Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/category/environment/page/6/)
In 2011, the Coast Guard tested, off New Jersey’s shoreline, three prototypes for finding, mapping and recovering submerged oil, from three companies that each spent a year on the problem.
A refinery’s proposal to ship heavy crude oil from Superior across the Great Lakes has emergency responders gearing up to bolster gaps in current oil spill response plans. And the gaps are substantial, experts say.
A legislative hearing Monday on a revised attempt to limit local governments’ authority to regulate nonmetallic mining, including existing frac sand mines, drew support from mining representatives but opposition from town leaders.
The upshot: “First thing about climate change: Don’t talk about climate change,” said UW-Madison researcher Paul Mitchell. “Whatever language you need to use to work with your audience — that’s the language you would use.”
A four-day hearing on challenges to the expansion of a Kewaunee County mega-dairy illustrated deep divisions, ranging from neighbors who shared fears of polluted wells and illness to fertilizer and feed dealers who showed up to express their support of big farms.
In a Green Bay hearing beginning Tuesday, a controversial attempt to expand a dairy farm set to become the fifth largest in Wisconsin will be challenged in a case that could have a far-reaching impact on how Wisconsin regulates industrial-size livestock farms.
Water-quality advocates say the state Department of Natural Resources’ regulation of large farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs, is too lax. DNR acknowledges low staffing levels have strained enforcement efforts, and described the program.
Mining companies, Chippewa County and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls are teaming up on a $232,000, five-year study probing how the vast tracts of Wisconsin used for nonmetallic mining — including for frac sand — can best be reclaimed.
Wisconsin, the only state with a program that compensates the owners of dogs killed by wolves while hunting other animals, has paid tens of thousands of dollars during the past decade to individuals who have violated state hunting or firearms laws.
Two bonus features supplementing last week’s major package on estrogenic wells in Wisconsin’s karst region.
Frac sand mining company Preferred Sands of Wisconsin has been ordered to pay $200,000 for stormwater and air permit violations at its facility near Blair, a Trempealeau County city.
Private well owners are not required to test their water quality. Yet the Division of Public Health urges well owners to test because so many wells are contaminated.