As the new home of WISPIRG's environmental work, Wisconsin Environment can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.
MADISON—Wisconsin's
environment faces a long list of challenges because of the Bush administration's
environmental policies, according to a new Earth Day report released by WISPIRG.
"Wisconsin's
Environment at Risk" details the local impacts of recent decisions
at the federal level to weaken environmental protections.
"The decisions the
Bush administration is making in Washington, D.C., have very real, very local
effects here in Wisconsin," said Jennifer Giegerich, state director of
the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG). "Not just on Earth
Day, but every single day, the public should make it our business to send a
loud and clear message to the White House, to the Forest Service, to the Environmental
Protection Agency, to our elected representatives that they should choose public
health and the environment over special interest polluters."
WISPIRG's report highlights
the Bush administration policies that will have the greatest impact on the environment
and public health in Wisconsin. Specifically:
- In 2002, Wisconsin's residents
breathed unhealthy air on 22 days. The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has issued two rules that eliminate the New Source Review
provision in the Clean Air Act, the primary enforcement tool for cutting soot
and smog pollution from the nation's dirtiest power plants. This will cause
more smoggy days, more asthma attacks, and more acid rain.
- All of Wisconsin's inland
river, lakes and streams are currently under a fish consumption advisory for
mercury pollution. Although EPA just weeks ago warned women and children to
limit their consumption of tuna because of mercury contamination, EPA has proposed
a new plan to weaken and delay efforts to clean up mercury pollution from the
nation's coal-fired power plants.
- More than 2.5 million
people have submitted comments to the Forest Service about the widely popular
Roadless Area Conservation Rule, enacted in 2001 to protect 58.5 million acres
of wild national forest land from most commercial logging and road-building,
including 69,000 acres of pristine forests in Wisconsin. Instead of protecting
these wild places, the Forest Service has failed to implement the Roadless Rule
and may further weaken it.
- Fifty-six percent of lakes
and 43 percent of rivers in Wisconsin are already too polluted for safe fishing
and swimming. The Bush administration instructed EPA and Army Corps of Engineers
staff to stop using the Clean Water Act to protect so-called "isolated"
waterways, allowing polluters to dump more toxic chemicals into streams and
developers to drain and fill more wetlands. The administration also has proposed
allowing wastewater treatment facilities to dump inadequately treated sewage
into our waterways.
- Wisconsin's 820 miles
of coast is a critical part of the local economy, supporting tourism, recreational
and commercial fishing, and other activities. But the Bush administration is
quietly rewriting federal rules to undercut the right of Wisconsin to protect
its valuable coastline from harmful activities, including oil and gas development.
WISPIRG also pointed to
a number of decisions ahead that offer the Bush administration the opportunity
to protect the environment and public health. "For the Bush administration,
Earth Day is a time to choose between protecting the interests of the public
or the interests of polluters," stated Giegerich.
Specifically, WISPIRG called
on the Bush administration to do the following:
- EPA should protect the
health of America's children by withdrawing its industry-written proposal to
regulate toxic mercury pollution from power plants and proposing a rule that
reduces mercury by 90 percent by 2008—as EPA itself has said is possible.
- Having already eliminated
Roadless Rule protections for 9.3 million acres of Alaska's Tongass National
Forest, the Forest Service may propose allowing governors to remove forests
in their states from the rule's protections. Instead, the Forest Service should
fully implement the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and restore protections
to the Tongass.
- The Bush administration
should guarantee all waterways the shelter afforded by the Clean Water Act by
rescinding the guidance to EPA and Army Corps staff that lifted protections
for "isolated" waterways and revoking the draft guidance that would
allow more inadequately treated sewage to enter our rivers, lakes and coastal
areas.
"The Bush administration
is rewriting the laws for power plants which will result in more pollution,"
said Marc Looze, Clean Air Campaign Director for Clean Wisconsin. "Families
living near the power plant in downtown Milwaukee need enforcement of clean
air laws so they can breathe easier; families fishing on Wisconsin lakes need
fish that don't have unsafe mercury levels. Our country needs environmental
leadership from the Bush Administration," said Looze.
