A River Runs Through the Manure

There's much to read in between the lines of this recent Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources press release:

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/Weekly/Article_Lookup.asp?id=2499

Its headline reads:  "Bumper Bass Crop One More Reason to Land Spread Manure Carefully."  (Showing real new media savvy, the DNR released this to "agricultural media" first.)

The agency crows about the "bumper" small mouth bass crop in 2012, which they attribute to "hot and dry years."  Rat is a rodent expert, not a fisheries expert, but I'm not sure it's just "hot and dry" that helped out the baby bass last year.  DNR's tying that good news with a warning about manure spreading is a little hint.

Translation: the bass probably did well in a "hot and dry" year like 2012 because we had a drought. The lack of snow and rain meant no manure was flushed into the rivers via water running off the land.

Why is DNR talking about this now?  T'is the season for manure to run off the fields and to the rivers, where it will kill the baby bass.  Farmers spread manure like there's no tomorrow this time of year.  The ground is still frozen and supports the heavy weights of tractors and spreaders. Farmers with storage pits that have been filling up over the winter empty them now, fast.  Those who don't have pits have already been spreading, all winter long.

That manure is just sitting on top of the frozen ground. When the snow melts or it rains at this time of year, when the ground is still frozen, that manure ends up in the rivers. 

Above-freezing temps are predicted for the coming days.  So is rain.  We rats wish you well this spring, baby bass. 

Rat Riffs on "What if?"

Your Ratly correspondent does get out of her rat hole on occasion to see the sights of this lovely state.
This weekend I passed two very different and unrelated places in Wisconsin, but that got me to thinking.

One place, draped in fresh snow, was the Penokee Hills, the site of a proposed iron mine in Ashland County.   I also passed by a couple of paper mills -- homely and hulking, towering over their home communities (in this case, of Port Edwards and Rothschild), and steaming away in the cold air. 

Let me explain how an iron mine site pertains to a paper mill.

Photo courtesy Domtar Corp. (Nekoosa plant)

Despite its past glory, there is not much of a mining industry in Wisconsin, and no iron mining to speak of.  There's a good reason there's no iron mining -- what little low-grade ore exists is very hard to extract without considerable environmental disruption.  No infrastructure exists: the related ore processing would all have to be built from scratch. 

Mindless energy and attention has been given to this non-industry by legislators and business leaders.  It got me to thinking:  what if all the energy and resources devoted to a divisive and disruptive iron mine had been put instead to reviving Wisconsin's paper industry?

Bring Back Paper
We were the paper kings, after all, for more than a century.  Paper built this state.  We had the rivers and the trees and the workers and the knowhow.  Paper defined the Fox and Wisconsin river valleys.  But like an ill and elderly man, the industry is in decline.  In an excellent two-part story, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel outlined the Wisconsin paper industry's history and the many forces undermining it.

  http://www.jsonline.com/business/bankrolled-and-bioengineered-china-supplants-wisconsins-paper-industry-183049221.html


Wisconsin has not consciously decided to give up on the paper industry, as far as this Rat knows. But have their been discussions at high levels -- the governor, legislators, business leaders, academics, regulators -- about what the state could do to make that industry competitive again?  Do we think there is no job strategy in paper making?  Have we really given over the industry to China?

Seems to me it would make a lot more sense to put our time and brain power into a well-known industry that has a presence in a dozen or more communities, still employs thousands of workers, has its environmental performance figured out, and -- despite the fact you are not reading this on a piece of paper anymore -- still makes a useful product.

The "experts" might say Wisconsin's paper industry is beyond salvation.  But Rat is certain that conversation has not happened, and The End has not been declared.   A concerted effort for paper, by the same people who insist we need an iron mine, just seems so much more sensible than trying to ram an iron mine down our throats. 

Forget paper, you say?  Okay, but think about other possibilities:  there's the biofuels industry, among other industries of the future, that has great promise for economic development. This first-class state could do so much better than trying to revive a Third World industry. 

Mining the Truth from Last Week’s Capitol Spectacle

This Rat’s perspective on last week’s Capitol hearing on mining was constrained.  It wasn't just the restrictions imposed on the humans in the room on cell phone and Ipad use, and even whispering and smiling.  A scurrilous Rat like yours truly must keep way low and watch the proceedings between chair legs, high heels, and microphone cords.  But my finely tuned Rat ears heard plenty.

