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

Letter to the Governor from a small northern town...Images of Sarona

A very small village with a very big neighbor...
The only way in for the garbage...
the mountain continues to grow...
Who thinks this wetland is being protected?

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

Part 1: A letter sent to the Governor of Wisconsin on October 24, 2004...

(Please note: If you are from Minnesota, this is not intended to be a slap at your state in any way. I mean if I could send my trash out of state for cheap I probably would too.  I also know that Minnesota is in the forefront of environmental protection and community recycling.  This letter was aimed straight at Madison! Not St. Paul.)

Dear Governor,

It seems like once a year I have to write to your office, the DNR, and the rest of my former neighbors is Madison to remind everyone to use some common sense or better yet, do their job and help us protect our lakes and streams!

Last year, you tried to prevent our small community from trying to protect Shell Lake from flooding. Now, your administration and the DNR either directly or indirectly has sided with a huge well-known National polluter (BFI) to dump millions of tons (377,000 tons in '03 alone) of Minnesota's waste in our small community.

I do not understand how you could ignore our plea to help divert spring water from one of the cleanest lakes in Wisconsin for almost a year and deny aid, but you will allow 370,000 tons of medical, municipal and traces of toxic waste to be dumped in the same watershed??? We already have half a dozen families with tainted water.

How much money is BFI funneling into Madison anyway. The attitude down there has to change. Northern Wisconsin is not a vast frontier to be bought and sold and exploited for Dane County's financial gain. In case you all forget, there are people here who pay taxes and vote! Many of them still remember all the stalling, the speeches about no money (at the same time Bureaucrats were getting big contract concessions) and broken promises, while the lake took everything they had!! On the other hand, most don't stop and think about the $2.9 million (734,000 tons@$3.75)the STATE got in tipping fees from our landfill last year. (And you tried to tell us you didn't have money to help us in our time of need.)

In the current situation, two things need to happen.
1. BFI should be told that the only trash going in a Northwest Wisconsin landfill is Northwest Wisconsin trash. Shell Lake has already taken a million tons more than its share. You need to get on the phone to St. Paul and tell them to keep their trash at home, or we are going to start increasing the taxes on out-of-state property owners.
2. Everyone from your office on down (agencies and departments, too) should be forced to disclose special payments, permit fees and campaign contributions from BFI, Waste Management, Exxon, Georgia Pacific, and the other major polluters along with the amount of waste and pollution these companies dump in our state. There should be an accompanying report on how Madison has intentionally allowed out of state trash to be dumped in Wisconsin in exchange for cash!! Cash that the victim communities NEVER SEE!
This information should be released to the press and the press encouraged to place it page one, lead story.

I know that these things are not likely to happen, but at the very least, if the 1,400 people who live next to this Twin Cities' sludge pit say the current 4,000,000 tons of trash is enough, at least have the courage to say these people in Shell Lake have done their part, its time to stop dumping on them.

Respectfully,
Wendtsc
Wisconsin

Note: In 2002, all the recycling efforts in the state and the millions spent on programs and education saved 1.429 million tons of Wisconsin trash from entering our Landfills.

In 2003, the DNR, Governor, and Legislature accepted fees and favors to allow 1.481 million tons of OUT-OF-STATE trash to be dumped in our Landfills.

ADDITIONAL STATS AT:

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/aw/wm/recycle/

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/aw/wm/solid/landfill/2003Tonnage.htm

http://sarona.info/

Did this plea have any effect on the Governor or the environmental politics in Madison?
Find out in Part Two!

Amtrak to Madison: can Wisconsin afford it?

I recently stumbled upon a post at MWHSR speaking in defense of the Hiawatha Service between Chicago and Milwaukee. I am not sure how long ago it was written. I just wanted to put out there a "right on!" To call me a train enthusiast and an Amtrak supporter, would be an understatement. However, I do have a little internal conflict from time to time as I also tend to be conservative, but I don't think they have to be opposites all the time. I think Gov. Thompson put forth a respectable attempt to cut through the Washington crap on the part of Amtrak. I believe it is awful hard to be a hunter or fisherman without being an environmentalist. I also happen to drive a Hybrid, not just to reduce my carbon footprint, but to also try and reduce our dependence on the Middle East (which is the true solution, but that is another topic.)

Recently, I have been real disappointed in the efforts out of Washington (particularly from, I am sad to say, Republicans) to starve Amtrak to death. This hostility has understandable points on both sides. Amtrak has not always been fiscally responsible and has done very little to improve its image among riders, and Washington has always set ridiculously lofty goals with ridiculously paltry budgets. Given this light I would say that any improvement is going to have to come through local efforts and local funding. The Cascades and the Capitol Corridor Trains are good examples of the service possible with state and local investment beyond just operating budgets. The amazing thing is that despite the ancient equipment used by the Hi's they have managed to keep pace with these other services in terms of ridership growth according to various Trains publications.

Many important points were made about the needs of the two states involved to establish a joint commission, establish a means to measure improvements, accountable reporting, however one point in particular was understated and I would hope that it could be a topic of future. The point is that the entire state of Wisconsin's transportation future is being held hostage by Madison's desire to have rail service at the rest of the state's expense. How can this conclusion be made? Because of the following actions...

1. As stated before, Madison politicians have successfully tied any future spending on Amtrak to the HSR initiative. The Hiawatha Corridor is no longer a separate service in the eyes of Madison, but instead the first leg of HSR service to Madison and therefore any service, equipment, and infrastructure improvements must be consistent with and support the plans to bring HSR to Madison.

