Tom Power, a Montana-based consultant, speaks Wednesday at the Auburn Town Hall about the benefits and costs of mining operations. A Superior Silica sand mine is in the background. Chris Vitter/Leader-Telegram

By Kate Prengaman
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Frac sand mining’s impact on job creation in Wisconsin’s sandy areas will be minimal, and communities must account for its potential economic drawbacks, according to a new report.

Economic impact studies “almost always quantify only what are labeled benefits: additional jobs, payrolls, and tax revenues to governments,” says the report, released Wednesday by Power Consulting, Inc, a Montana-based consulting firm that specializes in natural resources analysis.

Citing examples like an economic impact report from Wood County last year, the report says “costs associated with frac-sand production are rarely discussed in these studies.”

The report was commissioned by the Wisconsin Farmers Union, a family farming advocacy group; Wisconsin Towns Association, a nonpartisan association representing town and village governments; and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minnesota-based sustainable food, farm and trade research and advocacy organization.

Frac sand mining has surged in Wisconsin since 2010, from a handful of sites to more than 100 permitted facilities, driven by a spike in demand from oil and gas drillers in other states who use the sand in the process of hydraulic fracturing.

The mining has divided residents across western Wisconsin — those excited about new jobs and tax revenue against those concerned about potential health, environmental and other impacts.

Frac sand job creation will have “little impact” on the overall employment picture in sand-rich western Wisconsin, the Power report says.

The report recommends that communities ask companies proposing projects how many of the mining jobs will be filled locally, how market volatility for oil and gas could affect the long term economic prospects, and if mining might discourage or displace other economic activities.

But Rich Budinger, the president of the Wisconsin Industrial Sand Association, attacked the report’s conclusions.

“The report released today is the product of a paid consultant who is routinely critical of mining and whose clients frequently have an anti-mining bias. Its conclusions must be considered with that in mind,” Budinger said in a news release.

Rich Budinger is the regional manager of Wisconsin Industrial Sand Company, and the president of the Wisconsin Industrial Sand Association. Credit: Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Nearly all of the jobs created by the industry in Wisconsin are filled locally, he said. Outside contractors may come in for specialized construction, but after that, most of the employees at WISA’s five member companies live within a 45-mile radius of the facilities.

Budinger said that many of the mines being developed in Wisconsin are long-term investments.

“There is a constant need for industrial minerals,” Budinger said. “As long as we are managing our resources sustainably, this can continue for decades.”

Tom Quinn, executive director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said that the groups sponsoring the study wanted an “independent analysis” to help communities sort through the complex economic impacts of frac sand mining.

“If this industry is going to be a positive part of this community, we need to ask these questions,” Quinn said.

The report says that mining companies often promise local governments significant economic benefits, but historically, mining “has rarely laid the basis for sustained prosperity.”

Job benefits in context

The report provides context to previous job estimates from an oil and gas industry-sponsored report and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, which put the direct impact of the frac sand industry in Wisconsin between 2,300 and 2,800 jobs. The total job creation is comparable to the average number of jobs Wisconsin has added each month for the past 20 years, according to the report.

Budinger said he believes any job creation is a positive. Report author Tom Power doesn’t buy that argument.

“If there are costs involved, you can’t just say that one job is a positive,” Power said. “In terms of measuring the benefits and costs, quantity matters. … It’s a weighing of the two.”

Calculating the costs of frac sand mining remains easier said than done. Increased road maintenance costs and changes to property values near mine sites can be quantified, but Power said officials don’t yet have a good handle on what the environmental costs might be.

“Is this going to fundamentally change the character of the landscape that is in conflict with what western Wisconsin has always represented?” Power said. “Will we be able to stop this if we are headed to a scale that is unacceptable?”

Frac sand mining could jeopardize western Wisconsin’s existing “economic vitality,” the report says, if other businesses and homeowners decide to relocate because mining reduces the region’s appeal.

“It’s hard to measure quality of life impacts,” Quinn said. “But we need to recognize that the economy we have here is significantly based on our quality of life.”

Budinger said that mining doesn’t have to be at odds with quality of life, if the community and mine work together to address concerns.

