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Sidebar: How a sand mine dealt with its Karner blues

Kate Golden — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:07:09 +0000

Main story

Are frac sand miners failing to check for rare butterfly? Jan. 31, 2012

Interactive Map

View locations of sand deposits, frac sand mining operations and the Karner blue butterfly range. Click the image below to open a larger version.

Permits

Which ones do frac sand mines need?

Permits: What a frac sand mine needs

Kate Golden — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:06:57 +0000

Main story

Are frac sand miners failing to check for rare butterfly? Jan. 31, 2012

Interactive Map

View locations of sand deposits, frac sand mining operations and the Karner blue butterfly range. Click the image below to open a larger version.

Sidebar

How Unimin dealt with its Karner blues

Frac sand in Wisconsin: Links and contacts

Kate Golden — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:06:41 +0000

Main story

Are frac sand miners failing to check for rare butterfly? Jan. 31, 2012

Interactive Map

View locations of sand deposits, frac sand mining operations and the Karner blue butterfly range. Click the image below to open a larger version.

Sidebar

How Unimin dealt with its Karner blues

Contacts

Tom Woletz, DNR point person on frac sand: thomas.woletz@wisconsin.gov

Dave Lentz or Jenny Bardeen, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Karner blue habitat conservation plan, david.lentz@wisconsin.gov or jennifer.bardeen@wisconsin.gov

Cathy Carnes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species coordinator: cathy_carnes@fws.gov

Are frac sand miners failing to check for rare butterfly?

Kate Golden — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 02:54:38 +0000

‘They have to let us know they’re there,’ Wisconsin DNR says

Much of the remaining habitat of the endangered Karner blue butterfly overlaps with Wisconsin’s sandstone deposits. Credit: Mike Reese/wisconsinbutterflies.org

Fracking and Karner blues

Interactive Map

View locations of sand deposits, frac sand mining operations and the Karner blue butterfly range. Click the image below to open a larger version.

Sidebar

How Unimin dealt with its Karner blues

Permits

Which ones do frac sand mines need?

Wetlands bill eases development, but worries environmentalists

WisconsinWatch — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:41:37 +0000

By Bill Lueders
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Republicans in the state Legislature have unveiled a long-awaited bill to revamp state wetlands policy.

The proposal, the subject of a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism report published in November, would make it easier for developers to infill wetlands in exchange for what’s known as “mitigation,” the creation of new wetlands.

According to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau’s bill analysis, the proposed bill “removes the restriction that mitigation may not be considered in issuing permits for discharges” into areas considered to have “significant ecological, cultural, aesthetic, educational, recreational, or scientific value.”

In addition, current law requires developers to consider all “practicable alternatives,” including building at another location, before infilling wetlands. The proposed law would limit the DNR’s review to alternatives that are part of or adjacent to the proposed development site in cases where the proposed project “will have a demonstrable economic benefit,” such as the necessary expansion of an existing industrial or commercial facility.

The bill also establishes new procedures and time limits for issuing wetlands permits.

“While we believe the authors made a good-faith effort to balance competing interests, we are disappointed to report that the bill contains several policy changes that fundamentally weaken wetland protections,” says a statement from the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, a Madison-based nonprofit group that advocates for wetlands preservation.

According to the group, the bill “contains a number of positive provisions that we support; however, the harm that will come vastly outweighs the good.” It has outlined its objections and recommended changes in a memo to lawmakers.

But the proposed changes drew praise from Tom Larson, the chief lobbyist for the Wisconsin Realtors Association, which has been urging changes in state wetlands law. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Larson believes the new rules will increase the use of mitigation.

“The way I would cast this bill is that it has removed a number of barriers,” Larson said.

In the Center’s report, Larson noted that there is sharp disagreement between wetlands advocates and critics of current state policy over whether it is possible to create new high-quality wetlands through mitigation.

“We probably won’t ever agree on that,” he said.

Wisconsin wetlands seen as threat to jobs

WisconsinWatch — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 06:01:32 +0000

But environmentalists lament erosion of broad support for protection

AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Jobs or wetlands. Must we choose one?

This story was produced for WBEZ/Chicago Public Media “Front and Center,” a project about critical issues facing the Great Lakes region. The latest round of reports, launched in November, covers the Great Lakes’ role in the region’s economic future.

By Bill Lueders
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Call it Bud Harris’ theory of environmental relativity. The professor emeritus of natural and applied sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has found that when people look at the Bergstrom wetland, “They see what they want to see,” depending on their perspective.

For wetland experts like Harris, the little patch of land less than a mile down the road from the stadium that hosts the world champion Green Bay Packers, is a rare and valuable resource that provides environmental benefits while supporting a rich array of flora and fauna.

To others, importantly including members of the state Legislature, it’s an obstacle in the way of job creation, a sadly degraded patch of wasted opportunity.

During debate over this parcel on Feb. 2, ironically World Wetlands Day, one lawmaker called it “this puddle.” Another blamed it for depriving kids of the hot dogs that might otherwise be going into their macaroni and cheese. More on this later.

The Bergstrom property, next to a highway and in the shadow of Lambeau Field. Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

In the end, the Legislature’s Republican majority voted to exempt the Bergstrom wetland from the meddlesome reach of state bureaucrats. The bill they passed will let “less than three acres” of the parcel be filled, with no additional permits or process, so long as 1.5 acres of new wetlands are created for each acre affected.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker promptly signed it into law as Act 6 of 2011.

It was the same number as an earlier law giving Wisconsin what George Meyer, former head of the state Department of Natural Resources, calls “the strongest wetland protections in the country.”

Act 6 of 2001, which plugged a loophole in federal wetlands regulation created by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, unanimously passed both houses of the state Legislature. The Wisconsin Wetlands Association and Wisconsin Realtors Association, in a self-proclaimed “unlikely partnership,” issued a joint press release heralding the measure.

What a difference a decade makes. During the Feb. 2 debate, state Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, blasted the protections in place for the Bergstrom wetland, saying,“This situation is the poster child for what’s wrong with state policy and how it prevents development and the creation of jobs in this state.”

Walker evidently agrees. This fall, he called the Legislature into special session for a package of bills he called “Back to Work Wisconsin.” These included a proposed revamping of the state’s rules regarding wetlands preservation.

No details have yet been announced — the bill is still in drafting — but Walker has promised an “improved and simplified wetland permitting process” and to “achieve an overall increase in wetland acreage.”

The bill, which the governor labeled “Wetland and Habitat Restoration,” will likely make it easier for property owners to fill in wetlands deemed of marginal quality in exchange for mitigation — the creation of new wetlands of supposedly superior quality.

Whether you see this as good or bad — well, that depends on your perspective.

In the Green Bay area, according to Bud Harris, wetlands losses are estimated at 90 percent. Remaining wetlands are shown here in green and blue over satellite imagery. Click to open a larger version.

Striking a balance

Wetlands serve critical environmental functions — from preventing flooding, to improving water quality, to providing wildlife habitat. But for much of the nation’s history, they were seen as wastelands, and filled in at will.

Wisconsin once had 10 million acres of wetlands, approximately 50 percent of which have been destroyed. Other Great Lakes states have fared even worse: Illinois, Indiana and Ohio have each divested between 85 and 90 percent of their original wetlands stock.

But the virtues of wetlands have gradually seeped into the nation’s consciousness. The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 1972 ruling, decreed that “swamps and wetlands serve a vital role in nature, are part of the balance of nature and are essential to the purity of water in our lakes and streams.”

In fact, the state’s wetlands are of national significance.

“Wisconsin produces a lot of ducks,” says Gildo Tori, public policy director of nonprofit Ducks Unlimited’s Great Lakes/Atlantic Region, based in Ann Arbor, Mich. He cites data showing that ducks banded in Wisconsin were shot by hunters in more than 25 other states, as well as a study that found waterfowl hunters nationally generate billions of dollars of economic activity and support tens of thousands of jobs that, notes Tori, “can’t be exported.”

In early 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that the Army Corps of Engineers interpreted as limiting its regulatory authority to wetlands contiguous to navigable waterways. That removed federal protections from isolated wetlands, about 20 percent of the state’s total.

The state DNR, anticipating this decision, compiled a list of potentially affected wetlands, which it made public. “The reaction was overwhelming,” recalls Meyer, the former agency chief. “People said, ‘Wait a minute. I like going there!’ ”

Meyer, now head of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, estimates that the resulting wetlands protection bill was backed by between two-thirds and three-fourths of state residents. Support was even greater in the state Legislature, where not a single lawmaker opposed it.

Courtesy of Tom Larson.

“It was something Wisconsin legislators agreed on,” reflects Tom Larson, vice president of legal and public affairs for the Wisconsin Realtors Association. But now he believes the law has failed to do as was hoped — “strike a balance between environmental protection and economic development and private property rights.”

One problem, says Larson, is that the current rules “don’t differentiate between different sizes and qualities of wetlands.” Thus “a small depression in farmland” may be afforded the same protections as a quality wetland.

Larson also believes property owners must go through too many hoops before they can seek permission to infill wetlands on condition that they create new ones.

