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This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

After a developer began eyeing rural northwest Wisconsin for a large swine farm, five small towns enacted ordinances aimed at curbing environmental and health impacts.

Then, the state’s biggest business and agricultural interest groups fought back. They engaged disaffected residents. Some locals sued. Others ran for political office. New leaders in one Polk County town rescinded regulations on concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

Now, officials in the remaining towns with livestock regulations wonder whether they, too, are in legal crosshairs. 

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and Wisconsin Dairy Alliance have filed a far-reaching public records request for documents from an advisory group that shaped the municipalities’ CAFO rules.

In 2019, a developer proposed an operation, known as Cumberland LLC, that would have housed up to 26,350 pigs — the region’s first swine CAFO and what would be the largest in Wisconsin. Residents later formed the advisory group, believing that state livestock laws insufficiently protect health and quality of life.

In October, two farm families, represented by WMC Litigation Center, sued one municipality in the advisory group: Laketown, population 1,024. The town’s livestock, crop and specialty farms make up almost two-thirds of the landscape.

The plaintiffs, later joined by the Farm Bureau, argued that Laketown’s ordinance diminished property values and prospects for future expansion, a government overreach that could “essentially outlaw mid-to-large sized livestock farms.”

Scott Rosenow, the Litigation Center’s executive director, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

The records request follows the dismissal of that lawsuit, but some residents wonder if the lobbying organizations are “fishing” for another case, the latest effort to prevent local governments from regulating farming in America’s Dairyland.

Pig farm proposal roils northwest Wisconsin 

Cumberland’s proposal sparked heated public meetings, dozens of letters to newspapers and the formation of a nonprofit opposition organization.

The CAFO would be constructed in Trade Lake, north of Laketown in neighboring Burnett County. Sows would be bred and piglets trucked elsewhere after weaning, where they would grow until slaughter.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources rejected Cumberland’s application in March. The developer recently pitched a scaled-down project that would house 19,800 swine.

CAFO opponents in Laketown include back-to-the-landers, who view such farms as inhumane to animals. Others fear the health impacts of the millions of gallons of manure facilities generate annually, to be spread on farm fields.

About 90% of all nitrate groundwater pollution in Wisconsin comes from fertilizer and manure application, according to the DNR. The naturally occurring nutrient helps crops grow, but scientists associate exposure in drinking water with birth defects, thyroid disease and increased risk of developing certain cancers.

Other concerns are rooted in economics. Some Laketown farmers say CAFOs threaten smaller operations; others fear shrinking property values.

“It’s nothing more than big corporations getting together with the government and putting the screws to the little people,” said Vietnam Army veteran and recently ousted Laketown supervisor, Bruce Paulsen, who, like many opponents, speculates that the pork will be exported to China.

Laketown’s ordinance explained 

The town ordinances regulate not where, but how CAFOs operate.

Laketown’s rules applied to new operations housing at least 700 “animal units,” the equivalent of 1,750 swine or 500 dairy cows, and required applicants to submit plans for preventing infectious diseases, air pollution and odor; managing waste and handling dead animals.

It also mandated traffic and property value impact studies, a surety for clean-ups and decommissioning and an annual $1-per-animal-unit permit fee — atop costs to review the application and enforce the terms of the permit.

The ordinance did not affect existing livestock facilities as long as the farms did not change owners, alter their animal species or expand beyond 1,000 animal units. But several residents believed the strict requirements amounted to a CAFO ban that would bar existing farms from growing.

Others protested government spending on the advisory group. Some said the smell of manure comes with living in a rural area.

Polk County Supervisor Brad Olson asked why farming gets blamed when excessive road salt and wastewater treatment plant overflows also taint water.

“I don’t think anybody denies that agriculture is part of the problem — or has the potential to be part of the problem in pollution,” said Olson, who farms crops and used to be a dairy farmer. “If we’re going to look at pollution, let’s look at the bigger picture.”

Clothing-optional campground owners Jen and Scott Matthiesen initially signed onto the lawsuit before attorneys requested they withdraw out of concern their business — “we’re not a nudist camp,” Jen said — would distract from the case. The couple worried that singling out farming could pave the way for special regulation of other businesses.

New Laketown Sup. Ron Peterson ran on the promise of overturning the ordinance. He believes it unlawfully superseded state laws. Those laws ban local authorities from regulating livestock more strictly than the state — unless they can prove a need to protect health or safety.

“The Wisconsin Legislature has been very clear in the statute that it’s their intent that they want uniformity in the regulation of animal agriculture,” said Peterson, a former attorney.

Gaps in DNR regulations 

But supporters of Laketown’s ordinance say it merely corked regulatory leaks.

The DNR acknowledges it lacks legal authority to manage how livestock farming affects odor, noise, traffic and other issues unrelated to water quality. The agency also has struggled to keep pace with the proliferation of CAFOs, defined as farms holding at least 1,000 animal units.

The vast majority of Wisconsin’s 337 operations form the backbone of the state’s dairy industry. Just a dozen house swine.

As the DNR sees more proposals for large farms in recent years, staff shortages and turnover have fueled a backlog in permitting, delays in CAFO inspections and inconsistencies in violations enforcement, according to legislative reports.

As of June, the DNR’s permitting backlog totaled 20%, slightly less than this spring when administrators said they would need an additional 2.25 full-time-equivalent staff to handle the growing workload.