“As long as it’s done responsibly, it’s going to have tremendous economic benefits,” Budinger said.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, 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.

Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project director

Some campaign promises build in a bit of wiggle room. The one made by candidate for governor Scott Walker to “Strip policy and pork projects from the state budget” did not.

This unequivocal pledge, posted on Walker’s campaign website, committed the candidate to eschewing both parties’ longstanding practice of using the budget to make policy changes and reward special interests.

In April 2011, less than four months into Walker’s term, the truth-testers at PolitiFact Wisconsin branded this a broken promise. It noted that the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau had identified dozens of non-fiscal items in the governor’s budget repair bills and first biennial budget.

Walker’s latest executive budget, for 2013-15, included what the Fiscal Bureau identified as 58 policy items and 15 pieces of pork — that is, expenditures or breaks with specific beneficiaries. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee removed only a dozen policy items.

Spokesman Tom Evenson, asked if the governor had a change of heart about his campaign vow, said in an email that Walker has turned a $3.6 billion budget deficit into a projected $560 million surplus and made gains in job creation.

“We’re better off than we were two years ago, and sound fiscal management is allowing us to invest in our priorities and move Wisconsin forward,” Evenson wrote.

It’s hard to deny that Walker is doing pretty much exactly what he promised to stop. But that doesn’t mean the pork projects and policy items included in his budget are bad ideas.

Among the identified earmarks, a.k.a. pork, are $10.6 million for a Milwaukee facility to serve families affected by domestic violence, $5 million for a Wisconsin Maritime Center of Excellence in Marinette County, and a $1 million allocation to the Teach for America program.

Moreover, some items flagged as non-fiscal, including a program for expanded DNA collection, do involve budget allocations. The Fiscal Bureau acknowledges its list “always requires some subjective judgment” but says it applies consistent criteria, like whether an item “typically would be reviewed by a standing committee of the Legislature.”

Among other things, Walker’s budget would ease state regulation on rent-to-own companies, remove a ban on foreigners buying up large chunks of Wisconsin land, create a new charter school oversight board, disallow wolf hunting at night, and name a Milwaukee crime lab after a former Milwaukee County prosecutor.

Even some members of Walker’s own party think he’s gone too far.

“The governor campaigned on not having policy in the budget,” state Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Allouez, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “What happened to that promise?” His answer: “They pile things into the budget so they can hide them, and they don’t have to take responsibility for their action.”

One controversial policy item in Walker’s budget would bar local governments and school districts from imposing residency rules on their employees. This has been decried as a meddling attack on local control and as political payback to police and fire unions in Milwaukee that have supported Walker.

At a May 8 press conference in the state Capitol organized by the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett called the proposed change “horrible public policy” that could never pass as stand-alone legislation.

Another speaker, Beloit City Manager Larry Arft, said local communities want to make sure their employees are “sharing the destiny of the residents that are paying their salaries.” And Two Rivers City Manager Greg Buckley said it’s a good to have municipal workers living nearby “when the crap hits the fan or when it starts backing up in your basement.”

The Joint Finance Committee, meeting the next day, largely ignored such concerns. It kept intact the ban on residency rules while allowing only distance-based rules for certain emergency workers.

During that same meeting, the Finance Committee added a new non-fiscal budget provision — forbidding any municipality from banning the sale of large sugary drinks.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by The Joyce Foundation.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, 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.

Water samples from the popular Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, shown here in October 2012, contained a component of plastic, an antibacterial soap ingredient, an antibiotic used on swine, a breakdown product of cocaine, an antidepressant, a fungicide and a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease, according to one of two Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reports released Monday. Wisconsin's lakes have not undergone similar scrutiny. Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

By Kate Golden
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Minnesota researchers found 56 chemicals — including cocaine — in the state’s waters, according to two studies released today that raise questions about potential impacts on wildlife and human health.

Environmental experts said the discoveries in lakes, rivers and streams increase the pressure on Wisconsin to figure out what’s in its water. A key Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources official said that the state’s waters were likely also contaminated, but that the state had no money for such monitoring.