Under current DNR rules, property owners must first consider “practicable alternatives,” which Larson says can include doing the project somewhere else or not at all. And then they must try to minimize wetland damage, like by scaling back the size of the project.

What the Realtors Association would like, says Larson, is for mitigation to be considered early in the process “if there is a net environmental benefit.” He believes it’s possible to create new wetlands that are as good or better than the ones they replace, but acknowledges that wetlands advocates think this is seldom true.

Predicts Larson, “We probably won’t ever agree on that.”

Erin O’Brien of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, walking in a Madison urban wetland, calls the choice between jobs and wetlands preservation “a false dichotomy.” Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Not good as gold

Erin O’Brien is the policy director for the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, a nonprofit group devoted to protecting the state’s remaining wetlands. It occupies a small office in downtown Madison, in a building with other environmental groups.

Wisconsin has a good track record when it comes to wetlands protection, says O’Brien: “The DNR and Army Corps of Engineers take their obligations seriously.” Thanks to major investments in wetlands restoration, in part through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal action plan, Wisconsin is now “restoring more wetlands than we’re infilling.”

But O’Brien notes that, with five million acres of wetlands lost, “it’s going to be a long time before we’re anywhere near where we used to be.” And she’s worried about the inroads being made by “groups lobbying to relax standards” regarding wetlands.

“We’re the gold standard,” she says of Wisconsin. “And the gold standard is being chipped away.”

O’Brien calls the argument that low-quality wetlands can be readily replaced “a really good sales pitch.” But she’s not buying it: “A lot of the wetlands that are being restored these days are open water ponds, as opposed to historically intact systems.”

Some wetland types, like bogs and fens, cannot be recreated at all, says O’Brien. And while her group is not dead-set against infilling, when necessary, even the best-case scenario involves the loss of wetlands in their current location. “We should be maintaining wetlands right where they are.”

Moreover, environmentalists and developers disagree over what constitutes a worthy wetland.

“People will talk about how they support wetlands,” sighs O’Brien. “Then they’ll say, ‘But this wetland’s really a dog.’ ” More aggravating still, at least to her, is that the wetlands dismissed in this fashion were typically degraded by human activity.

A Madison sedge meadow, rare for an urban area, in November 2011. Animals may nest atop these tussocks in the spring. Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

O’Brien arranges a tour for reporters of Madison wetlands, including two within walking distance of each other on the city’s near east side.

The first wetland abuts Starkweather Creek, behind a gas station and an apartment complex. The parcel is dominated by reed canary grass, an invasive species. O’Brien says this is a wetland developers would, if they could, be clamoring to fill — because it’s already so degraded. And yet it still serves important functions — preventing flooding and helping purify water.

The second wetland, along a railroad track a few blocks away, also contains some reed canary grass. But here there are sedge tussocks — large clumps of vegetation with deep roots that draw from the groundwater, making it an extraordinary urban wetland.

What would it take to restore the first wetland to the quality of this second one? O’Brien shakes her head. That, she says, would be “next to impossible.”
WATCH AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Jobs or wetlands. Must we choose one? Erin

Bud Harris, professor emeritus of natural and applied sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, is surrounded by an invasive species at a Green Bay wetland. Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Functional value

The Bergstrom property acquired its name because the proposed developer is John Bergstrom, head of the state’s largest car dealership, based in nearby Neenah, Wisconsin. The entire parcel occupies 21 acres, including 11 acres that were filled in sometime between 1998 and 2002; it’s not clear by whom, or whether this was done legally.

Lambeau Field and a strip mall can be seen in the distance. Cars and trucks traverse the property on three sides, mostly heavily on Highway 41, a major highway. The most visible areas, along the disturbed periphery, have been taken over by a tall, billowy invasive called Phragmites, or common reed. In the right-of-way near Argonne Street, someone has discarded a car battery.

“I suspect to an average person it’s not all that attractive,” admits Harris as he walks the parcel’s perimeter, not willing to trespass, on an overcast October day. “People don’t see the functional value.”

Harris is one of three UW-Green Bay professors, to whom he ascribes a combined 60 years of relevant experience, who inspected the wetland with permission last year. In a memo to the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, the trio wrote: “To our knowledge few, if any, urban wetlands in the greater Green Bay area continue to provide this level of ecosystem services.”

Common reed, an invasive species, has taken over on the disturbed edges of the Bergstrom wetland. Yet many native plants remain; one DNR staffer wrote that it was one of the best urban wetlands in his tenure. Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Part of this wetland’s value, explains Harris, is that it has survived, even after being severed from its watershed by human actions. “About 90 percent of the wetlands in this area are gone,” he says. “Some people continue to feel there are better uses.”

An application to fill in wetlands on the Bergstrom site was submitted to the state DNR on April 30, 2010. Shortly thereafter, DNR wildlife biologist Dick Nikolai visited the site and found that it contained sedges and rare plants, as well as sandhill cranes, mourning doves and woodcocks. “This is one of the best urban wetlands in my tenure and deserves to remain functional and intact,” he wrote in his report.

Water management specialist Jon Brand declined to approve the project, noting the wetland’s high functional value and the existence of a viable alternative, on property he described as “available.”

A a DNR higher-up nonetheless green-lighted the permit, which prompted the Wetlands Association to file for a contested case hearing to review this decision. The request was granted but the hearing never held.

And then, within a few days of taking office, Gov. Walker proposed a bill to let the Bergstrom project go forward. He called the current approval process by DNR professionals “kind of backwards,” explaining, “there should be more power in the hands of elected officials.”

Meyer, the former DNR chief, says the original bill “would have affected thousands of acres in Brown County.” In the end, its reach was narrowed to only the Bergstorm wetland. Meyer sees this as a positive sign of ongoing strong support for wetlands protection.

But, as he acknowledges, there is also growing political pressure for Wisconsin to amend its wetlands rules.

Wetlands vs. jobs?

In pushing to exempt the Bergstrom wetland earlier this year, GOP legislators framed the issue in terms of jobs versus excessive regulation. The developer had announced plans for a retail project, purportedly the mega-outlet Bass Pro Shops.

State Rep. Scott Krug, R-Wisconsin Rapids, chided opponents for “keeping job creation on the back burner in lieu of getting bureaucrats their lifetime achievement awards.” Others took this line of reasoning even further.

“Right now, as we speak, there’s a mom and there’s a dad somewhere in the Green Bay area,” intoned Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc. “And they’re sitting with their kids at the dinner table and they’re eating mac and cheese with ‘em. And there’s a mom and there’s a dad who wish that they could afford to put hot dogs in the mac and cheese, but they don’t have a job right now.”
LISTEN: Rep. Kleefisch on mac, cheese and jobs

Kleefisch, calling the state’s wetland rules “an obstacle in the way,” challenged his colleagues: “This body has the ability, tonight, each one of you have the ability to say, ‘We’re going to remove that obstacle so that your mom or your dad can have a job.’ ”

This site plan, approved by DNR in 2010, would fill 1.65 of 11 acres of wetland on the north side of the structure. Legislators exempted up to three acres of the site from wetlands laws, allowing the developer to escape a contested case hearing. Courtesy of Paul Kent. Click to view PDF.

By this time, serious questions had been raised about the claimed tie to Bass Pro Shops, a Missouri-based chain with 58 stores in 26 states and Canada. The company, whose customer base includes hunters and anglers, disclaimed any interest in destroying wetlands.

“We had one casual phone call from somebody on that property,” says spokesman Larry Whiteley, explaining the depth of his conservation-minded company’s involvement. “We didn’t know it was a wetland then.” And while a Wisconsin store remains possible, it likely won’t be on the Bergstrom site, “after the crucifixion we took for something we didn’t do.”

State Rep. Brett Hulsey, D-Madison, cracks that the furor has “created so much blowback the only business they’ll be able to locate there is a payday lender.” Paul Kent, an attorney for Bergstrom, says the plan is still to land “some kind of destination retail” at the site. But more than nine months after the exemption was granted, no development has occurred.

Walker, in calling for a special session that will include revisiting state wetlands rules, said his goal was to focus “like a laser beam” on job creation. That’s been met with skepticism by opposition Democrats, who note that the ongoing session has included bills on deer hunting rules, public school sex education, early morning alcohol sales and home self-defense.

Democrats also say Republicans seem more intent on pleasing special interests than creating jobs. GOP support for restrictions sought by the Realtors Association and others on siting wind turbines has led to the suspension or cancellation of five major wind energy projects which, the Wisconsin State Journal reported, would have provided “a relatively quick infusion of about $1.6 billion in economic development and almost 1,000 temporary, full-time jobs.”

While business interests backing changes in state wetlands policy have considerable clout (see graph), O’Brien calls the choice between jobs and wetlands preservation “a false dichotomy.” She argues that, under current law, “there are many development projects around the state that have been developed while also avoiding and minimizing the impacts to wetlands.”

Todd Ambs, formerly the DNR’s water division administrator, agrees: “I have yet to see any concrete evidence that the way we are protecting our wetland resources in Wisconsin has in any way harmed the business activities of the state.”