I could hear the legislators parrying with the orange-hatted mining supporters – not dudes in suits, but real (appearing) working folks – about the jobs the mine would bring.  I could not tell if pro-mine legislators looked those folks in the eyes and, with a straight face, say, “You will see mining jobs.”

(Photo courtesy Michelle Stocker, The Capital Times)

What?  No Mine?  Really??

Maybe they couldn’t promise that because they know in their hearts there may never be a mine in the Penokees.   But in their political calculations, Republican mining proponents are pretty clever.  They have their bases covered, mine or no mine.

1.  They have said, “Here’s how high?” when their political contribution patrons demanded they all jump for mining.  If a mine doesn’t get built, they can say they tried mightily, without drying up that source of campaign cash. 

2.   If they try mightily and fail, they can blame the Republicans' favorite nemeses:  shrill and clueless Madison environmentalists and obstructionist Indians invoking their dreaded treaty rights. 

3.  But Republicans will reserve their greatest wrath for the faceless federal bureaucrats of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  In what could be a rare instance of bureaucratic heroism (you don’t put those two words in a sentence about that agency very often), the Army Corps has told legislators that what the state won’t do to review a mining proposal, the Corps will. That could take 4 or more years.

4.  Back to the Indians, specifically the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa – they will fight this mine to the death, using their “treatment-as-a-state” status that gives them authority to regulate water quality on their lands.  The Penokee mine would essentially destroy the headwaters of the tribe’s lifeblood, the Bad River.  Tribal chairman Mike Wiggins did look legislators in the eye last week and declared, in no uncertain terms, they will fight the mine to the death.  Building a mine upstream from their homeland would be “genocide,” he said.

Finally, in a rather misleading take on mining and jobs, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel calls Sen. Chris Larson’s statement that the mine won’t create jobs for at least 7 years “mostly false” on its Politi-Fact page January 27. The hair the paper split was that even though there might not be actual rocks dug up for mining for at least 7 years, there might be “jobs created along the way.”  This article misses the bigger point that the promise of jobs in the numbers offered by mining proponents is an audacious act of smoke-blowing.  They have to know the Army Corps’ assessment process and the Bad River tribe’s legal battle, will stymie, for years and years, any meaningful job creation in Hurley and other nearby towns. 

But you see my point?  They get a mine, they cheer; in the likely event they don’t, they spray unmerciful blame like a weed killer, without reflecting how they could have done this right from the outset.  

Nice Ice, Chill Winds

Postcards from my muskrat cousins are pouring in.  They are relieved that there is ice this winter under which to hide from hungry eagles and other hawk-eyed birds (such as hawks).  Some muskrats tell me they even pop up onto the surface of the ice at night, through holes the ice fishermen make, and slip-slide around under the light of the moon.  

And I thought river rats had fun.

This River Rat is having no fun anticipating the chill winds blowing down from the state Capitol.  When it comes to conservation, it is nothing but ill chill winds.

The biggest gust of ill wind is mining legislation. (To paraphrase Dylan, we should call these idiot winds.)  Lawmakers, with the governor’s approval, are poised to pass a bill that would rip a hole in northern Wisconsin a quarter mile wide by up to 15 miles long and nearly 2,000 feet deep.  They’re also itching to blow up a “mining moratorium” law, in place since the mid 1990s, that has successfully prevented mining that would cause the dreaded acid mine drainage.

The governor wants an income tax decrease, which he will get.  If you reduce revenue to state coffers, you gotta reduce costs, and that likely means state employees will get whacked.  Legislators’ favorite target to starve is the state’s guardian of natural resources, the DNR.

Frac away

And you know all that valuable frac sand being mined and shipped out of state – an extremely valuable commodity without which the domestic natural gas and oil boom couldn’t be?  It leaves Wisconsin, free of charge, and the local communities that pay the price for the environmental and social disruption, get nothing.  Nor does the state.  Wisconsin is a now a player in the oil industry, but it’s dressed up like a bar-sponsored softball team playing Major League Baseball.

