John Kaufman's blog

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial today calls for a "thorough investigation" into the Oak Creek power plant bluff collapse/coal ash spill into Lake Michigan. But, say the editors, let's not call coal ash "hazardous waste" , which would force the building of hazardous waste landfills, cost WE Energies $300 million a year, raise our electricity rates and reduce the marketability of recycled coal ash products.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board believes that a huge strip mine proposed for northern Wisconsin can "coexist with clean water and land," though the Board offers not a nugget of evidence to support this. The evidence, in fact, suggests otherwise.

The supposedly reclaimed Flambeau Mine, also an "open pit" mine in Wisconsin, was the target of a lawsuit back in January for being in violation of the Clean Water Act.

The Board believes a new mining bill that protects the Penokee Range is possible to write. But all the words and laws in the world have not prevented the obscene destruction of many Appalachian mountains, the pollution of air and water in the West, nor the miserable existence of Americans who happen to live near strip mines.

Steven Walters, writing yesterday in the Mil. Journal Sentinel, bemoans the animosity being generated in Madison by the attempts to recall state legislators and Gov. Scott Walker. Walters makes an analogy that suggests the recall effort is a matter of jealousy, as if the state's Democrats are simply being petty. I think Walters misses the point.

Walters fears that the political "paralysis" of the recall battle will prevent the cooperation necessary to approve new mining rules for creating a huge strip mine in northern Wisconsin. While the mining corporation predicts the mine will create as many as 700 jobs, such a mine will also, judging from other strip mines in the state and nation, destroy the original landscape and pollute the air and water, a trade-off many living in the area are not willing to accept.

Two things concerned readers in Wisconsin should be aware of:  Journalist Roger Bybee (native) and The Progressive Populist out of Iowa and Texas.

Here's Bybee's latest astute and thorough analysis of our predicament, published in Progressive Populist, as the Republicans in Madison work feverishly and foolishly to--  how should I say it?--  give us the business.

Sounding a lot like his predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker, the current Milwaukee County Executive, Democrat Chris Abele says it's time for the County to, of course, tighten its belt:

"There is no way we can avoid major cuts to balance the budget - and balance the budget is what we are going to do."

Thanks to Gov. Walker's redistribution of state aid away from local governments and towards big corporations, along with some past misguided pension perks and what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls  "expensive sick leave and vacation benefits," Abele sees no choice but to cut, cut, cut-- services and likely some County employees.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Thomas Content is reporting that Wisconsin's Public Service Commission has today approved a new power line in northern Door County that would run between Sturgeon Bay and Sevastopol, a mere 7.8 miles, that will cost, says American Transmission Co,  about $25 million.

Commissioners said there was little protest against the power line.

ATC and Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, the utility, claim more power will be needed in the northern portion of Door County by 2012.

We are constantly told that more power will be needed "in the future."

Not if we conserve, which is always the cheapest, cleanest way to go. Besides, more power for Door County sets the stage for more development, the one thing Door County does not need.

(Johnson's correct first name is Ron, not Rob. The typo has been corrected.)

(Cross-posted from my blog, Kaufman's Gull.)

According to a fawning column by Washington Post columnist George Will, Wisconsin Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, president of plastics manufacturer Pacur of Oshkosh, WI, is a student of writer Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, a book that has become a "Tea Party" manifesto of sorts.

You could, if you'd like, read all thousand or so pages of Rand's novel, but the moral of the story can be summed up as follows: unregulated capitalism is the most rational, moral way of life.

Rand's brand of morality does not allow for any merciful, religious feeling toward your fellow man or fellow creature; in fact, I think it fair to describe her philosophy as anti-Christian if by "Christian" we mean acting upon the love of one's neighbor, or as Christ puts it in the Sermon on the Mount: "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

(Cross-posted from my blog, Kaufman's Gull)

If you want to find out about coal pollution in Central Wisconsin,  a good source is The San Francisco Examiner and the Associated Press.

It seems that a big, new coal-fired power plant near Wausau was belching a thick, dark smoke which is usually a sure sign of pollution, particularly particulates. (The Wisconsin DNR was looking the other way. Heck, it's just some smoke.)

When the Sierra Club pointed this smokestack pollution out, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. said the smoke was not as it appeared, that the apparent pollution was just an illusion, for the alleged pollution was being controlled. (This is the same fine corporation that was fined in 2006 for withholding  pollution-control information from state regulators.)

The 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that they, too, could see the dirty smoke and that the DNR and the power utility should also be able to see it if they looked closely enough at the stack and the Clean Air Act.

What the judges couldn't see (most people can't) is the nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide that the Sierra Club wanted tougher controls on, too.

Pollution? What pollution?

If we can't see it, it isn't there.