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| If you are a Wisconsin resident, you may want to let your elected officials know how you feel about the pending legislation that would essentially eliminate most state protection for wetlands. Conservation groups are trying to push back because of the value wetlands provide for everything from ducks to flood control but so far the legislature is not listening.
Under the legislation developers will be able to fill wetlands without even pulling a permit. A lot of wildlife depends on these small pockets of marsh and they also provide a buffer for rivers and creeks when there are heavy rains, snow melt, etc. Developers want to fill and have more usable land. Wisconsin has already eliminated a lot of wetland protection for Foxconn, this would eliminate a lot more. Duck hunters have been the most active in opposing the actions but fisherman should be concerned as well because it will result in things like trout streams getting a lot more silt in them. |
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Posts: 32
Location: West Bend WI | I don't believe it eliminates most state protections.
The wet spot in your back yard after the spring snow melt, that can be considered a wetland. It's situations like that that are being addressed. |
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Posts: 20229
Location: oswego, il | In illinois, those smaller wetlands can and have been eliminated through deregulation. Many of them supported wildlife.
Edited by ToddM 2/8/2018 11:53 AM
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Posts: 32892
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | The example used in local coverage of the new legislation certainly was not a wet spot in the yard. This will impact wetlands in many areas that are already looking at serious degradation due to highway and road construction and development. It will allow for development where it wasn't allowed in the past without permitting or review. |
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| patcampbell - 2/8/2018 11:48 AM
I don't believe it eliminates most state protections.
The wet spot in your back yard after the spring snow melt, that can be considered a wetland. It's situations like that that are being addressed.
Check out the story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, written by their outdoors writer, Paul Smith. Then check out the changes already put in place to facilitate Foxconn's development. We are not talking a wetspot in the yard, rather large chunks of marsh. The story you relate is one of those anecdotes the former DNR secretary liked to relate, but when pressed she had no examples. She tried using an example of someone putting up a self storage facility but it turned out it was over an acre that had standing water year round and had a healthy crop of cat tails. |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | I believe in Mn. if a wetland is filled in/destroyed, ect. due to road work, construction, improvements and such, a "new wetland" has to be created.
Destroy 1 acre, replace it with 1 acre or more. |
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Posts: 258
Location: Mayville, WI | In my professional experience completing wetland delineations, permitting, and reporting some rollback was necessary, but this may have gone too far. There are already processes for exemptions in place for impacts to artificial wetlands (man-made ponds, wet ditches in otherwise dry locations, etc). I don't feel it will be an end of the world scenario, but a case-by-case scenario would have been better than a blanket. It was aimed at the mainly agricultural wetlands on the Foxconn site. Ideally, I'd like to see increased regulations on what agricultural practices can do - draining, tiling, and tilling.
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Posts: 983
| Top H2O - 2/8/2018 1:33 PM
I believe in Mn. if a wetland is filled in/destroyed, ect. due to road work, construction, improvements and such, a "new wetland" has to be created.
Destroy 1 acre, replace it with 1 acre or more.
Sure that's great if an already-disturbed low quality wetland that is being mitigated. If something like this removes protection of exceptional value wetlands, then mitigation doesn't really do much. A lot of mitigated wetlands fail to even come close to matching the quality of the existing wetland that was disturbed especially if the the existing wetland was forested. |
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| scmuskies - 2/8/2018 1:05 PM
In my professional experience completing wetland delineations, permitting, and reporting some rollback was necessary, but this may have gone too far. There are already processes for exemptions in place for impacts to artificial wetlands (man-made ponds, wet ditches in otherwise dry locations, etc). I don't feel it will be an end of the world scenario, but a case-by-case scenario would have been better than a blanket. It was aimed at the mainly agricultural wetlands on the Foxconn site. Ideally, I'd like to see increased regulations on what agricultural practices can do - draining, tiling, and tilling.
The thing is, under Cathy Stepp much of the ticky tack regulation of questionable wetlands had already been eliminated. This goes well beyond that. |
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Posts: 39
| Just tell them it's for agriculture, then you can do whatever you want. A neighbor of mine recently changed the direction of a stream so their cattle had a better way to cross. No permits, no bother, no one cares |
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