Sidestepping ‘right-to-farm’ protections

Wisconsin’s “right-to-farm” and livestock facility siting laws protect farmers from nuisance claims and generally rebuff local control over CAFOs.

Regulating livestock operations, but not banning them or restricting their locations, could enable communities to sidestep the laws — with major implications for the state’s $104.8 billion agricultural industry.

The strategy, successfully deployed in 2016 in Bayfield County, appears to be spreading. Facing the prospective expansion of a dairy CAFO in Pierce County, about 60 miles south of Laketown, residents are urging county supervisors to enact a CAFO moratorium until they can develop an ordinance.

“The problem is, we’re a disease for them,” said Trade Lake resident Rick Painter, a retired attorney who opposes Cumberland’s construction. “We’re a cancer, and they can’t afford for the cancer to metastasize.”

When confronted with legal threats, Laketown was among the few Wisconsin local governments to stand its ground, perhaps due to the deep expertise of its full- and part-time residents.

Trade Lake property owner and trial lawyer Andy Marshall and his brother David agreed to represent the town at no cost. If the other towns requested assistance, Andy Marshall said he would offer his services. Without money for a good legal defense, he said, small towns can get “steamrolled” by wealthy interest groups.

“It shouldn’t be the community that suffers because these companies can’t safely operate,” Marshall said.

Farmers want expansion options 

Farmer Sara Byl views the anti-CAFO chorus with increasing skepticism. 

Her family owns Northernview Farm, growing about 600 acres of corn and alfalfa to feed their herd of Holsteins in Laketown. Before Sara and her parents sued over Laketown’s ordinance, she served on the town’s livestock facility licensing committee, which studied whether it needed CAFO regulations.

Byl felt the effort evolved into a push against all large-scale farming rather than one hog CAFO.

“It was all about the hog farm — hog farm this, hog farm that,” she said. “Then they left off the word ‘hog’ and they just kept saying ‘farm.’ ”

The Byl family, three generations of farmers, doesn’t operate a CAFO, but Sara says the farm might grow if her son, nieces or nephews pursue agriculture careers. 

Farmers expand for multiple reasons, said Michael Langemeier, a professor in the agricultural economics department at Purdue University.

Farm expansion and consolidation help lower production costs, increase efficiency and satisfy demands for safe, low-cost and uniform agricultural products. Larger farms also can financially support multiple owners and obtain favorable prices on supplies. 

But CAFO opponents argue the consumer gains are offset by the federal policies that support large livestock farms, including taxpayer funded subsidies, and other costs resulting from their health and environmental impacts.

Bracing for next lawsuit

Although newly elected Laketown officials rescinded the rules in April, the CAFO regulations of four other towns remain intact.

That same month, the Dairy Alliance submitted public records requests to all towns in the advisory group for communications from current or former town supervisors about the group’s work. The Farm Bureau also requested records from all advisory group members related to its work, as well as its expenses.

Asked for comment, Cindy Leitner, the Dairy Alliance’s president, ceased correspondence with Wisconsin Watch after being provided with questions. H. Dale Peterson, general counsel to the Farm Bureau, did not respond to interview requests.

“I see it as a great opportunity to show the Farm Bureau all the great work we’ve done,” quipped Lisa Doerr, the advisory group’s chairperson.

Doerr, who grows forage on her 80-acre Laketown farm, contends the group was not a governmental body and lacked decision-making powers, so its members aren’t subject to Wisconsin’s public records law. She denied Peterson’s request.

“If they want to push me, then bring it on,” Doerr said.

Bone Lake town Chairman Andy Brown already fulfilled the records requests.

“I don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “If they want to see my emails back and forth about how to make this happen, then fine.”

With a defense team at the ready, Brown says he isn’t worried. “This is an important test case, and somebody’s gonna have to be in front of that firing squad some time or another,” he said.  “And so if it’s us, it’s us.”

Wisconsin towns brace for next fight on local control over large farms is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press and includes localized reporting from Wisconsin Watch.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that attempts to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years drew outrage and surprise from his political opponents, but it’s just the latest creative cut in a state that’s home to the most powerful partial gubernatorial veto in the country.

“Everybody will shout and scream,” said former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, “but he’s got ’em.”

Wisconsin governors have the most expansive partial veto power in the country because, unlike in other states, they can strike nearly any part of a budget bill. That includes wiping out numbers, punctuation and words in spending bills to sometimes create new law that wasn’t the intention of the Legislature.

That’s exactly what the Democratic Evers did on Wednesday with a two-year state budget passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The Legislature had language in the budget increasing the per pupil spending authority for K-12 public schools by $325 in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. Evers, a former state education secretary and public school teacher and administrator before that, vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425.

The change means that until a future Legislature and governor undo it, the amount schools can spend through a combination of property taxes and state aid will increase by $325 annually until 2425. That’s farther in the future — 402 years — than the United States has been a country — 247 years.

“It’s creative for sure,” said Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist who previously worked under former Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Creative, but not unprecedented.

Reshaping state budgets through the partial veto is a longstanding act of gamesmanship in Wisconsin between the governor and Legislature, as lawmakers try to craft bills in a way that are largely immune from creative vetoes. Vetoes, even the most outlandish, are almost never overridden because it takes a two-thirds majority of the Legislature to do it.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, during a Thursday interview on WISN-AM, vowed to try, though he admitted it would be difficult.

