Last Friday afternoon we learned of the 79 bills up for a vote on Tuesday. I spoke with my neighbor shortly after seeing the long list.
“How can they possibly know what they are voting on?” she asked me. I replied there is no time to talk with people and learn the effects of these changes.
Legislation moving quickly through the process makes changes to protections of our wetlands; specifically, wet areas not connected to a navigable body of water.
Wisconsin has more than one million acres of “isolated” wetlands. These areas are our swamps, meadows and marshes. Isolated wetlands are regulated by the state, hence the ability of state lawmakers to remove protections.
Talking to scientists and engineers is key to understanding the importance of wetlands and the implications of removing state protections. However, legislation moving at warp speed with little public notice make it nearly impossible to have these conversations.
Wetlands are key to our ecology. They provide habitat to an immense array of creatures and plants. Wetlands recharge ground water, help control erosion, and store excess water caused by severe weather.
Our farmstead sits 50’ above a large swamp and marsh. The wetlands capture flooding waters from the swollen Buffalo River. In the past several years, we saw several serious floods. The flooding in our wetlands eased possible destruction by the unusually intense storms.
“In the last six years, Wisconsin has seen five 100-year floods and one 1,000-year flood,” wrote Tyler Esh, the Eau Claire Emergency Management Coordinator. “Rains are becoming increasingly severe.”
These severe floods led many people I represent to question current state policies. For example, a town official asked for help with a washed-out road. He wanted to double the size of a culvert that washed out in a severe storm. We could not get adequate state help to pay for the improvements. The following year, the road and culvert washed out again.
Floods know no boundaries. Folks in Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties remember last summer flooding when up to 8 inches of rain fell causing sewers to overflow. Filling in wetlands makes things worse in urban as well as rural areas.
The City of Houston learned a hard lesson this summer. Part of the reason Houston flooded so badly was because they took out wetlands and built on the low land. In one of several similar stories I read, reporters for Quartz Media wrote,
“Even after it became a widely accepted scientific fact that wetlands can soak up large amounts of flood water, the city continued to pave over them… From 1992 to 2010, this area lost more than 70% of its wetlands, according to research by Texas A&M University…The city, the largest in the US with no zoning laws, is a case study in limiting government regulations and favoring growth – often at the expense of the environment. As water swamps many of its neighborhoods, it’s now a cautionary tale of sidelining science and plain common sense.”
Too often speed and secrecy in the legislative process replaces thoughtful, public discussion. Maybe lawmakers should ask homeowners still recovering from the floods if removing wetland protections is in the public’s best interest.
Lawmakers swore an oath to protect the Constitution including to promote the general welfare. In our age of climate change and very unpredictable weather patterns, leaders have a responsibility to protect citizens from the damaging effects of severe weather. Wetlands – nature’s “natural sponge” – are part of the answer to protecting us from flooding.
Instead of removing Wisconsin’s isolated wetlands protections, we should develop new strategies to cope with changing weather patterns that threaten us. Emergency funds and disaster programs should be changed to address the breadth of problems created by floods. Transportation plans should provide for increased water volume.
The legislative process is designed to force deliberation necessary to thoroughly examine any given issue. Careful consideration seems impossible with legislation speeding through the process. For example, at 9:44 a.m. on Monday we received the Assembly Session calendar for Tuesday. This is the first opportunity the public and press have to review the list of 93 bills up for final passage.
Such critical issues as protecting our precious wetlands need a thoughtful, informed and citizen engaged discussion.
Memberships
Wetlands and Jobs: Do we have to choose one?
“Very unhappy to see you continuing to vote against the expansion of industry,” wrote the Trempealeau County man. “More industries, more jobs, people pay more taxes. This is a good scenario, right?”
Recently the Senate voted, on partisan lines, to approve a rewrite of laws governing wetlands. The bill’s proponents included the state’s largest business lobbying group. They wrote legislators, “enactment of this legislation will help economic development and job creation projects move forward…this bill is a win-win for jobs and the environment.”
The striking division between environmental and large business groups was reflected in the bill’s partisan vote. Most conservation groups and all the environmental groups lined up on one side and business groups from the oil industry, builders, manufacturers and ag-industry lined up on the other side.
At issue was how to streamline the permitting process for wetland development. Streamlining regulation is a good idea. Government should provide prompt service to citizens. Delays and tangled red tape hurts us all. There is no question the process of wetland review needed improvement.
The question is how to strike a balance between protecting the environment and encouraging job growth. Unfortunately many saw the bill passed by the Senate as out-of-balance.
The Wildlife Federation wrote, “This bill will result in the loss of thousands of acres of wetlands, which are important fish and wildlife habitat for hunters, anglers and trappers. Mitigated wetlands are usually far poorer quality than natural wetlands.”
The idea of ‘mitigated’ or off-set wetlands isn’t new. For many years the policy of balancing development with natural resource protection was to ‘avoid, minimize and mitigate.”
This strategy translates to first looking at alternative to building in a wetland; second minimizing the disturbance of a wetland and finally creating a ‘man-made’ wetland to off-set the wetland consumed by development.
The bill passed by the Senate changes this plan.
In its place would be a new system allowing a developer who wants to build on a wetland to pay into a ‘mitigation bank’. This money would be used to buy land at another location to create artificial wetlands.
The Sierra Club warned, “This allows the permit process to degenerate to the level of a ‘lets make a deal’ free-for-all.”
The Wetlands Association wrote, “The stated objective of the bill is to create more and better wetlands. This is difficult to do if we allow the highest quality wetlands to be filled in.” They advocated for the protection of “high quality, rare or imperiled wetlands”.
Instead the bill changed the definition of wetlands making no wetland in Wisconsin safe from development.
Many people wrote concerned about this bill. John from Rock Elm wrote, “What happened to preserving our wildlife. While moving these wetlands to a different part of the state, are they going to move all the living animals and creatures as well?”
“Tourism is big and Wisconsin has some of the most beautiful landscape I’ve seen, so why are we destroying what brings people to Wisconsin,” he wrote.
In a rush to address the difficult problem of a stagnant economy, some of my Legislative colleagues put a high priority on dismantling environmental protections. We see this in the wetlands bill and in the complete rewrite of iron ore mining bill.
Legislators on both sides of the aisle are learning that crossing the wishes of large business groups comes at a cost. Threats come not only in letters and emails but in advertising, automated calls to constituents and threats of recall by industry related groups.
Lost in the power plays is a respectful debate of our differences.
By creating a ‘winner take all’ attitude toward politics and policy, the common good is trampled.
Jobs and the environment aren’t mutually exclusive. Lawmakers must balance the interests of landowners and developers with protection of our natural resources.
Such policy development requires thoughtful and prudent deliberation. The process can’t be rushed and must be transparent. Lawmakers must be willing to say ‘no’ to their friends and act in the public’s interest.
People must not fall prey to advertising, automated calls and misinformation paid for by outside interests who will make substantial financial gains in the passage of certain new laws.
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