The chemicals were detected at trace amounts in 47 of 50 Minnesota lakes, including many in relatively pristine parts of the state.

Some of the most troubling chemicals are thought to be endocrine disruptors, which can block or act like hormones in people and wildlife. They are used in pharmaceuticals, personal care products and industrial processes, but are largely unregulated.

Cocaine, to the surprise of researchers, turned up in samples from a third of the state’s lakes. Another surprisingly common find was an antibiotic approved for use only on swine.

Along with Minnesota’s past work, the studies “suggest that PPCPs (pharmaceuticals and personal care products) and endocrine active chemicals are widespread in lakes and rivers, and that fish are likely altered on genetic, cellular, organism, and population levels when exposed to the chemicals that find their way into surface water from a variety of sources,” wrote Mark Ferrey, the Pollution Control Agency researcher who conducted the two studies.

Former Wisconsin DNR secretary George Meyer said the tests show that Wisconsin, which has not conducted similar studies on this scale, needs to develop a plan to figure out what’s in its water.

“It’s the old adage ‘If you don’t look, there’s not a problem,’ right?” said Meyer, now the executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, a sportsmen’s conservation group. “The public needs to know what’s in the water and what the significance of that is.”

Meyer said it was highly likely that Wisconsin’s lakes would show a similar chemical profile to Minnesota’s — and might show, he added, “possibly even a higher level of chemicals.”

“I think we should thank Minnesota for bringing some light to this issue,” said Melissa Malott, water program director of Clean Wisconsin, an environmental advocacy group. “It doesn’t in any way change my opinion that we should be doing something about this in Wisconsin.”

Minnesota has one of the nation’s most ambitious state-level testing programs for unregulated contaminants in surface waters.

The Minnesota agency’s statement did not speculate on potential human effects, which were beyond the scope of the study.

Experts say fish are more vulnerable to surface water pollution than people because they live in water, so they get more exposure. Previous Minnesota studies have documented endocrine disruption in fish from the Mississippi River and other contaminated waters.

But the chemicals are of growing concern to people, too: A United Nations report in February noted the rise in endocrine-related disorders like cancer, obesity, early puberty and infertility and identified widespread pollution as a “global threat” to wildlife and people.

Science on chemicals’ presence in the environment has exploded since a landmark 2002 U.S. Geological Survey study found them widespread in streams and groundwater susceptible to contamination.

But much of the science so far has focused on waters assumed to be polluted, like those receiving wastewater treatment plant effluent, while the waters in the two new Minnesota studies were chosen randomly. The studies also were unusual for the large number of samples, which can produce more statistically robust results.

“This study shows these compounds are out there, and that gives more supporting evidence that you should do these studies in other states,” said Dana Kolpin, the USGS scientist who led the 2002 study. “It wouldn’t be a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Questions remained, Kolpin said, about how septic systems, recreational water use, wastewater treatment plants and other sources each contributed to contamination.

Ferrey agreed and said that was the next step.

“Will we see correlations between land use and the appearance of the chemicals that we detected in these lakes or rivers?” Ferrey said. “We just haven’t done that kind of analysis yet.”

A warning for Wisconsin?

A Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism report published in April found that Wisconsin’s research on endocrine disruptors is poorly funded and loosely coordinated.

A January 2012 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources document identified pharmaceuticals and personal care products in surface waters as a concern due to their potential connection with the intersex fish that have been found in the Great Lakes and elsewhere.

“In an effort to be proactive and protective of humans and wildlife, Wisconsin should consider developing water quality standards for these pharmaceutical byproducts,” the report said, and noted that DNR needed more monitoring data “to determine the scale of this potential problem.”

Susan Sylvester, head of the DNR’s surface water bureau, said Monday she was “impressed” with the Minnesota report. And she agreed with Meyer that contamination in Wisconsin’s waters was likely similar.

“We think it’s out there,” Sylvester said. “But I don’t have a budget for monitoring for these chemicals right now.”

She added: “The question is, if we find it, what do we do with that information? We need to have a plan for what to do with it.”

