Lake Michigan
Original Author:
(James Rowen)
The routine dumping of coal ash into Lake Michigan every day during the shipping season from the boilers of the Manitowoc, WI-to-Ludington, MI steam-powered ferry gets Sunday, page-one exposure
in the Chicago Tribune.
Boaters who throw their garbage into the lake would and should get cited, but the Badger gets a pass for burning 55 tons a day and discharging overboard 3.8 tons of coal ash - - and, in fact, the pollution that comes out of the smokestack even has a separate legislative exemption from Wisconsin lawmakers.
How big a dose of pollution is this?
The Trib says..".the Badger dumps nearly 4 tons of coal ash into Lake Michigan — waste concentrated with arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals. During its spring-to-fall season, federal records show, the amount far exceeds the coal, iron and limestone waste jettisoned by all 125 other big ships on the Great Lakes combined."
In the name of nostalgia for the last steamer working Lake Michigan?
Original Author:
(James Rowen)
When it comes to priceless resources, our finite waters are said to be the next oil.
Then why are we doing next to nothing to be good water stewards - - from
China to
the Arctic, to
Canada, to
Lake Michigan, to
Lake Superior, to
Wisconsin wetlands and all the way
to the great, Great Plains' Oglalla aquifer - - and why are we tolerating business and governments' disregard for environmental risks, the damage that is coming and is already underway?
Original Author:
(James Rowen)
(First posted, 8:31 p.m., Thursday, September 29)
There have been media reports and concerns expressed about the invasive Quagga Mussel and its destructive presence in Lake Michigan, but Jim Te Selle, a shoreline property owner and President of the 30,000-member Coalition of Wisconsin Great Lakes, has raised a fresh alarm with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources over the future of Lake Michigan trout and salmon fishing.
Original Author:
(James Rowen)
Last year's discussion about a possible Lake Michigan water diversion to the City of Waukesha got a little-noticed clarification in the record after UWM consultants hired by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC) had released a water and related issues of economic justice.
In digging through minutes of recent meetings of SEWRPC's
Environmental Justice Task Force. (EJTF), I noticed a section in the
January meeting minutes, and because I missed that meeting due to illness I add the information to the documentation about water, Waukesha and social justice that is gathered and archived on this blog.
The bracketed ID information is mine to help out readers with names and titles, and I have turned a reference to a newspaper story into a link to a URL:
APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES OF SEPTEMBER 2, 2010, AND NOVEMBER 4, 2010
Original Author:
(James Rowen)
The City of Wauwatosa is facing up to
$84 million in sewer infrastructure work, and a lot of it means installing expensive new pipes:
For $34 million to $39 million, the city could install bigger pipes and a storage tank...
That's a big chuck of change, but the good news is that the city's Congressman, Fifth District Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, is already helping to prepare
a federal grant plan to provide southeastern Wisconsin municipalities up to $100 million for water projects that include new pipes.
Note that the City of Waukesha, which hopes to get a big piece - - perhaps $50 million - - of the money to defray some of its possible Lake Michigan diversion expense, has said that other communities are eligible, too.
Said Daniel Duchniak, Waukesha's water utility general manager:
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