Vos called Evers’ 400-year veto “an unprecedented brand-new way to screw the taxpayer … that was never imagined by a previous governor and certainly wouldn’t by anybody who thinks there is a fair process in Wisconsin.”

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2017 used his veto power to extend the deadline of a state program program from 2018 to 3018. That came to be known as the “thousand-year veto.” He also delayed the start date of another program by 60 years.

The Republican Thompson was known for his use of the “Vanna White” veto, named for the co-host of Wheel of Fortune who flips letters to reveal word phrases. Thompson holds the record for the most partial vetoes by any governor in a single year — 457 in 1991. Evers this year made 51.

Wisconsin’s partial veto is uniquely powerful because it allows the governor to change the intent of the Legislature, just as Evers did, said Kristoffer Shields, director of the Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University. Shields said he plans to cite the latest Evers veto when teaching about executive power.

“Many people in Wisconsin, I suspect, are surprised that the governor can do this,” Shields said. “And now that we know he can do this, that can lead to changes.”

Wisconsin’s partial veto power was created by a 1930 constitutional amendment, but it’s been weakened over the years, including in reaction to vetoes made by Thompson and Doyle.

Voters adopted a constitutional amendments in 1990 and 2008 that took away the ability to strike individual letters to make new words — the “Vanna White” veto — and eliminated the power to eliminate words and numbers in two or more sentences to create a new sentence — the “Frankenstein” veto. Numerous court decisions have also narrowed the veto power.

Rick Esenberg, director of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said he expected there to be a legal challenge to Evers’ 400-year veto.

“This is just a ridiculous way to make law,” Esenberg said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Esenberg’s group and undid three of Evers’ partial vetoes in 2020, but a majority of justices did not issue clear guidance on what was allowed. Two justices did say that partial vetoes can’t be used to create new policies. In August, the court flips from conservative to liberal control. That further clouds how it may rule on veto power, an issue that over the decades has drawn bipartisan support and criticism.

Even as questions about the legality of the veto swirl, conservatives are trying to benefit politically by arguing that the ever-increasing spending authority Evers enacted will open the door to higher property taxes.

“The veto would allow property taxes to skyrocket over the next 400 years,” Republican Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said in a statement. “Taxpayers need to remember this when getting their tax bills this December.”

But Doyle, the former Democratic governor who issued nearly 400 partial vetoes over eight years, praised Evers for effectively restoring an automatic increase in school spending authority that had been in place starting in the 1990s. Doyle’s successor, Walker, and the GOP-controlled Legislature removed it.

“What Governor Evers did was masterful and really important and something that everybody should have expected him to do,” Doyle said. “I’m sure they’re kicking themselves over why they didn’t they see this little number thing.”

Wisconsin governor’s 400-year veto angers opponents in state with long history of creative cuts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials were met with photos and tearful stories of deceased loved ones at a national hearing in Chicago on Wednesday regarding the agency’s proposed new rules regulating coal ash. 

The proposed rules, released in May, would subject hundreds more coal ash dumps to federal regulations adopted in 2015. But scores of coal ash dumps would remain unregulated, leading residents and advocates to plead with the EPA to further expand the proposed rules and step up enforcement of existing rules. 

The environmental injustice of coal ash was clear at the hearing, as residents testified from Native American communities in New Mexico and Nevada, Latino communities in Midwestern cities, and Black communities in Alabama and Tennessee, among others. Multiple people told the EPA officials about their friends and family who had died or suffered from cancer or other illnesses they attribute to coal ash. 

The proposed rules would, for the first time, regulate coal ash ponds that were inactive as of 2015. But the rules would still exempt categories of dumps that speakers at the hearing called “arbitrary,” including repositories not in contact with water as of 2015, coal ash dumps at plants closed before 2015 that don’t have a currently regulated pond at the same site, and scattered coal ash used as structural fill. 

“Anecdotally we know such sites include playgrounds, schools, roads and other uses that humans regularly come into contact with,” Earthjustice deputy managing attorney Gavin Kearney said of sites where coal ash fill was used. 

He noted that there is no comprehensive data regarding coal ash ponds supposedly not in contact with liquid, but experts are sure companies will invoke that exception. Earthjustice and its partners, meanwhile, have identified more than 100 dumps on at least 48 sites that would meet the exception for closed ponds at active power plants without another regulated coal ash impoundment.   

“Creating these distinctions undermines confidence in the rule and also gives industry cover, in good faith or bad faith, that they are trying to implement the rule but aren’t sure how it applies to their sites,” Kearney told the EPA representatives. 

Frank Holleman, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, likewise warned that it “undercuts the credibility of EPA and our government to have to say, ‘See, that over there is not protected because of some highly technical reason that’s not connected to common sense.’” 

Attorney Faith Bugel testified that regulating all coal ash on a site without exceptions is critical to avoid companies saying that contamination is from an “alternate source,” including coal ash not covered by the regulations, and hence avoiding responsibility for cleaning it up. “So often (alternative source arguments) have been used as an escape valve from the 2015 rules,” Bugel said. 

Drinking water fears

Unregulated coal ash is of particular concern to people who get their water from private wells, as numerous people noted at the hearing. 

Environmental groups’ analysis of company data reported under the 2015 rules shows that groundwater is being contaminated at 91% of those coal plant sites. No testing is required around ash not covered by the regulations. But experts say it is even more likely to be contaminating groundwater, since it was dumped when standards around liners and other protections were even lower. 

