This is the 19th installment of a 21-part series on Walker's war on the Wisconsin environment. The series will conclude before the Nov. 6 election.
The 17th and 18th installments were published October 27th.
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You could not overstate the environmental costs that accompany Foxconn's equally-unprecedented and intertwined claims on state taxpayers, one small village's borrowing authority, Wisconsin's road-building budget and private property owners being moved off their land to accommodate one Taiwan-based firm and an incumbent Governor's personal and political agendas.
I have been tracking the Foxconn project since June, 2017; this archive - - "A Foxconn Fever Primer - - has been continuously updated with more than 200 posts and readers can peruse the bold-faced links to follow just about aspect of the story.
Why "Foxconn Fever," you ask?
Because that's what came over Walker and his allies - - even Attorney General Bread Schimel who jumped on board right after the official word got out, whether or not he'd ever have to be in court defending the taxpayers' interests should some part or parts of the deal turn out to other than what had been promised.
So given the breadth of the subject, let me do two things.
I will point you towards some of the key environmental issues, and then add a few more points for context.
Here are links to some of the main environmental issues, and the thread running through them is obvious: favors were given away to Foxconn by Walker and the Legislature, but the basic resources involved - - clean air and water - - belong to the people and are supposed to be protected for the people by their trustee: the state and the DNR.
Filling Wetlands, streams and lakes.
More extensive clean air exemptions.
Quick water diversion approval.
Quick air emissions approvals.
Routine environmental impact statement mocked, waived.
Now a few observations:
The company is posting futuristic videos of what they say will eventually be there - - and, as Walker had said in earlier political campaigns, put this up on your refrigerator and hold him to it - - and bringing in eager media to see all the dirt that's being moved around by battalions of big machines.
All to dull your recollection that the dirt had been working farms and homeowners yards in the painfully, ironically-named Village of Mount Pleasant.
And Team Walker keeps cheering it along, hoping you don't ask whether this is all a little premature, given local litigation over private property seizures, the pending and unresolved challenge to the Lake Michigan diversion because of the risk it poses to the Great Lakes Compact, the opposition in Illinois in several jurisdictions over surface and wastewater concerns and a separate challenge to the air emission permits, and so on.
And a final thought:
While Foxconn and its boosters like then-DNR Cathy Stepp and others have repeatedly said the project will abide by all relevant environmental standards - - clever word-smithing, given the exemptions already granted - - take a look at its failure to abide by a requirement as simple as not moving all that dirt around before completing required runoff detention ponds, just in case it were to rain heavily on the site.
As it does, in Racine County. Foxconn headed for flood-prone Racine County (Oct. 15, 2017).
As was in the forecast this summer. Storms forecast for Racine County where Foxconn is bulldozing, filling. Sept. 1, 2018.
And yet, this.
What's your comfort level with the project's respect for the environment now?
And remember: Mother Nature gave us wetlands to soak up excess precipitation and filter it to keep the environment clean.
The Legislature earlier this year tried to remove protections from all state-level wetlands so developers could fill and build in them - - a Foxconn-style, equal-rights' for all state wetland holders' privilege, if you will - - but an outcry from conservationists forced the Legislature to send Walker a bill he signed that cut the acreage released for development to 100,000 acres from 1,000,000.
Don't worry. The more filling that goes on by Foxconn, the more normalized will he the losses and the more likely it will be that they and their significant value will disappear.
Also, as predicted.
The 17th and 18th installments were published October 27th.
----------------------------------------------------
You could not overstate the environmental costs that accompany Foxconn's equally-unprecedented and intertwined claims on state taxpayers, one small village's borrowing authority, Wisconsin's road-building budget and private property owners being moved off their land to accommodate one Taiwan-based firm and an incumbent Governor's personal and political agendas.
I have been tracking the Foxconn project since June, 2017; this archive - - "A Foxconn Fever Primer - - has been continuously updated with more than 200 posts and readers can peruse the bold-faced links to follow just about aspect of the story.
Why "Foxconn Fever," you ask?
Because that's what came over Walker and his allies - - even Attorney General Bread Schimel who jumped on board right after the official word got out, whether or not he'd ever have to be in court defending the taxpayers' interests should some part or parts of the deal turn out to other than what had been promised.
So given the breadth of the subject, let me do two things.
I will point you towards some of the key environmental issues, and then add a few more points for context.
Here are links to some of the main environmental issues, and the thread running through them is obvious: favors were given away to Foxconn by Walker and the Legislature, but the basic resources involved - - clean air and water - - belong to the people and are supposed to be protected for the people by their trustee: the state and the DNR.
Filling Wetlands, streams and lakes.
More extensive clean air exemptions.
Quick water diversion approval.
Quick air emissions approvals.
Routine environmental impact statement mocked, waived.
Now a few observations:
The company is posting futuristic videos of what they say will eventually be there - - and, as Walker had said in earlier political campaigns, put this up on your refrigerator and hold him to it - - and bringing in eager media to see all the dirt that's being moved around by battalions of big machines.
All to dull your recollection that the dirt had been working farms and homeowners yards in the painfully, ironically-named Village of Mount Pleasant.
And Team Walker keeps cheering it along, hoping you don't ask whether this is all a little premature, given local litigation over private property seizures, the pending and unresolved challenge to the Lake Michigan diversion because of the risk it poses to the Great Lakes Compact, the opposition in Illinois in several jurisdictions over surface and wastewater concerns and a separate challenge to the air emission permits, and so on.
And a final thought:
While Foxconn and its boosters like then-DNR Cathy Stepp and others have repeatedly said the project will abide by all relevant environmental standards - - clever word-smithing, given the exemptions already granted - - take a look at its failure to abide by a requirement as simple as not moving all that dirt around before completing required runoff detention ponds, just in case it were to rain heavily on the site.
As it does, in Racine County. Foxconn headed for flood-prone Racine County (Oct. 15, 2017).
As was in the forecast this summer. Storms forecast for Racine County where Foxconn is bulldozing, filling. Sept. 1, 2018.
And yet, this.
What's your comfort level with the project's respect for the environment now?
And remember: Mother Nature gave us wetlands to soak up excess precipitation and filter it to keep the environment clean.
The Legislature earlier this year tried to remove protections from all state-level wetlands so developers could fill and build in them - - a Foxconn-style, equal-rights' for all state wetland holders' privilege, if you will - - but an outcry from conservationists forced the Legislature to send Walker a bill he signed that cut the acreage released for development to 100,000 acres from 1,000,000.
Don't worry. The more filling that goes on by Foxconn, the more normalized will he the losses and the more likely it will be that they and their significant value will disappear.
Also, as predicted.
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 justices in their opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC.(2)
Sources: (1) Quick, John. 1994. The Public Trust Doctrine in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Environmental Law Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1. (2) "Champions of the Public Trust, A History of Water Use in Wisconsin" study guide. 1995. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Water Regulation and Zoning. Champions of the Public Trust