Waukesha County GOP legislative leaders act out, and act badly, when a bi-partisan water conservation measure doesn't go their way in the State Senate.

Since one of their major complaints is that the measure jeopardizes their sense of sovereignty, perhaps they should consider seceding from Wisconsin, and setting up the 51st state, Exceptionalonia, just for special people.  

Poll Indicates 80% Support For Great Lakes Compact

A poll commissioned by Wisconsin conservation groups, conducted by the UW Survey Center and released Monday, indicates 80% support statewide for adoption of the Great Lakes Compact.

That's good news for advocates of the Compact, and for backers of strong water conservation policy in Wisconsin and across the Great Lakes.

Details provided by the environmental group Clean Wisconsin to the Superior Daily Telegram indicate widespread bi-partisan support for a strong version of the Compact, with pro-Compact sentiment also measured both near the Great Lakes, and in communities far from the Great Lakes basin in Wisconsin, too.

Among the poll findings, as reported by the Daily Telegram:

"• 86 percent say it is important to provide further oversight and regulation before bottling and selling Great Lakes water.

Historical Site Damage At Pabst Farms Echos Earlier Destruction

Call this chapter IX in our continuing series, The Road To Sprawlville:

Rare Native American effigy mounds, some in the shape of panthers, have been damaged at Pabst Farms, the Journal Sentinel reports.

Turns out it's not the first time this has happened out Waukesha way. More on that through the links above.

Wisconsin business leaders keep undermining the Great Lakes Compact, since it hasn't been written solely with their narrow interests in mind.

Public citizens they are not, as Yoda might phrase it.

Details here.

Two years ago this December, the Great Lakes governors and Canadian premiers met in Milwaukee and agreed to a Compact to manage the Great Lakes. Two years later, Wisconsin doesn't even have a draft bill on the table,

And in December of 2006, Wisconsin's Attorney General warned state agencies like the DNR that it could not approve a diversion of Great Lakes water to a city like New Berlin or Waukesha without the approval of all the other Great Lakes states, according to a federal law.

The DNR is dismissive of the opinion, and major media in the state will not report it.

So here's more information about both the legislative and media failures to protect the Great Lakes. Some legacy for Wisconsin.

The state wants to spend more than $20 million on an bells-and-whistles interstate interchange in rural western Waukesha County - - as access to an upscale mega-shopping mall that might not be built.

 Details here.

Residents in two southeastern Wisconsin counties are beginning a legal process to force the Department of Natural Resources to do its job when it comes to protecting precious lakes, streams and underground waters.

Interestingly, the Madison law firm of Lawton & Cates that has been engaged by the residents and two associations of lakefront property owners in relatively conservative counties - - Waukesha and Walworth - - has hired former Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.

And Lautenschlager spoke out not long ago against the DNR's inaction on environmental issues.

 Details here. 

Disclosure: I love city living, and Milwaukee, and I wouldn’t live in a suburb if they paid me.

So I was stunned by the “Milwaukee sucks” column written by a former editor of the Waukesha Freeman, and run by that newspaper on its editorial page this week.

(The paper will no doubt say it does not share his opinion but does not censor its columnists, but it shares the responsibility for the drivel it publishes. If the Freeman doesn’t agree, it should say so in an editorial.)

It’s ironic that the vitriolic column comes at a time when surrounding suburban counties are making nice with Milwaukee County and even referring to themselves as Milwaukee 7, and running a Choose Milwaukee campaign.

It makes sense to do that. People outside of Wisconsin have actually heard of Milwaukee, for one thing.

One of the more astonishing dynamics in southeastern Wisconsin arises in Waukesha, where opinion-makers want Milwaukee resources - - land for freeways, water for development - - but are perfectly able to trash Milwaukee in print without seeing anything hypocritical or inconsistent or flat-out counterproductive when doing it.

If it were up to me, I'd throw this virulently anti-Milwaukee op-ed in The Waukesha Freeman, referenced here, back in the face of every politician, business leader, editorial writer or everyday citizen in Waukesha County when they came looking to Milwaukee for resources. 

Everytime.

It being the first day of spring, I've tied together the land rush in southeastern Wisconsin, the quest for diversions of Lake Michigan water to W. Waukesha County, and the disappearance of more than two-thirds of 20 species of American birds.

I'm not saying it's all Waukesha's fault, but there's national context for what's happening in southeastern Wisconsin, and vice-versa.

Details here.