Hostility to conservation is not unique to the Legislature. It starts, and it prospers, at the top, with Governor Walker.  He gives his annual state of the state speech next week.  Here’s an opportunity for the Gov surprise us. Rat offers this simple language to be inserted into the speech.   This is not tree-hugging, blow-up-the-ship-to-save-the-whales rhetoric here; it’s pragmatic and common sense. 

Water cannot be afterthought.  There is no economy, there is no life, without clean and plentiful water. 

 

Hang around your radio the night of January 15 and see if the Gov works any of Rat’s fine prose into his speech. 

I know what you’re thinking – that’s as likely as muskrats enjoying ice in July. But it's worth a try.

 

  

The State of the State’s Waters

Wisconsin is defined by water – our borders, our name, our economy, our identity, are formed and shaped by water.

Water is essential to who we are and what we do – as manufacturers, utilities, farmers and service providers who depend on water to do their business, and as people who have fun in and by the water. 

It is essential that we protect our water – both its quality and its quantity – vigorously, systematically and with the seriousness it deserves.  Our economy, our quality of life, and our future as a state depend on it. 

It will be my (Gov. Scott Walker) administration’s policy to mobilize those state agencies and offices equipped to defend the public trust to protect our water.  

• ·         We will ensure that drinking water drawn from underground sources will not be depleted. 

• ·         We will also ensure that that same groundwater – the drinking water for 90% of Wisconsin residents – will be protected from contamination by pesticides, nitrates, bacteria, viruses and other pollutants. 

•          We will work to reduce to the greatest extent possible the pollution of our surface waters of algae-producing phosphorus and keep the soil that delivers that phosphorus on the land. 

•   ·         We will strive to limit, even eliminate, exotic plants and animals that wreak havoc on our waters and cause tens of millions of dollars of damage. 

• ·         We will follow the letter and the spirit of the Great Lakes Compact to protect our Great Lakes.

What the Frack?

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream
Make him the cutest that I've ever seen
Give him two lips like roses and clover
Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over

What the Frack?

Be careful what you wish for, Wisconsin humanoids.  You say you don’t like burning coal to run your air conditioners, so the power companies replace those by plants that burn natural gas.  

Enter frac sand mining in Wisconsin.  Sand mines are more prolific in Wisconsin than rats immune to strychnine.  This byproduct of the glaciers is an essential ingredient for liberating hard-to-get natural gas from underground -- the gas headed for those power plants.  To get the gas, the oil boys blast water and chemicals and sand – this ideal sand from Wisconsin – into fine cracks in the rock.  The sand acts like tiny ball bearings to keep those cracks open to allow the gas (or oil) to be captured.  Technical term:  hydraulic fracking.

They’re not mining natural gas here, mind you; they are mining the sand in order to mine the gas out of the ground (in the Dakotas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere).  Some of these sand mines are getting uncomfortably close to Wisconsin rivers.  But it’s not just rivers they’re messing with.  Sand mining is causing all kinds of grief for communities – truck traffic, noise and dust, shaky reclamation plans, and exploitation not just of a resource but of local decision-making. Other than a few trucking jobs and a few guys to run equipment and processing machines, virtually none of the oil-boom wealth of this sand stays in Wisconsin, and no one is talking about some kind of severance tax.  Why would we keep the oil companies from getting all they want?  

A frac sand mine sprang a leak and dumped sand and water into the St. Croix River last summer.  (Oh, by the way: Rat has it on good information that your natural resources agency in Wisconsin prefers the term “industrial sands” to “frac sand – SO jobby-sounding, isn’t it?  And it sure doesn’t sound like another four-letter word that starts with “f.”) That may not be the worst of it along what is a National Scenic Riverway.  Jerry Dorff, a good friend of this Rat and a river trip outfitter, told his town board recently, “Our concern is the noise from the mine and what the mine is doing to the value of the river."

“Value of the river….” 

That’s a hard one for those who see economic development as monolithic:  create jobs no matter the cost.  Can the value of a river be matched up against the value of sand that’s extracted and shipped away?

And what river is more valued in this state than the Lower Wisconsin Riverway?  It too has a sand mining proposal near its bank, in Crawford County not far from Prairie du Chien.

The Lower Wisconsin is a unique creature.  The land inside the river corridor is legally protected from activities that would be visible from the river.  Even a house has to have colors and windows that make it inconspicuous from the river.  While there seems little the Riverway can do to restrict this mine, this may well be the time to – sorry, Rat can’t help himself – draw a line in the sand to restrict this mine, or even prevent it from going in.  There’s more sand in that thar valley, according to geologists, and the Riverway could end up with several of these things.