Data provided by the state DNR show that 87.5 percent of the more than 6,500 permits for wetland mitigation between 2002 and late September 2011 were approved. And the average time of processing fell from 135 days in 2003 to 30 days last year.

The Realtors Association’s Larson calls these numbers misleading, because they don’t count projects rebuffed earlier in the process. “Unfortunately,” he says, “many projects never move forward or are dramatically scaled back.”

Ambs, now president of the national River Network in Portland, Ore., bristles at this, saying “applicants that work with the department can often find a middle ground where they can complete the project and protect the environment.”

Beyond that, Ambs knows of no case “where wetland mitigation and human restoration of a wetland can adequately compensate for destroying a wetland that Mother Nature took 10,000 years to create.”

But such talk may not matter as much to Wisconsin lawmakers as the wishes of developers — as represented by that family in Green Bay, still waiting for those hot dogs.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The project, a partnership of the Center and Maplight.org, is supported by the Open Society Institute.

The nonprofit and nonpartisan Center (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication and other news media. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Under legal pressure, Wisconsin coal-fired power plants curb emissions

WisconsinWatch — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:01:53 +0000

Janis Schreiber, 72, lives about a half-mile from Dairyland Cooperative's two coal-fired power plants in Alma, Wis. Her nonsmoker husband suffered from emphysema, a lung disease, before dying in 2006 at age 80. Schreiber, who has breast cancer and knows many neighbors with cancer, said she wonders if the plants' emissions have affected Alma residents' health. Marianne English/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Two decades ago, Democrats and Republicans together sought to protect Americans from nearly 200 dangerous chemicals in the air they breathe. That goal remains unfulfilled. Today, hundreds of communities are still exposed to the pollutants, which can cause cancer, birth defects and other serious health issues. A secret government “watch list” underscores how much government knows about the threat — and how little it has done to address it.

The Center and other Investigative News Network members produced reports for this nationwide collaborative investigation, led by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News and National Public Radio.

Interactive graphic: Lawsuits, emissions and the dirtiest burners

Click the image to explore particulates and smog emitted by seven big Wisconsin coal plants, and to learn which ones release the most pollution per ton of coal.

Photo gallery: Coal-fired power plants in Wisconsin

By Sarah Karon and Lauren Hasler
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

ALMA — In 1956, 17-year-old Janis Schreiber moved to this tiny city on the Mississippi River, married and settled downtown to raise a family. Several times a week she drove her three children to the countryside to escape what she called the “dirty mess” — the coal-fired power plant in Alma and the black soot that hung over Main Street like fog.

Now, half a century later, the sky is clearer. Schreiber and other residents can hang laundry outside without it turning black. Dairyland Power Cooperative, which owns Alma’s two coal-fired plants, is investing $400 million in pollution controls.

Dairyland and other Wisconsin coal-fired plants have begun lowering emissions, but not necessarily in response to demands by regulators at the federal Environmental Protection Agency or state Department of Natural Resources.

Many of the changes have resulted from pressure and lawsuits brought by the nonprofit Sierra Club, which has campaigned for a decade to cut emissions from coal combustion.

Some polluters in Wisconsin and nationwide have violated clean-air laws for years but faced no enforcement from state or federal agencies, according to a collaborative investigation by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News, National Public Radio and other nonprofit investigative news organizations across the country.

In addition, enforcement actions are inconsistent. The Wisconsin Center found three coal-fired plants in Wisconsin at which federal regulators allege violations of the Clean Air Act but state regulators do not.

The EPA lists nine coal-fired power plants in Wisconsin as being “high-priority violators” of the Clean Air Act — sites that regulators believe are in urgent need of attention, where violations may have continued for years. But the DNR and EPA have yet to take formal enforcement action against five of these plants, records show.

An EPA spokeswoman said the agency is involved in enforcement actions at nine coal-fired plants in Wisconsin for alleged violations but declined to name them.

“There is a pattern of companies ignoring this (clean air) law,” said Kim Bro, a Washburn, Wis., environmental scientist and former state health official. “They’re trying to stay under the radar, and if the DNR and EPA are failing to enforce, the public suffers.”

Dairyland is not on the EPA high-priority violators list. In its most recent inspection, the DNR found no violations at the Alma facilities.

Yet in 2010, the Sierra Club sued the La Crosse-based company for alleged Clean Air Act violations. The suit charged that Dairyland failed to install modern pollution controls required by federal law when it made a series of major changes between 1993 and 2009 to its plants at Alma and Genoa, about 70 miles south of Alma on the Mississippi River. As a result, the suit said, Dairyland released unlawful amounts of pollution into the air.

The complaint also alleged Dairyland did not conduct required monitoring or get permits from the DNR during the upgrades.

When the lawsuit was filed in June 2010, the Sierra Club noted that the state agency still had taken no enforcement action for the alleged violations.

In an interview last month, Marty Sellers, the DNR engineer who inspects the plant, echoed the sentiments of other DNR officials in saying his agency lacks the staff and funding to fully enforce air-pollution laws. He said the DNR couldn’t afford to install an air-quality monitor in Alma, which one resident requested in 2006.

Dairyland spokeswoman Deb Mirasola defended the company’s actions, saying in a statement, “We remain firm in our belief that we operated our plants in compliance with state and federal regulations, including the provisions of the Clean Air Act.”

The utility company, the EPA and the Sierra Club are now negotiating a possible out-of-court settlement, said Bruce Nilles, senior director of the national Sierra Club anti-coal campaign.

In recent years, according to DNR data, emissions of some pollutants from the two Alma plants 190 miles northwest of Madison have fallen by 73 percent. Mirasola said this was due to pollution controls, adding that the upgrades will help the plants comply with state and federal environmental laws. Dairyland, she said, began retrofitting its plants with pollution controls in 2007, three years prior to the Sierra Club lawsuit.

So why did the group sue Dairyland, which already was spending hundreds of millions to clean up? In part, said the Sierra Club’s Jennifer Feyerherm, it’s to make up for years when the air around Alma should have been cleaner.

“It’s not like we’re singling out Dairyland,” said Feyerherm, an organizing representative with the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin chapter. “They didn’t put on pollution controls when they should have … It’s part of the pattern of noncompliance that we see at coal plants across the state.”

Anti-coal campaign

In 2001, frustrated with the lack of action from state and federal regulators, the Sierra Club launched its national Beyond Coal Campaign to reduce emissions and halt new coal-burning plants, which the group cites as the single largest source of global warming and mercury pollution in the United States. The Sierra Club says it has worked with activists and other organizations to prevent the construction of 154 proposed coal-fired plants nationwide.

The effort has had dramatic effects in Wisconsin. The Sierra Club has filed lawsuits against about half of the state’s coal-burning electrical generating stations to force them to reduce harmful emissions. Two plants and two coal-fired boilers were shut down, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was persuaded not to build a new coal boiler and one proposed plant was blocked, Nilles said.

The latter was a bid by Madison-based Alliant Energy to build a $1.26 billion coal-fired facility in Cassville. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities operating in the state, rejected the proposal in 2008.

A 2007 Sierra Club federal lawsuit against the state also compelled Wisconsin to reduce emissions or convert the UW-Madison’s Charter Street Power Plant and the state’s century-old Capitol Heat and Power Plant to cleaner options, such as natural gas. Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration promised to study ways to lower emissions at the state’s 15 coal-burning plants at UW campuses, prisons and other state buildings, resulting in the retrofit or shuttering of some of the facilities.

But Nilles said that effort “has ground to a halt” under Republican Gov. Scott Walker. He said the Sierra Club plans to return to U.S. District Court in Madison to seek enforcement of the settlement that called for the state to study its coal-burning facilities, and to close plants in violation or convert them to cleaner burning fuels.

A spokesman for the Department of Administration, which operates the state’s coal-fired plants, said the agency believes it is in full compliance with the requirements of the settlement.

“Sierra Club recently contacted the department and requested that we engage in discussions about the lawsuit,” Tim Lundquist said. “We are doing so.”

William Skewes, executive director of the Wisconsin Utilities Association, a nonprofit that lobbies on behalf of the state’s investor-owned utilities, said he couldn’t comment on the Sierra Club’s lawsuits against Wisconsin power plants. “We try to let the companies speak for themselves,” he said.

Interactive graphic: Lawsuits, emissions and the dirtiest burn

Click the image to explore particulates and smog emitted by seven big Wisconsin coal plants, and to learn which ones are the dirtiest.

Harmful emissions

The state DNR lists coal-fired facilities as the state’s top emitters of mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter — hazardous chemicals that major studies have linked to increased mortality and maladies ranging from lung cancer to birth defects. They also are the leading source of the mercury that contaminates fish in every lake in the state, according to the DNR.

