumo de productos de origen animal deben tener costos que compitan con los de productos tradicionales de alimentación, de modo que los consumidores, en especial los más pobres, puedan elegirlos. Eso requiere innovar en la producción, cosa que no sucederá de la noche a la mañana.

Pero hay algo más urgente que se debe considerar: buscar alternativas a la explotación animal parece ser la única posibilidad de que nuestra especie subsista. Hay un consenso entre los expertos del cambio climático en que criar animales para nuestro consumo -por el mal manejo de los suelos que supone y la deforestación - contribuye sustancialmente a la transformación del planeta. El deterioro del ambiente nos impone modificar nuestros modos tradicionales de proveernos de proteínas.

El estudio para las empresas señala que su intención es ayudar a comprender el veggie boom, una tendencia que consideran indetenible: un número creciente de personas, se lee, "optan por no consumir alimentos de origen animal o reducirlos al máximo". El 7,8 por ciento de la población que vive en España y es mayor de 18 años, advierte el informe, mantiene dietas vegetales o con preferencia por los productos vegetales y se identifica con alguna variante de alimentación sin carne. Según algunas estimaciones, hoy el 5 por ciento de la población mundial es vegetariana. Parece mucho si no fuera porque el resto, el 95 por ciento, no lo es. Y la producción de carne, aunque se estima que en 2019 tuvo un ligero descenso, crece.

Pese a ello, nuestra época está presenciando un cambio de mentalidad anunciado en la ética filosófica en los años setenta. En 1975, se publicó por primera vez Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals, obra capital del filósofo australiano Peter Singer. Para cuando apareció la edición en español, en los años noventa, el subtítulo ya indicaba lo que el libro había significado: "El clásico definitivo del movimiento animalista".

Aunque desde su primera edición, el llamado de Liberación animal a incluir a los animales en nuestras consideraciones éticas ha sido adversado con todo tipo de argumentos filosóficos, económicos e históricos, hoy el movimiento al que dio pie su libro parece indetenible. Es muy probable que en pocas décadas los humanos carnívoros nos parezcan tan inhumanos como los esclavistas del pasado, y maltratar o explotar animales sea una acción tan inaceptable como lo es hoy hacerlo con seres humanos.

En sus páginas, por primera vez, se formula la noción de especismo: la discriminación de un ser vivo por pertenecer a una especie diferente a la nuestra. Pero la novedad es que Singer llega a ella a partir de una teoría ética, el utilitarismo, que suele asociarse tanto al egoísmo como a la razón instrumental. Todos los individuos que pueden sufrir y disfrutar tienen derechos -sostiene- y, siempre que esté a nuestro alcance, debemos actuar para prevenir o reducir ese sufrimiento.

En concordancia con filósofos clásicos como Jeremy Bentham o John Stuart Mill, para quienes las acciones se evalúan de acuerdo con su posibilidad de maximizar la felicidad o la utilidad para la mayor cantidad posible de individuos, Singer amplía el concepto de bienestar a los animales. Y nos recuerda al hacerlo, con espeluznantes ejemplos, que nos hemos permitido tratar a nuestros compañeros de reino como a los seres humanos más oprimidos por los totalitarismos del siglo XX.

Ignorar los dilemas que plantea la explotación animal ya no es posible. La sostenibilidad del planeta y de la economía lo exigen. Y no es un conflicto solo para cierta sensibilidad (o sensiblería) moral ni una mera oportunidad de negocio. Las zoonosis, enfermedades que saltan de animales a seres humanos, como el coronavirus y otras epidemias que podrían sucederse en los próximos años por destruir sus hábitats, son la gota que derrama el vaso. Pero estas solo se suman a los grandes desastres ambientales a los que han contribuido en gran medida nuestras formas tradicionales de alimentarnos.

Como todo cambio de mentalidad, estar en el medio de este no será fácil. Mucho menos para quienes venimos de regiones, como América Latina, donde el sufrimiento de los seres humanos nos hace ver como exagerada o abstracta la preocupación por el destino de los animales. Pero cada vez será más difícil desentendernos de nuestra responsabilidad. Empiezo a ver con mejores ojos a quienes antes me parecían extremistas de un culto raro.

Yo misma estoy en ese dilema de dimensiones existenciales: ¿tendría que comer menos carne o no comer carne en absoluto? Es una pregunta de la que depende no solo el bienestar de los animales, sino el nuestro como especie.

Sandra Caula es filósofa y editora.

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¿Por qué estoy pensando hacerme vegetariana?

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Buscar alternativas a la explotación animal parece ser la única posibilidad de que nuestra especie subsista. MADRID - Llevo tiempo planteándomelo: ¿debería dejar de comer carne? Para mí hoy luce imposible.

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Sturgeon Caviar Scandal Overshadows Lake Winnebago Fishing Season

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For people who revel in snowy and icy winter pursuits, Wisconsin boasts a unique fishing season. Generations of family and friends gather on Lake Winnebago to try their luck at spearing huge, prehistoric-looking sturgeon. But what's considered a conservation success story has become overcast.
LISTEN: As Global Lake Sturgeon Populations Collapse, Wisconsin's Rich Spearing Tradition Thrives
The state's top sturgeon biologist is being charged for involvement in an illegal sturgeon caviar scheme.

Just over a week before its Feb. 13 kick off, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources sturgeon biologist Ryan Koenigs predicted a good spearing season.

"Water clarity is actually the biggest predictor of sturgeon spearing success, with the water clarity this year being favorable, probably the best clarity we've had at least in the last years, we're anticipating there's going to be a relatively high harvest," said Koenigs.

Then, just before spearing fans began hauling shanties onto Lake Winnebago's frozen vastness, news broke of accusations that Koenigs had been part of a caviar racket.

In Wisconsin, spearers who harvest a female sturgeon with eggs may process and share the eggs, but may not barter or sell them.

Koenigs is accused of handing over sturgeon eggs set aside for research to a processer. And in return, he allegedly received thousands of dollars' worth of processed caviar.

Fisherman Jim Patt has known and collaborated with Koenigs over the years. Patt grew up along Lake Winnebago and first went spearfishing as a child with his dad.

In a collection of shanties off the lake's western shore, generations of his family and friends have shared the spearing tradition.

"Yeah, nephews and my children too. My daughter and my son both spear. We've all gotten fish, sometimes you go a number of years without getting any. I have a cousin the hasn't gotten one since the '90s. He's out here all the time - he's just not, one just doesn't swim through," says Patt.

Inside his latest homemade shanty, three spearers can comfortably peer through large holes carved through the 20-inch-thick ice.

But Patt doesn't take the fish's abundance for granted. When he was a kid, sturgeon numbers were low, due to years of overfishing and poaching, in many cases for the caviar.

Sturgeon supporters around the lake stepped up to assist the DNR - forming the group Sturgeon for Tomorrow. More than four decades later, Patt is one of its 2,000-plus members.

And the sturgeon population has bounced back to more than 40,000 adult fish.

"We do a lot for the fish, a lot of spawning habitat, a lot of research we've sponsored. It's come a long ways in what would it be 42, 43 years. It's over a million dollars that we've donated," he says.

Patt says he is baffled by Koenig's alleged actions, having worked with the DNR scientist as an ally in conservation. He sees the potential of having to start over with a new state biologist as a setback.

"We're in a good place right now, and if Ryan is not there anymore, it's going to take years to bring something back. Hopefully it won't affect the sturgeon, but we don't know that either," he says.

Fishermen Joseph Beck and Jackson Schroeder aren't worrying about the future. They're about to celebrate the sturgeon they've just speared, after they're measured and weighed.

"I've gone out for the last eight years and this is my first year with a tag and this is my first fish ever, so I'm very excited," says Schroeder.

"This is my first year, second day out, first fish," says Beck.

Schroeder's fish was the biggest speared on Winnebago that day - a whopping 121.7 pounds.

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Sturgeon Caviar Scandal Overshadows Lake Winnebago Fishing Season

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For people who revel in snowy and icy winter pursuits, Wisconsin boasts a unique fishing season. Generations of family and friends gather on Lake Winnebago to try their luck at spearing huge, prehistoric-looking sturgeon. But what's considered a conservation success story has become overcast.

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This is FASCINATING - one state declares a "Meat Out" day, the other gets mad and declares "“Meat on the Menu Day". How will we solve the climate crisis, when even the suggestion of not eating meat for a DAY is so political??

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In a ceremonial effort to discourage meat consumption, the Colorado governor declared March 20 "MeatOut Day." Then Nebraska's governor announced "Meat on the Menu Day," seeking to do just the opposite.

Nebraska and Colorado have issued competing proclamations, alternately encouraging and discouraging meat consumption on March 20. Credit... Sarah Kloepping/The Green Bay Press-Gazette, via Associated Press

Depending on which side of the Colorado-Nebraska state line you're standing on, the meat-related significance of March 20 varies drastically.

Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado recently declared the date to be "MeatOut Day," seeking to decrease meat consumption and encourage meat eaters to consider plant-based diets. Though Mr. Polis's proclamation was largely ceremonial, Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska took notice, and on Monday he declared March 20 to be "Meat on the Menu Day" in his state.

Thus began a carnivorous culture war complicated by the prominent agriculture industries in both states, where livestock accounts for meaty portions of the economy.

"That is a direct attack on our way of life here in Nebraska," Mr. Ricketts said at a news conference at Frank Stoysich Meats, a butcher shop in Omaha, where he announced the creation of Meat on the Menu Day.

MeatOut Day was started in 1985 by the Farm Animal Rights Movement, a nonprofit animal welfare organization. Since then, MeatOut Day proclamations have been issued by state and national authorities around the world.

The proclamation encourages people to "explore the benefits and flavors of a wholesome plant-based diet." It cites potential health benefits, including lowered risk of ailments including heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, various cancers and diabetes. It also lists environmental benefits, such as "reducing our carbon footprint" and "preserving forests, grasslands and wildlife habitats."

The initiative ruffled feathers in Colorado's agriculture industry, which contributes $47 billion annually to the state economy.

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Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado has faced fierce resistance from the state's agricultural interests to his office's recent declaration of MeatOut Day. Credit... David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Several legislators spoke out against it on the floor of the Colorado Senate, CPR News reported. "For our governor to say that we should have a meat-free day is the last straw," State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer, Republican of Weld County, said. "It's just one more attack against my county."

The Colorado Cattlemen's Association, an industry group, said in a statement that the MeatOut movement was "harmful and falsely critical of agriculture and meat production."

The group announced a competing "Meat In" movement on March 20, encouraging Coloradans to "meet in a restaurant and order your favorite meat dish, meet your family and friends for a meal featuring meat."

"Let's focus on keeping meat in and on the breakfast, lunch and dinner table!" it said.

Other groups, including politicians, voiced support for similar events encouraging meat consumption. Three Republican officeholders announced plans to host a barbecue on March 20 in Calhan, Colo., that would feature beef from nearby Freeman Ranch. Another Facebook event simply urged participants to grill a rib-eye steak or smoke a brisket to show their support for Colorado ranchers and their displeasure with Mr. Polis, who is a Democrat.

"We say to hell with Polis and the leafy greens he rolled in on," the description of the event reads, suggesting that Coloradans treat themselves to a 32-ounce porterhouse, or visit their favorite steakhouse to "order the biggest slab on the menu with a splash of bourbon!"

Shelby Wieman, a spokeswoman for Mr. Polis, sought to downplay the significance of the MeatOut declaration by noting that the state issues "hundreds of proclamations a year" at the request of various groups, businesses and special organizations.

"Governor Polis is a strong supporter of Colorado jobs in the meat industry and was just in Greeley and Fort Morgan, where the state partnered to provide the lifesaving vaccine to meat processing workers," she said, also noting that "the previous administration issued a similar proclamation in 2011."

Across state lines, Mr. Ricketts, a Republican, made clear his support of meat, and not for the first time. In 2019, he declared May "Beef Month," to highlight the cattle industry.

Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska has previously shown support for the meat industry. Credit... Kenneth Ferriera/Lincoln Journal Star, via Associated Press

At the news conference, he announced that March 20 would be designated Meat on the Menu Day to "highlight the importance of meat in a good diet as well as to provide an opportunity to support our farmers and ranchers."

"Agriculture is Nebraska's No. 1 industry and beef is our largest segment of production," Mr. Ricketts said in a statement. "While meat is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat, there are radical anti-agriculture activists that are working to end meat production and our way of life here in Nebraska."

In Nebraska, one in four jobs is supported by agriculture, said Steve Wellman, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. It contributes $21 billion to the state annually, $12 billion from meat products alone, he said.

According to the American Heart Association, red meat - including beef - contains more saturated fat, which can raise cholesterol and has been linked to heart disease, than other meats. For those reasons, health professionals recommend limiting red meat intake.