But Meyer asked why, if Wisconsin lacked the funding, the DNR had not asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to fund such work, as Minnesota did.

“This is very concerning, and it shows that in fact the state has moved away from being a very proactive state in ensuring that our waterways and our fish and our citizens are being protected,” Meyer said.

Minnesota’s work, which cost $250,000 just for the tests, was funded in part by the EPA as well as a voter-approved sales tax that pours millions into a Clean Water Fund each year. The Pollution Control Agency has spent $1.8 million on endocrine disruptors research since 2008. The U.S. Geological Survey helped fund previous studies.

What’s in the lakes

The most commonly detected chemical was the insect repellent DEET, found in 76 percent of the lakes. That was expected and similar to earlier, smaller studies.

DEET’s effects on the environment at the concentrations found are “not known,” the report said.

Carbadox, an antibiotic approved for use only on swine, was in 28 percent of the lakes.

Minnesota has plenty of pigs, ranking third in hog production nationwide, according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. (Wisconsin ranks 18th.)

But many of the carbadox detections were nowhere near swine or other livestock facilities, which the report called “perplexing.”

“Whether this indicates that carbadox is being used for off-label purposes or if it is transported to lakes through unknown mechanisms is not clear,” the report said, adding that carbadox, a carcinogen, is banned in Canada and the European Union.

Potential endocrine disruptors found in Minnesota waters included:

• Bisphenol A (BPA), a component of plastic, in 43 percent of the lakes. BPA has been banned in sippy cups and baby bottles. It was originally developed as an estrogen.

• Nonylphenol, a byproduct of commonly used surfactants that acts like estrogen on lab animals, in 10 percent of the lakes.

• The hormone androstenedione, a precursor to estrogen and testosterone that is sometimes taken as a hormone supplement known as “andro,” in 30 percent of the lakes.

• Triclosan, a common disinfectant often found in antibacterial hand soaps, in 14 percent of the lakes. It has been found to break down into dioxins in surface waters; they can be highly toxic at tiny concentrations.

Antidepressants were commonly found in lakes, streams and rivers at concentrations that can change fish reproductive and predator-response behaviors. The most common was amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant or TCA whose brand names include Amitid, Elavil and Endep.

A third of the stream and river samples contained methyl parabens, preservatives used in food and cosmetics. Parabens are “not considered toxic, but are reportedly weakly estrogenic,” according to the study.

Concern about trace amounts

Cocaine just happened to be part of a broader suite of chemicals that were analyzed — but the illicit drug turned up in samples from a third of the state’s lakes.

There wasn’t enough cocaine in the water to get anyone high.

Most chemicals were detected at exceedingly low concentrations — in the low parts per trillion. One part per trillion is about a drop in 20 Olympic swimming pools. The most cocaine, for example, was found at 5.3 parts per trillion, in Norway Lake, about 100 miles west of Minneapolis.

These amounts may seem too small to be worrisome, but a growing body of research suggests that endocrine-disrupting chemicals can be potent at such concentrations. In 2007, Canadian researcher Karen Kidd showed that adding a common contraceptive at five parts per trillion caused the minnow population of a lake to collapse.

Cocaine’s source a mystery

It is still unclear how the chemicals got into the waters, Ferrey wrote, as well as whether they persist and accumulate in the environment.

Most are manmade, though some of the hormones are produced by wildlife. Wastewater treatment plants are “undoubtedly” one of the sources, the study said, “but this study suggests that there are other sources of these chemicals to our lake environment that are difficult to pinpoint or quantify.”

Shoreline residences are a likely source for many of the lakes, the study said.

European researchers have found cocaine recently in air and surface waters. United States researchers have done less on the topic but have found cocaine in sewage and biosolids or waters influenced by wastewater treatment plants, the report said.

The Minnesota report, apparently for the first time, found the drug in lakes that weren’t associated with wastewater treatment plants — or even public access.

That suggested an indirect route, the study said.

Ferrey hypothesized, from analyzing the ratio of cocaine to its metabolite — a chemical into which it degrades — that it came from people smoking crack cocaine or inhaling the powdered drug, and had been transported through the air via tiny particulate matter. European researchers earlier found cocaine in airborne particulates in urban environments.