Private water wells are only tested if the owner pays for the testing, which is inaccessible for many. Paul Kysel told the EPA about testing his own well water for contaminants associated with farming and getting clean results. He said he didn’t realize that a partially unlined coal ash pond less than a mile from his home in Pines Township, Indiana, could be contaminating his water with chemicals not detected in that test. 

Nearby Town of Pines, Indiana, became a Superfund site due to tons of coal ash from NIPSCO’s Michigan City plant that was used as fill throughout the town. Kysel had moved to the bucolic area from Michigan City, where he was sick of “coal dust, nasty odors, (coal dust) deposits on our vehicles and homes.” 

“We thought we were safe,” after moving to Pines Township, Kysel said. “We weren’t safe.” 

He and other locals are upset that the proposed new rules would still not cover coal ash mixed with dune sand to build up land on the lakefront coal plant’s site. A lawsuit filed by environmental groups in Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee alleges that Lake Michigan is at serious risk of coal ash contamination if erosion and increasing storms cause the land to collapse, as happened near We Energies’ Oak Creek coal plant in Wisconsin in 2011. Lake Michigan provides drinking water for millions of people in Chicago, Northwest Indiana and Southeast Wisconsin, where multiple coal plants line the shores.

The settlement of that lawsuit spurred the EPA to release the proposed new rules, though the rules don’t address ash used as fill at sites like the Michigan City plant. 

“This coal ash is ultimately going to rupture into the lake and cause another catastrophe,” Ashley Williams, executive director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said at a rally during the hearing. The owner of a Northwest Indiana microbrewery that relies on Lake Michigan water was among other locals who testified at the hearing. 

Earthjustice senior counsel Lisa Evans noted that the new proposed rules would not have covered the ash in Town of Pines nor the ash that spilled into Lake Michigan at Oak Creek. 

“The EPA should have prevented this damage decades ago,” Evans testified. “It is irrational and illegal to regulate some leaking dumps and not others.” 

Ash was used to build up land and was scattered across plant sites in decades past without record-keeping or regulation. This practice essentially continues in the form of beneficial reuse, where coal ash is legally used as “unencapsulated” structural fill. Advocates have also called for stricter regulation of such reuse, including in Wisconsin, where a vast majority of coal ash is reused and groundwater contamination has been shown as a result. 

Chicago has no coal ash ponds or landfills covered by the existing or new proposed rules. But residents worry that as in Michigan City, coal ash was scattered and dumped across the sites of two coal plants that closed in 2012.

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization Executive Director Kim Wasserman noted that the Chicago neighborhood is densely populated by working-class and Latino residents. She echoed demands that new EPA rules require companies to test for historic coal ash scattered around their sites and clean up any they find. 

There is not “sufficient information about the risk the site still poses to surrounding communities,” Wasserman said. She added that the community does not trust the current site owner given its botched implosion of the coal plant in 2020, sending a toxic dust cloud across the community in an “environmental catastrophe,” as Little Village resident Edith Tovar called it at the hearing.

A moving problem

Enforcement and expansion of the federal rules will ultimately mean many millions of tons of coal ash will be removed and transported to safer locations. Such transport has already caused environmental injustices, even as it mitigates other risks.

Carlos Torrealba, an organizer with the Climate Justice Alliance in Florida, lamented how coal ash from Puerto Rico is being disposed of in Florida, including in a private landfill in a community home to a large and growing Puerto Rican population. The Energy News Network documented how the ash from Puerto Rico poses risks to multiple communities on its route in the Southeast.

“It’s really mind-boggling because that coal ash site was put next to the homes of Puerto Ricans who had been displaced from Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria,” Torrealba said. “And now they have the double impact of being displaced, seeking refuge and having coal ash dumped next to you.” 

Cerissa A. Brown of the People’s Justice Council in Birmingham, Alabama, decried how coal ash from the infamous 2008 Kingston, Tennessee, spill was delivered to a landfill in the largely Black community of Uniontown, Alabama. The Energy News Network reported last year that Uniontown residents have been unable to get answers from the private landfill company about its coal ash management procedures and whether it still accepts coal ash.

“Exposure to environmental pollution such as coal ash in Uniontown has resulted in residents suffering physical harm and an escalating mental health crisis,” Brown said. “This reveals systemic racism rooted in our communities.”

Handling and moving coal ash can pose serious risks to workers if adequate protections aren’t in place. 

Betty Johnson’s husband, Tommy, was among the first responders cleaning up the 2008 Kingston spill. She broke down into tears testifying about how he and other workers labored without adequate protective gear. She blames his death last month on his exposure to coal ash. Johnson is among workers who have filed lawsuits against the contractor responsible for the cleanup, citing multiple deaths and serious illnesses. Advocates argue that disasters similar to Kingston could happen if regulations do not require the full cleanup of all coal ash dumps.

“My husband and I had plans when I retired to travel; now he’s in the graveyard,” Johnson said. “And I’m here fighting for my husband and all the workers, everyone who has been hurt by you, because you are not doing your job.”

Julie Bledsoe’s husband also worked on the Kingston cleanup, and would come home blowing coal ash out of his nose, coughing up coal ash, and cleaning coal ash out of his ears with Q-tips. 