Environmentalists have rallied behind lowering meat consumption for years. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture accounts for about 10 percent of greenhouse emissions. Cattle in particular are known to have an environmental impact because they emit methane, a potent planet-warming gas. Studies have found that beef production generates about four to eight times as much carbon as pork, chicken or egg production, per gram of protein created. All meat production leaves a larger climate-change footprint than plant-based proteins like soy or other beans.

In response to the backlash, Kate Greenberg, the Colorado agriculture commissioner, issued an open letter to the state's livestock producers and clarified that the proclamation was "nonbinding" and did not create a new state holiday, The Sterling Journal-Advocate reported. She noted that a similar proclamation had been made by former Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2011.

"You, your families and your hard work are part of the backbone of Colorado's rural communities," she wrote. "I want you to know that I've got your back as you do what you do best. The livestock industry is an essential part of Colorado's past, present and future. No proclamation will change that."

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In a ceremonial effort to discourage meat consumption, the Colorado governor declared March 20 "MeatOut Day." Then Nebraska's governor announced "Meat on the Menu Day," seeking to do just the opposite. Depending on which side of the Colorado-Nebraska state line you're standing on, the meat-related significance of March 20 varies drastically.

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The School District of New Berlin is getting into the solar energy game. And not in a small way.

The district is partnering with We Energies and Pewaukee-based SunVest Solar to install more than 8,000 solar panels at three schools this summer.

It's the first project under We Energies' new Solar Now program, an initiative to create 35 megawatts of clean, renewable energy that will benefit all the utility's customers. The pilot program was approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.

The New Berlin project will produce more than 2 MW of power.

It will involve installing roof-mounted solar panels at three schools: Ronald Reagan Elementary, Eisenhower Middle/High School and West High School. Ronald Reagan will also have a ground-mounted array on vacant property south of the school.

Installation has already begun at Eisenhower.

On Tuesday, June 18, crews from Current Electric Co. in Brookfield were working to install panels on one section of the school's roof. When complete, the topside of Eisenhower will boast more than 1,800 modules.

How it works

Under the Solar Now program, We Energies will pay the New Berlin School District to host the solar panels.

In return, the utility will pay the district an estimated $94,500 a year for the next 20 years.

The district will have some costs down the road, said District Communications Coordinator David Cotey. For example, when roofs need to be repaired or replaced due to wear and tear or life expectancy, there will be a cost to decommission, disassemble and reassemble the roof-mounted solar components.

Those projected costs bring the estimated total revenue over 20 years to about $1.5 million, Cotey said.

The energy produced by the district's solar panels will go to the grid.

'Huge win'

Rep. Mike Kuglitsch (R-New Berlin) said Solar Now is a way for commercial, industrial, government and nonprofit customers to host solar arrays and solar panels and get paid for it.

"To me that was a huge win," Kuglitsch said in a We Energies video announcing the project. "And I want to commend both the school district and We Energies for working together. I guess you could call me the matchmaker."

While the program is aimed at large commercial and government host customers, all We Energies customers will benefit, according to the utility. The solar energy that is produced will help reduce fuel costs to all customers while maintaining fuel diversity and reducing carbon emissions.

An additional benefit of the project, Kuglitsch said, is the learning opportunity it'll provide for students. He called it a "hidden gem."

'Very large project'

The energy generated by the New Berlin solar system will be enough to power about 400 homes, SunVest Solar CEO Matt Neumann said.

"It will be from our knowledge the largest solar system installed on a school district in the state," he said. "It's a very large project."

And a unique one, involving private industry, a utility and a public school district.

"I think it's a neat, three-way partnership, and I think it's something that we're likely to see for years to come," Neumann said.

Work on the rooftop systems should be done by the end of August with the ground array completed sometime in September, Neumann said.
Contact Bob Dohr at 262-361-9140 or bob.dohr@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BobDohr1.

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A first-of-its-kind project in New Berlin is turning school roofs into solar energy collectors

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The School District of New Berlin is getting into the solar energy game. And not in a small way. The district is partnering with We Energies and Pewaukee-based SunVest Solar to install more than 8,000 solar panels at three schools this summer.

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As millions go hungry, here’s how to reduce food waste in WI

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As millions go hungry, here’s how to reduce food waste in WI

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In this country we throw away more than 31% of our food annually. That amounts to 133 billion pounds and 161 billion worth of food each year.

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WISCONSIN-A year into the coronavirus pandemic, families in Waukesha and Milwaukee County are still struggling to make ends meet. Millions can't put food on the table for their families, while others frequently go to bed hungry.

The pandemic left a profound mark on families both here and throughout the world. Yet while millions of our neighbors go hungry, many of us are wasting and throwing away food at unprecedented rates, according to a recent United Nations report.

The report, released earlier this month, estimates that 17 percent of the food produced globally each year is wasted. That amounts to 931 million metric tons of food, the report says.

The United States is the world's greatest offender, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In this country, we throw away about 31 percent of our food annually. That amounts to 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food each year.

Yet Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization, estimates as many as 515,930 people are struggling with hunger in Wisconsin and of them 179,180 are children. Nationally, at least 42 million Americans could grapple with hunger this year, partly because of the pandemic.

Given the number of hungry people in our country, why - but, better yet, how - do we allow so much food to go to waste?

Here's a look at some truths behind food waste and what Wisconsin residents can do to curb it:
What Causes Food Waste
The average person in the United States tosses about 219 pounds of food each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food waste happens for many reasons and at all stages of the food cycle. However, three types of food waste generally exist: food that's spoiled, food we think is spoiled, and food we know is still consumable but no longer want.

Food waste also happens at the retail and production level for numerous reasons: weather, processing and storage problems, overproduction, overbuying, poor planning - the list goes on.

Still, a majority of food thrown away is perfectly safe to eat - about 90 percent of tossed food can still be consumed, according to The Economics Review at New York University.

Yet we throw it away anyway. What gives?

The first study to look at consumer attitudes about food waste came out in June 2015 from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. A second study by Ohio State University showed that while a majority of Americans think food waste is a problem, most find it difficult to reduce their own waste while others are "simply too busy to change."

Also, Americans spend less on groceries than people in most other countries, which means we can afford to throw away food.

The Worst State Offenders

While the United States ranks among the worst global offenders for food waste, which states contribute most to the country's total?

Official government data by state doesn't exist, but U.S. Shipping & Packaging determined which states likely have the most food waste by taking each one's total yearly grocery expenditure and assuming the national average of 31 percent will be wasted. That number was then divided by the state's population to show an average of how much every person in each state spent on food that will be wasted.

Doing this, the company concluded Vermont had the highest amount at more than $1,374 of wasted food per person. Behind Vermont were Maine and Hawaii, respectively.
Economic, Environmental Repercussions

Food production takes a significant amount of labor, material resources, time and energy; so when food is wasted, so is the money it takes to acquire these resources, according to The Economics Review at New York University.

In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recently estimates at least $1 trillion in resource costs is lost annually.

Food waste produces enormous environmental consequences, too.

An alarming amount of wasted food ends up in our landfills each year. Food waste comprises about 22 percent of all waste in municipal landfills, according to data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Food that ends up in landfills also produces a large amount of methane - a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide. Methane and other greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation and heat up the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to climate change.
How We Can Reduce Food Waste
In addition, food waste is responsible for more than 25 percent of all freshwater consumption in the United States each year. This means when we throw out food, we also waste the water it took to produce it.

Reducing food waste has to be a cooperative effort involving federal, state, tribal and local governments, faith-based institutions, environmental organizations, communities, and the entire food supply chain, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

To tackle the problem of food waste in the United States, the FDA joined the USDA and EPA in 2015 to set a goal to cut U.S. food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030. The agreement aims to improve coordination and communication across federal agencies in order to better educate Americans on the importance of reducing food loss and waste.

Still, the best way to cut back on food loss and waste is to not create it in the first place. Individuals can look for ways they can improve and change the way they cook, store and shop for food.
Where To Take Your Leftover Food
In its food recovery hierarchy, the EPA identifies source reduction as the first step to reducing food waste, followed by feeding hungry people, feeding animals, industrial use and composting. Landfills are identified as the last measure people should take in eliminating food waste.

While some food banks and pantries such as Feeding America do not accept most perishable or leftover food items, there are still ways to make sure food from your home doesn't go to waste.

The EPA created an Excess Food Opportunities Map, which supports keeping food out of the nation's landfills. The map identifies places that may generate extra food as well as more than 5,000 places that will take extra food, including anaerobic digestion facilities, composting facilities and food banks.
Patch has partnered with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2021, more than 42 million Americans won't have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.
Feeding America serves 200 member food banks that serve and supply 60,000 food pantries, kitchens and meal programs around the country.

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As Millions Go Hungry, Here's How To Reduce Food Waste In WI

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WISCONSIN-A year into the coronavirus pandemic, families in Waukesha and Milwaukee County are still struggling to make ends meet. Millions can't put food on the table for their families, while others frequently go to bed hungry. The pandemic left a profound mark on families both here and throughout the world.

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The world is a very different place today than it was a year ago. Thanks to the coronavirus, people are now strongly urged or required to wear masks in many enclosed public spaces in the United States and Canada, while governments and public health officials hope that such measures (along with proper hand hygiene, social distancing, and extensive sanitization) will slow transmission rates and get the pandemic under control.

This has led to a flurry of purchasing. All of a sudden we are the owners of masks - masks in our purses, diaper bags, pockets, gym bags. They're hanging from rearview mirrors and coat racks. They're in every garbage can, and around them, too. I've seen them lying flattened on sidewalks, beside public benches, and even on the beach and in the usually-pristine waters of Lake Huron where I live. They're everywhere, and the mask-wearing mandates are still brand new. Imagine what it will be like in a year or two.

Anti-plastic activist group Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) says that if everyone in the world wore a disposable mask every day for a year, there would be 3 trillion dirty masks to deal with afterward. And because disposable masks are made from dense thermoplastics that cannot be recycled and do not biodegrade fully when discarded (they're expected to last 450 years), that adds significant quantities of plastic waste to the mountains of plastic waste that are already suffocating the planet. The polypropylene nanoparticles contained in the masks' material are also a threat to wildlife that may ingest them.

What's the Solution? Wear Reusable Masks.

This is the focal point of a new campaign by members of the European Plastics & Health Task Force, together with Break Free From Plastic. Its goal is to "encourage the general public to wear reusable masks, and wash their hands with soap and water, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to protect people and the planet." Continuing to throw away disposable masks at the current rate is simply not a feasible option from an environmental perspective.

Cloth masks are just as effective as disposable masks and are condoned by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, particularly when used together with social distancing and good hand-washing routines. The campaign encourages people to wash hands before and after putting on a mask. Masks must be washed regularly with soap or detergent and can be sanitized by boiling for 10 minutes. Clean, dry masks should be stored in a clean place (i.e. envelope) until ready to use.

Moving away from disposable personal protective equipment is crucial if we are to avert a COVID waste crisis, and it starts with individuals like you and me choosing cloth masks over disposable ones. Let's not allow a health crisis to turn into an even bigger pollution crisis.

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The world is a very different place today than it was a year ago. Thanks to the coronavirus, people are now strongly urged or required to wear masks in many enclosed public spaces in the United States and Canada, while governments and public health officials hope that such measures (along with proper hand hygiene, social distancing, and extensive sanitization) will slow transmission rates and get the pandemic under control.

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Wisconsin Hunters Exceed Wolf Target By Nearly 100 Animals

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Wisconsin hunters and trappers killed nearly double the number of wolves as the state allotted for a weeklong season, and they did it so quickly that officials had to end the hunt after less than three days, according to figures released Thursday.

Nontribal hunters and trappers had registered 215 wolves as of midday, blowing past the state's kill target of 119. The state Department of Natural Resources estimated before the hunt that there were about 1,000 wolves in the state, and its population goal for the animal is 350.

The wolf season began Monday and was supposed to run through Sunday, but the DNR shut it down Wednesday afternoon as it became clear hunters would exceed the kill target.

At a news briefing Thursday, Wildlife Management Director Eric Lobner described the overharvest as "going a hair over."

As media pressed DNR officials on why they hadn't cut off the hunt sooner, Lobner said, "Should we, would we, could we have done it sooner? Based on the data we had before us, we were doing our best to try to hit that 119 number. Did we go over? We did, we did go over. Is that something tht we want to have happen - absolutely not."

Kill totals could climb even higher. Hunters and trappers have 24 hours to register their kills, which means those who didn't leave the field until the hunt ended Wednesday afternoon had until Thursday afternoon to register theirs.

DNR Fish, Wildlife and Parks Division Administrator Keith Warnke called Wisconsin's wolf population robust and resilient. "I think we are very confident that we'll be able to manage properly going forward," he said.

Ojibwe tribal hunters and trappers' kill target is 81 wolves, as per treaty rights. Dylan Jennings, a spokesman for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, which administers Ojibwe hunting and fishing treaty rights, said he didn't have any estimates of how many wolves tribal hunters and trappers may have taken, but he said they hadn't met their quota and could continue to hunt and trap.