Cocaine’s environmental effects are not well understood. It has been shown to accumulate in eels’ tissue and affect their endocrine systems at concentrations similar to those found in Minnesota lakes, and its breakdown product caused “notable adverse effects” in freshwater mussels at higher concentrations.

That concerned Malott of Clean Wisconsin, who noted that freshwater mussels are an important part of ecosystems.

“It makes you think about how do all these chemicals interact with each other, and how do they interact with other chemicals in the environment, like nutrients?” Malott said. “It’s pretty scary.”

This story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Fund for Environmental Journalism and The Joyce Foundation. The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, 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.

Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project director

It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Rebecca Blank, incoming chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Sure, the acting U.S. commerce secretary, set to start in July, will make $500,000 a year — plus benefits and perks including a university residence and car, money for travel and entertainment, and an unpaid academic appointment for her husband.

But she’ll be stepping into a host of controversies, drawing flak from all directions. As one UW-Madison student quipped, “Blank is not starting off with a blank slate.”

There’ll be ongoing fallout from some legislators’ volcanic eruptions over revelations that the UW System has a $648 million reserve fund. Though this is in line with other state systems, Wisconsin politicians are “disgusted.” Observers expect a two-year tuition freeze and the axing of some or all of the additional university funding proposed in Gov. Scott Walker’s 2013-15 budget.

The UW-Madison is also under fire over its ties to Palermo Villa of Milwaukee, which makes Palermo’s Pizza.

A strike was launched last June 1, days after about three-fourths of the factory’s 200 production workers signed a petition seeking to unionize. About 75 workers were fired when they were allegedly unable to verify their immigration work status; others were terminated for other reasons.

Around this time, Palermo’s inked a three-year, $600,000 deal under which its pizza is sold at Kohl’s Center and Camp Randall events, and promoted in those venues and elsewhere. A separate licensing agreement, which lets its pizzas be sold by Roundy’s under the Bucky Badger logo, has earned the university nearly $20,000 since 2010.

Students and others gather outside Bascom Hall on April 29 to protest the University of Wisconsin-Madison's ties to Palermo's Pizza. Bill Lueders/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Groups including the UW-Madison Student Labor Action Coalition are pressuring interim Chancellor David Ward to sever these ties. More than 10,000 names appear on an online petition to this effect.

The movement teems with youthful exuberance. The main website for the anti-Palermo’s campaign is called sliceofjustice.com. One of its rallying cries is “No justice. No piece.”

Last November, the UW-Madison Labor Codes Licensing Compliance Committee urged the university to move toward ending its contract. A report issued in February by the Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights monitoring organization that lists the UW-Madison as an affiliate, concluded that Palermo’s has “engaged in serious violations of worker rights.”

Palermo’s, in a statement, called the report “a work of fiction” created to punish the company for complying with federal immigration laws.

Last fall, the National Labor Relations Board dismissed allegations that the 75 workers were fired in retaliation for protected organizing activities. An appeal of this ruling was rejected in late April.

Ward trumpetedthis finding, saying that while the university continues to urge an end to the labor dispute, “we believe that cutting ties with Palermo’s at this time is not warranted based on the facts.”

Protesters display signs from the windows of Bascom Hall while occupying a reception area outside interim Chancellor David Ward's office on April 29. Bill Lueders/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

But Richard Saks, the Milwaukee attorney who lodged the complaint, notes that not all charges were dismissed. The NLRB, he says, “has been prepared to issue a complaint and prosecute Palermos for various other serious labor law violations.”

On April 29, a dozen protesters occupied a reception area outside Ward’s office for about three hours, until removed by police, while about 100 others rallied outside. They sang “Solidarity Forever” and chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Palermo’s contract’s got to go!”

One speaker, Scot McCullough of the UW-Oshkosh, reflected that college students like himself are in “a unique stage in our lives.” They won’t be denied a degree for speaking out; they aren’t beholden to employers who can use a paycheck to keep them in line.

“We’re free,” he told the crowd. “The question is, what do we do with that freedom?” The choices he outlined: Use it to benefit oneself, or try to help others.