Coal-fired power plants also emit particulates, a mixture of dust, soot, smoke and droplets that contains several known carcinogens, including arsenic and radium. The smallest particles, called PM 2.5, are less than one-thirtieth the width of a human hair — so tiny that they can embed in lungs and pass through the bloodstream, causing asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

According to a 2010 study by the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force, every year in the United States, emissions from Wisconsin power plants cause about 268 deaths, 201 hospital admissions and 456 heart attacks. Other studies suggest pollution from coal combustion can cause serious health problems even in areas like Alma that meet federal air-quality standards.

In interviews, residents of this Buffalo County city of 781 named several long-time neighbors who, although they had never smoked, had developed lung cancer or emphysema, a lung disease that causes coughing and shortness of breath.

“There are a lot of medical issues for a little town like Alma,” said Schreiber, 72, who has breast cancer. Her husband, a nonsmoker, suffered from emphysema before dying in 2006 at age 80.

Janis Schreiber, 72, has lived in Alma, Wis. for more than 50 years. In 2008 she contacted the state Department of Natural Resources about coal ash from Dairyland's power plants blowing onto her property. The ash and pollution have improved since then, she said, but she still wonders if emissions from the plants have affected Alma residents' health. Marianne English/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Schreiber and others in Alma said they couldn’t prove the Dairyland plants had caused their health problems. But as they ticked off the types of cancers afflicting their neighbors — uterine, cervical, colon, prostate, ovarian, kidney — they wondered.

“I think some people have gotten sick over it, and probably died sooner than they should have, because of the smoke and the air quality,” Schreiber said.

Dairyland’s Mirasola said the company hasn’t been informed of any specific health issues of Alma residents, and isn’t aware of health effects in the city related to its operations.

Janice Nolen, a vice president at the American Lung Association in Washington, D.C., said the health concerns of residents living near coal-fired plants are well-founded.

“We have very good evidence that this kind of pollution really does shorten lives,” Nolen said. She cited a landmark 1993 study, in which Harvard University researchers observed pollution patterns and death rates in six U.S. cities for 13 years. Even after controlling for other risk factors, such as smoking, the study found that mortality rates were higher in cities with more particulate pollution.

“There are real health harms that come from these emissions,” Nolen said. “They affect lots of downwind communities, including places you might not think would be affected.”

Carolyn Dry, 69, lives in Winona, Minn., 34 miles south of Alma. She said she’s surrounded by neighbors who have cancer and wonders if Dairyland pollution is partly to blame.

In 2006, Dry emailed the DNR about Dairyland’s visible emissions, describing a layer of dust on her house. “I am aware that this fly ash has heavy metals (and) mercury, another toxin,” she wrote. “We request that all possible pressure and measures be applied to improve and remedy this situation.”

A week later, a DNR engineer who oversees Dairyland’s compliance with state air pollution rules emailed her information about plans for future pollution control upgrades.

He noted that although the Alma facilities were compliant with state regulations, “(they) do emit a relatively large amount of some pollutants to the ambient air.”

In 2008, Schreiber contacted the DNR about black ash blowing from Dairyland’s coal pile onto her porch. An agency official visited and told her the company was already upgrading its pollution controls. Since then, Schreiber said, the air has been better.

Dry and Schreiber’s complaints against Dairyland are two of eight filed with the DNR since 2002, according to agency records. Schreiber and others in Alma said few people publicly voice their concerns about the city’s air quality, since many Alma residents are or were Dairyland employees.

In the past three years, Schreiber has noticed less black ash on her house and car. In Winona, however, Dry said the air quality remains poor.

“It did improve slightly,” she said. “But that was like going from awful to not quite as awful.”

Dairyland's two power plants in Alma, Wis. burned a combined 1.4 million tons of coal in 2010. According the Wisconsin DNR, coal-fired power plants are the state’s top emitters of mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter — hazardous chemicals that major studies have linked to increased mortality and maladies ranging from lung cancer to birth defects. Marianne English/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Old plants, new pollution controls

Old coal-fired plants like Dairyland’s Alma Station, which dates to 1947, are among the leading contributors to hazardous airborne chemicals in Wisconsin, according to 2010 DNR emissions data. The agency reports that these facilities, even when retrofitted with more modern pollution controls, pump thousands of tons of heavy metals including mercury, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide into the air every year.

Pollution controls do help curb emissions, and some Wisconsin utilities are spending hundreds of millions to upgrade decades-old power plants. Dairyland and Madison-based Alliant Energy are retrofitting their facilities with several types of pollution controls, including coal ash filters, called “baghouses,” which reduce particulate matter, as well as scrubbers, systems that reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.

Upgrades at Dairyland’s facilities will reduce sulfur dioxide pollution by more than 90 percent, said Mirasola, the company spokeswoman.

But some Wisconsin environmental groups say these companies aren’t doing enough. In the past five years, the Sierra Club has sued Dairyland, Alliant and the Green Bay utility Wisconsin Public Service Corp., alleging the companies have been repairing old equipment and increasing emissions for years without installing the most up-to-date pollution controls, as required by a 1977 Clean Air Act amendment.

“Older plants tend to have the fewest pollution controls, and as a result have more emissions per amount of electricity generated than a newer plant,” said David MacIntosh, a Harvard University adjunct associate professor of environmental health. “That’s one reason, from a public health perspective, why it’s important to focus on these older plants.”

But utilities don’t always notify regulators — as required by law — about projects that warrant pollution control upgrades. To avoid paying millions for baghouses or scrubbers, companies sometimes try to pass off a major renovation as a small tweak, said George Meyer, former DNR secretary. Meyer is now executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.

“You don’t build a power plant in 1970 and then, 25 years later, when you’ve exchanged all the parts, call that ‘maintenance,’ ” he said.

Even when retrofitted plants don’t violate regulations, many still emit what some scientists say are unhealthy amounts of air pollution.

Nitrogen oxide emissions from coal combustion contribute to ground-level ozone, the main component of smog, which studies have linked to respiratory illness and premature death. In 2008, the EPA’s scientific advisory panel recommended the agency strengthen federal limits for ground-level ozone to reduce smog. Doing so, the EPA said, would save up to 12,000 lives every year and prevent 58,000 asthma attacks and 21,000 hospital visits.

The new limits would have forced some coal-fired power plants to curb emissions. But in September of this year, President Obama announced he would wait until 2013 to review the EPA’s recommendation, saying lowering smog standards now would introduce too much “regulatory uncertainty.”

The Columbia Energy Center in Pardeeville, Wis., is Wisconsin's biggest mercury emitter, according to Department of Natural Resources data. Coal-fired power plants are the largest human-caused source of mercury emissions to the air in the U.S. Mercury exposure in the womb can adversely affect the development of an infant's brain and nervous system. Lauren Hasler/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Who’s right — Sierra Club or regulators?

Noncompliance with environmental regulations is often a matter of interpretation.

Cases in point: The Columbia Energy Center in Pardeeville, the Nelson Dewey Generating Station in Cassville and the Edgewater Generating Station in Sheboygan, all owned by Wisconsin Power & Light, a subsidiary of Alliant.

In September 2010, Sierra Club sued Alliant, alleging it modified the Columbia and Nelson Dewey plants without installing the best available pollution controls. In a separate suit, Sierra Club alleged the company violated visible emissions limits at its Edgewater plant. Alliant has denied the allegations.

“We maintain that we are in compliance with our permits, and any work we have done has been properly permitted,” company spokesman Steven Schultz said.

Schultz added that Alliant is currently installing controls at Edgewater that will reduce nitrogen oxides emissions and plans to begin retrofitting the Columbia plant with pollution controls in 2012 to comply with stricter mercury and sulfur dioxide limits. Alliant, the Sierra Club and the EPA are in settlement talks, Nilles of the Sierra Club said. Schultz said Alliant doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The Columbia, Nelson Dewey and Edgewater plants also appear on the EPA’s list of high-priority violators of the Clean Air Act. Yet the DNR has found all three facilities fully compliant in its two most recent inspections.

“EPA seems to be looking at a specific issue in more depth than what DNR would normally be able to do during our inspections,” said Bill Baumann, acting director of the DNR air management bureau, when asked to explain why the EPA would list the plants as violators when the DNR does not.

Underfunded, DNR triages oversight

In Wisconsin, the DNR and EPA are supposed to enforce state and federal air pollution laws. The DNR issues air pollution permits, inspects facilities and is responsible for discovering violations. The agency refers enforcement cases to the state Department of Justice for litigation. The EPA, meanwhile, conducts its own inspections and enforcement, often in response to chronic or more serious violations.

Baumann said although the two agencies may share information about inspections and enforcement, they rarely do, and he doesn’t recall ever asking the EPA for data about Wisconsin facilities.

That might help explain the discrepancies between the EPA and DNR’s inspections. Records and interviews also indicate that dwindling resources are undermining the DNR’s ability to enforce regulations and prosecute air pollution violators.

Wisconsin doesn’t receive federal funding to enforce air pollution laws. To fund enforcement, it relies on fees collected based on a permit holder’s level of emissions, Baumann said.

As the economy falters, he said, production and emissions decline, and the fees DNR collects decrease. Baumann said a shrinking budget and a record number of retirements mean less oversight.

