Do you trust that the brakes on your brand new car won’t fail you at 60 mph?

The fur’s been flying both in Wisconsin and Washington, DC lately over “regulations”, with a lot of caterwauling about anti-free market this and job-destroying that. But put the claws away, kitties, and let’s cut the catshit.

Do you trust that the brakes on your brand new car won’t fail you at 60 mph?
Or that the toy jewelry your three-year old is chewing on won’t land her in the hospital? How about knowing that the paycheck you deposited in the bank will still be there when you try to withdraw it next week? You have government regulation to thank.

“Regulations” are created to ensure that the basic things we do day-to-day will not kill us, sicken us or make us destitute. We are all at the benevolent receiving end of “regulations”. If there’s feces in your Big Mac, you’re equally screwed whether you’re a progressive or a tea-partier. Floodplains are very democratic, they will wash away badly placed mansions or shanties if you try to put them in a floodplain.

So, are regulations annoying? Certainly. But so are a contaminated Big Mac and a house that’s washed down the river. So we all agree some regulations should exist. And sometimes those regulations will affect people who make money building homes and selling Big Macs. But, when a politician begins to talk about how meddling government is destroying jobs, ask yourself: who is really benefiting? And who pays?

I’ve taken the liberty of translating some recent gibberish that’s appeared in the papers recently:

They say: "I want to slow or stop anti-free market regulations that kill jobs."
What it means: A job, any job, trumps human health and safety.

They say:“We want to find ways to streamline and minimize review times and strengthen this agency’s focus on customer service”.
What it means: Taxpayer: put up and shut up.

They say: Unelected agency bureaucrats are the problem
What it means: The problem is people who don’t have corporate lobbyists in their front office expecting payback for donations.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Starving government authority and refusing to impose any costs on businesses means devaluing human health and safety to $0.”

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Even though I’m a rat, I still weirdly care for you people

Can They Actually Do That?

If on a barstool or bus seat or deer stand this fall you overheard chatter about what will happen with natural resources policy with the new sheriff and his posse in town, Rat is happy to incendiarily fan any flames that chatter ignited in you with the following speculation, now that we know Wisconsin is finally “open for business:”

Turn on Waukesha’s Lake Michigan Tap! The Wisconsin DNR has done yeoman’s duty (actually, they are following the letter of the Great Lakes Compact) poring over the city of Waukesha’s request to put Lake Michigan water on a 50-mile round trip to the city and back. Rat’s Guess: It seems only a matter of time that the man in the cubicle at DNR asking the right questions will be told to skip the questions and get to the answer: give Waukesha Lake Michigan water and make it snappy.

Turn on the Cow Manure! The dairy industry has wanted fast-track permits for its mega-farms of 1,000 cows and up. (There are several proposals for cow factories of over 5,000 cows in the planning stages.) The DNR had bowed to the industry’s wishes for quicker and easier (so-called general) permits, but with the quid pro quo that those farms would pay higher fees to pay for the sped-up permit processing. Rat’s Pretty Good Guess: They will get their faster permits, but they won’t pay a dime more in fees.

Open Up the Iron Ore Pits! There’s iron in them there rocks of Iron and Ashland counties, in northern Wisconsin. Just days after the elections, plans were made public for open-pit mines in the region. (Discussions about mining had been happening on the down-low for years.) People wonder: can Wisconsin’s superb mining moratorium play defense against this mine, or the possibility of copper and nickel mining along the Menominee River? Rat’s Guess: If the moratorium (requiring a mine operator to show they have shut down a sulfide mine for at least 10 years without environmental damage) appears to obstruct mining in northern Wisconsin, the new gov and legislature will simply (try to) repeal it.

How Do YOU Spell DNR? There was a bumper sticker popular 20 years ago that referred to the DNR (department of natural resources) as “Damn Near Russia.” (That sentiment did not refer to the agency’s proximity to that country.) Next year, DNR could easily spell, “Destroy Now…Really!” A favorite scheme of DNR bashers has been to call for splitting the agency in two – one side would handle huntin’ and fishin,’ the other would deal with the regulatory stuff. Bashers believe (erroneously) that license fees are being taken right out of the hands of hunters and anglers and paying for bureaucrats to make life miserable for a guy who just wants to fill in a little wetland to build his warehouse. Rat’s Guess: This proposal will get real traction in the coming months. To the incredulous who ask, “But how does splitting an agency in two jibe with making state government smaller?” it’s simple: starve the regulatory side of the agency of funding so it can’t do its work.