The Ojibwe consider the wolf sacred and oppose hunting the animal. It's unclear if tribal hunters and trappers would kill any wolves. Jennings didn't immediately respond to an email inquiring about how many permits have been issued to tribal hunters and trappers.

Wolf management has been one of the most contentious outdoors issues Wisconsin has grappled with in the last 20 years. Farmers and rural residents complain wolves are attacking livestock and pets and insist that hunting is the only way to control the apex predators. Conservationists counter the population is still too fragile to support hunting and the animals are too beautiful to be killed.

Then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, signed a law in 2012 that requires the DNR to hold an annual wolf season between November and February after the Obama administration removed the animals from the federal endangered species list. The DNR held a hunt that year and in 2013 and 2014, and hunters and trappers exceeded the state's kill targets in each of those years.

The DNR stopped holding hunts after a federal judge restored protections for wolves in late 2014. But the Trump administration removed them from the endangered species list in January, returning management rights to the state and triggering the mandatory season in Wisconsin.

The DNR was preparing to hold the wolf hunting season in November, but Republican legislators demanded it start before the end of February, saying they were afraid President Joe Biden would place wolves back on the endangered species list before November. The DNR refused, but hunter advocacy group Hunter Nation won a court order this month forcing an immediate start of the season.

Plans are still underway for a November season.

Lawmakers in neighboring Minnesota have introduced dueling bills that would ban wolf hunting or establish a season to hunt the animals. Wildlife officials in Colorado are trying to develop a plan for reintroducing the animal in that state after it was hunted, trapped and poisoned to extinction there decades ago. Animal advocates have been urging the state to move quickly on reintroduction, but state officials say they want to move slowly.

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Wisconsin Hunters Exceed Wolf Target By Nearly 100 Animals

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Wisconsin hunters and trappers killed nearly double the number of wolves as the state allotted for a weeklong season, and they did it so quickly that officials had to end the hunt after less than three days, according to figures released Thursday.

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Wisconsin Deer Test Positive for Chronic Wasting Disease

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Wisconsin Deer Test Positive for Chronic Wasting Disease

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This article talks about how more and more deer, especially in Southern Wisconsin, are getting diagnosed with CWD. It shows some solutions that Wisconsin has tried in the past and some other solutions others have brought up, but never implemented.

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The number of wild deer testing positive for chronic wasting disease continues to rise in Wisconsin. Data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shows the number of positive detections for the deadly deer disease rose 25 percent in the last year.

From April 1, 2019, through March 31 of this year, the DNR collected 19,386 samples, an increase of roughly 2,100 samples from the year before. Of the majority analyzed, there were 1,334 deer that tested positive for CWD in the last year - up from 1,061 deer during the 2018 sampling season.

The increase in positive detections among wild deer is likely due to several factors, said Amanda Kamps, the DNR's wildlife health conservation specialist. She said the agency has increased sampling efforts throughout the state in recent years and hunters have shown more interest in assisting with submitting samples through programs like Adopt-a-Kiosk.

"But, it could also just be where those samples are coming from," said Kamps. "More samples could be coming from areas of the state where the disease has been found more than in other areas of the state."

The vast majority of CWD positives in the wild herd were spread across several counties in southern Wisconsin where positive cases were first discovered near Mount Horeb in 2002. Iowa County had the most cases of the deadly deer disease last year with 416 deer out of 1,486 sampled testing positive for CWD.

Dane and Iowa counties have seen the prevalence of CWD increase from around 10 to 35 percent in adult bucks since 2002 with some areas seeing prevalence as high as 50 percent.

DNR data appears to indicate the prevalence of CWD in the state's wild deer herd is roughly 7 percent statewide, but officials caution against using the numbers to reflect CWD's impact across Wisconsin. Kamps said the agency is unable to calculate prevalence of the disease in every county or region except for select areas of southern Wisconsin because consistent sampling hasn't been conducted at the levels needed.

The state began enhanced surveillance efforts in recent years, boosting the number of samples collected in specific areas. The DNR sought to increase sampling across 18 counties in northern Wisconsin last year. Kamps said the agency is developing a plan for CWD sampling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If we're looking to continue sampling in the fall and trying to anticipate how to provide those opportunities, there will be likely limitations and also considerations to how to keep everybody safe," said Kamps.

Fifty-six out of the state's 72 counties are affected by CWD, according to the DNR. At least 30 counties have had wild deer test positive for the disease since 2002, including 23 counties in the last year.

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker faced criticism for the state's handling of CWD during his time in office as it has spread statewide. During his campaign for reelection in 2018, Walker directed state agencies to move forward with drafting emergency rules to limit transmission of CWD that would have included double-fencing of deer farms, drawing push back from farm owners.

Last year, Gov. Tony Evers' administration stepped back from implementing new rules, saying that it was focusing efforts on research rather than regulation. The DNR set aside $2.6 million each year in the 2019-21 biennial budget for CWD research and operations. The agency's research includes a study examining the persistence of CWD prions in soil that can transmit the disease and research on the factors that influence deer population change in southwestern Wisconsin.

Dave Clausen, a retired veterinarian and former Natural Resources Board chair, said the agency should utilize sampling results to help inform ways to manage the fatal deer disease.

"All the research in the world is not going to stop it from increasing and spreading geographically," Clausen said. "We have done nothing to restrict carcass movement. We have done nothing to lower populations."

Clausen said the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies has developed best management practices for managing CWD. The practices were also among a list of recommendations issued by researchers with the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and others in an article published last summer within the online journal mBio by the American Society for Microbiology.

Members of the state's Wisconsin Conservation Congress, a citizen advisory group to the DNR, voted last year to support a pilot program that would pay hunters to kill deer infected with CWD, as well as statewide baiting and feeding ban. Tribes, conservation and wildlife groups have supported efforts to restrict moving deer across county lines or double-fencing deer farms. The deer farm industry, as well as some hunters and Republican lawmakers, have opposed additional regulations.

More than 246,000 samples have been collected from wild deer since 2002. Of them, more than 6,500 wild deer have tested positive for CWD.

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More Wild Deer Test Positive For Chronic Wasting Disease In Wisconsin

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The number of wild deer testing positive for chronic wasting disease continues to rise in Wisconsin. Data from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shows the number of positive detections for the deadly deer disease rose 25 percent in the last year.

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The Wisconsin DNR is attempting to get a petroleum company to investigate a pipeline spill

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The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says Enbridge Energy needs to do more to investigate the extent of contamination from a 2019 pipeline spill in Jefferson County, including testing nearby well water.

More than 1,200 gallons of petroleum product leaked from the underground pipeline near Fort Atkinson, contaminating soil and groundwater with toxic chemicals, according to reports the Canadian pipeline company filed with the DNR in January.

In a letter sent last week, the DNR called Enbridge's initial investigation "a reasonable start," but ordered the company to do additional work to determine how far and deep the contaminants have spread.

The DNR is asking Enbridge to test soil and groundwater in and around the site and to sample all private wells within 1,200 feet to the south of the release. The agency said the company should pay special attention to the potential for contamination to spread along the outside of buried pipelines.

Tests of groundwater in October revealed benzene at concentrations more than 4,000 times the state enforcement standard and toluene at more than nine times the limit. Trichloroethene (TCE) was detected at levels below the enforcement standard but requiring action. Tests in January show even higher levels of benzene and toluene.

Enbridge has 60 days to submit a new investigation plan that includes drawings of its underground pipes and valves.

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DNR orders additional investigation of Enbridge pipeline spill in Fort Atkinson

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The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says Enbridge Energy needs to do more to investigate the extent of contamination from a 2019 pipeline spill in Jefferson County, including testing nearby well water. More than 1,200 gallons of petroleum product leaked from the underground pipeline near Fort Atkinson, contaminating soil and groundwater with toxic chemicals, according to reports the Canadian pipeline company filed with the DNR in January.

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Sixth Mass Extinction
Humans are responsible for habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, etc. to such an extent that a sixth mass extinction is now underway. Underlying all of the causes is our population growth.

Hunting
Many of the animals shot by hunters suffer for an extended period of time as they die slowly from blood loss, infection or starvation.

Hunting for Trophies
Many if not most modern hunters and fishermen are "sportsmen" who kill animals only for "trophies."

Captive-Animal Hunting
Captive hunts, which are also known as "canned hunts," do not give animals a chance to escape. Shooters pay to kill animals - including members of endangered species - trapped within fences.

Internet Hunting
Internet hunting, which is also called remote-controlled hunting, allows computer users to kill animals confined within fences from home.

Nonlethal Wildlife Management
Nonlethal methods of preventing wildlife from becoming a nuisance, preying upon farm animals or otherwise coming into conflict with people are often more effective - and not even considered before action is taken.

Overfishing
More than 85 percent of the world's fisheries have been pushed to or beyond their biological limits and are in need of strict management plans to restore them.

Derelict Fishing Gear
Derelict fishing gear, which is sometimes referred to as "ghost gear" or "ghost nets," often continues to trap and kill animals long after being discarded.

Poaching
At current poaching rates, elephants, rhinoceroses and other wildlife may be gone from the wild within our lifetime.

Wildlife Trafficking
Wildlife crime involving the trafficking of wild animals and animal parts is conducted throughout the world and in many cases provides funding for terrorist activities.

Trapping for Fur
Numerous animals - raccoons, wolves, otters, nutria and others - are killed for clothing by trappers.

Zoos and Aquaria
The vast majority of the wildlife exhibitors licensed by the United States government do not meet industry accreditation standards. This is especially true of the many roadside zoos and menageries.

Circuses
Circus animals stand on their heads, jump through rings of fire, ride bicycles, etc. because the animals are forced to do so - not because they want to do so.

Wildlife Tourism
Millions of people who visit tourist attractions involving wildlife each year are contributing to animal abuse.

Exotic Pets
Keeping wild animals as pets threatens public health and safety as well as animal welfare. Wild animals can attack people and spread disease and an average pet owner cannot provide the care the animals need in captivity.

Vehicular Collisions
Many collisions of cars, trucks, etc. with wildlife on roads can be prevented.

Aircraft Collisions
Many bird strikes and other collisions between airplanes and wildlife are avoidable.

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Sixth Mass Extinction Humans are responsible for habitat destruction, climate change, pollution, etc. to such an extent that a sixth mass extinction is now underway. Underlying all of the causes is our population growth. Hunting Many of the animals shot by hunters suffer for an extended period of time as they die slowly from blood loss, infection or starvation.

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Humans consumption in plastic has been increasing more and more throughout the years. Although it might not directly affect humans animals are the ones suffering the consequences.

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Plastic Pollution Affects Sea Life Throughout the Ocean

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Our ocean and the array of species that call it home are succumbing to the poison of plastic. Examples abound, from the gray whale that died after stranding near Seattle in 2010 with more than 20 plastic bags, a golf ball, and other rubbish in its stomach to the harbor seal pup found dead on the Scottish island of Skye, its intestines fouled by a small piece of plastic wrapper.

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Improper disposal of pharmaceuticals, such as flushing them down the toilet leads to them entering the water.

How can we raise awareness of this issue? What are ways we can prevent this?

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This is particularly true in Milwaukee. Water from the sewer system empties into Lake Michigan, which provides most of Milwaukee's drinking water. Studies from the UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences have found intact compounds from pharmaceuticals in Lake Michigan, which is detrimental to both public health and our water resources. Studies have also shown that prescription drugs are easily accessible to 3 in 5 teenagers, especially when old medications are not properly disposed of, contributing to incidents of overdose-a leading cause of accidental death in Milwaukee.

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This is particularly true in Milwaukee. Water from the sewer system empties into Lake Michigan, which provides most of Milwaukee's drinking water. Studies from the UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences have found intact compounds from pharmaceuticals in Lake Michigan, which is detrimental to both public health and our water resources.

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Addressing Clean Drinking Water in Rural Groups

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Addressing Clean Drinking Water in Rural Groups

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While Wisconsin's water quality challenges have received more attention from lawmakers the last couple of years, we haven't seen the bold, transformative policies necessary to put Wisconsin on a firm path to cleaner water come to fruition. A host of complications, from a once-in-a-century pandemic to continued resistance from key lawmakers, have preserved the frustrating status quo of verbal commitments to delivering clean water to all Wisconsinites that aren't backed up by much in the way of action. If your private well is contaminated with nitrate or bacteria pollution or your community is worried about PFAS pollution, you have every right to be frustrated with legislative inaction.

Thankfully, the Evers Administration is taking important steps to address some of our water quality challenges by moving forward with new rules to set state PFAS standards and develop guidelines for applying manure and nitrogen fertilizer in vulnerable areas of the state. These are important actions that Clean Wisconsin is heavily engaged in shaping and supporting, but both of them are only part of the solution to the nitrate and PFAS pollution challenges Wisconsin faces. Without bold action from the legislature, a future with cleaner water will be difficult to achieve.