“We’re doing the best that we can,” Baumann added, noting that the statewide air management program has more than a 25 percent staff vacancy rate. “We don’t have the wherewithal to go after every single violation we find. We try and focus on what has the most environmental impact.”

Sellers, the DNR engineer who inspects Dairyland’s Alma plants, put it more bluntly: “We’re just broke, even though everyone at DNR is retiring.”

But problems at the DNR predate the recession. In 2004, the Legislative Audit Bureau evaluated DNR’s air management programs and found that the agency had a backlog of more than 1,000 facilities awaiting operation permits.

What’s more, 15 percent of facilities had never been inspected. The bureau reported that the DNR did not “consistently follow federal policy in taking enforcement actions for high-priority violations.”

Baumann said the problems have been corrected, noting that the EPA now approves an annual DNR list of which plants are in compliance.

Baumann estimated that about 20 percent of Wisconsin’s air pollution permit holders aren’t complying with state laws. He said, however, that few of these violators are coal-fired plants, and most aren’t committing emissions violations, but are noncompliant for other reasons, such as filing a report late.

“It’s like the police,” Baumann said. “They don’t have the resources to stop every speeder on the road. If somebody is a mile or two over the limit for a short distance, well, there are bigger issues to deal with.”

Editor’s note: The Madison law firm of McGillivray Westerberg & Bender LLC, which provides pro bono legal services to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, represents the Sierra Club in lawsuits against owners of coal-fired power plants and agencies that perform permitting for coal-fired power plants. The law firm did not provide the Center with legal services or participate in the writing or editing of this report.

Sarah Karon and Lauren Hasler are reporters for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Marianne English, a graduate journalism student at UW-Madison, contributed to this report. The nonprofit and nonpartisan Center (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Sand mining surges in Wisconsin

WisconsinWatch — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:01:55 +0000

State feeds national fracking boom; health, environmental concerns rise

Trucks move sand toward a processing plant in Valley Junction in the town of Byron in Monroe County in July. The plant, operated by Hi-Crush Chambers, is located next to a frac sand mine near Highway 173. The site is one of dozens of sand operations popping up in Wisconsin in response to the demand for sand for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Jason Smathers/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Find a sand mine near you

Map

Click on the map below to open a larger version, or download the PDF.

Spreadsheet of sites

Frac sand: Wisconsin mines and plants Click to view a spreadsheet of the 41 mines or processing plants Center reporters found.

Sidebar: What’s fracking?

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is used in 90 percent of natural gas wells in the United States. Gas companies drill down and across layers of rock and then pump a pressurized mixture of sand, water and chemicals deep into the earth, creating artificial rock fractures. Read more in a new page

By Jason Smathers
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

TUNNEL CITY — Retiree Letha Webster’s voice briefly cracks when she talks about leaving the town she and her husband have called home for 56 years. But she says selling her land to an out-of-state mining company was the best move she could have made.

The 84-year old was approached in late June by a Connecticut-based company, Unimin, that planned to build a sand mine in the area and was paying a good price for houses in the way.

Webster’s struggle to maintain her home and 8.5 acres of land while caring for her husband, Gene, who has Alzheimer’s, meant she would need to move soon anyway. Webster, whose property was valued last year at $147,400, says she has agreed to sell for more than double that amount: $330,000.

Others in the area are selling, too. In addition to Webster, there have been at least seven major transfers of land from residents of this unincorporated community in Monroe County to Unimin’s Eagle Land Investments since late May, according to state Department of Revenue records.

The 436 acres have a market value of just under $1.1 million. Unimin paid a combined $5.3 million to the property owners in Tunnel City, a community 45 miles northeast of La Crosse named for a nearby railroad tunnel.

This western Wisconsin community is in the midst of a land rush — call it a sand rush — fueled by exploding nationwide demand for fine silica sand used in hydraulic fracturing. In this process, nicknamed “fracking,” sand, water and chemicals are blasted into wells, creating fissures in the rock and freeing hard-to-reach pockets of oil and natural gas.

At least 16 frac-sand mines and processing facilities are operating, and an additional 25 sites are proposed, in a diagonal swath stretching across 15 Wisconsin counties from Burnett to Columbia, the Center has found. Chippewa County has seen the most action, as Wisconsin Public Radio’s Rich Kremer reported in June.

Most of the mining operations have sprung up over the past three years, stirring concerns about the effects on land and groundwater and health impacts on nearby residents. Of particular concern is crystalline silica, a dusty substance known to cause health problems including cancer and silicosis, a potentially fatal lung disease.

Companies are focusing on sand from easily accessible deposits of Wonewoc and Jordan sandstone, which can be found in central and western Wisconsin, including along the Mississippi River, says Bruce Brown, a senior geologist with the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey in Madison.

The type of sand in the Wonewoc and Jordan formations is known as Northern White, highly sought after by oil and natural gas companies for its shape, size and strength needed for fracking operations.

Companies are rushing to Wisconsin because of the nearly “inexhaustible” supply of this type of sand, which can fetch up to $200 a ton, he says. Wisconsin sand is heaped onto railroad cars and sent out West and elsewhere to fuel the nation’s fracking boom.

“I get calls from companies out of Denver that say ‘We need a supply of 30,000 tons a month,’ ” Brown says.

Community activist Patricia Popple holds a container of frac sand in July picked up in Chippewa Falls. Popple is concerned about health risks from crystalline silica dust released when trains transport sand through the area. Julie Strupp/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Health effects feared

Residents in several Wisconsin counties say they have been alarmed by the speed with which mining companies have snapped up land.

Some communities lack local land-use controls such as zoning that would allow them to manage the land rush. And despite concerns about the health and environmental impacts of such facilities, the state Department of Natural Resources has only a few regulations for sand mining operations.

Mining companies must file a reclamation plan with the county that spells how much land will be disturbed and how it will be rejuvenated once mining is completed, and they apply to be covered under a general DNR permit covering stormwater and wastewater. Other permits regulating air emissions and groundwater use may be required from the DNR.

But none specifically limits how much crystalline silica gets into the air, the main health worry for those living near the facilities. Drew Bradley, Unimin’s senior vice president of operations, says that while the risks of crystalline silica are well known in an occupational setting, there’s no evidence that ambient exposure poses any threat.

“I think (concerned residents) are blowing it out of proportion,” Bradley says. “There are plenty of silica mines sited close to communities. There have been no concerns exposed there. If you had five mines in a little community, maybe that’s a concentration that had to be looked at cumulatively.”

Judy Carey is among those concerned about the health effects of sand mining. Two years ago, Carey and her husband lived across the street from farmland in the Monroe County community of Oakdale. Now the only thing visible beyond the trees that pepper her lawn are mounds of frac-sand from the sand washing plant, which is operated by Proppant Specialists, an affiliate of FracTech Services of Brady, Texas.

As if the sand wasn’t close enough, Carey says the wind brings it into her house. She often finds a fine white powder on the side of her car and sand on dishes in her cabinet, which she rewashes each week. As messy as it is, she is more worried about the potential health risks. A spokeswoman for the company says it’s investigating Carey’s concerns.

“Your clothes are full of it, you can’t roll your car windows down,” says Carey, brushing sand from a chair on her front porch to welcome a visitor. “The breathing part of it isn’t good. You can just feel it in your throat, feel it in your nose.”

Crispin Pierce, an associate professor of environmental health at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, says air quality monitors should be required to measure small particles from sand mining and processing.

The DNR currently requires air monitoring for some sand mining operations, but most companies ask for and are granted a variance to bypass the requirement, says Jeffery Johnson, a DNR environmental engineering supervisor. He knows of just one frac-sand processing plant that has been denied a waiver — EOG Resources of Houston, Texas. The company has been required to install a monitor for particulate matter because of concerns from neighbors of its Chippewa Falls plant.

Even then, the monitors do not detect the size of particles of most concern to people like Pierce. The DNR requires monitoring for large particles but says it lacks the expertise and resources to monitor for smaller particles commonly produced by frac-sand mining and processing. Pierce believes the DNR should develop a standard for safe exposure to silica that it can monitor.

In December, the state DNR confirmed there are potential risks from crystalline silica. But in a draft report, the agency recommended no additional regulation, in part because little is known about the how much crystalline silica escapes from these mining operations.

Jeff Myers, a DNR toxicologist who helped write the study, says any decision to regulate air quality around the sites would be up to the Natural Resources Board, which is expected to take up the issue once the report is finished in September or October.

Patricia Popple, a community activist and resident of Chippewa Falls, opposed the frac sand processing plant under construction in her community. Popple worries about potential health and environmental effects of the plant. Julie Strupp/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Efforts to fight mining fail

For two years, Patricia Popple, a resident of Chippewa Falls, fought frac-sand operations in Chippewa County. Her group, Concerned Chippewa Citizens, even filed two lawsuits against the city to block a processing plant. But plans are still moving forward, and Popple has turned to advising other communities in similar positions to act quickly.

Two unzoned townships in Chippewa County also have unsuccessfully tried to block proposed mines. The towns of Howard and Cooks Valley in recent years each passed ordinances to stop sand-mining projects, but Chippewa County Circuit judges threw both out, ruling the zoning laws were invalid without County Board approval.