2. Madison has however, successfully managed to separate the HSR initiatives from other Amtrak services, namely the Empire Builder. When Madisonians (and now state officials as well) talk about HSR they talk almost exclusively about connection to Chicago, and whenever Minnesota comes up, well, "that is a separate initiative," or "that is the next phase."

3. If one looks back to the founding of the MWRRI, (has it been 15 years already?) the initial proposal had as the most promising corridor to support 125+ speeds as the corridor to Milwaukee and connecting to MSP along the Builder Corridor. However, the response from Transit supporters from Madison was to shoot it down unless the high speed link between Chicago and MSP passed through Madison. They even pushed to have a station downtown despite the fact that studies showed it would add almost 1 1/2 hours to the trip! This more or less fast-tracked this initiative to the "pipedreams" files.

What has this cost the state as a whole?

1. The cost of rerouting the corridor through Madison has made other corridors more attractive when it comes to bang for the taxpayers buck. Service along the Chicago-Detroit corridor is now seeing service improvements that will allow speed to 110 mph. Other corridors out of Chicago are seeing the same improvements.

Why? These other corridors follow lines that freight railroads have an interest in improving. And since they currently carry Amtrak trains, they already have a higher level of maintenance. The amount of investment to bring a 79 or 90 mph line that already meets Amtrak requirements up to 110 standards is, of course, much less than a freight line with a top speed of 25. The most important factor, though, is that ridership along a current route is a known quantity. Bumping up speeds on current lines allows Amtrak to quickly achieve improved service to markets that are already familiar with train travel. This means they can count on almost immediate improvement in ridership which is politic gold in Washington. Communities like Columbus have a history of support for their passenger trains. Madison? Well, passenger service has been attempted to I-90 corridor cities with little or no support. Madison defenders will use the excuse that it wasn't high speed, it didn't reach close enough to downtown, the trains weren't frequent enough, or they required a bus transfer. The reality is however, it looks to the rest of the state and to Amtrak that Madison is not a sure bet when it comes to long term support.

2. Wisconsin has seriously hampered its ability to lobby for additional money from Washington and the taxpayers of Wisconsin. From now on, any changes in service between Chicago and Milwaukee are no longer just improvements to current operations, but instead are an expansion of the National Route Map. That represents a huge shift in perception (and support) in Washington. Does anyone think for a moment that extending the route to Madison is an easier sell than increasing service between Chicago and Milwaukee? Especially now with the I-94 expansion being proposed because of growth along the Hiawatha Corridor.

3. This attempt to extend service to Madison threatens Amtrak’s ability to lobby for improved Empire Builder service. Both the Hiawatha and Builder routes have long been viewed as spots of sunshine in Amtrak’s otherwise shady performance. With funding pressure from lengthening the Hi’s and the fact that Wisconsin only has so many dollars for trains, the cost of improving service to Minneapolis and St. Paul would fall mostly to Minnesota. Amtrak would have a harder time finding funding for the flagship intercity train, as the case would be made to focus on regional service only if the Extended Hi’s are successful, and face even stauncher opposition to any future funding if they fail.

4. Extending this service to Madison is going to mean Springfield will expect Wisconsin to now provide 100% of the funding for the Hiawathas. Don’t believe me, just look at Illinois’ history on issues like this.

Minnesota and Wisconsin haven’t always agreed on joint projects either; just ask the towns on the Mississippi. This change in emphasis to connect Madison to Chicago at the expense of the Builder Corridor service won’t sit well in St. Paul.

Conclusions?

Once again Madisonians are going to cost the rest of the state an opportunity to expand its transportation options. Twelve years ago, there was support in Washington for expanding services both in new routes and faster schedules. We saw the launch of HSR on the North East Corridor gain overwhelming political support and projects around the country benefitted as Amtrak looked for places to win over political supporters.

Unfortunately, Madison took the stance that unless the service terminated in Madison, Wisconsin didn’t want it. We saw the proposals for the Fox Valley, Green Bay, and HSR to the Twin Cities (ironically along a route that provided speeds over 100 mph back in the 1930s) be shelved by Amtrak in favor of the Lake Country Limited. Service that Madison pressed for because Madisonians wanted their own route directly to Chicago. Then, when Amtrak couldn’t quite reach Madison because the route chosen was in a terrible state of neglect (sound familiar?), Madisonians left Amtrak high and dry. The lesson that Amtrak learned was do not trust Madisonians or their politicians.

Now, eight years later, we are sitting in a similar position. According to industry publications, Amtrak is revisiting the idea of service improvements for the Hiawathas including increased frequencies improved on board amenities and possibly new equipment. Some have even suggested that Amtrak might be willing to provide some improvements without necessarily asking for the states to increase their portion of the funding. This is coming at the exact moment when Wisconsin is looking at spending $2 billion on widening I-94 in the exact same corridor.

So, the stage is set for Madisonians to once again dig in their heels! If history does indeed repeat itself, we can expect everyone from the governor to Madison’s mayor to come out and demand Madison get its “fair share” of the Amtrak pie! If this happens, you can be sure that 10 years from now we will all still be talking about how unfair it is that Madison has no Amtrak service while people in Green Bay are waiting for a bus that will take them to Chicago on 170 miles of fresh 8 lane concrete!