There Was Once a “Decider.” Now There Will Also Be “Suspenders.” And they are not of the clothing variety. If a legislator doesn’t like an administrative rule because he thinks it burdens a constituent, he can simply get the rule suspended, sending it to regulatory purgatory. (Is that then Purglatory?) Rat’s Guess: the obscure but influential legislative body with a deadly name – the Joint Committee on the Review of Administrative Rules – will be busier in the next two years than the high-speed train station in Madison would have been if it hadn’t been shut down by the gov-elect. Rules to manage how shoreland is developed, rules that protect wetlands, rules that will limit algae-feeding phosphorus – they’re all candidates for Purglatory at the hands of the JCRAR.

A True and Dear River Rat Has Died

Dale Druckrey

The Rat learned today that a true brother in the cause, Dale Druckrey, died in a house fire in the past day.

Dale was a loveable old guy who not only kept incredibly well informed on conservation and environmental issues, he also kept track of what the various conservation and environmental groups were saying and doing on this or that issue.

Though his favorite group was probably Trout Unlimited, Dale was an investor in many local and state environmental and conservation concerns. In fact, it’s not clear anyone but Dale knows the extent of his generosity.

He was a classic bachelor farmer who had a long career in state government, and also worked for the Menominee tribe for many years. You never called Dale to leave a message, because he didn’t have an answering machine. If you wanted to talk to him, you’d better call around noon when he was in the house for lunch.

And forget email and web sites and other trappings of the modern life for Dale. He apparently kept the stuff he’d get from organizations in piles in his house. One time, he called the River Alliance to ask about something we said. He put the phone down to go this “River Alliance materials,” and came back a minute later to call us out (gently) about a position we took.

Knowing Dale Druckrey cared so deeply about the rivers and lakes and lands of Wisconsin, and the groups devoted to their protection, made doing that work so much more rewarding and easier to get up in the morning to do. He watched, he participated, he cared, he donated. From this Rat’s perspective, he was a model conservation citizen.

We should all find a hill or a riverbank or a wetland or a nature center hiking trail today, and go say a hearty “Thanks and fare well!” to Dale Druckrey.

posted by the River Rat

Moist boots = snotty results?

I, the River Rat, understand that you bipedal primates were not made to nimbly navigate my rivers. I have watched many times from the weeds as you struggle between the banks to keep your footing. Therefore, I think that your solution of gluing felt onto the bottom of your wading boots to increase traction was quite commendable and ingenious. However, scientists and the angling community around the globe are having trouble denying the correlation between this practice of wearing felt-soled wading boots widely adopted in the late 1980s and the spread of a nasty invader, Rock Snot (aka Didymosphenia geminate). Check out this interesting paper: “The Science of Felt – 2009: A look at the science driving the move to eliminate the use of felt soled waders” by the Center for Aquatic Nuisance Species.

Didymos occurrences across the U.S.

Didymo cells can remain alive and well nestled up in felt as long as they stay moist. Felt, unlike most other materials on anglers’ equipment, may stay moist for days harboring these appalling single celled boogers. It takes merely ONE invisible cell to spread this stuff.

Photo: Biosecurity New Zealand

Several states are considering banning the sale or use of felt to help protect fisheries and other aquatic life, like myself. Vermont and Alaska have already passed such laws. Missouri is the first Midwest state to consider this. Should Wisconsin should be the next? What do you think?


posted by the River Rat

Visionary Art or Over the Top?

Photo: Christo, 2010

Red flag or wet rag? The Wall Street Journal ran an article this week about artist Christo's latest proposed project: to suspend fabric over 42 miles of the Arkansas River in Colorado. The 72-year old Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude, are famous for their larger-than-life installation art projects which involve wrapping entire buildings in fabric (like the Reitestag in Germany) and creating over 23 miles of fabric panels in Central Park, NY.

Now, Christo, 72, is trying to convince locals to come around to his $54 million dollar swan song: to unfurl a mirror-like fabric over the Arkansas in southern Colorado to mimic the twists and turns of 43 miles of this ancient river. The project is so immense it's had to undergo an environment impact statement under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a gauntlet of studies usually reserved for things like mining, dam building and highway construction. Supporters contend that a project like this can bring welcome attention, tourism and revenue to the area. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management estimated this project could draw more than 300,000 tourists to the river and generate over $120 million in economic impact. Opponents fear short-term damage to the ecosystem, traffic snarls and too many people tromping around their quiet communities. Still others feel like the idea of this project is a desecration of the majesty of mother nature.

