Letter to the Governor from a small northern town...Part 2

So what was the response from the Governor's Office?
I got the typical "we'll look into it" that I have come to expect from any office run by James Doyle. Of course, words are just words and actions are always going to draw the headlines.

Since that time, several state lawmakers (to their credit) have taken on the issue of Wisconsin being the midwest's landfill. Rep. Spencer Black has led the charge on raising the tipping fee (the amount garbage trucks pay to dump their garbage.) The fee is now closer to what other states charge and despite what BFI and Waste Management said about the increase being a pointless tax increase that will only harm Wisconsin residents, it seems to have slowed the flow of trash in some parts of the state. 2004 was the "top of the trash heap" in terms of out of state trash. The state is also bringing in an additional $50 million dollars a year to spend on local community recycling programs. So, is this a victory? Well, lets look at the town of Sorona and you can decide.

At the time the letter was sent, the village of Sarona and Washburn county were being pressured by BFI, one of the world's largest trash dumpers, to allow them to double the size of their Lakes Area Landfill. This after they had promised in return for their COnditional use permit that the landfill would not be expanded. When local residents resisted, BFI sought the assistance of Madison and the DNR in clearing the way and eliminating any environmental or legal tool that the local community might be able to use to block the expansion. Since BFI is an international company and landfills are regulated at the state level through policy controlled by political appointees in the Department of Natural Resources, the effect was similar to Walmart, Inc. versus Mayberry, USA. The result was a huge increase in the size of the landfill from a remaining capacity of 1,047,584 cubic yards to 8,951,474 cubic yards!* That's enough trash to fill 5 HHH Metrodomes!

Or think of it this way...
"If every man woman and child in the United States was standing side by side in field and we dumped the trash on them, it would bury them all up to their waist!"

Needless to say, that's more trash than any town of 380 residents should ever be forced to deal with. How is it that even after the increase in tipping fees (garbage taxes) Sarona was forced to accept the second largest landfill expansion in Wisconsin?

MADISON POLITICS!

Madison promised that the increase in tipping fee would reduce the flow of out of state trash and while it has stopped the doubling of the tonnage every couple of years it hasn't stop the flow by any means. It has however allowed the large cities in the southern part of the state to swap local funding of their recycling programs with state funding generated by allowing out of staters to continue to dump trash on the poorer communities up north. (If you check out the DNR' s own Landfill Lists you will see that in fact one small northern town continues to bare the brut of this policy.)

One can argue that of the five largest landfills, four are located in the southeastern prat of the state. These landfills do belong there as everyone should be required within reason to deal with their own garbage. There is even an arguable point to be made that since Kenosha and the other counties in the far southeast corner gain huge benefits from being located in between Chicago and Milwaukee that they should share the burden of the metro areas' trash disposal.

However, how can one argue that 380 Saronans, who live 105 miles from the Twin CIties and share virtually no economic, social, or ploitical ties whatsoever should be responsible for storing over 10% of all the trash produced in the entire state of Minnesota. But since the money raised from tipping is given to the cities with the biggest recycling programs, these few hundred people are destined to continue to pay for Dane and Milwaukee county residents to enjoy no-fee recycling programs that allow them to enjoy their "best places to live status."

Of course help is even less likely to come from across the border. MSP Metropolitans also enjoy "best places to live" status and one of the reasons is that they continue to export their trash. I had originally taken a stance of not wanting to offend our neighbors fromacross the St. Croix, but after researching for this article, I found out some disturbing secrets about our so-called "environmentalist" neighbers.

Minnesota only has 16 public landfills for all the solid waste produced by Minnesota households. They must be huge, right? Wrong, the size of these few landfills are grossly inadequate to hold all of Minnesota's trash.

But I see all sorts of landfills and dumps when I drive through Minnesota, it not possible that there are only 16 active public landfills.

The reality is that Minnesota brags about having the largest landfill and dump closure program in the country! The figures from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency indicates that they have shut down 112 facilities while ramping up trash exports to neighboring states at an alarming rate. At the same time as people in small Wisconsin towns have hundreds of Minnesota garbage trucks rolling past their farms, they watch Twin Cities TV stations trumpet about Minnesotans leading the nation in recycling and preservation and restoration of the environment.

I think its time for Wisconsin to say no more. Let the trash pile up at the river. Tell the federal government that its time to stiop treating trash like televisions and giving exporters protection under the ICC!

Of course this is all a pipe dream because as long as one capitol continues to sellout the rest of us so the other capitol can throw its trash in the neighbors yard, the people of northwest Wisconsin will just have to keep plugung their nose.

http://proteus.pca.state.mn.us/publications/mnenvironment/summer2005/landfills.html

The following are links to the Landfill usage and capacity reports from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website. You may observe that the imported trash levels subsided between 2005 and 2006, however its's still very obvious that the tonnage for Washburn county is still way out of line!

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/wm/solid/landfill/tonnagerpts/2006tonnage.xls

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/aw/wm/solid/landfill/tonnagerpts/2005Tonnage.xls