In the face of these legislative challenges, Clean Wisconsin started talking with agricultural and conservation groups late in 2019 about how our organizations-which have at times been at odds over water policy in the past-could help break this stalemate. For the last 18 months, Clean Wisconsin, the Dairy Business Association, the Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Association have been discussing areas of mutual policy agreement that we can work together on. We haven't agreed to agree on everything, but we are focused on finding common ground and working together on policies we can all support instead of getting bogged down in what we might still disagree on.

We have identified four broad principles to focus on in the coming months; supporting and enhancing existing conservation efforts, ensuring access to clean drinking water for Wisconsin families, improving the state's agricultural runoff program, and reimagining the CAFO permitting program.

In Wisconsin's current political environment, not much is possible without bipartisan support. We are hopeful that the broad spectrum of elected officials our organizations have worked with for years can be leveraged to build bipartisan support for the type of bold, transformative investments in cleaning up and protecting Wisconsin's water resources that are long overdue. We are talking about every Wisconsin family that doesn't have clean drinking water getting help accessing it, not the just the small number of families the state has historically assisted. We are talking about every Wisconsin farm meeting the minimum conservation standards that have been in place since 2002 but that only about 40% of farms are currently following. The path to real progress will be difficult, but we cannot address clean water or the future of farming in Wisconsin as standalone issues; they are challenges that must be met together. Our organizations are working together to find common ground, to request bold changes from decision-makers, and to work toward a future where our state has clean water and a thriving agricultural community.

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Clean Wisconsin joins agricultural, environmental groups to address rural drinking water pollution

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While Wisconsin's water quality challenges have received more attention from lawmakers the last couple of years, we haven't seen the bold, transformative policies necessary to put Wisconsin on a firm path to cleaner water come to fruition.

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Business lobby group files restraining order against DNR 'forever chemical' testing program

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The state's largest business lobbying group has filed a suit against the Department of Natural Resources, claiming the agency doesn't have the authority to sample for "forever chemicals" in the wastewater discharged by businesses across the state.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce on Monday filed for a restraining order that would halt the agency's sampling program because there is no "statutory authority to implement and enforce the program to sample for compounds that they have no standards for under state law."

A Jefferson County judge placed a temporary restraining order on the agency Monday, halting the testing program, but allowed the agency to resume its testing after a Thursday morning hearing.

The DNR is conducting testing at sites across the state to determine standards for the man-made chemicals and how much it will cost businesses releasing them to clean them up or prevent their release. The agency is only testing at businesses that already hold Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.
RELATED:'We just want to be OK': Residents of a small island near La Crosse battle massive 'forever chemical' contamination
In the complaint, WMC points out that the standards for the chemicals - known as PFAS - may never get legislative approval because of the cost of adherence to the standards. The lobbying group estimates that the cost of removing PFAS from water leaving facilities could be in the tens of millions of dollars.

WMC alleges the testing operation is a "fishing expedition" and that it will harm any business that is found to have PFAS in the water leaving its facility.

"(The DNR's) unlawful sampling program forces businesses to open their doors to (the DNR) so the (DNR) can sample for compounds that are not regulated under state law, and may never be regulated under state law, and then make those sample results public in a way that stigmatizes those businesses as polluters," the complaint said.

During the Thursday hearing, the judge issued a temporary restraining order to keep the DNR from publishing any results as testing continues.

A family of man-made chemicals

PFAS are a family of man-made chemicals used for their water- and stain-resistant qualities in products like clothing and carpet, nonstick cookware, packaging and firefighting foam. The family includes 5,000 compounds, which are persistent, remaining both in the environment and human body over time.

RELATED: What you should know about PFAS, or 'forever' chemicals, contaminating drinking water in parts of Wisconsin

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been linked to types of kidney and testicular cancers, lower birth weights, harm to immune and reproductive systems, and altered hormone regulation and thyroid hormones. The compounds have been found in water and soil across Wisconsin, including Marinette, Peshtigo, Madison, Milwaukee and La Crosse.

The DNR is working to establish standards for two substances within the PFAS family, PFOA and PFOS, two of the most well-known compounds. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has also recommended standards for several other PFAS compounds thought to be dangerous to humans if consumed.

Members of the PFAS remediation and testing team at the DNR declined a request for interviews, as did WMC.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice will represent the DNR in the case, said Gillian Drummond, the director of communications for the DOJ.

Environmental groups expressed their concern over the suit Thursday because it halts the process of setting any meaningful standards to keep Wisconsinites and the water they drink safe.

"Industry and PFAS-users have been fighting every single attempt to get any sort of protections from PFAS contamination for Wisconsin residents," said Carly Michiels, the government relations director for Clean Wisconsin. "Most recently they are unsurprisingly fighting against something as simple as sampling our surface waters for PFAS. It is incredibly important that the DNR is able to do their jobs to protect Wisconsinites from these harmful chemicals without any industry-led obstructions."

WMC and an Oconomowoc leather-cleaning business in February filed a separate lawsuit over the DNR's cleanup standards for PFAS. The group accused the agency of undermining state law with the way it runs the program, also alleging the DNR can't use standards that haven't gone through the rulemaking process and been approved by the Legislature.

There are no hearings yet scheduled for that lawsuit.

'Ridiculously stringent' numbers

While the lobbying group is pushing back against PFAS policies created by the DNR, it also pushed back against legislation aiming to curb the use of the chemicals. In December, a legislative committee stripped a provision regulating the use of PFAS-containing fire fighting foam of action levels that would trigger a review for water run through treatment systems, as well as certain terms, such as "foam contaminated materials."

At the heart of the push against the regulations was Scott Manley, WMC executive vice president of government relations, who called them "ridiculously stringent" and said the numbers were not aligned with other numbers suggested by health regulators.

Wisconsin's recommended standards for most PFAS compounds are 20 parts per trillion in drinking water, while the federal government's recommendation is 70 parts per trillion. PFAS are still considered unregulated chemicals by the federal government, so standards must be set by individual states.

RELATED: Wisconsin to provide drinking water to all residents on French Island, after La Crosse refuses in wake of 'forever chemical' contamination

State legislators have in the past looked at regulating PFAS, but Democrats and Republicans haven't seen eye to eye about how to combat and identify the chemicals. Last year, a $7.7 million package of bipartisan legislation failed to make it to the floor and faced significant opposition from groups like WMC, the Wisconsin Paper Council and the American Chemistry Council.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura.
Despite the lack of action on the chemicals from lawmakers, Gov. Tony Evers proposed millions of dollars to address PFAS, including adding 11 staff members to the DNR, setting state standards and testing water supplies across the state.

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Business lobby group files restraining order against DNR 'forever chemical' testing program

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The state's largest business lobbying group has filed a suit against the Department of Natural Resources, claiming the agency doesn't have the authority to sample for "forever chemicals" in the wastewater discharged by businesses across the state.

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How to people need to adapt and mitigate?

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How to people need to adapt and mitigate?

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compensation for hunting dogs killed by wolves

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compensation for hunting dogs killed by wolves

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Payment to the owners of the daed dogs is done to placate bear hunters and others who lose dogs to wolves. it is controversial, to ay the least.

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Dog owners are reminded to exercise caution in wolf occupied areas, especially those using their dogs to hunt. Conflicts between hunting dogs and wolves are most common during the bear training and hunting season. Dogs have also been depredated pursuing other wildlife including fox, coyotes, bobcat, rabbit, snowshoe hare and upland birds.

The DNR establishes wolf caution areas where conflicts have occurred. Caution areas can be viewed through the wolf depredation application. Individuals hunting or pursuing wildlife with the aid of dogs should view caution areas and take precautions to help reduce conflicts.

Suspected wolf attack

Anyone suspecting a wolf attack in northern Wisconsin should call USDA-WS immediately at 1-800-228-1368 (in state) or 715-369-5221. In southern Wisconsin call 1-800-433-0663 (in state) or 920-324-4514.

Caution areas, dogs and wolf behavior

When wolves attack dogs in hunting or training situations on public land, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will create wolf caution areas (see below) to warn hunters that a specific pack has attacked a dog or group of dogs. Bear hunters are urged to exercise greater caution if they plan to train hounds or hunt bear with hounds near any caution area, especially if near an actual kill site. Table 1 (see below) contains a summary of the 2019 dog depredations by wolves.

As with other wild canids, wolves are very territorial and will guard their territories from other wolves, coyotes and domestic dogs. Wolves are probably most aggressive toward strange wolves and dogs at den and rendezvous sites when their pups are small, and when protecting a fresh kill. Wolf packs have pups in spring and then later will use rendezvous sites from mid-May to late-September, after the pups are big enough to leave their den. Adult wolves are very defensive of pups at rendezvous sites and will attack other predators, including dogs, which get too close to the rendezvous site or the pups.

A pack will use from two to three to as many as six or more rendezvous sites during the summer. The exact locations vary from year to year and throughout the summer. The sites are usually forest openings or edge areas, with lots of wolf tracks, droppings and matted vegetation. Move two or three miles from any rendezvous site, if possible, before releasing dogs.

In addition, avoid releasing dogs at baits recently visited by wolves. When looking for bear sign near bait, make sure to also look for wolf tracks. Be familiar with your own dog's tracks, so that you can distinguish it from any wolf tracks. If a specific bait site is receiving a lot of wolf use, discontinue using it until wolves have left and concentrate on an alternative bait site. Some hunters have had success with bells on dog collars to reduce wolf attacks, but some dogs with bells have been attacked by wolves.

Pet dogs

Although wolf attacks on pet dogs in residential areas are rare, they do occur and have increased in recent years. These types of attacks represent a special kind of wolf depredation to domestic animals. For additional guidance and information about protecting pet dogs and bear hounds from wolves, see guidance for hound and pet dog owners.

Dog depredations

View the interactive wolf depredation and threats mapping application for locations of wolf depredations and threat conflicts.

Definitions

Wolf caution areas

When wolves attack dogs in hunting or training situations, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources creates "wolf caution areas" to warn hunters of a wolf attack on hunting dogs. The purpose of these caution areas is to let hunters know that a specific pack has attacked a dog or group of dogs. It is the department's experience that once a pack has attacked a dog in a hunting or training situation, there is a high probability another attack will occur again during the same year or within the following year. These attacks will generally be on trailing hounds used to hunt bear, bobcat and coyote, but such attacks rarely occur on dogs in bird-hunting situations.

Caution areas are not intended to close areas to hunting or training, but rather to advise hunters to exercise greater caution when hunting within these areas. Greater caution can include, staying closer to dogs, avoid releasing at bait sites recently visited by wolves and avoid releasing dogs at or near the site of an attack.

The caution area map is generally considerably larger than the actual pack territory because attempts are made to use highways or easily recognized roads as the boundary of the caution area. Generally, wolf pack areas average about 40-60 square miles (5-10 miles across). Thus, portions of the caution area, especially the far corners, will be outside the actual pack area and represent no more risk than other locations across the landscape. The actual attack site is shown in a red-orange circle about one mile in diameter.

Wolf attacks on hunting/training dogs most often occur at or near rendezvous sites. These sites vary from year to year, but when an attack occurs in July, August, or early September, the attack site should be treated as a proxy for a rendezvous site and is the primary location that should be avoided. The farther away you can stay from the rendezvous site/attack sites, the lesser your risk of attack to your dogs.

Wolf rendezvous sites

Adult wolves are very defensive of pups at rendezvous sites and will attack other predators, including dogs, that get too close to the rendezvous site or the pups. Wolves are probably most aggressive toward strange wolves and dogs at den and rendezvous sites when their pups are small, during the breeding season in January and February and when they are protecting a fresh kill.

Found within a wolf pack's territory, den and rendezvous sites are specific locations used for breeding and other pack activities. Wolves begin moving their young pups from dens to rendezvous sites from mid-March to mid-May. Rendezvous sites are actively used from mid-May to mid-October.

Habitat: Rendezvous sites are generally open areas of grass or sedge adjacent to wetlands, and can be determined by the high presence of both large and small wolf tracks. Sites are characterized by extensive matted vegetation, numerous trails and beds usually at the forest edge. They are often adjacent to bogs or occur in semi-open stands of mixed conifer-hardwoods adjacent to swamps. Sometimes abandoned beaver ponds are used as rendezvous sites.

Description: Rendezvous sites are the home sites or activity sites used by wolves after the denning period, and prior to the nomadic hunting period of fall and winter. Pups are brought to rendezvous sites from dens when they are weaned and remain at rendezvous sites until they are old enough to join the pack on their hunting circuits.

Rendezvous sites may be associated with food sources such as ungulate kills or berry patches. Generally, a series of rendezvous sites are used by a specific pack. Rendezvous sites are mostly used from mid-June to late-September, but use may start as early as mid-May and can continue to early or mid-October. Some intermittent use of rendezvous sites may continue into the fall. It appears that an average of four to six rendezvous sites are used by wolf packs.