The Koch Brothers – who else?

One last possible sand mining insult to the river is the possibility of sand trains, running day and night, on the track that runs parallel to the river from Prairie du Chien to Muscoda.  Wisconsinites will love the intrigue behind the railroad company that owns the track. It’s owned by Wisconsin and Southern, really a Kansas company (WATCO) whose biggest customers are Koch Brothers enterprises.  Rat saw track crews recently replacing ties on this line, and a train buff took pictures of a sand train on those rails, as recently as October 4. (Ya gotta love the photographer's attempt at making a train look sexy.)  http://www.wsorrailroad.com/fan/gallery29.html

Whether or not sand mines are developed on the river, it seems likely that the rumblings of sand trains may serenade Wisconsin river paddlers and campers soon.

Fellow river rats, we may have to get familiar with the state railroad commissioner.  I know, we’re supposed to love trains…but as I said at the top, nothing is clear-cut anymore. 

posted by the River Rat

Hot New Findings! Are invaders benefiting from the record breaking high temperatures and drought?

Even us amphibious creatures could not catch a break from the sweltering heat this summer as water temps soared and side-channels sizzled dry under the unrelenting scorching skies.   As the waters recede the neighborhood can get a little crowded, especially with all the new immigrants!  From the Mississippi to the Sugar River, we have seen unwanted guests flocking here like snowbirds to Florida finding great pleasure in the heat.  

In the Mississippi River near Alma, Wisconsin about 1,000 water hyacinth and water lettuce, two of the world’s worst invasive species that are are not regulated here in Wisconsin due to their assumed intolerance of our winter, were found last year.  After a rapid response to squelch this new invasion, WDNR and USFWS staff hoped that the literature was right.  However, low and behold this summer the two plants (nearly 10,000 of them) reemerged from seed to be joined by yet another nasty invader, parrot feather.  For more on this infestation, http://www.fws.gov/midwest/News/release.cfm?rid=571

Water lettuce and water hyacinth in the Mississippi River (credit: Paul Skawinski)

 Zebra mussels are not new to the Wisconsin River.  However, this year something monumental happened; their populations exploded!  In a recent survey of a native mussel bed near Muscoda 90% of the native mussels collected had juvenile zebra mussels attached to them.  In total there were over 10,000 young zebra mussels.  That is 10,000 future heal cutting shells to litter our sandbars. While they have been in the area since 2008, they have remained a mere minority until this year.  Now at their current numbers they pose a substantial threat to natives, recreational opportunities, and the bottom line of river-based businesses.

  

Juvenile zebra mussels on from the Lower Wisconsin River

A stone’s throw over the Military Ridge in the Sugar River watershed the mosquitofish, an exotic species that was also thought to not like our Wisconsin winters, is thriving much to the detriment of our native blackstripe topminnow and state endangered starhead topminnow.  This year’s drought has decreased the back water slough habitat within the river where these three species have competed for resources in years past.  A survey last month discovered that there were now no topminnows and a plethora of mosquitofish in what was left of the shallow sloughs. 

Biologists walk through the site of a former slough

One hot summer a trend does not make.  Us river dwellers, like you, hope that this season does indeed prove to be a fluke.  In the meanwhile, it’s time to get down to business to mitigate the damage that has been done.  Stay tuned for more information on what the River Alliance and their partners are doing to keep these invaders at bay.    As for you, please keep an eye out for the unusual while you visit your favorite waters. 

 posted by the River Rat

Delton's Dubious Dye Dump

Allow Rat to begin by posing a basic home repair question.  Imagine for a minute that you live in a house with a leaky roof.  To be clear, we’re not talking about a rundown old rat hole (which has an undeniable charm of its own), but a genuinely nice place.  Every time it rains, water drips onto the wood floor.  After a few leaky years, the wood floor is in bad shape, completely water-stained, warped, and rotten.  Repairs are badly needed.  Do you pony up the dough for a nice new wood floor, knowing full well that the roof leaks?  