Cooks Valley took its case to the state Court of Appeals, where officials argued they had enacted a regulatory ordinance, not a zoning ordinance. The appellate court said the matter required further clarification from the state Supreme Court, which has not yet announced whether it will take the case.

After being contacted by constituents in her western Wisconsin district where mines are springing up, Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, asked the nonpartisan Legislative Council for clarification on what local communities can do to regulate them. The council determined that zoning is the most direct option, but it cannot be applied after plans for mining are under way.

Vinehout says she’s seeking ideas from residents and other states about regulating nonmetallic mines.

“I think everybody is very interested in economic development,” Vinehout says, “but we’re very concerned about losing our environmental resources.”

Six Republican legislators who have frac-sand operations in their districts were contacted, but didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sand falls at a frac sand washing plant near Oakdale in Monroe County in July. The plant, operated by Proppant Specialists, an affiliate of FracTech Services of Brady, Texas, separates silica sand from waste particles in preparation for transport. One resident says sand dust from the plant often blows into her yard and her home. Jason Smathers/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Tunnel City girds for a fight

Soon after residents began raising concerns about Unimin’s proposed Tunnel City mine and processing plant, the company rented out the Greenfield Town Hall for a forum to unveil its plans to the community.

Even before the July 6 presentation began, resident Will Koukios was telling members of the overflow crowd of more than 100 what would happen. He said the picturesque rolling hills, tree farms and country houses in the town of 700, which includes Tunnel City, would be cleared for a strip mine, whose stream of trucks, noise and dust would make residents’ lives miserable and their homes worthless.

Koukios alerted some in attendance that Midwest Environmental Advocates, a nonprofit legal center in Madison, had agreed to take their case. Anyone who wanted to be represented could sign up.

One resident interjected, “But we haven’t listened to anything yet.”

“That’s a very good point,” Unimin’s Bradley said as he nodded toward the woman.

Most of the residents listened intently during the first half-hour of the meeting. Unimin representative Steve Groening laid out the plan: Unimin had purchased several hundred acres of land over the past month and a half under a newly created entity, Eagle Land Investments — a tactic used, Groening says, to keep its interest secret from competitors, not the townspeople. He also said the company planned to buy more land in the area.

While Groening cautioned that everything was “preliminary,” he said the plan was to build a frac-sand mine and a $100 million processing plant between unincorporated Tunnel City and the Fort McCoy military training center.

In contrast to other mines in the area, he said, the Tunnel City mine would be unobtrusive. The land would be reclaimed as mining progresses. According to the company’s reclamation plan, no more than 150 acres would be disturbed at any one time. The company would not mine into the water table. And the processing plant would be completely enclosed to reduce noise and dust.

“We can sleep at night knowing that we do things right and don’t leave people high and dry,” Bradley said.

Suspicion mounts

But as the meeting continued, residents began asking a series of pointed questions. They expressed concern about sand getting into their wells. Others worried about noise, health and potential depletion of water springs.

Unimin officials attempted to allay their fears, saying the scenarios they described would not happen. They said the company was the most conscientious of the sand-mining entities pouring into Wisconsin.

“If Unimin were to walk away today, I am certain, without a doubt, there will be other sand companies that come and look that come and try to set up,” Unimin vice president Chuck Collins said. “We’re No. 1 in the industry in frac sand … we’ll continue to be with or without a plant here. The next company that comes along will not be No. 1.”

Days before the meeting, Koukios and his neighbor, Tim Harmon, had confronted Greenfield Town Chairman Stephen Witt about why he had not alerted residents to the project. Witt acknowledges he knew about the mining company’s plans as early as June 16, when his own mother told him that she’d been asked to sell her property. But Witt said he agreed not to widely publicize their plans until Unimin was ready to make its announcement.

“If anybody has the responsibility to inform us,” Koukios says, “it’s him.”

Witt says after he heard about Unimin’s plans, he spoke with company representatives and took a tour of its processing plant near Mankato, Minn. He was impressed by the operation, saying the company appears to do a good job.

Witt’s mother and brother ended up selling their properties to Unimin, prompting some residents to question whether Witt had a conflict of interest as town board chairman. Witt acknowledges that he is the administrator of his mother’s estate but says he’s never looked at the will to see whether he would benefit. He also says town attorney Rick Radcliffe has advised him there is no conflict of interest. As far as Witt’s concerned, he’s representing the Greenfield voters as best he can.

Monroe County Supervisor Gail Chapman also has been approached to sell his land. He says he has made no decision yet.

“Our farm has been in the family for … 120-some years,” Chapman says. “I think that our family will not sell that for that purpose, but it’s my thinking anyway.”

Workers are busy building a sand processing plant in July near Chippewa Falls. The plant, operated by Canadian Sand and Proppants, is one of dozens of operations popping up across central and western Wisconsin to mine and process fine sand for hydraulic fracturing. Julie Strupp/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Little study on silica effects

While all types of silica sand in Wisconsin produce airborne particles, the freshly fractured silica that comes from mining operations can be particularly dangerous, at least in a workplace setting, says Pierce, the UW-Eau Claire professor.

The problem, he says, is that most of the studies on crystalline silica exposure are based on its effect on miners and manufacturing employees.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reported 75 deaths in Wisconsin between 1996 and 2005 from silicosis, primarily among workers in manufacturing, construction and mining. The number is based on workers’ compensation claims, hospital data, death certificate information and reports from health-care providers.

Pierce says with the proliferation of mining operations, the risk of exposure outside the workplace becomes a greater concern.

“The analogy I like to use is secondhand smoke,” Pierce says. “We know people that are exposed to second-hand smoke increase their risk, but there are confounding factors. Folks who live near a sand processing facility (that) have asthma already, they have an immune system that’s impaired … it’s difficult to prove cause and effect.”

In late 2010, the DNR’s draft report on the health effects of silica acknowledged the possible dangers of long-term exposure. The agency found that just five states regulate silica outside the workplace, primarily by requiring facilities such as mines to control dust and particulate emissions. Only Texas and California have the authority to require specific monitoring for crystalline silica, the study found.

The DNR report concluded that the agency lacked the expertise and resources to conduct air monitoring for silica, especially since so little is known about the risk it poses outside the workplace.

“In summary, limited ambient air data is available in the U.S. for crystalline silica,” the report said, “and no monitoring data exists in Wisconsin.”

In the town of Greenfield, the town board met July 25 and authorized Witt and Radcliffe to begin negotiating with Unimin over land use issues, including protecting the town’s roads. The town also formed an advisory committee to explore options for zoning, in order to protect the town if another mine company comes in. A follow-up meeting is scheduled for Aug. 8.

While Unimin’s plans still draw heated words from some community members, Webster, for one, is confident Unimin will do right by her — and Tunnel City.

“I was in business for a number of years, so I learned to be a little hard, cynical,” Webster says. “I don’t feel as though I’m easily taken in … I really do think we’re dealing with a company that has some honor.”

Jason Smathers can be reached at jsmathers@wisconsinwatch.org. Reporters Julie Strupp and Lauren Hasler contributed to this report.

Wisconsin refinery using dangerous chemical, despite safer alternatives

WisconsinWatch — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:00:32 +0000

Bob Oswskey, a plant operator, reaches to drain a level indicator on a desulfurization unit at Murphy Oil. The company is using hydrogen fluoride as a catalyst to produce high-octane gasoline, despite the availability of safer alternatives. Courtesy of Duluth News Tribune.

About this story

This investigation of Murphy Oil’s chemical use is part of a joint national investigation produced by ABC News and the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity.

The national story will appear on television tonight, Feb. 24, on ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer and Nightline.

CPI story: “Use of Toxic Acid Puts Millions at Risk.”
ABC story: “Deadly Chemical and Dismal Safety Records Put Millions Living Near Refineries at Risk.”

By Lauren Hasler
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

A Wisconsin oil refinery that has been cited for numerous serious safety problems continues to use a dangerous chemical that a union and advocacy groups say puts workers and nearby residents at unnecessary risk.

Murphy Oil USA Inc. in Superior, Wis., is one of 50 refineries nationwide using hydrofluoric acid, commonly known as HF. Explosions and other accidents involving the corrosive, toxic chemical have killed and injured refinery workers, according to a collaborative investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization in Washington, D.C., ABC News and the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

In its own risk management plan, mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Murphy Oil calculated the worst-case scenario: A low-hanging cloud of HF could travel 25 miles — which could envelop Superior and Duluth, Minn. — and put 180,000 people in the Twin Ports area at risk of injury or death.

“We see it as a national security issue,” said Bruce Speight, director of the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit public advocacy organization, in response to the investigation’s findings. “It goes beyond state lines: If an accident were to happen at the Murphy refinery, it wouldn’t only affect Wisconsin residents.”

Federal safety inspectors at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2008 cited Murphy Oil for 35 violations — including 33 classified as “serious” and one as “willful,” which came with the largest proposed fine of $63,000, according to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism review of OSHA records. When the company agreed to pay a $179,100 penalty, the willful violation was relabeled as “unclassified.”

