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Center’s Ron Seely wins national environmental reporting award

By | July 30, 2014

The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s Ron Seely has been selected as winner of the Sierra Club’s 2014 national reporting award. Seely, a reporter, editor and student mentor for the Center, will receive the David R. Brower Award for outstanding environmental coverage, the national Sierra Club announced this week. The award is named after the first executive director of the Sierra Club. Ellen Davis, chairwoman of the honors and awards committee for the Sierra Club, said Seely was chosen for his high-quality reporting on environmental issues spanning more than two decades, including coverage of the environmental effects of large farming operations and the proposed Gogebic Taconite mine in northern Wisconsin. “It was really for his entire career rather than a particular story,” Davis said.

Dairy

The community digester located near Waunakee is the stateÕs first to process manure from more than one farm. Roughly 100,00 gallons of manure from 2,400 cows on three nearby farms is pumped daily through underground pipes to the digester. Its purpose is to keep phosphorus from polluting the Yahara watershed.

Manure digesters seen as best hope for curbing lake pollution, but drawbacks remain

By Jessica VanEgeren (The Capital Times) | April 30, 2014

Since 2001, manure digesters have been popping up across the state. Wisconsin now has 34, the most in the nation, with two more scheduled to begin operating by 2015. In all these digesters, bacteria eat biomass like manure, food scraps or whey and emit energy in the form of methane gas.

Money & Politics Column

Hope springs eternal for election reformers

By Bill Lueders | July 24, 2012

In preparing for a recent interview in which he knew he’d be asked about tilting at windmills, Mike McCabe crafted a T-shirt-worthy reply: “To me, there’s always reason for hope, and never much reason for optimism.” McCabe leads the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which joined with the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group in drafting a July 10 letter calling for legislative hearings and possibly a special session to tweak state elections law.