Me, I'm on the proverbial 23-mile long fence on this one.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your perspective.

posted by the River Rat

Real Wild Rice is Very Nice

The River Alliance is pleased to have Tina Van Zile, a member of the Sokaogon band of Lake Superior Chippewa, as a member of our board of directors. Not only because we have common cause in healthy waters with the Sokaogon Chippewa and other Indian communities, but also because of what that connection can mean for our organization to learn about native ways.

Tina Van Zile (right) and Marcia Kraus (center) learn from Tina’s father, Charlie Polar, how seamlessly he moves from traditional to modern materials to sift and winnow wild rice.

Like wild ricing, for example. (Please know that the “wild rice” you buy in the industrial food system is not really the wild rice that is the heart Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Indian tribes – the Chippewa, the Menominee and the Potawatomi.)

You’ll know real wild rice by its price (around $12 per pound) and where you can buy it. (Look for it at convenience stores on reservations, but there are other outlets.) Getting native wild rice to the dinner table is a painstaking process, deeply rooted in tradition. Most of us have seen the traditional harvesting of the rice, where people slowly poling canoes in shallow lakes and rivers use one stick to bend the rice into the boat and another to knock the kernels from the stalks.

Tina gave us an insight to the culture and lore of native wild rice recently at the Sokaogon reservation near Mole Lake, Wisconsin. She explained that the source of much of the tribe’s wild rice is the aptly named Rice Lake, whose rice production has increased substantially because the tribe is managing it carefully.

Tina Van Zile shows Brad Werntz and other River Alliance board members Rice Lake, a source of pride of the Sokaogon Chippewa community for the prolific and full-grained wild rice the lake produces.

But perhaps harvesting it is the easy part. The hard part –getting it ready to cook and eat – may be why the wild rice tradition is fading for her own and other Chippewa communities. Tina took us to her parents’ place near Crandon, where her brothers Roy and Norm, sister Marie and father Charlie Polar were getting the rice from its raw stage to something you can cook. Dad Charlies was clearly in charge of the cleaning process – winnowing the chaff, heating the rice in a metal tub over an open fire, and then a final step of swishing the rice around with this fabulous Goldbergian contraption of belts, PVC pipe and a vacuum cleaner to separate grains from husks.

Tina observed that very few families are willing to do the work to keep the tradition alive. “My dad is one of the last elders to keep this going, and I don’t know what will happen to it if he can’t do it anymore.”

Tina’s tip for cooking real wild rice – soak it overnight before you cook it for 20 minutes or so. If you don’t soak it, you won’t like what you get.

Denny Caneff

The Niger: Flowing Vitality

There are a handful of great, grand rivers in the world – the Yangtze, the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Congo, the Yukon, the Danube.

Their flowing waters tell the stories of the continents through which they flow and the human transactions – peaceful, violent, mercantile, poetic – those rivers have stimulated and enabled.

I would put the Niger River, in that pantheon of great, grand rivers. Most African rivers confounded the colonial explorers who used those rivers to first understand, then exploit, the continent, but the Niger, Africa’s third longest, confounded even more. Its origins are in the rain forest highlands of Guinea, not far from the coast of West Africa, to which you’d expect it to flow.

But it actually flows northeast and away from the ocean, heading right for the foot of the Sahara Desert, in modern-day Mali, before angling southeasterly on its voyage through Niger and Nigeria before it expires at the Gulf of Guinea.

I have always imagined traveling a good length of the Niger. But it’s not very practical, unless you have a constitution of steel. I settled for a one-day pilgrimage to the river during a 10-day visit to the country of Mali in August of 2010. (My daughter was doing a research project in Mali’s capital, Bamako, a sprawling Third World city sharply defined by the Niger.)

That one day – strolling its banks, plying its brown tide in a poled pirogue (hand-made wooden canoe) and enjoying beer and pizza at a riverside café at sunset – was just enough time to take in and savor the mystique of this great river.

The many functions that the river serves for Malians will surprise, and may disturb, Westerners with an appetite for pristine rivers. People are doing their laundry just downstream from the guys digging sand out of the river to build cement blocks. And just upstream from that are people bathing in the river, next to a young herdsman cooling the heels of his cattle in the river.

But it’s the vitality of the Niger for the people living along its banks that makes it great. The Niger is lifeblood for this very dry part of the world. For hundreds of years it has been a connecting thread of culture and language and music for several empires in that part of Africa. Cell phones and buses have replaced its transport and communications functions, but modern Malians know how it defines their country.

They are river people, proud of the natural heritage the Niger River has given them.

Denny Caneff