At least 10 of the violations dealt with the alkylation unit, where hydrofluoric acid is used as a catalyst to refine high-octane gasoline.

Refinery manager David Podratz said Murphy Oil recently underwent a safety audit of its alkylation unit. He referred most questions to Murphy Oil USA Inc.’s corporate office in El Dorado, Ark., which did not respond to multiple phone messages this week.

A toxic, corrosive acid

A third of the nation’s 148 petroleum refineries use HF despite the availability of safer alternatives, putting at least 16 million Americans at risk, the investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and ABC News found. Industry groups say switching to safer chemicals can cost $50 million to $150 million per refinery.

Exposure to HF can cause serious lung damage, burns, and damage to eyes — even death.

That’s what happened in a 1987 accident at the Marathon Oil Corp. refinery in Texas City, Texas, when a crane accidentally dropped its load onto a storage tank, releasing a cloud of between 30,000 and 50,000 pounds of HF and isobutane, a fuel used in camp stoves.

According to the EPA, 85 square blocks and 4,000 residents were evacuated. No one died, but more than 1,000 residents went to the hospital with reports of skin, eye, nose, throat and lung irritation. Trees and vegetation in the cloud’s path were damaged.

It doesn’t take thousands of pounds of HF to worry communities. The city of Torrance, Calif., sued Mobil Oil Corp. after its refinery there accidentally released 100 pounds of HF in a 1987 explosion and 17-hour fire, weeks after Marathon’s Texas City incident. Six workers were injured; the HF did not leave the refinery grounds. The company, now Exxon Mobil Corp., settled in 1990 and agreed to use a safer form of HF.

According to Murphy Oil’s risk management plan, the Superior refinery has a maximum capacity of 81,000 pounds of hydrofluoric acid. The refinery is located within a half-mile of homes. Experiments conducted in the mid-1980s showed the chemical can be lethal nearly two miles from its point of release.

Kim Bro, a Washburn, Wis., consultant who advises on environmental risks, said the danger of an HF release at Superior appears to be “a low-likelihood but significant effect if it were to occur.”

But in context, he added, “It’s just one aspect of a pretty dirty business,” referring to the refining industry’s use of high temperatures, flammable materials and toxic chemicals.

And this industrialized area of northern Wisconsin has many other health hazards, he added. In one well-publicized case in 1992, a Burlington Northern railroad tank car derailed, dumping benzene, a hazardous chemical, into the Nemadji River and forcing 50,000 people to flee a toxic cloud.

Refineries go to great lengths to protect their personnel from HF contact. Prior to entrance to an HF alkylation unit, personnel must have special training and wear various levels of personal protective clothing (depending upon the work to be performed). The unit is generally cordoned off and marked as an HF hazard area. Valves, flanges, and any place where leaks can occur are painted with a special paint that will change colors when contacted with HF. The units are continuously monitored and alarms are activated if an HF leak is detected.

— 1996 EPA report, “Study of Selected Petroleum Residuals”

A ‘willful’ safety violation

When OSHA regulators inspected Murphy Oil in 2007, they cited unmarked valves in the alkylation unit, the proximity of one structure to a “caustic, propane and butane source,” and a pipe carrying hydrofluoric acid that was too old and likely should have been replaced.

In the most serious violation — classified as “willful” — safety inspectors found deactivated alarms in the alkylation unit.

“Willful” is one of OSHA’s worst labels, meaning inspectors found evidence of intentional violation of the law or plain indifference to it.

Malfunctioning alarms were blamed for failing to alert operators to dangers at BP’s refinery in Texas City in 2005, leading to an explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170 others.

That and other refinery disasters led the EPA to inspect dozens of refineries.

Responding to the 2007 inspection at Murphy Oil, refinery manager Podratz acknowledged to the Houston Chronicle in 2008 that some alarms at the plant had been disconnected.

Podratz told the newspaper the alarms were considered a nuisance because they went off when some control room doors were opened. He told the Chronicle the alarms should have been modified instead of disconnected.

This week, however, Podratz said that he couldn’t remember any specifics about that inspection related to hydrofluoric acid.

According to the OSHA inspection records, 24 of the violations were for “process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals.” Those standards are supposed to prevent or minimize the consequences of dangerous chemical releases.

United Steelworkers, a union representing 30,000 refinery workers nationwide, has urged refineries to phase out HF. One alternative is “modified HF,” a blend that causes the acid to fall to the ground in a safer liquid form if released.

Podratz said the company has looked into alternatives, but decided to stay with HF. He declined to offer specifics, referring questions to the corporate office.

Aerial photo of Murphy Oil USA

Official: Refinery ‘very good about reporting’

Keith Kesler, director of emergency management, communications and general services for Douglas County, which includes Superior, says Murphy Oil has always promptly notified him of safety issues at the refinery. “They’re very good about reporting, even if they just spill a little gasoline,” said Kesler, who has held the position for 11 years.

Murphy Oil held public meetings when its EPA Risk Management Plan was released. And Podratz said company officials meet with a community advisory panel each month to talk about operations.

“Certainly, we’ve tried to keep the community aware of what’s going on here,” he said.

Murphy Oil contributes about $100 million in salaries and services to the local economy, and it’s also among the largest property taxpayers in Douglas County. The company last year told local officials that the Superior refinery is up for sale.

Murphy Oil is a relatively small refinery about two miles from Lake Superior. The company employs 156 people at the 35,000-barrel-per-day plant, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Murphy Oil Corp., a publicly held company, has owned the Superior refinery since 1958.

In 2007, the company unveiled a $6 billion expansion plan that would have more than doubled the Superior refinery’s capacity, to convert tar sands oil from Canada into gasoline. It would have been Wisconsin’s largest private construction project ever, but it was shelved in 2010 when demand for refined gas products in the U.S. declined.

Advocates urge safer alternatives

Advocates such as Speight say it’s time for the remaining refineries to make the switch to HF alternatives.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a federation of state advocacy groups including Speight’s organization in Wisconsin, is pushing to reintroduce federal legislation this year that would require companies to use safer alternatives to dangerous chemicals when available.

“If there’s a safer alternative, we should use it, we shouldn’t put the public at risk,” Speight said. “It’s just so commonsense.”

Melissa Malott, water program director of Clean Wisconsin, an environmental advocacy organization, agreed.

Malott said companies “have an obligation to minimize the risk of harm of their operations. Oil refineries threaten public and environmental health and need to make sure they are using safe alternatives to dangerous chemicals whenever possible.”

The Duluth News Tribune contributed to this report. The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication and other news media.

Deer, coyotes and turkeys, oh my!

Kate Golden — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 06:01:23 +0000

"We thought we missed him. And then we heard the clunk," Merrill resident Karen Drost says of the July 28, 2010 collision of a Cessna 210 piloted by her husband, Doug, with a deer at the Shell Lake airport in northwestern Wisconsin. The plane, not shown, received $12,000 in damage. Photo courtesy of Xai Kha/Wausau Daily Herald.

National coverage

Aviation database reveals frequent safety problems at airports Feb. 17, 2011: Summary of our collaborative investigation of NASA data

SIDEBAR

Smash hits: Pilots’ close encounters with large wildlife

Interviews and government databases recount dramatic stories of wildlife-plane collisions in Wisconsin. Frequent motifs: Animals that come out of nowhere or head toward the plane. Click to expand each example below.
— Kate Golden and Allie Tempus

“Had started my takeoff roll when at least three deer ran onto the runway. I immediately closed the throttle, applied brakes and full back on the yoke. The airplane skidded though I maintained directional control. One deer passed under my left wing. At the end of the skid, the airplane tipped forward, causing the propeller to contact the runway and the airplane rested on the prop. Afterwards I learned that it has happened several times when deer have been on the runway. I believe the brush and grass should be removed or mowed for some distance from the runway. Further, a tall fence may help.”

— Source: Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) anonymous report, February 1995, at Blackhawk Airfield, 10 miles east of Madison. The FAA directory still warns pilots of deer, turkeys, brush and trees.

“Hit 2 deer. Nose gear doors both curled back on leading edges, left main landing gear door was ripped off hinges, right wing leading edge dented, right wing flap buckled beyond repair … radome (radar enclosure in nose of plane) cracked and damaged; had to be replaced.”

— FAA Wildlife Strike Database account of a January 2001 hit involving a Learjet at Reedsburg Municipal Airport that caused $110,000 in damage.

Plane vs. coyote: coyote loses

“Coyote was seen on left side of runway during landing rollout. Coyote darted to the right and was struck by the nose gear. No damage, just a big mess to clean up. This could have been more serious if there were more than one coyote or if we were departing.”

— ASRS report of a July 1996 incident at Waukesha County Airport.

Turkeys, en masse, make bad decision

“Just after takeoff, 20-25 turkeys suddenly appeared just above the runway from left to right. Three were hit, mostly by strut and leading edge of wing.”

— FAA report of a September 2004 incident at Adams County Legion Field.