“Her husband is a hero,” she said of Tommy Johnson. “My husband is a hero. But they were treated like they were trash.”

Enforcement crucial 

While the existing federal rules took effect in 2015, the EPA did very little to enforce them until last year, when it issued a number of findings and decisions. Among these, the EPA denied some companies’ requests for extensions to an April 2021 deadline for unlined ponds covered by the rules to stop accepting waste. 

The evening before the Chicago hearing, Waukegan residents testified on the EPA’s proposal to deny a request to extend that deadline from plant owner Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of NRG.

While residents support the proposed denial of the extension, they are frustrated that the company has already been allowed to dump for more than two years beyond the deadline. The coal plant closed last summer, but a diesel peaker plant still operates on the site, and residents are concerned that waste from that plant is going into the unlined pond. 

NRG spokesperson Dave Schrader said in a statement: “Midwest Generation remains committed to operating its Waukegan facility safely and in compliance with federal and State of Illinois CCR (coal combustion residual) rules and regulations. Midwest Generation disagrees with the U.S. EPA’s recent proposed determination. The mitigation efforts Midwest Generation has implemented at its Waukegan facility were certified compliant by outside experts and are approved methods of monitoring and protecting groundwater. Midwest Generation has ceased burning coal to generate electricity at Waukegan but continues to manage stormwater. Further, Midwest Generation ceased placing CCR in the East Pond when it ceased burning coal. The pond is only used for stormwater and process water unrelated to CCR.”

Waukegan residents testifying at the Chicago hearing noted that they have been demanding a “just transition” including coal ash removal for a decade, with little response from EPA or NRG.

“Publicly available tests conducted independently confirm there is no risk to human health or the environment from the ash ponds or historic ash area,” Schrader said. “Removing the coal ash, however, would pose unnecessary safety and environmental risks to the community, create significant traffic disruptions, and could take far longer than closing in place.”

Advocates say the EPA needs to not only expand the rules to cover all coal ash dumps, but aggressively enforce its rules.

“Rules are awesome, but without enforcement, companies will keep doing what they’ve been doing,” Waukegan resident Eddie Flores, co-chair of Clean Power Lake County, told the Energy News Network. “If the EPA doesn’t act, companies will just ignore what the EPA says.”

Kari Lydersen has written for the Energy News Network since January 2011. She is an author and journalist who worked for the Washington Post’s Midwest bureau from 1997 through 2009. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Chicago News Cooperative, Chicago Reader and other publications. Based in Chicago, Kari covers Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana as well as environmental justice topics.

At rules hearing, U.S. EPA hears human toll of unaddressed coal ash pollution is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The Badger Project had to sue the police department to get large parts of the investigation unredacted.

By Hina Suzuki, THE BADGER PROJECT

Grabbing a female officer’s breast during a bullet-proof vest fitting. Voicing public opinions about breastfeeding at work. Asking an officer about her sex life.

These accusations led to the resignation in 2019 of former Wausau Police Lt. Andrew Hartwig after an internal investigation found he violated department policy regarding sexual harassment.

Hartwig, a lieutenant who supervised others, denied groping the officer, and some of the other accusations, but admitted to using language and topics that violated department policy, according to the investigation. He did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The Badger Project obtained the investigation through an open records request with the police department, then had to sue the police department in June of 2022 to get much of the investigation unredacted. A judge ruled in The Badger Project’s favor in March.

Hartwig began working for the Wausau Police Department in 2007. He was promoted to patrol lieutenant in April 2016. The allegations were made after the promotion, Wausau Police Department Chief Benjamin Bliven wrote in an email to The Badger Project on Wednesday.

Due to the accusations, Hartwig was placed on administrative leave, and later “voluntarily” resigned from the police department, according to the resignation agreement. He agreed not to sue the city, and he received a final payout of nearly $12,000, most of which was unused vacation time and administrative paid leave, according to City of Wausau Human Resources Director James Henderson.

After Hartwig’s resignation, Bliven said he “advised all supervisors to train on the harassment policy” and met with employees to discuss the policy and ways an employee can make a complaint if there is harassment in the workplace. “The best way we can make sure employees feel safe at work is to take these types of complaints seriously and investigate them thoroughly,” Bliven said.

Hartwig repeatedly denied the sexual misconduct allegations during the investigation. “I did not sexually advance, request ‘any sexual favors or other verbal, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature,’ ” he said. “I consider anybody [at the police department] like brothers and sisters.”

A female officer who is redacted in the investigation document said Hartwig “grabbed her right breast and briefly squeezed it” when assisting her with fastening the Velcro straps on her vest. He “kind of laughed about it” and did not discuss the incident, she said. For fear that Hartwig may lose his career, she said she did not report the incident to the police department.

However, his employment should have been terminated, she said, adding “if it was not me and happened to someone else, then bring the hammer, because it is totally unacceptable.”

Even if the name were unredacted, the Badger Project does not identify the victims of sexual assault.

Hartwig said he could not recall the time he assisted the female officer with her vest. But calling himself “the nicest guy in the world,” he said he would have helped anyone with their vest if asked. He denied the allegation and said he “would have immediately apologized and reported the accident to [his] supervisor” if he thought he had touched her breast.

During the investigation, a different female officer, who is also redacted in the investigation, said Hartwig sexually harassed her by making sexual comments toward her daily. According to the officer, the comments included telling her “how good [her] makeup looked,” discussing with her his frustration with his sex life, and making inappropriate comments about her personal life with her partner. In the investigation, she described those comments as “disgusting” and “creepy.” 

