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On
December 5th, we sent word to you in a Wetland News email that a
Select Committee on DNR Regulatory Reform had been convened to seek input from
Wisconsin landowners on “problems” they had experienced
with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ (WDNR) implementation of land and water protection
regulations, including wetland protections. The examples provided by the
committee as evidence that WDNR regularly oversteps its regulatory
authority largely involved cases where the agency had protected existing
wetlands from development or initiated enforcement actions for illegal
wetland fills. (Click
here to see the exhibits and WWA’s
responses).
Your
help is needed to ensure the activities of this committee do not lead to
recommendations that weaken wetland regulations or that further weaken WDNR’s ability to implement and enforce those
regulations.
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Four Ways You Can Help
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The
committee is seeking public input in two ways:
- Committee Chair Senator
Lasee (R-De Pere), has established a website
to receive input from citizens to provide feedback on the DNR.
- Public hearings will be
held the first and second week of January. The dates and
locations are yet to be announced but it is anticipated that
locations will include Eau Claire, Minocqua, Milwaukee and Green Bay
(possibly January 4th, 5th, 9th & 10th respectively).
You can help the Senate committee understand that there is
strong public support for protection of existing wetland regulations and
WDNR’s authority to implement and enforce them by:
- Submitting examples to Lassee’s web-site of where WDNR
action protected a resource important to you and your community.
- Testifying at the
hearings in January about the social, ecological and legal imperative
to uphold current wetland protections and the risks involved with
weakening those protections in any way.
- Sending copies of your
comments and testimony to WWA, your elected officials and your local
newspaper.
- Submitting ideas for
messages
you believe will be important to articulate at these harings, and to
the media, between today and January 3rd. We will compile and
redistribute the message we believe will be most effective to
upholding wetland protections and WDNR's wetland oversign and enforcement
authority throughout this process.
Please
see below for some suggested messages for your comments. We hope to
forward more detailed talking points early in the new year.
Because
this committee is specifically seeking input from Wisconsin landowners,
please emphasize your landowner rights (e.g., rights to clean
water, access to hunting and fishing areas, the right to have wetlands on
adjacent properties protected). If you own and care for wetlands and
appreciate the special protected status they receive, your input on why
all landowners should embrace efforts to protect wetlands on private
lands is especially relevant to this inquiry.
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How WWA will help
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WWA
will share with you the dates and locations for the hearings as
soon as they become available. We will also share more refined talking
points to help you highlight the myriad ways where WDNR actions to
protect and restore wetlands, though unpopular with individual
landowners, are in the public interest and well within the rule of
current state and federal law.
WWA
will be attending the hearings and monitoring the input provided. We will
also be working to make sure these hearings are attended by citizens who
care about wetland protections. If you are able to attend a hearing, please
contact Erin O'Brien at
608-250-9971 to let her know. We will work with you to help you feel
prepared to convey the messages that are important to at the hearings.
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Suggested messages for your comments
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- The law requires
landowners to first avoid, and then minimize, impacts to wetlands
when planning a project. WDNR is legally bound to deny a permit request
if alternatives to meet these requirements are not explored. Popular
or not, this is federal and state law.
- It is the LANDOWNER’S responsibility to apply for and receive permits to
fill wetlands on their property. Initiating a wetland fill project
without a permit is illegal and WDNR has an obligation to the public
to seek remedies.
- WDNR’s procedures for addressing illegal wetland fills are reasonable and
conferences with the landowner always precede referral to the Dept.
of Justice for enforcement action.
- Obtaining permission to
fill wetlands is already too easy. If anything, WDNR should provide
greater scrutiny of permit applications and be more aggressive in
its enforcement of illegal wetland fills.
- Much of the WDNR’s wetland protection activities are governed by
FEDERAL, not state, laws. Further hampering WDNR’s ability to fulfill the authority delegated to them by the Environmental
Protection agency (EPA) puts Wisconsin’s wetland regulatory
program at risk of greater scrutiny and direct involvement by
federal agencies.
- Development adjacent to
or surrounding isolated wetlands severely degrades wetland health
and functions and therefore should be discouraged.
- When a landowner or
developer willingly degrades the quality of a wetland, permission to
subsequently fill that wetland should not be granted.
- Wetlands are critical
to the health of Wisconsin’s lakes and rivers, provide
valuable recreational land for Wisconsin’s hunters and anglers, and protect our communities from flooding.
- Approximately 75% of
all Wisconsin wildlife species rely on wetlands for some portion of
their life cycle, including more than 1/3 of Wisconsin’s threatened species.
- 2/3 of migratory
waterfowl in the coterminous U.S. breed in the isolated wetlands of
the Midwest.
As much
as possible, we encourage you to include examples of how existing wetland
protection laws benefit water quality, recreational opportunities and
flood control in your region and to articulate what’s lost when, through political pressure or staff/budget
cuts, WDNR’s authority to implement and enforce these
regulations is compromised.
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Rumored
Hearing Dates & Locations
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Eau Claire
January 4th
Minocqua
January 5th
Milwaukee
January 9th
Green Bay
January 10th
WWA will send another email once these
dates and locations are confirmed.
Because the WWA office will be closed
December 26-January 3, we suggest you contact Committee Chair Senator
Alan Lasee's office at (608) 266-3512 or (920) 336-8830 for more
information on the dates, locations, and times for these hearings.
We regret that more information on
hearing dates is not available, but please watch for an update after
January 3rd when our staff returns from the holidays.
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