Deer punches hole in airplane wing

“We were landing, we never even saw the thing. We heard it. … He hit the plane lights. We were on the ground, and it was dark out. We got back to the hangar … and I thought, ‘Boy, something doesn’t look right on the flap.’ … It had punched a hole on the wing and then it must’ve hit the ground and bounced up and came up on the flap. … The propeller got (the deer) and it basically decapitated it. … We didn’t even know it was deer, because it happened so quick. We had thought it was geese.”

— Interview with Jim Retzlaff, West Bend Municipal Airport manager, on a collision with two deer about 10 years ago

Instructor takes over plane in a hurry

“I was flying with a customer. … I was the instructor pilot with him. And out of the corner of my eye, I caught two deer charging right at the airplane at dusk as we landed. And the pilot flying actually didn’t see the deer — they were coming up my side of the aircraft. So I took over control of the airplane and told him, ‘I have the airplane.’ … I tried to avoid them, missed one of them but got the other one.”

— Jeff Baum, Watertown Municipal Airport manager, on a crash there about six years ago

Large wildlife pose persistent, under-reported danger to Wisconsin pilots

By Kate Golden and Allie Tempus
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Just as Doug Drost was landing at the Shell Lake airport, his wife, Karen Drost, saw something hurtling out of the darkness toward their Cessna 210. Something big. “Deer, deer, deer!” she screamed.

“He just came running full bore,” she said. “It’s not like a car, where you can hit your brakes. We thought we missed him. And then we heard the clunk.”

That July 28, 2010 hit on the northwestern Wisconsin runway — which caused $12,000 in damage — is a story that plays out over and over in this increasingly deer-ridden country.

Since the “Miracle on the Hudson” emergency landing of a U.S. Airways jet two years ago, the danger that birds pose to aircraft has become common knowledge nationwide. Pilots report thousands of bird strikes a year.

But there’s a lesser-known threat from other wildlife, and it varies from state to state: Texas has a bat problem, while Florida pilots have hit dozens of turtles and alligators. In Wisconsin, it’s deer.

Deer strikes are comparatively rare, but when deer and aircraft do collide, look out. In Alabama in 2001, a Learjet hit two deer and burst into flames, injuring both pilots.

Nationally, deer strikes accounted for about 10 percent of the hits that caused substantial damage to a plane since 1990, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Wildlife Strike Database.

By contrast, in Wisconsin, 54 percent of the reported crashes causing substantial damage involved deer. The others were mostly geese and gulls.

In all, there were 50 deer strikes or near-misses accounting for just 4 percent of all 1,155 wildlife incidents in the state since 1990. Yet the deer collisions accounted for two-thirds of all reported damage costs.

Airport managers often use noisemakers like these "screamers" and "bangers" to scare large wildlife off the runways. Kate Golden/WCIJ

Airport managers all over Wisconsin said deer and other large animals, including coyotes and turkeys, have been a persistent problem over the years.

For some managers, wildlife on the runway is their number-one safety concern. They’ve resorted to sharpshooters, cannons, even a bushel of apples outside the airport fence. Tall fencing, a more permanent solution, is costly — and sometimes isn’t added until after a big accident has already happened.

“At all airports, virtually all airports, you always have to be on the lookout for wildlife,” said pilot and Watertown Municipal Airport Manager Jeff Baum, one of the 15 airport managers interviewed for this report. “Personally, I’ve hit deer, I’ve hit fox, I’ve hit pheasants, I’ve hit geese, ducks.”

Ed Simpson, manager of the Camp Lake airport in Kenosha County, said, “In rutting season, it (deer) is probably the highest risk. When they’re running around in love, they don’t watch things.”

Deer strikes: Damaging, and under-reported

Over the past few decades, air traffic has risen while the U.S. deer population has more than doubled.

One-third of Wisconsin’s 133 public airports are listed in FAA records with standing warnings about deer in the area. The Burnett County Airport in Siren lists bear as one of the wildlife hazards.

“Probably the most dangerous issues we face here are animals,” said Mike McCord, manager of the Clintonville Municipal Airport in Waupaca County.

Yet most wildlife strikes are never reported to FAA’s voluntary database, researchers say.

Articles (PDF):

Wildlife Strikes to Civil Aircraft in the United States (1990 – 2008) September 2009
Deer on airports: An accident waiting to happen 1998

The FAA estimates 61 percent of strikes aren’t reported. General-aviation airports, which serve smaller aircraft, are thought to have the lowest rate of reporting — and are the most common type of airport in deer-dense areas of Wisconsin.

For instance, in March 1999, a small business aircraft hit a herd of deer at dusk at Superior’s Richard I. Bong Airport, causing $8,000 in damage. The account said it was the sixth deer strike there in the past 10 years. But it’s the only one listed in the FAA database.

Johnson Insurance Service Vice President Jeff Rasmussen said his company, which insures about 15 percent of the registered aircraft in Wisconsin, gets one or two claims each year for damage from wildlife strikes.

Oregon, Wis., resident Jeff Skiles co-piloted the 2009 U.S. Airways flight that landed dramatically in the Hudson River after geese flew into its engines. But he says he's never encountered deer on Wisconsin runways. Allie Tempus/WCIJ

Wisconsin pilots know to take an extra pass at certain airports to see what might be running across the tarmac. But that strategy is not infallible, as Ron Purvis knows.

Over the years, the Boyceville-based pilot has hit two deer, a turkey and an eagle, the latter two with student pilots at the controls.

And recently, he said, “Three deer ran across from us, and we slid to a stop. We ended up crossways across the runway. … Once that happens, you’re just along for the ride.”

Few wildlife strikes are as dramatic as what Jeff Skiles, the Oregon, Wis., co-pilot of the “Miracle on the Hudson” flight, experienced. A flock of geese flew into the U.S. Airways jet engines in January 2009, forcing the pilots and their 155 passengers to land on the water in New York City.

Closer to home, Skiles said, he’s never seen any deer on the small airport where he keeps his personal plane. “I’ve never known anybody that ran into a deer, either,” he said.

Waukesha County Airport Manager Keith Markano keeps a small pistol and a stash of noisemakers known as "screamers" and "bangers" in his airport truck, in case an errant deer or coyote is seen on the runway. Kate Golden/WCIJ

Screamers, bangers and fences

Airport managers from many small airports said they periodically hop in their trucks and drive down runways to scare off wildlife before clearing a plane to land. Even then, the pesky animals sometimes wander right back on.

Managers have developed quite an arsenal to deal with them.

Many have pyrotechnic noisemakers, shot out of a small pistol, known as “screamers” and “bangers.” Some use remote-controlled cannons. With permits, they also can shoot wildlife. Sharpshooters have taken 85 deer from the Portage Municipal Airport over the past decade, manager John Poppy said.

Most of these options require people to be present at the airport. But small airports and airstrips sometimes are unattended, leaving pilots to wait out or scare off the deer themselves.

Fences, though expensive, are the best defense.

“Our fencing has done wonders,” said McCord of Clintonville, which got a $275,000 fence in 2002. “Before that, the wildlife could come and go as they pleased.”

But many small airports and airstrips in Wisconsin are unfenced — sometimes by choice, to make them welcoming to the community, and sometimes because of cost.

Poppy said he can set his watch by the turkeys that cross the unfenced Portage airport runway twice a day. The airport has seen several strikes — Poppy himself once had to swerve around deer after touching down. But because the city plans to build a new airport, the current facility probably won’t be getting a fence, he said.

And those barriers are far from impenetrable. At Clintonville, the latest deer-aircraft collision was the day after Thanksgiving.

Waukesha County Airport Manager Keith Markano used to see deer spring over the six-foot fence "like it was nothing." Last fall, the sections near deer habitat — which is seen on the right in December 2010 — were replaced with more deer-proof 10-foot fencing. Kate Golden/WCIJ

Mitigation may take years

For years, Waukesha County Airport Manager Keith Markano routinely saw deer hop over the 6-foot fence there “like it was nothing.”

In 1996, a Learjet pilot hit a coyote while landing at Waukesha and reported it to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System, where pilots anonymously log all sorts of safety problems. It was the first of two plane-coyote hits that day at Waukesha, the NASA safety analyst discovered.

Just outside the Waukesha County Airport fence in December 2010, fresh snow reveals many a deer track. Kate Golden/WCIJ

The pilot complained that “coyotes and deer have been a problem at this airport for many years” and speculated that “it will take a major accident to get any action.”

Last fall, Waukesha finally replaced some of its short fence with 10-foot-tall sections, at least in the spots where airport meets deer habitat.

Markano is pleased. He said animals have been scarce on the grounds since the taller fence went in. But he knows that no matter how tall the fence is, the coyotes could still dig under it.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Television, Wisconsin Public Radio, the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication, and other news media. Kate Golden is at kgolden@wisconsinwatch.org.

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Deer, coyotes and turkeys, oh my!

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National coverage

SIDEBAR

Smash hits: Pilots’ close encounters with large wildlife

Large wildlife pose persistent, under-reported danger to Wisconsin pilots