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Dog owners are reminded to exercise caution in wolf occupied areas, especially those using their dogs to hunt. Conflicts between hunting dogs and wolves are most common during the bear training and hunting season. Dogs have also been depredated pursuing other wildlife including fox, coyotes, bobcat, rabbit, snowshoe hare and upland birds.

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Milwaukee is working on managing rainwater and runoff to keep it from polluting ground water and watersheds.

Could Waukesha do something similar? How can Waukesha work to manage runoff from roads?

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Rain gardens and rain barrels help property values and provide job training opportunities.

Rain capture technologies, including rain gardens and rain barrels, can help to keep water out of people's basements and from backing up in the streets. This provides value to people's homes and to property values in the area, which is critical to the 30th Street Corridor, which has historically experienced substantial flooding. Rain capture technologies also needs trained professionals who know how to install and maintain them. This opens the door to new training opportunities for people in the 30th Street Corridor, which has seen high unemployment for many years.

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Managing rain where it falls to revitalize Milwaukee communities

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Rain capture technologies, including rain gardens and rain barrels, can help to keep water out of people's basements and from backing up in the streets. This provides value to people's homes and to property values in the area, which is critical to the 30th Street Corridor, which has historically experienced substantial flooding.

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Governor Evers has created a plan that would use millions of dollars to fight climate change.

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Gov. Tony Evers is hoping to fight back against the effects of climate change on Wisconsin through millions of dollars for initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean energy and helping communities prepare for extreme weather events.

Evers included in his proposed budget initiatives that would put Wisconsin in a position to fight climate change, from bringing more clean energy online to providing aid to communities struck by floods.

In his February budget address, Evers promised that addressing climate change wouldn't mean abandoning state history or traditions, but it would mean instituting initiatives that mitigate climate change while protecting the environment and providing jobs.

"We're ready for bold and urgent solutions that will stop treating these goals as mutually exclusive - we can and will do both," he said.

Among other initiatives, Evers proposed establishing an Office of Environmental Justice, tasked with collaborating across state agencies and engaging with environmental justice advocates, communities of color, Native nations and low-income communities to design climate policies that reduce emissions and pollutants and address the issues they cause.

He called for $30 million for addressing flooding across the state, which has become more frequent and more severe, including money for infrastructure in need of repairs or replacement. Another provision would require a comprehensive plan be developed by municipalities to require local hazard mitigation plans, for issues such as flooding.

Grants for carbon neutrality by 2050

He also outlined plans to provide grants to tribal and local governments to develop plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Also included in the budget:

An increase in the amount of revenue utilities would contribute to the Focus on Energy program, bringing in an additional $100 million. A portion of those funds would be saved for low-income residents.

Using $10 million of the Volkswagen settlement money to support the reinstatement of an electric vehicle charging station grant program, as well as $700,000 to replace aging state fleet vehicles with new electric vehicles. The settlement with Volkswagen was over the company's fraudulent practices with emissions control equipment.

$100 million in borrowing for clean energy conservation projects at state agencies and the University of Wisconsin System, helping to meet goals of energy reduction and reduced utility costs. The savings on utility prices would be used to pay off the bonds.

$500,000 each year for training for green jobs across the state.

The reevaluation of the social cost of carbon every two years in consultation with the Department of Natural Resources. The social cost of carbon includes the economic damage resulting from carbon dioxide emissions, including effects on human health, agriculture and property damage from severe weather events, according to budget documents.

An expansion for the types of costs utilities can refinance, potentially saving ratepayers money as utilities move away from fossil fuel and implement clean energy.

$4 million renewable and clean energy research grant in fiscal year 2021-2022 administered by the Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy, funded by the environment fund.

Many of the proposed initiatives came from recommendations made by the Governor's Task Force on Climate Change, which published its recommendations in December.

Democratic Rep. Greta Neubauer of Racine said she's happy to see Evers put climate at the forefront for the state, especially measures that would create good-paying jobs for Wisconsinites.

"I'm really excited to see this support for us to transition our economy," she said.

Neubauer, who served as a member of the Task Force, said that while climate change has been seen as a partisan issue in the past, she's hearing from more constituents concerned about erosion along the shores of Lake Michigan, rising temperatures and severe flooding each summer.

"I do see more and more support from Wisconsinites of all political backgrounds, and I hope that means we'll see more bipartisan support for these proposals this year," she said.

She hopes to head into budget talks with her colleagues across the aisle with a focus on urgent priorities - like climate change.

"I do know there are folks on the other side of the aisle who are interested in investing in the green economy, building out our infrastructure, in creating those good jobs," she said. "And I hope that they will speak up, and I hope their voices will be heard in the process."

GOP lawmakers plan budget rewrite

Several Republican lawmakers declined to be interviewed for this story or did not respond to requests for interviews. Republicans have said they plan to spend the next few months rewriting Evers' budget.

Environmental groups are also hoping to see the measures stay in the budget. Climate change is a big issue for Wisconsin, and getting the state to the forefront of green energy is something that should be focused on, said Carly Michiels, the government relations director for Clean Wisconsin.

"I think Wisconsin in a lot of areas has sort of fallen behind in national rankings, you know, you look at energy efficiency and we've dropped in our ranking and there's a lot of opportunity to be made up there," Michiels said. "We're just a little behind and playing catch-up, so I'm hoping many of these initiatives will be supported."

Michiels said implementing Evers' plans to combat change would also align the state with federal initiatives being launched by President Joe Biden.

Biden is also pushing for more awareness of climate change and to increase the amount of green energy being produced across the country. According to his climate plan, the federal government will make an investment of $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years for climate and environmental justice.

The plan includes achieving a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050, rallying other countries to meet the threat of climate change and taking action against polluters harming communities of color and low-income communities.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura.

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Evers directs millions for climate change initiatives in budget, putting focus on green energy in Wisconsin

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Gov. Tony Evers is hoping to fight back against the effects of climate change on Wisconsin through millions of dollars for initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean energy and helping communities prepare for extreme weather events.

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This talks about how much single use plastic Amazon has used, especially during the pandemic. It talks about how they say you can recycle their plastic at stores that offer it, but it can be difficult to find places that take air pillows. This article also offers possible solutions to this micro plastic problem.

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Amazon must become a leader in reducing single-use packaging.

Credit... Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Getty Images

Pamela L. Geller and

Drs. Geller and Parmeter are associate professors at the University of Miami.

The year 2020 may have been heartbreaking for most humans, but it was a good one for Jeff Bezos and Amazon. His company's worldwide sales grew 38 percent from 2019, and Amazon sold more than 1.5 billion products during the 2020 holiday season alone.

Did you need a book, disposable surgical mask, beauty product, or garden hose? Amazon was probably your online marketplace. If you wanted to purchase a Nicolas Cage pillowcase or a harness with leash for your chicken, Amazon had your back. (They're No. 17 and No. 39 on a 2019 Good Housekeeping list of the 40 "weirdest" products available on the website "that people actually love.") From pandemic misery came consumer comfort and corporate profit.

And plastic. Lots and lots of plastic.

In 2019, Amazon used an estimated 465 million pounds of plastic packaging, according to the nonprofit environmental group Oceana. The group also estimated that up to 22 million pounds of Amazon's plastic packaging waste ended up as trash in freshwater and marine ecosystems around the world. These numbers are likely to rise in 2021.

Amazon has disputed those figures, telling the news website Vox that they are "dramatically miscalculated" and that actually it uses about a quarter of what Oceana reported. But that would still amount to more than 116 million pounds of plastic. The company was expected to account for an estimated 39 percent of e-commerce sales in the United States last year, according to the market research firm eMarketer, more than six times the expected sales of the No. 2 company on the list, Walmart.

With this growth, the continuing surge in demand for single-use plastic packaging seems inevitable. Packaging is the largest market for plastic resins in the United States, accounting for 31 percent in 2019, according to the American Chemistry Council. A significant portion of that is for food and beverages, but packaging for e-commerce is growing rapidly.

The magnitude of plastic packaging that is used and casually discarded - air pillows, Bubble Wrap, shrink wrap, envelopes, bags - portends gloomy consequences.

These single-use items are primarily made from polyethylene, though vinyl is also used. In marine environments, this plastic waste can cause disease and death for coral, fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Plastic debris is often mistaken for food, and microplastics release chemical toxins as they degrade. Data suggests that plastics have infiltrated human food webs and placentas. These plastics have the potential to disrupt the endocrine system, which releases hormones into the bloodstream that help control growth and development during childhood, among many other important processes.

Certainly, some of the onus for plastic pollution should fall on consumers. Convenience is seductive. Amazon's distribution network is vast and efficient. Its products are also numerous; the company sells its own goods and serves as a clearinghouse for many other businesses. According to a 2020 Amazon report, small- and medium-size businesses sold an average of 6,500 products per minute on the website in the 12 months through May 31.

Amazon, of course, is only one company among thousands using plastic packaging to ship its products. But given its enormous size and reach, the company should spearhead the elimination of single-use plastic packaging worldwide for the products it sells. As a sign of what is possible, Amazon says it has phased out single-use plastic packaging at its more than 50 fulfillment centers in India.

Elsewhere, it still has a long way to go.

In the United States, Amazon advertises its packaging as recyclable, and points consumers to chain retailers and supermarkets with drop-off recycling programs. But these programs will generally not accept air pillows and envelopes unless the paper labels are removed entirely. Challenges created by the pandemic and decidedly stubborn adhesive also make this endeavor anything but "Frustration-Free," despite Amazon's claims.

And Amazon may own Whole Foods, "the first and only certified organic national grocery store," as the company puts it, but a trip down most of the aisles demonstrates the ubiquity of single-use plastic packaging - from the produce section, where you can find pre-cut fruit in plastic containers, to the deli counter, where your sliced turkey is placed in a plastic bag.

There are several routes Amazon and other e-commerce companies can take to reduce their plastic footprint. First, and easiest, these companies should honor consumers who want plastic-free shipping. Amazon should offer reduced shipping costs for those who want to forgo plastic packaging. For secondary shipping (meaning shipping directly from sellers, not Amazon), the company could develop a plastic-use index that allows consumers to know how much single-use plastics those businesses use in a package.

Amazon should also put to work its in-house brain trust - the company is one of the biggest employers of Ph.D. economists in the United States - to develop more economic incentives to help consumers and corporations break free of single-use plastics. Finally, the sustainability research arm of Amazon Science could hire applied scientists to create packaging that breaks down safely on land and in the ocean.

Amazon has such enormous market power that it could do much to force these changes throughout the economy. This would sidestep the need for government action.

We know Amazon has the capabilities. Its accomplishment in India is one example. And the company claims to have eliminated more than one million tons of plastic, cardboard and paper from its packaging since 2015. Now it needs to build on that record. By eliminating single-use plastics globally, Amazon could be the model for other multinational companies, as well as part of the solution instead of a major contributor to the plastics problem.

Pamela L. Geller is an associate professor of anthropology and Christopher Parmeter is an associate professor of economics at the University of Miami.
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | This Peeler Did Not Need to Be Wrapped in So Much Plastic

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Amazon must become a leader in reducing single-use packaging. Pamela L. Geller and Drs. Geller and Parmeter are associate professors at the University of Miami. The year 2020 may have been heartbreaking for most humans, but it was a good one for Jeff Bezos and Amazon.

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There is sometimes controversy about how much deer should be harvested in each area of the state. Who should make those decisions? What should the based on? What's best for deer hunters? Deer? Politics?

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A 4-year-old doe killed on a deer damage shooting permit in Dickinson County's Waucedah Township has tested positive for chronic wasting disease, marking the first confirmation of the incurable deer disease within Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Who's in charge here?

That's a question that a deer hunter might ask during the process of setting antlerless deer quotas (a process somewhat similar to making sausage) in Wisconsin in the 2000s.

It used to be that DNR biologists were responsible for quotas. Harvesting antlerless deer, a touchy subject that even caused angst to the late Aldo Leopold when he served on the Wisconsin Conservation Commission, used to be controlled by a scientific formula known as Sex-Age-Kill (SAK), a method considered by other state wildlife agencies to be the "industry standard."

SAK was based on the in-person registration of each and every deer at local deer registration stations, a practice that began in 1952. The system survived until Gov. Scott Walker took control of the DNR and was convinced by a splinter group of sportsmen that he should hire a "deer czar" from Texas to upend the Wisconsin deer management system from top-down to bottom-up.

Now County Deer Advisory Councils, one in every county representing various interests, were created out of that process. Those CDACS now come up with annual recommendations for the antlerless deer harvest in each county. CDACs use information provided by the DNR, but they ultimately decide on an antlerless deer quota recommendation that goes to the DNR. The agency reviews the numbers and forwards them, possibly with modifications, to the Natural Resources Board for approval.

So now influencing the numbers are public desires expressed at public CDAC meetings, CDACs, Conservation Congress, DNR, and the NRB. Each body has its "kick at the cat," but the DNR and the NRB have shown a reticence to change recommendations from CDACs .

