Look, the short version of this post is that Wisconsin water belongs to everyone
and we need to do do a helluva better job protecting the water and our rights to it, because clean water and water rights Wisconsin are being ignored, contaminated, twisted or flat-out heisted.
Here's the rest of the story.
Wisconsin residents' legal rights to clean, accessible water are so fundamental and non-negotiable that they written right into the state constitution as the Public Trust Doctrine.
Yet Walker, his agencies, the GOP-controlled Legislature and a corporately-subservient Republican Attorney General are alternately pretending there is no Public Trust Doctrine or are intentionally shredding it for special interests by tolerating or enabling:
* Groundwater privatization;
* Drinking water contamination;
* More polluted rivers;
* Adding wetlands-draining sand mines;
* The growth of manure spilling feedlots, and;
* Development at the water's edge.
Citizens groups battle at the grassroots and the shorelines, and dedicated attorneys are fighting the good fights - - here and here, for example - - but there has been an inability by the statewide environmental groups to band together for a long-term educational and activist campaign to promote and implement the Public Trust Doctrine.
Yes, "Public Trust Doctrine" is a clunky, arcane term, but if the Wisconsin DNR in its era of sinformation-killing web page scrubbing can still explain the Public Trust Doctrine this easily, so can we all:
and we need to do do a helluva better job protecting the water and our rights to it, because clean water and water rights Wisconsin are being ignored, contaminated, twisted or flat-out heisted.
Here's the rest of the story.
Wisconsin residents' legal rights to clean, accessible water are so fundamental and non-negotiable that they written right into the state constitution as the Public Trust Doctrine.
Yet Walker, his agencies, the GOP-controlled Legislature and a corporately-subservient Republican Attorney General are alternately pretending there is no Public Trust Doctrine or are intentionally shredding it for special interests by tolerating or enabling:
* Groundwater privatization;
* Drinking water contamination;
* More polluted rivers;
* Adding wetlands-draining sand mines;
* The growth of manure spilling feedlots, and;
* Development at the water's edge.
Citizens groups battle at the grassroots and the shorelines, and dedicated attorneys are fighting the good fights - - here and here, for example - - but there has been an inability by the statewide environmental groups to band together for a long-term educational and activist campaign to promote and implement the Public Trust Doctrine.
Yes, "Public Trust Doctrine" is a clunky, arcane term, but if the Wisconsin DNR in its era of sinformation-killing web page scrubbing can still explain the Public Trust Doctrine this easily, so can we all:
Wisconsin lakes and rivers are public resources, owned in common by all Wisconsin citizens under the state's Public Trust Doctrine. Based on the state constitution, this doctrine has been further defined by case law and statute. It declares that all navigable waters are "common highways and forever free", and held in trust by the Department of Natural Resources...
As a result, the public interest, once primarily interpreted to protect public rights to transportation on navigable waters, has been broadened to include protected public rights to water quality and quantity, recreational activities, and scenic beauty.(1)
All Wisconsin citizens have the right to boat, fish, hunt, ice skate, and swim on navigable waters, as well as enjoy the natural scenic beauty of navigable waters, and enjoy the quality and quantity of water that supports those uses.(2)
Wisconsin law recognizes that owners of lands bordering lakes and rivers - "riparian" owners - hold rights in the water next to their property. These riparian rights include the use of the shoreline, reasonable use of the water, and a right to access the water. However, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court has ruled that when conflicts occur between the rights of riparian owners and public rights, the public's rights are primary and the riparian owner's secondary.(1
Wisconsin's Public Trust Doctrine requires the state to intervene to protect public rights in the commercial or recreational use of navigable waters. The DNR, as the state agent charged with this responsibility, can do so through permitting requirements for water projects, through court action to stop nuisances in navigable waters, and through statutes authorizing local zoning ordinances that limit development along navigable waterways.
The court has ruled that DNR staff, when they review projects that could impact Wisconsin lakes and rivers, must consider the cumulative impacts of individual projects in their decisions. "A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin State Supreme Court justice