The female officer also shared with the investigation that she felt she was treated “differently” and “more favorably” than male officers. She said the tone of his voice when speaking to her made her “uncomfortable.” One of the witnesses said during the investigation Hartwig spoke “the way an adult male would talk to a young girl, as in a fatherly way” when the female officer called in sick.

The female officer said she did not tell Hartwig to stop his behavior because “he was [her] supervisor.”

Stating that Hartwig and the female officer had “a working relationship,” he denied these accusations. “I take pride in treating everyone fair and equal,” he said.

In addition, other employees at the police department shared during the internal investigation that Hartwig often initiated and was part of sexual conversations. According to the witnesses, those conversations included topics of losing virginity, breastfeeding – in which he allegedly said women should not breastfeed in public because it is “very sexual” and “gets guys thinking” – and females in tight clothes. In regard to these conversations, he said “guys will be guys.” Hartwig acknowledged this behavior, saying, “I would consider [the conversations] unprofessional and in violation of [the Wausau Police Department’s] Standards of Conduct Policy.”

When The Badger Project requested the internal investigation records that described Hartwig’s sexual misconduct allegations, the Wausau Police Department redacted large swaths of the text. After The Badger Project won the open records lawsuit against the department. Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Suzanne O’Neill wrote in the decision, “law enforcement officers, like all public employees, should expect some level of public scrutiny.” 

The redactions were necessary to protect the victims and Wausau’s “right and opportunity to retain competent law enforcement personnel” as well as “to avoid a loss of morale” within the police department, Wausau City Attorney Anne Jacobson said.

The judge agreed that the victim and witness identities could still be kept confidential while allowing more of the investigation’s details to be public.

In 2020, Hartwig went to work for the Cadott Police Department as a law enforcement officer, but left in 2021 to work full-time in construction, according to Cadott Police Chief Louis Eslinger. Hartwig now works as a tattoo artist in Wausau.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

The post Wausau Police lieutenant forced out in 2019 after department investigation found he committed sexual harassment appeared first on The Badger Project.

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Wausau Police lieutenant forced out in 2019 after department investigation found he committed sexual harassment was first posted on June 15, 2023 at 8:39 am.

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This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires that turned skies along the East Coast a sickly yellow also brought air quality alerts to much of the Midwest this week. State health departments cautioned people with heart and lung conditions to reduce outdoor exposure.

It’s likely more days of bad air will come — not only are fires burning in the west in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and in the east in Quebec, but new blazes have erupted in Ontario, directly north of Minnesota, according to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency air quality meteorologist David Brown. The next plume could arrive Friday.

“We’re kind of surrounded at this point. Any wind direction is likely going to bring some smoke now,” Brown said.

In mid-May, sustained winds blew wildfire smoke in from the West, then a few slow-moving weather systems brought stagnant air that triggered ozone advisories.

“It’s been a very unique spring,” said Craig Czarnecki, outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s air management program.

Climate experts say that as the planet continues to warm, this kind of spring will become less and less of an anomaly. In the process, air quality will continue to worsen, as will its impact on human health.

The largest fires have historically been concentrated in the West, and though there are examples of damaging fires elsewhere, wildfire scientists assumed the eastern part of the continent was immune from the worst effects, said Erica Smithwick, director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State.

That’s proving untrue.

Higher temperatures, periods of drought and more volatile winds are yielding wildfires that burn faster and stronger than before, Smithwick said. Wildfire season is also getting longer, as rivers in the West dry out sooner and the East sees stronger storms mixed with drought. Some scientists question whether the whole idea of a wildfire season still applies.

“I’ve studied wildfires for decades, and I’m quite alarmed by the changes that we’re seeing to the wildfire systems,” Smithwick said.

The severity of the fires is even affecting how far their smoke can travel. Smithwick said the stronger the blaze, the higher into the atmosphere the smoke can waft, being picked up by winds that travel long distances and ultimately push it into places it wouldn’t normally go.

Air pollution worsens respiratory, heart problems

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, is one of the main pollutants released from wildfire smoke, which are so tiny they “penetrate pretty deep into our lungs and get into our bloodstream,” according to Katelyn O’Dell, a researcher at George Washington University.

Hotter summers are also making stagnant air days more frequent, according to an analysis from Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization that analyzes and reports on climate science. During those stagnation events, pollutants like ozone get trapped and make breathing more difficult.

Both fine particles from wildfire smoke and ozone can cause respiratory issues like coughing, difficulty breathing and aggravated asthma. People doing physical activity outdoors, particularly those who already suffer from respiratory problems, will usually find it harder to do.

On top of that, PM2.5 can have more dramatic effects because the particles are small enough to get deep into the lungs and even the bloodstream.

“Particulate matter is one of the most well-studied types of air pollution, and it is incredibly dangerous to the body,” said Dr. Neelu Tummala, a clinical assistant professor of surgery and co-director of the Climate and Health Institute at George Washington University.

While short-term exposure typically results in respiratory concerns, chronic exposure brings worsening impacts like increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, Tummala said.

For Black, brown and low-income communities, which already bear a higher burden of air pollution, the recent short-term exposures could further elevate their risk.

Both fine particle and ozone exposure can also result in pregnancy complications like preterm births and babies with low birth weights, Tummala said.