The DNR says that CDACs are learning how to "turn the dials" to get the recommendations they feel are appropriate. But the DNR also knows that CDAC members are local and are under pressure and may not want to make controversial recommendations for fear of alienating their neighbors.

They should also fairly weigh impact of deer on forests and traffic, as well as hunting and tourism. And, though local people comprise these CDACs, people who hunt the area could often be from 200 or more miles away and won't attend local meetings.

Who's in control? It's debatable. But it's a fact that if you don't attend local meetings, you're missing your best opportunity for input.

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Who is 'the decider' on the Wisconsin deer management landscape? - Outdoornews

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Who's in charge here? That's a question that a deer hunter might ask during the process of setting antlerless deer quotas (a process somewhat similar to making sausage) in Wisconsin in the 2000s. It used to be that DNR biologists were responsible for quotas.

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Evers directs millions for climate change initiatives in budget, putting focus on green energy in Wisconsin

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Gov. Tony Evers is hoping to fight back against the effects of climate change on Wisconsin through millions of dollars for initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean energy and helping communities prepare for extreme weather events.

Evers included in his proposed budget initiatives that would put Wisconsin in a position to fight climate change, from bringing more clean energy online to providing aid to communities struck by floods.

In his February budget address, Evers promised that addressing climate change wouldn't mean abandoning state history or traditions, but it would mean instituting initiatives that mitigate climate change while protecting the environment and providing jobs.

"We're ready for bold and urgent solutions that will stop treating these goals as mutually exclusive - we can and will do both," he said.

Among other initiatives, Evers proposed establishing an Office of Environmental Justice, tasked with collaborating across state agencies and engaging with environmental justice advocates, communities of color, Native nations and low-income communities to design climate policies that reduce emissions and pollutants and address the issues they cause.

He called for $30 million for addressing flooding across the state, which has become more frequent and more severe, including money for infrastructure in need of repairs or replacement. Another provision would require a comprehensive plan be developed by municipalities to require local hazard mitigation plans, for issues such as flooding.

Grants for carbon neutrality by 2050

He also outlined plans to provide grants to tribal and local governments to develop plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Also included in the budget:

An increase in the amount of revenue utilities would contribute to the Focus on Energy program, bringing in an additional $100 million. A portion of those funds would be saved for low-income residents.

Using $10 million of the Volkswagen settlement money to support the reinstatement of an electric vehicle charging station grant program, as well as $700,000 to replace aging state fleet vehicles with new electric vehicles. The settlement with Volkswagen was over the company's fraudulent practices with emissions control equipment.

$100 million in borrowing for clean energy conservation projects at state agencies and the University of Wisconsin System, helping to meet goals of energy reduction and reduced utility costs. The savings on utility prices would be used to pay off the bonds.

$500,000 each year for training for green jobs across the state.

The reevaluation of the social cost of carbon every two years in consultation with the Department of Natural Resources. The social cost of carbon includes the economic damage resulting from carbon dioxide emissions, including effects on human health, agriculture and property damage from severe weather events, according to budget documents.

An expansion for the types of costs utilities can refinance, potentially saving ratepayers money as utilities move away from fossil fuel and implement clean energy.

$4 million renewable and clean energy research grant in fiscal year 2021-2022 administered by the Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy, funded by the environment fund.

Many of the proposed initiatives came from recommendations made by the Governor's Task Force on Climate Change, which published its recommendations in December.

Democratic Rep. Greta Neubauer of Racine said she's happy to see Evers put climate at the forefront for the state, especially measures that would create good-paying jobs for Wisconsinites.

"I'm really excited to see this support for us to transition our economy," she said.

Neubauer, who served as a member of the Task Force, said that while climate change has been seen as a partisan issue in the past, she's hearing from more constituents concerned about erosion along the shores of Lake Michigan, rising temperatures and severe flooding each summer.

"I do see more and more support from Wisconsinites of all political backgrounds, and I hope that means we'll see more bipartisan support for these proposals this year," she said.

She hopes to head into budget talks with her colleagues across the aisle with a focus on urgent priorities - like climate change.

"I do know there are folks on the other side of the aisle who are interested in investing in the green economy, building out our infrastructure, in creating those good jobs," she said. "And I hope that they will speak up, and I hope their voices will be heard in the process."

GOP lawmakers plan budget rewrite

Several Republican lawmakers declined to be interviewed for this story or did not respond to requests for interviews. Republicans have said they plan to spend the next few months rewriting Evers' budget.

Environmental groups are also hoping to see the measures stay in the budget. Climate change is a big issue for Wisconsin, and getting the state to the forefront of green energy is something that should be focused on, said Carly Michiels, the government relations director for Clean Wisconsin.

"I think Wisconsin in a lot of areas has sort of fallen behind in national rankings, you know, you look at energy efficiency and we've dropped in our ranking and there's a lot of opportunity to be made up there," Michiels said. "We're just a little behind and playing catch-up, so I'm hoping many of these initiatives will be supported."

Michiels said implementing Evers' plans to combat change would also align the state with federal initiatives being launched by President Joe Biden.

Biden is also pushing for more awareness of climate change and to increase the amount of green energy being produced across the country. According to his climate plan, the federal government will make an investment of $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years for climate and environmental justice.

The plan includes achieving a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050, rallying other countries to meet the threat of climate change and taking action against polluters harming communities of color and low-income communities.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on Twitter at @SchulteLaura.

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Evers directs millions for climate change initiatives in budget, putting focus on green energy in Wisconsin

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Gov. Tony Evers is hoping to fight back against the effects of climate change on Wisconsin through millions of dollars for initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean energy and helping communities prepare for extreme weather events.

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Salt is getting in the water from winter roads, and causing problems.

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The Commission staff prepared a Prospectus for a comprehensive study of the environmental impacts of the use of chloride on the surface water and groundwater resources of the Region. A Technical Advisory Committee was formed (roster to the right), and that committee met on September 8, 2015, October 21, 2015, and June 5, 2018 (agendas and summary notes under "Meeting Materials" below).

Work began on the study in summer 2017 and to date the Commission staff has focused on the Region-wide monitoring effort outlined in the Prospectus. This includes continuous monitoring for specific conductance at approximately 40 stream locations throughout the Region. Following a detailed site selection process and in-stream monitoring equipment deployment, a two-year comprehensive data collection period began in October 2018 and concluded in October 2020. Additional data collection at selected sites is continuing into spring of 2021. Monthly grab samples were collected at each site, along with targeted event sampling, to obtain water quality data that include chloride concentrations. Additionally, quarterly sampling was performed at six lakes within the Region, collecting temperature, specific conductance, and chloride data at various depths. Figure 1 compares the draft seasonal chloride profiles for two lakes in the Region, Moose Lake and Little Muskego Lake.

Previous studies have demonstrated that specific conductance is a good predictor of chloride concentration once a reliable relationship is established. Specific conductance, collected at 5-minute intervals at each monitoring site, is paired with the corresponding chloride concentration obtained from sampling and will be used to develop regression relationships. Figure 2 shows the preliminary paired study data for all of the Commission monitoring sites. The best-fit chloride-specific conductance relationships will be used to estimate chloride concentrations based on the observed continuous specific conductance data. The study will transition into the analysis phase upon completion of data collection.

3-23-18 Chloride Impact Study Presentation
3-29-19 Chloride Impact Study Update Presentation
6-5-20 Chloride Impact Study Presentation at the Healthy Lakes Conference
6-5-18 Agenda 6-5-18 Summary Notes 10-21-15 Agenda 10-21-15 Summary Notes 9-8-15 Agenda 9-8-15 Summary Notes

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A Chloride Impact Study for the Southeastern Wisconsin Region

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The Commission staff prepared a Prospectus for a comprehensive study of the environmental impacts of the use of chloride on the surface water and groundwater resources of the Region. A Technical Advisory Committee was formed (roster to the right), and that committee met on September 8, 2015, October 21, 2015, and June 5, 2018 (agendas and summary notes under "Meeting Materials" below).

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This is an article about the biggest changes we will need to make as a result of climate change. You could pick one focus and go from there.

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Even if the world cuts greenhouse gas emissions quickly, the United States will need to spend billions of dollars to protect against floods, wildfires and heat waves. Credit... Bryan Tarnowski for The New York Times

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter.

WASHINGTON - The federal government's sweeping new National Climate Assessment is more than just a dire warning about current and future global warming effects across the United States. It's also the most detailed guide yet to all the ways the country will have to adapt.

Even if the nations of the world get their act together and slash fossil-fuel emissions rapidly, the United States will need to spend many billions of dollars to harden coastlines, rebuild sewer systems and overhaul farming practices to protect against floods, wildfires and heat waves that are already causing havoc nationwide. And the more that emissions rise, the more difficult and costly that task gets.

The United States isn't prepared. In the Midwest, the report notes, only four counties and cities have written climate change plans. This in a region where scientists are forecasting bigger crop failures and heavier floods that could cripple transportation networks. And at the federal level, the Trump administration is rolling back policies to take future sea-level rise into account when building new roads and railways.

Below are five major steps the scientific report says the country will need to take in the decades ahead:

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Kansas farmers harvested a smaller winter wheat crop this year because of drought. Credit... Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

The nation's food supply could be in jeopardy as global warming intensifies, the report warns. Crop yields for corn, wheat and soy tend to decline as the number of extremely hot days increases. More frequent droughts could reduce supplies of irrigation water. Dairy cows produce less milk in the sweltering heat.

Farmers will have to rethink their practices in response.

In areas at risk of drought, they could use more precise irrigation techniques to conserve water. Agricultural regions could build new weather networks that provide more detailed climate forecasts, to help farmers make better decisions about which crops to plant, and when. In places like the Great Plains, dairy farmers and ranchers may need to relocate production or invest in climate-controlled buildings to protect their cattle from heat stress.

But the report emphasizes, "these approaches have limits under severe climate change impacts."

One hope is that seed companies might develop new crop varieties that are better able to tolerate drought, heat waves and pests. However, the report cautions that "progress in this area has been modest" and calls for much greater public investment.

The changing climate will increase drought risk in some areas. Water levels in California's Lake Oroville retreated sharply in 2014. Credit... Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

Much of the nation's infrastructure, including things like roads and sewers, was built with historical weather conditions in mind. But as extreme weather becomes more frequent, the report says, the past is no longer a good guide to the future.

In Hampton Roads, Va., nearly half of residents reported being unable to drive out of their neighborhoods at some point last year because of flooding at high tide as sea levels have risen. In the Northeast, sewer systems built for the storms of the past are expected to overflow more frequently as climate change brings heavier rainfall.

"It's still not standard practice for engineers to think about future climate," said Costa Samaras, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. While a few cities, like New York and Baltimore, have begun using climate forecasts in their infrastructure planning, he said, "it's not as widespread as it needs to be."

A house in Woodlawn, La., raised to avoid flooding from the Mississippi River. Credit... Bryan Tarnowski for The New York Times

Depending on how rapidly emissions increase, global sea levels are likely to rise between 1 and 4 feet (or even more) this century, the report says, potentially putting trillions of dollars' worth of coastal homes and businesses in the United States at risk of flooding.

While large cities like New York and Boston will likely invest heavily in sea walls, tide gates and pumping stations, they won't be able to protect everyone. In places like Norfolk, Va., officials are already pondering the prospect of relocating certain vulnerable neighborhoods.

Ultimately, the report warns, millions of people nationwide may have to move away from the coasts. Yet most policymakers are reluctant to even broach the topic. Many local governments, in search of more tax revenue, still promote development along coastlines. And a bevy of federal policies, such as subsidized flood insurance and efforts to rebuild communities in place after disasters, still discourage people from moving away from at-risk areas.

Katherine Greig, a senior fellow at the Wharton Risk Center and co-author of the report's chapter on adaptation, said that "We're still a long ways" from having "a serious conversation about retreat."

Climate adaptation isn't just a matter of redesigning roads or power plants to be more resilient to extreme weather. The report also details ways that our natural environment, if managed properly, can be a cost-effective defense against climate change.

Planting more trees in cities can help reduce urban temperatures and protect people from deadly heat waves. Restoring degraded wetlands and marshes can protect cities and coasts from flooding and improve water quality. Healthy forests that are allowed to burn at a low level periodically, as they did in the distant past, are less prone to extreme wildfires. Protecting pollinators could help make our agricultural system more resilient.

One example from the report: Several Midwestern cities, including Milwaukee, have begun a large-scale effort to restore streams to their natural state, removing concrete linings, so that they can safely carry away more water during heavy storms.

As detailed as the new 1,656-page climate assessment is, the authors still warn that global warming is likely to bring unpredictable dangers, particularly as complex systems like energy, water, transportation and public health all come under severe stress at once.

As an example, Hurricane Harvey in Texas last year ended up shutting down gasoline refineries, straining hospitals, clogging roadways and spreading toxins and pathogens as floodwaters swamped the city. These sorts of "cascading failures" are difficult to study and predict in advance.