The Village of Lake Delton, known far and wide for its most river-rat-unfriendly of water skiing shows, is deeply invested in the appearance of its namesake lake, which drives its tourism-based economy.  Recently, the lake has been fouled with green water and algae blooms, caused by upstream polluted runoff that brings excess nutrients into the lake. 

The Village was apparently looking for a short-term fix to the dirty water that would allow water ski shows and other water-based recreation to continue unimpeded by unsightly and stinky algae.  So, they poured $30,000 worth (or some 500 GALLONS) of “AquaBlue” dye into the waters of Lake Delton.

Visibility in Delton's dyed waters is no more than a few feet.

AquaBlue, in case you are wondering, is a “non-toxic” dye for use in ponds—think of artificial blue ponds on golf courses.  Its contents are a trade secret—“concentrated acid blue dye #9” is all they tell us.  The dye, working its dark magic in Lake Delton at this very moment, prevents sunlight from penetrating more than a couple feet in the water.  According to its label, it provides a “beautiful blue tint” to the water.  Eyewitnesses confirm that it Lake Delton is indeed dark blue presently, with visibility at no more than a foot or two.

Rat’s pretty skeptical about this whole operation, which stinks as badly as the algae it was supposed to suppress.  Amid all of the murkiness over the dye, some light needs to be shed on a few important issues, such as the impact of this supposedly harmless dye.  If light doesn’t penetrate the dyed water beyond a couple of feet, how do sight-feeding fish find prey?  And if light can’t reach submerged aquatic plants, and the life-giving process of photosynthesis shuts down, what happens to the aquatic critters?

The question of whether or not the Village could legally dump the dye into public waters without a DNR permit is presently being evaluated by authorities, so stay tuned on that.  But it’s pretty clear that the dye was used as a workaround to the Village actually obtaining a DNR permit for any of the alternative treatments they could have sought.  You see, the dye isn’t registered (read: approved) by the EPA, which is likely why it was used.

And then there’s the not-so-insignificant issue of where the dye was dumped.  Deltonites ought to remember that their namesake “lake” is in truth Dell Creek, held up behind a dam.  (The creek infamously reminded us of this during the flood of 2008, when it blew out the dam and artificial lake, taking several homes with it).  Whether AquaBlue, PlayfulPink or RosyRed, the lake’s dye-tainted waters are currently draining out of the lake, and right into the Wisconsin River.  A greenish plume into the river was visible shortly after the dye was dumped.

Trouble is, the dye is meant to be used “in confined systems,” explicitly NOT for use in streams, rivers, or other flowing water bodies that are “not under control of the user.”  Rat can’t say with authority what kind of impacts the blue colorant will ultimately have on plants and animals downstream, but, he can say with full certainty that the Village of Lake Delton does NOT “control” the public waters of our state.

Rat knows desperation when he smells it.  And in his heart of hearts he can’t help but feel sympathy for folks yearning for crystal blue clean water.  The green plague seems to grow worse every year, wreaking havoc on Wisconsin’s rivers and streams.  Visitors flee from the hideous stuff and small businesses suffer the loss of income when summertime waters are marred by algae.  Here’s an idea: how about the fat cats on the hill in Madison pay as much attention to the concerns of small business owners affected by dirty water as they do the cries of other businesses who want regulations gutted?  They seem to only hear one type of small business owner…the one who hates government regulations.

Abstract art? Nope, just a boat landing dyed a pleasing blue tint.

In the meantime, any rat worth his whiskers could tell you that this expensive, temporary, and downright foolish “fix” (and significant expenditure of local taxpayer money) won’t clean up Lake Delton in the long term.  The only way out of this slimy mess is to look upstream and address polluted runoff problems, stopping the slime-causing sludge at the source. 

Remember our home repair question above?  The algae blooms in this case are merely a symptom of the upstream problem of polluted runoff, much like the rotten floor is a symptom of a leaky roof.  Treating the symptom does nothing to alleviate the bigger problem.  Fortunately, Wisconsin has tools in place, such as a progressive set of phosphorus rules, which allow us to holistically treat upstream “problems.”  But until we actually start looking for upstream solutions instead of downstream band-aids, quick “fixes” like Lake Delton dye dumps, Lake Menomin “scumsuckers,” or Lake Monona “solar bees,” are looking like damned expensive lipstick on the proverbial pig.

posted by the River Rat