And a 2021 study in the journal Pediatrics found that the particles in that smoke are 10 times more harmful to children’s respiratory health than other types of air pollution. Smithwick, who is also a representative of the Science Moms campaign, said kids are vulnerable because they are more active, play outside more and are still growing.

“We’re definitely going to be seeing this play out in our health systems for many years to come,” she said.

Protect yourself from dirty air

Pay attention to air quality. The Air Quality Index, or AQI, measures risk from dirty air on a scale of 0 to 500. The AQI doesn’t measure the amount of a specific pollutant but generally reflects health impact.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow site offers real-time readings of AQI and also shows where fires are burning and where smoke is wafting. Purple Air, a company that makes air sensors, also has a network of AQI sensor readings at map.purpleair.com.

People should start paying attention at the orange category of AQI — readings between 101 and 150. That’s when sensitive groups like children, the elderly and those with breathing or heart conditions can encounter problems, said Brown.

He added that relatively healthy people might start to feel headaches or chest tightness at the higher end of orange readings.

In the red category from 151 to 200 AQI, all people, regardless of health, may start to feel effects; the purple category from 201 to 300 is considered very unhealthy; and maroon readings of 301 or higher are hazardous.

Avoid time outdoors when the air is bad. Jesse Berman, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, said it’s safest to stay inside with windows closed and air conditioning on. In a car, run the air conditioner set to re-circulate in the interior of the vehicle, he said.

Put those N95 masks back on. For those who have to be outside for work or commuting, try to relocate tasks or reschedule them, reduce strenuous activity, take breaks in a place free of smoke, and wear a well-fitting mask designed to filter out small particles, like an N95.

The Centers for Disease Control warns, however, that N95 masks are not made to fit children and will not work effectively to protect them from smoke.

Filter your indoor air. In the home, air purifiers with high-quality HEPA filters can help remove pollution that sneaks inside, Berman said.

It may also be worth switching out the filter on a home HVAC system. Airflow filters with a higher MERV rating, an industry measurement of how effective the screen is in capturing small particles, can also help. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends MERV 13 or higher.

Berman warned, though, that tighter filters can clog more quickly and may need to be changed more often. For a cheaper option, O’Dell recommended creating one at home with some filters taped to the four edges of a box fan — a do-it-yourself method known as a Corsi-Rosenthal box.

Wildfire smoke is new hazard in upper Midwest is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Shannon Pikka loves the work-life balance of her job in construction. She left an office job in insurance and now enjoys being up early and working with her hands as part of a drywall finishing crew. The single mother’s workday ends around 3 p.m. — just in time to greet her two children from school.

“Kids are coming home at that time, and we got the whole evening now together,” Pikka said. “Our job should not dictate our lifestyle.”

Despite changing careers nearly four years ago, she’s still earning apprentice wages due to setbacks during the pandemic when her youngest was in third grade and schools switched to distance learning. 

“I would be a journeywoman right now had I had a babysitting option so I could have still shown up for work and gained all those hours in the year — so that set me back,” the De Pere, Wisconsin resident said. 

The difference is a full $9 an hour. As it is, she’s making just shy of $27 an hour. But with two school-aged kids in her household, paying all of the bills is a stretch. Pikka gets no child support, and she relies on her parents who live nearby to provide child care for the days she needs to be at a remote jobsite for days or even weeks at a time.

“I’m just trying to make ends meet,” she said. 

But government statistics show many in the community earn a lot less than she does. 

The state Department of Workforce Development estimates that two adults working full-time earning $25.54 an hour each is just enough to be self-sufficient in a household with two children when factoring in the cost of housing, transportation, food and child care. 

The average wage in Green Bay, according to the most recent federal Bureau of Labor Statistics report, was $26.29 in 2022. But the median earnings were $21.84 an hour, meaning that half of workers earn less than that.

In other words, many workers supporting families in northeast Wisconsin are just squeaking by, especially at a time when the cost of living is increasing in Wisconsin and across the nation. 

“Self-sufficiency is attainable for the majority of full-time workers if children are not involved,” wrote DWD spokesperson Jennifer Sereno. “However, the situation rapidly changes when just one child is brought into the picture, let alone multiple.”

That’s because the cost of child care can rival tuition at a state university, the Wisconsin Policy Forum wrote in a recent report. A state survey of child-care facilities found the annual median cost for school-aged children starts at around $10,000 but can be as much as $40,000 a year for high-quality infant care in urban areas like Green Bay and Oshkosh. 

Earnings too high to qualify for benefits

Pikka’s household has no second income, yet she is still well above the level to qualify for many public assistance programs.

Her story represents a growing segment of Wisconsin’s working population: those earning too much to qualify for most public assistance programs but too little to afford anything but basic necessities. United Way studies this group of people known as ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Its latest report shows 23% of Wisconsinites fit into this category.

Help such as food assistance through the state’s FoodShare program, subsidized child care under the Wisconsin Shares program care and BadgerCare Plus health insurance are not available to many such families, including Pikka’s. 

“These are people who are working,” said Trisha Witt, who works in advocacy for United Way Fox Cities in Appleton. “They’re earning more than the federal poverty level but less than Wisconsin’s basic cost of living.”

When you add in the 11% of people living below the poverty line, the percentage of Wisconsinites struggling financially is 34%, according to the United Way report.