At a broad level, the report warns that officials at every level of government and in every corner of the economy will have to weave climate change into their decisions, to plan for a wide range of possible futures, and to continually re-evaluate those plans. "Adaptation entails a continuing risk management process," the report notes. "It does not have an end point."

For more news on climate and the environment, follow @NYTClimate on Twitter.

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Five Big Ways the United States Will Need to Adapt to Climate Change (Published 2018)

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Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd: , our email newsletter. WASHINGTON - The federal government's sweeping new National Climate Assessment is more than just a dire warning about current and future global warming effects across the United States.

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This website has different articles about their various projects. They focus on clean water, clean energy, and climate change.

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Since 1970, Clean Wisconsin has been your voice for the environment, working to preserve and protect our clean air, clean water, and natural heritage. To achieve this, we work on a wide range of issues and in a number of venues to protect our natural resources and the health of all Wisconsinites, now and for generations to come.

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Since 1970, Clean Wisconsin has been your voice for the environment, working to preserve and protect our clean air, clean water, and natural heritage. To achieve this, we work on a wide range of issues and in a number of venues to protect our natural resources and the health of all Wisconsinites, now and for generations to come.

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We rely on bees to pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of most of the world’s food. Imagine no almonds, fewer apples and strawberries, less alfalfa to feed dairy cows, and the list goes on.

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Image: Qypchak/ Wikimedia Creative Commons
Let's give bees a chance

In recent years, beekeepers report they're losing on average 30 percent of all honeybee colonies each winter-twice the loss considered economically tolerable. Just as worrisome, wild bee populations are also in decline.

We rely on bees to pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of most of the world's food. Imagine no almonds, fewer apples and strawberries, less alfalfa to feed dairy cows, and the list goes on.
Image: Flickr User: Fried Dough - Creative Commons
6,000 times more toxic than DDT

Scientists point to several causes behind the problem, including global warming, habitat loss, parasites and a class of bee-killing insecticides known as neonicotinoids (or neonics).

When seeds are treated with neonics, the chemicals work their way into the pollen and nectar of the plants-which, of course, is bad news for bees and other pollinators. Worse, for the bees and for us, neonics are about 6,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT.

Just one example: After a nearby farm planted corn seeds coated with neonics in 2013, a farmer named Dave Schuit lost 37 million of his bees. "Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions," said Schuit.
Image: Waugsberg / Wikimedia Creative Commons
A growing movement to ban bee-killing pesticides

Given the consequences for our farms and our food, you'd think we'd be doing all we can to protect bees and other pollinators from threats like neonics.

Instead, big agrichemical companies like Dow Chemical, Bayer and Syngenta are fighting to prevent bans. And Syngenta has asked federal regulators for permission to use even larger quantities of these pesticides-as much as 400 times more than currently allowed.

Some governments are taking action. Alarmed by the role these chemicals are playing in bee colony collapse disorder, the European Union has banned them; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has committed to phasing them out on the public lands they manage; the Home Depot and Lowe's are phasing them out; and Seattle, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and Oregon have all agreed to take some form of action against neonics.

The EPA should take action now to restore bee populations to health. But so far, the agency hasn't stepped up.
Image: Justin Leonard / Flickr User-Creative Commons
Together, we can give bees a chance

Right now, we're letting big agrichemical companies use more of the chemicals that are known to kill bees just as we're in the midst of an unsustainable die-off in bee populations. That has to change. Now.

Join us in calling on our state leaders to limit or ban the use of bee-killing pesticides.

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Millions of bees are dying off, with alarming consequences for our environment and our food supply. We rely on bees to pollinate everything from almonds to strawberries to the alfalfa used to feed dairy cows. What happens if the bees disappear? It's simple: No bees, no food.

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this article talks about how more and more people are starting to recycle, but the actual process is getting more difficult and complicated

How can we make the process ea

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For plenty of Americans, recycling is practically second nature. It's mandated by law in cities such as New York, San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Seattle, where apartment buildings, office spaces, and restaurants must recycle plastics, cans, cardboard, and glass, unless their owners want to face a fine. But even in cities where it's not required by law, recycling is mainstream. It has turned into a virtue boasted by restaurants like Sweetgreen and fashion brands like Gap, H&M, and Madewell, which recycle clothes in stores and produce clothing lines made of recycled materials.

The problem, though, is that while recycling has become trendy, it's also becoming harder to do.

You might not know where all your recycled goods go, but they're a part of a vast ecosystem that spans the globe and contributes to a $200 billion industry. One country that used to be the biggest importer of recycled materials, especially for the US, is China. But last year, it stopped accepting most foreign recyclables as part of an effort to crack down on the country's pollution. As a result of this ban, the global recycling system has been crumbling, and plenty of cities in the US are now struggling to figure out what to do with their recycled goods.

According to a recent report from the New York Times, hundreds of local recycling programs in American cities and towns are collapsing. In states like Tennessee, Florida, and Pennsylvania, cities are reportedly sending newspapers, cans, and bottles to landfills, while others are burning their waste instead. As the treasurer of California put it, "We are in a crisis moment in the recycling movement right now."

The University of Georgia has estimated that China's ban on imported recyclables will leave 111 million metric tons of trash from around the world with nowhere to go by 2030. But we don't even need to look ahead to the next decade for consequences because they're already happening. Tons of recycled paper and plastics are piling up across the country, and this problem has only just begun.

Recycling plays a crucial role in minimizing waste and preserving natural resources. Reusing materials like wood, minerals, and water reduces the need for resource cultivation, the United States Environmental Protection Agency notes.

Recycling materials also ensures that waste doesn't go into landfills or incinerators, the EPA adds. Burning trash can be bad for the environment, according to some experts, because toxic emissions are released into the air in the process. Burning plastic, specifically, is known to release highly toxic compounds, called dioxins. Landfills are also problematic; they can leak unsafe liquids into the ground and possibly contaminate nearby water systems. The decomposition of trash in a landfill also creates the greenhouse gas methane, which contributes to climate change.

But recycling is also expensive and time-consuming. It requires a tremendous amount of water and energy, in addition to money and effort to build the proper infrastructure. Due to the falling costs of oil prices, virgin plastic is actually cheaper to make than using recycled materials.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, about 66 million tons of materials are recycled in the US, and almost one-third of these materials typically get exported. For the past three decades, almost half of the entire world's used plastic has been sent to China.

In the early '90s, China saw a monetary opportunity to use its cheap labor. The country began buying recycled plastic, then had small factories in China use the scraps to create inexpensive, plastic exports like shoes, bottles, hoses, and gadgets. The US used to send 4,000 shipping containers of recycled goods to China a day. As of 2016, China was importing 40 million metric tons of recycled goods annually, according to the United Nations.

The country's mass purchasing aided it in becoming a manufacturing hot spot, according to Bloomberg. But the Chinese government has recently has been steering the country away from low-value sectors like waste and is focusing more on higher-earning industries like tech. In the process of becoming the center of everyone else's trash, the country has also been exposed to mercury, lead, and other dangerous substances contributing to pollution. In 2017, it announced it would no longer be the "world's garbage dump," as the Times put it.

Since January 2018, China has banned the import of most plastic and papers. It also tightened its restrictions on accepting other materials, like scrap metal. This ban has forced some of the world's biggest companies to rethink plastic. Corporations including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nestlé, and PepsiCo have started using reusable packaging. The European Union plans on placing a tax for plastic bags and packaging as a response to the Chinese ban, and grocery chains like Trader Joe's are trying to minimize plastic usage.

While the ban is pushing American businesses and countries to rethink their environmental footprint, it's also caused chaos. One waste management executive warned the New York Times last year that many cities will suffer because trash in the US "doesn't have a place to go," and cities are now beginning to feel the effects.

WasteDive, an industry website that covers waste management, has kept a timeline of how the Chinese recycling ban is affecting the US. It's reported that every single state in the US has been affected. Some cities are killing curbside recycling pickup; urban recycling centers all across the country are closing as well.

The US is not the only country struggling to figure out what it's going to do with its recyclables. Australia, for example, has resorted to burying its trash, while Canada now sends some trash to landfills or burns it. Ireland is still trying to figure out what it's going to do, as is Germany.

Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam still buy recycled plastic in bulk, but no country has yet to take China's place as a mass recyclables buyer. Some of these countries don't have the proper infrastructure to handle the volume of recyclables China once processed. And India is trying to follow in China's footsteps and ban foreign trash, as is Malaysia.

Countries are getting sick of buying the West's recycled trash. Burying and burning garbage are Band-Aids on the larger problem, but the global recycling system must be fixed.
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Hundreds of US cities are killing or scaling back their recycling programs

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For plenty of Americans, recycling is practically second nature. It's mandated by law in cities such as New York, San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Seattle, where apartment buildings, office spaces, and restaurants must recycle plastics, cans, cardboard, and glass, unless their owners want to face a fine.

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This is about the environmental affect consumerism in fashion has. You could do a project surrounding this topic, maybe something to do with donating old clothes?

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Unbuttoned

Untangling the origins of a myth repeated so often that no one thought to question it.

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Credit Credit Photo illustration by The New York Times; Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images (clothing)

Over and over again, in articles and conferences and interviews, authoritative industry members declare it with absolute certainty. It appears as gospel in outlets as varied as Fast Company and The Guardian. It played a prominent part in a feature-length documentary.

What is it?

The definitive, and damning, pronouncement that the fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world. It's so shocking, so catchy and so easy to believe. There's only one problem.

"It is not factually true," said Jason Kibbey, the chief executive of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition.

At the close of a year when lies and so-called alternative facts have dominated the conversation; when "misinformation" was chosen as the word of the yea r by Dictionary.com; and when the reduction of difficult issues to the most tweet-able black-and-white assertions has distorted perception, it's time to put an end to this particular eco-myth once and for all. Only then can we really grapple with the actual problem in all its complicated, multifaceted reality.

There is no question that there are major issues around sustainability and clothes. That fashion brands bear enormous responsibility for carbon emissions and chemical runoff and landfill gluts in different parts of the world. That mea culpas are absolutely merited.

There is no question that designers and executives need to think systematically about their place in the natural and human supply chain, and how they can do the least harm.

And there's no question that it is simpler and more attention grabbing to call yourself out for being the second greatest polluter in the world than to label the textile dyeing and finishing industry "the No. 1 polluter of clean water (after agriculture)," as a report in the journal Natural Science did in 2012.

But wait, that's more than just fashion; it could include home wares and bedding, among other things. How, then, to parse fashion's share of that and what it could mean?

There is no credible, verifiable source that will accept responsibility for the whole "second biggest" idea. To trace the claim back to its origin is to play a game of telephone, hopping from link to link to quotation and never arriving. Which is perhaps why most of the people who first popularized the claim have finally started, with somewhat less fanfare, to try to take it back.

An article on the OneGreenPlanet site, for example, asserts that "the $3 trillion fashion industry is the second most polluting industry, just behind oil," and then links to a piece on the EcoWatch site, which then quotes Eileen Fisher, the designer who made sustainability part of the platform for her namesake brand and who has been given awards for her work in this space.

When queried, Ms. Fisher said she believed she originally got her information from "The True Cost," a 2015 film by Andrew Morgan, and that she believed it was also discussed by the Glasgow Caledonian Fair Fashion Center.

When Cara Smyth, the vice president of Glasgow Caledonian New York College, was asked, she also said she thought the claim derived from the film. But when I asked Mr. Morgan, the director, where he got the fact back in 2015, he referred me to the organizers of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, a conference on sustainable fashion, started in 2008. (I have been a speaker at the event.)

Jonas Eder-Hansen, the public affairs director of the Global Fashion Agenda, a forum on sustainability issues and fashion, which grew out of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, said he believed the original fact, oft repeated by Eva Kruse, the founder of G.F.A., had come from a report from the Deloitte consulting firm. That report surfaced in Denmark around 2012 but has since disappeared; when contacted, Deloitte was unclear about the identity of the report.

"I had my moment of fear that it came from me," said Linda Greer, a former senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "About a decade ago, I was looking at industries that polluted in China, and fashion came up in regards to water. But it really depends what you are looking at."

That is in part why Ms. Fisher has recently started to recant. "I've been trying to stop saying it because my team has been saying internally that we can't confirm it," she said. "I think it's been about six months."

The Copenhagen Fashion Summit founders have also been backpedaling, shifting "to more vague statements like 'one of the most resource-intensive industries,'" Mr. Eder-Hansen said.

In 2017, the G.F.A. published a report called the Pulse of Fashion that read, right at the beginning: "In fact, there is a lack of reliable facts to guide action. It is not enough to respond to unsubstantiated statements such as 'The global fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world.' Data and agreed-upon links between cause and effect are what spark ideas, create conviction, and sponsor action."

"But we still hear it," Mr. Eder-Hansen said. And each time they hear it, he said, "we try to say it's not accurate."