That’s a good question for college students to ask, even if the answers they come up with make things difficult for the people who run universities.

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by The Joyce Foundation.

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, 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.

They’re getting jobs, no slight accomplishment in this market — and good ones.

And if you’re a student interested in an internship at the Center, learn more here.

Lexie Clinton: Video producer for NBC’s The Morning Joe in New York.
Sara Jerving: Working as a correspondent for Bloomberg in Tanzania; attending Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in the fall.
Jacob Kushner: Finishing a graduate journalism degree at Columbia after freelancing in Haiti and the Dominican Republic for the Associated Press, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and other outlets.
Alex Morrell: Worked in Idaho for the Associated Press and as a reporter at the Green Bay Press-Gazette; now finishing a graduate journalism degree at Columbia.
Alec Luhn: Worked for the Moscow Times for two years, now interning at The Nation.
Julie Strupp: Interned at Amnesty International; now a pundit for PolicyMic.
Allie Tempus: Interned at The Nation, now a research assistant for writer Naomi Klein.
Jason Smathers: Reporter for WisPolitics.com.
Nick Penzenstadler: Worked for a year as a daily reporter in South Dakota, now an Appleton-based reporter for the Gannett Wisconsin Media investigative team.
Amy Karon: Running a successful medical writing firm, Karon Medical Writing LLC.
Lukas Keapproth: Staff photographer for the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Sarah Karon: Spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union Wisconsin.
Mario Koran (completing internship at the Center in May 2013): Heading next to the 2013 Sharon Stark Investigative Internship at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a New York Times/National Association of Hispanic Journalists fellowship.
Kate Prengaman (completing internship at the Center in May 2013): Reporting for the Center through July on frac sand mining and stories for our Water Watch Wisconsin project.

Note to former interns: Keep in touch. We’re always interested in updates — and photos of yourselves in your new digs.

Dee J. Hall

Bob Dreps, a veteran media law attorney, says law enforcement agencies across Wisconsin are “overreacting” to an Illinois federal court ruling by purging the names of drivers from public records.

Police in Wisconsin have begun withholding the names of drivers in police reports in response to a 2012 case involving the village of Palatine, Ill. A lawsuit there  alleged that police violated drivers’ privacy rights by displaying names, addresses and other personal information on parking tickets left on windshields.

“The ability to have oversight over law enforcement is pretty minimal if you can’t find out who’s involved (in an incident),” Dreps says. “Without names, there’s no accountability.”

Dreps warns that this could lead to bizarre situations in which names of some alleged perpetrators, crime victims and witnesses are kept secret while others — those without driver’s licenses — appear in incident reports.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which includes Wisconsin, reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that the manner in which the citations were issued by Palatine police violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.

The federal law lets aggrieved parties go back four years and carries a mandatory $2,500 per incident fine. Palatine, which was sued by a class of drivers who received a total of 32,000 tickets, faces a potential $80 million fine. It has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dreps says the ruling is not binding in Wisconsin, and does not change the state’s Open Records Law. But some law enforcement agencies here are nonetheless blacking out information that was once routinely available. (Ironically, law enforcement agencies in Illinois do not seem to be doing the same.)

According to news reports, the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office, Wausau Police Department and more than a dozen police agencies in suburban Milwaukee now withhold personal information obtained through state Department of Motor Vehicle records — including the identities of people arrested.

Dreps says the federal law was aimed at preventing states from selling their drivers’ license database to vendors, not keeping the public from knowing the names of people in police reports.

“The case doesn’t have anything to do with public records,” Dreps says. “It has to do with parking tickets left on windshields.”

Dreps is representing the New Richmond News, which is challenging the decision of local police to remove names from two accident reports and a report involving the theft of gas from a Kwik Trip.

In a letter to the paper’s publisher, Steve Dzubay, New Richmond Police Chief Mark Samelstad said he wouldn’t put the city at risk “by releasing certain information to the public that has been restricted by state or federal courts.”