In northeast Wisconsin, the figures are similar, except in urban areas, where the numbers are starker. In Oshkosh, for example 41% of residents are either below poverty or not making enough for basic needs. 

Barriers to prosperity

It’s not due to a lack of employment. Official unemployment is at record lows with federal agencies reporting Wisconsin at a record 2.4% in April. Northeast Wisconsin was hovering at 2% or less. 

But while very few able-bodied adults are outside of the workforce, lack of affordable child care and transportation can keep people from working and meeting their basic needs. 

“No matter what the economic conditions are like,” said Ryan Long, a regional economist for the state Department of Workforce Development in Green Bay, “we know for certain that there are going to be folks who face barriers to work.”

On paper, Pikka has been relatively successful. For 15 years she sold insurance but entered the trades after becoming disillusioned with a desk job. But a string of abusive partners who ended up incarcerated or moving out of state has left her the sole breadwinner for her family.

Her life had been full of hardship from when she was left at a hospital in Colombia where she was born and never picked up. Pikka spent the next three years in an overcrowded South American orphanage where she said she suffered physical abuse.

“I have scars on my body because the nuns could not control the orphanage, so they beat us up,” she said. 

At age 4, a pair of school teachers adopted her and raised her in northeast Wisconsin. If it wasn’t for her parents helping with child care, Pikka said she could never maintain her higher paying career in construction.

“I wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said. “I’d have to go back to my office job.” 

The dearth of affordable child care in Wisconsin is well-documented. The staff shortage in day care centers itself has a ripple effect. On paper, there are roughly 37,500 slots for children in the 19 counties in northeast Wisconsin. But a survey last year of 1,173 child care centers in Wisconsin found nearly half were below capacity. 

“It is important to note that this is licensed capacity and providers may not be using all slots due to staffing shortages, low enrollment, or other factors,” wrote Gina Paige, a spokesperson for the state Department of Children and Families, which licenses day care facilities.

Hot housing market constrained by supply, rising interest rates

Affordable housing is another key to family sustainability. But a shortage of supply has driven up rental prices across the board.

“It doesn’t really matter what the availability of jobs is like if young folks are getting priced out of certain areas because housing is too expensive,” Long said.

Real estate data show that housing prices across the state continue to rise even as sales slump due to constrained supply and rising interest rates that have added to the cost of borrowing.

In April 2023, the median house in northeast Wisconsin cost $260,000. That’s $23,000 less than the statewide median. But the median cost rose 7% across the region in the previous year, similar to the increase statewide. 

All this happened while real estate transactions slumped after interest rates spiked from historic lows at below 3% to around 6.6% for a fixed 30-year loan in May. 

The numbers are stark: There were more than 1,500 residential home sales in June 2022, just as the Fed hiked interest rates for a third time in response to inflation fears. Ten months later in April of this year, the region saw half as many closed deals at 777.

Property owners who are locked in with relatively low interest rates are less likely to list their homes now because they’d pay higher rates on their next property, said real estate broker Kevin Jones, co-owner of Adashun Jones in Fond du Lac.

“There are more people pursuing the few properties that are on the market,” he said.

Houses harder to find, more expensive to rent

The region has already faced supply constraints as Baby Boomers live longer and stay put, leaving fewer properties for younger aspiring homeowners.

“We have healthy Baby Boomers — I’m one of them — who are staying in their homes longer, and millennials who are clamoring to find homes and are at a disadvantage because they increasingly have to rely on borrowed money,” Marquette University economics professor David Clark said at a recent economics forum.

He said many millennials of child-bearing age — those born in the 1980s and ‘90s — “kind of got dealt a bad hand” coming out of the Great Recession with a weak labor market and so “logically and rationally stayed out of the market” during the time when working Americans would tend purchase first homes.

Jones, the real estate broker and Fox Valley landlord, said the rental housing market is also hot with rents increasing by 10% to 20% annually. 

“I think it’s because a lot of the rentals have been consolidated into a small group of investors — that’s one side of the story,” he said. “And the other side is there’s just not enough homes and developments that are being created.”

In 2022, the National Low Income Housing Coalition — an advocacy group — listed the fair market price for a two-bedroom unit in northeast Wisconsin at between $757 in rural counties to $889 in the Oshkosh area . The study, citing U.S. Census figures, also found the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in counties across northeast Wisconsin — for that matter, across the entire state — is higher than the recommended 30% of the average income renters in those counties make. 

Home ownership remains elusive for Pikka. For three years, she has rented a two-bedroom apartment for $875 in De Pere where she enjoys living despite the higher housing prices compared to neighboring Green Bay. Once she works enough hours for journeyman wages, she said she’ll try to buy something.

But Pikka, who is 41, said that’s at least three years away. In the meantime she is pursuing another dream. Pikka would like to visit Colombia with her kids to reconnect with her birth parents.

This story is part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab’s series, Families Matter, covering issues important to families in the region. The lab is a local news collaboration in northeast Wisconsin made up of six news organizations: the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Appleton Post-Crescent, FoxValley365, The Press Times, Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Watch. The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Journalism Department is an educational partner. Microsoft is providing financial support to the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation and Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region to fund the initiative. The mission of the lab is to “collaborate to identify and fill information gaps to help residents explore ways to improve their communities and lives — and strengthen democracy.”

Rising cost of living in northeast Wisconsin has many working families treading water  is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.