Alden Wicker, a journalist and the founder of the Ecocult blog, and one of the first to try to debunk the claim in a 2017 article on Racked, has been doing the same thing.

"I went on an emailing spree a month ago, emailing the first 10 websites that came up when I Googled 'fashion is the second most polluting industry.'" Ms. Wicker said. "One person responded."

Does it really matter if this exaggeration still stands? After all, as Ms. Greer said, "whether it's No. 2 or No. 5, the point is not totally bogus." If extremeness is what propels necessary action, does the end justify the means? Or does this push us further down the slippery slope of alternative facts on which we are currently sliding?

"We need some drama, otherwise we're just going down on the Titanic," Ms. Fisher said. Then she sighed. "But untruths are not O.K."

The problem being, Mr. Eder-Hansen said, "we lose our credibility if we go around spreading hearsay, which is why having accurate data is so important."

Mr. Kibbey said that the sheer scale of "second largest" also tends to mask the need for more granular data-gathering efforts - efforts that are key to quantifying fashion's impact in order to come up with ways to ameliorate it. "I wish it would disappear," he said.

The truth is, we should have suspected from the beginning that this was too pat a formulation. The fashion industry is full of intricate, sometimes impossible-to-trace supply chains, and the data is too sparse to come up with a number like that.

So why did so many people fall for it, and why haven't the denials penetrated?

In part, for the same reason that so many people fall other untruths: the gorgeous simplicity of the accusation; the way it plays into all the prejudices that exist around an industry often associated with indulgence and the culture of disposability; the way it pushes all the right buttons.

"Fashion is a consumer-facing industry," Ms. Greer said. "Cement and steel have two of the largest industrial carbon footprints, but most people don't buy steel and cement." They can't relate.

And unlike many of the distortions floating around in social media, this one didn't arise from malice aforethought, or result from anyone trying to perpetrate a scam or manipulate reality. It very likely comes from a good place: a desire to wake a global industry to the need to do better.

That is partly why, "whenever someone says it at a panel or conference, it's nearly impossible to challenge them," Ms. Wicker said. If you do, she added, you are "accused of negativity, or of apologizing for the fashion industry."

Yet what we do know should be bad enough on its own. Consider the following:

Nearly three-fifths of all clothing ends up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being produced.

More than 8 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions are produced by the apparel and footwear industries.

And, around 20 to 25 percent of globally produced chemical compounds are utilized in the textile-finishing industry.

That's pretty damning, as well as sourced. The first two pieces of data come from reports by McKinsey and Qantis; Ms. Greer passed on the third, via a textbook called the "Handbook of Textile Effluent Remediation," edited by Mohd Yusuf.

Although admittedly, if you're trying to capture the public imagination, that title could use a little work.

Vanessa Friedman is The Times's fashion director and chief fashion critic. She was previously the fashion editor of the Financial Times. @VVFriedman

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D5 of the New York edition with the headline: The Trashiest Untruth About Fashion. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Unbuttoned Untangling the origins of a myth repeated so often that no one thought to question it. Over and over again, in articles and conferences and interviews, authoritative industry members declare it with absolute certainty. It appears as gospel in outlets as varied as Fast Company and The Guardian.

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Why are we allowing an energy company to put MORE mercury in our water??

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We Energies hopes to increase the amount of mercury it is allowed to release from its coal-burning Oak Creek power plant into Lake Michigan. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources held a hearing Monday as part of its review process.

Jason Knutson, wastewater section chief with the DNR, attempted to appease the crowd and explain the mind-numbingly complex five-year waste water permit We Energies wants to renew.

"I would like to go over some of the noteworthy changes proposed in the draft permit. I will mention that this is not an exhaustive list. If we were to cover the entire permit, we'd be here for a couple of hours at least just for this presentation alone," Knutson said.

We Energies treats the waste water from its coal burning power plant in Oak Creek before discharging it into Lake Michigan.

One-point-three nanograms per liter is considered the maximum discharge for wildlife health.

Knutson says We Energies is proposing an exception for its Oak Creek plant. "We have the limit of 4.1 parts per trillion proposed.... So they're required on any given day to be beneath that," Knutson explained.

Knutson assured the crowd the plant's average discharge would be far less than the limit and said We Energies will be required to zero in on mercury contamination and how to reduce it.

What then unfolded was a procession of three-minute speeches - some imploring, others chastising the DNR not to approve the permit.

Sarah Zarling said she drove an hour with her husband and two young children to speak.

"It breaks my heart to have to come to these things, that we even have to have these discussions about protecting our planet," Zarling said. "I implore you to do the right thing and to deny the permit."

Steven Shea wears two hats - one as a Milwaukee County supervisor, the other as a teacher. Shea was adamant that children are being harmed by mercury.

"I work all the time with people with all manner of learning disabilities," Shea said. "We now know that most of those learning disabilities, most of them come from pollutants. And now We Energies wants to put more mercury in our water."

Oak Creek resident Robert Destromp says he's worried about his 18-month-old son.

"You guys are telling us there is mercury in the water and there's arsenic in the water - which is a known carcinogen," Destromp said. "What's the plan? You guys are supposed to be protecting the public. What are you doing?"

We Energies officials did not speak at the hearing. But later, spokesperson Brendan Conway said the proposed permit simply means the power plant will be treated like other facilities handling waste water along Lake Michigan

"Both MMSD (Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District) and Racine have higher variances than this 4.1. It is not an unusual or an unsafe situation. People should know that 99 percent of the time we are under that number and often at or below 1.3," Conway says.

And while Conway says the utility is committed to reducing the amount of mercury making its way into Lake Michigan, "This is not an imminent public health risk. People aren't drinking this water," he says.

People have one more week - until February 18 - to comment on the permit. In order to move forward, it has to be approved by both the Wisconsin DNR and the EPA.
Have an environmental question you'd like WUWM's Susan Bence to investigate? Submit below.
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Citizens Speak Out Against Mercury Discharge Into Lake Michigan

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We Energies hopes to increase the amount of mercury it is allowed to release from its coal-burning Oak Creek power plant into Lake Michigan. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources held a hearing Monday as part of its review process.

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This article discusses the impact of plastic bags & how some people and states are trying to solve the problem https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/437183-plastic-bag-bans-gain-steam-in-liberal-states?amp

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How can you help the environment through painting and theatre?

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Five massive murals are the centerpiece of a body of work created by New York-based artist Alexis Rockman on display at Marquette University's Haggerty Museum of Art until May 19. Titled The Great Lakes Cycle, the oil paintings explore the lakes' ecosystems and the impact humans have had on them.

Rockman says he gravitated to the natural world early in life.

"Growing up in Manhattan, I always longed for wild places as a place of enchantment but they were very much a part of my imagination because I didn't go there that often ... and that led me to draw a lot of plants and animals, mostly animals, mostly frogs," Rockman says.

The Great Lakes project evolved out of a conversation Rockman had with Dana Friis Hansen, director and CEO of the Grand Rapids Art Museum. The two have collaborated on projects for over 20 years, in places like Japan and Houston, Texas.

"He said, 'What's your dream project?' And I thought why not keep me off the street, do something that we take a couple of years and let's really dive deep," Rockman says.

Rockman drove the Michigan side of Lake Michigan, talking with people along the way - from fishermen to scientists.

He particularly credits Jill Leonard, professor of biology at Northern Michigan University.

"She understood because she's such a good educator how to tell these stories and what needed to be told," Rockman says.

He describes the Great Lakes as being very young, beaten down and abused.

"And it's going to get worse, I think. Twenty percent of the world's water - there are going to be wars over this water in the future," he adds, "It's one of the most precious things we have as a country and you're lucky to live near it."
Have an environmental question you'd like WUWM's Susan Bence to investigate? Submit below.
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Environmentally-Focused Paintings About Great Lakes On Display At Marquette University

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Five massive murals are the centerpiece of a body of work created by New York-based artist Alexis Rockman on display at Marquette University's Haggerty Museum of Art until May 19. Titled The Great Lakes Cycle, the oil paintings explore the lakes' ecosystems and the impact humans have had on them.

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This is a MAJOR problem in Waukesha.

You could work with Jayne Jenks to develop a creative way to get people to pick up their poop...

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There's more to being a dog owner than loving and caring for it. Owners also have to deal with their dog's droppings.

The village of Shorewood, just north of Milwaukee, is launching a campaign aimed at keeping dog poop out of local waterways - a daunting environmental challenge, according to an environmental consultant.

"There's 73 million dogs in the United States. They generate 40 billion pounds of waste a year. Only a fraction of that is picked up. When it rains it goes into our waterways - period," says Kae DonLevy, environmental consultant hired by the city of Shorewood.

Shorewood already has restrictions on dogs running loose on the beach or in its parks, but even more pressing than where the animals tread, is the delicate issue of dealing with their waste.

"There are issues around dog waste - the quantity of dog waste and how you dispose of it, or how [the village is] disposing of it. I think we need to educate people about that," says Ellen Eckman, chair of Shorewood's parks commission.

So the village is launching a campaign aimed at keeping dog poop out of sewers and local waterways, which includes a detailed list of disposal alternatives, such as:

Flush it down the toilet. Many say it's the best way to manage dog waste, just make sure to only flush the poop, not the plastic bag.

Place dog poop in the garbage daily or fill a 5-gallon bucket or other container lined with a bag. Cover your poop pail and empty it when you think it's full enough.

Purchase or make your own dog waste composter. Composting comes with a list of don'ts, including do not place composter near fruit or vegetable plants, do not compost dog waste with regular composter, and never compost cat poop.

Hire a service to pick up after your dog.

When out on a walk, keep a few biodegradable waste bags in your pocket for quick dog poop cleanup. Regular plastic bags don't break down for 20 to 1,000 years.

Rather than dwell on the dos and don'ts, the village came up with the Shorewood Loves Dogs! campaign, featuring a dog mascot contest. The winning dog will add a friendly face to the effort.

Thirty-six dogs entered, with a little help from their owners of course. (If you're interested, you can see all the entries here - even if you're not a dog person, the dog glamour shots are worth a peek.)

Bonnie Pedraza, a member of Shorewood's parks commission, was one of seven judges who sized up the six finalists earlier this week.

"We managed to get some kids to come so we can see how the dog reacts to kids. We want a dog that's photogenic. And we want one that will represent the city in a good way. So I've taken a few notes on who did well and who maybe needs some more work," Pedraza says.

The judges ultimately chose Mika, a 3-year-old rescue dog.

"She was a stray in Louisiana. She has one floppy ear, and we don't know exactly what she is, and has caramel eyes," Mika's owner, Tasha Weston says. "She's really a good dog."

Weston - who happens to work in the marketing field - thinks the mascot idea is a clever way to convince dog owners to stop and think about where they dispose of their pet's poop.

"I think it's always good to find an outlet to let the public know better ways to be healthy and healthier for our families. And it's really smart to do it this way because it's fun and also engaging and it's a great way to educate people," Weston says.

As posters featuring Mika appear around Shorewood and residents meet the dog at guest appearances, organizers hope more dog owners will take the environmental hazards of pet waste in waterways seriously.
Have an environmental question you'd like WUWM's Susan Bence to investigate? Submit below.
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Shorewood Launches Clever Campaign To Keep Dog Poop Out Of Sewers & Waterways

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There's more to being a dog owner than loving and caring for it. Owners also have to deal with their dog's droppings. The village of Shorewood, just north of Milwaukee, is launching a campaign aimed at keeping dog poop out of local waterways - a daunting environmental challenge, according to an environmental consultant.

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This article is about working together to better Pewaukee's land and water through protecting its water shed.

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pewaukee river watershed protection plan

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Pewaukee River Watershed Protection Plan

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The article talks about how hard it can be for people to go plastic free....and then makes the point that if it's hard for an individual how hard will it be for huge corporations?

What alternatives could there be to plastic for huge companies? Is there a way to make it easier for companies to go plastic free (incentives maybe)?

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Re " Lose the Plastic " (Sunday Styles, Feb. 17):

The lengths people must go to in order to live plastic-free is just further proof that the burden must be on companies to change. There are over 325 million people living in the United States, and fewer than 15 companies produce most of the products we buy.

Millions of consumers shouldn't have to restructure their daily routines to avoid plastic when the country's leading producers of food, personal care products and other everyday staples could start using sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic, stopping the problem at the source.

It's admirable for people like those quoted in the article to make their own deodorant, hair conditioner and toothpaste, and those who can manage this lifestyle should do so.

But, now that the global plastic crisis has entered mainstream consciousness, we need to use that awareness to urge companies to turn the tide. They have the power to prevent plastic from entering our environment, our food chain and our bodies.

Melissa Valliant
Baltimore
The writer is senior communications manager at Oceana, an international ocean conservation group.

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Re " Lose the Plastic " (Sunday Styles, Feb. 17): The lengths people must go to in order to live plastic-free is just further proof that the burden must be on companies to change. There are over 325 million people living in the United States, and fewer than 15 companies produce most of the products we buy.