State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen issued an opinion in 2008 that Wisconsin law enforcement agencies do not violate the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act when they release records that contain drivers’ personal identification. But some agencies are no longer heeding that advice, and Van Hollen’s office now says it is waiting for the courts to clarify the Palatine decision.

On April 23, the lawsuit filed by Dreps on behalf of the New Richmond News was moved from St. Croix County Circuit Court to U.S. District Court in Madison.

Perhaps a federal judge or the U.S. Supreme Court will clear things up and allow police in Wisconsin to keep their black marking pens where they belong — in the drawer.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (www.wisfoic.org), a nonprofit group dedicated to open government. Dee J. Hall is a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal and secretary of the council.

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Bill Lueders, Money and Politics Project director

You can practically feel Patrick Durkin’s blood pressure rising, column after column. The Waupaca-based outdoor recreation writer has devoted more than a dozen of his weekly offerings since 2009 decrying what he feels is the state’s inadequate response to the threat posed to deer by chronic wasting disease, or CWD.

His April 21 column, carried in papers including the Wisconsin State Journal and Green Bay Press Gazette, looked at a CWD hot spot in north-central Iowa County near Spring Green. There, the annual growth rate for the fatal brain disease has reached 27 percent among deer 2½ years or older.

This finding, for the reporting year ending March 31, is “unprecedented,” “frightening” and “disturbing,” various experts told Durkin. He lambasted state policymakers and hunting groups for doing virtually nothing to stop it, or even to fund basic research.

“There’ll be no shortage of shame as this stench spreads,” Durkin warned.

Durkin, in an interview, unloads the other barrel. He notes that programs like Earn-A-Buck, meant to contain the spread of the disease, have been beaten back by politically connected groups like the Hunters Rights Coalition, made up of hunting and firearms advocates.

“These aren’t Wisconsin’s best scientific minds blowing this off,” Durkin fumes. “The best scientific minds are using words like ‘unprecedented’ and ‘frightening.’ ”

Politicians including Gov. Scott Walker have put the kibosh on CWD-eradication strategies seen as detrimental to herd size. And James Kroll, Walker’s deer trustee, has recommended “a more passive approach” to the disease.

Durkin thinks the state’s approach has already been too passive for too long.

Tami Ryan, the Department of Natural Resource’s wildlife health section chief, admits the agency’s efforts toward the goal of containing the disease have not succeeded. “There are objectives and actions in our CWD Response Plan that we have been unable to implement, and that’s due in part to social and political factors,” she says.

An analysis of CWD test results reported on the DNR’s website shows that the number of deer being tested has gone down while the rate of infection has gone up.

Between 2002 (the first full year after CWD was discovered in Wisconsin) and 2006, an average of more than 25,000 deer a year were tested. Between 2007 and 2012, the average was just over 8,000.

Meanwhile, the incidence of CWD-infected deer has risen steadily from .5 percent in 2002 to a 5 percent in 2012— a tenfold increase in 10 years.

Dave Clausen, a veterinarian who serves on the state‘s Natural Resources Board, expects this trend to continue. “All indications are that under current policy, CWD will continue to spread across the state and will increase in prevalence where it is established,” he wrote to the DNR in February.

This could have a potentially devastating impact on the state’s deer population — or worse. Scientists have not ruled out the possibility that CWD, caused by an infectious malformed protein known as a prion, could be transmitted to humans.

Richland County resident John Stauber, co-author of the 1997 book “Mad Cow U.S.A.,” which warned of this possibility, says state officials have “circled the wagons to make sure CWD was not perceived as a threat to human health.” He believes every dead deer should be tested statewide and no deer should be processed until it tests negative.

The DNR asserts that “CWD has never been shown to cause illness in humans,” but notes that public health officials advise against eating meat from CWD-infected deer. The agency has tracked hundreds of cases where this has occurred, and knows that there are many more. This behavior, according to Stauber, increases the risk that CWD will make the species jump to humans.

“If enough people are consuming affected deer, “ he says, “eventually you’re going to have a transmission.”

Bill Lueders is the Money and Politics Project director at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org). The project, a partnership of the Center and MapLight, is supported by The Joyce Foundation.

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