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Let Dnr Protect Lakes, Rivers
Wisconsin State Journal :: OPINION :: A8
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Melissa K. Scanlan
When the
Legislature raised the issue of whether to suspend the state Department of
Natural Resources emergency rules under the so-called Jobs Creation Act,
it faced a larger question:
Should the lawmakers protect our thousands of lakes, rivers and streams under the Public Trust Doctrine, or should they cater to the clanging noise of private interests?
Unfortunately, with their vote to suspend the DNR rules, they've made the wrong decision.
Wisconsinites are concerned about protecting the state's heritage of beautiful lakes, rivers and streams. Those public waters are at the heart of our $11-billion-dollar tourism economy, not to mention our investments in waterfront property and the money we spend enjoying those beautiful waters. When the industry groups drafted the bill that would later become the Jobs Creation Act, many Wisconsin residents were concerned the bill had little to do with creating jobs and instead would simply gut Wisconsin's longstanding tradition of protecting public waters.
Legislative leaders and Gov. Jim Doyle publicly promised that the law would not lower water standards and that the DNR's rules would merely "streamline" regulations while ensuring that the public trust would be protected.
The DNR's emergency rules were an attempt to give life to those promises not to lower standards. The rules would allow the DNR oversight so that multiple competing individual uses of our public waters can be moderated. That means no one individual would be allowed to degrade public property and harm the others who live on and use the same lake or river.
The rules would also protect parts of lakes and streams that contain "public rights features," such as fish and wildlife habitat, high water quality, natural scenic beauty and navigation. The DNR's emergency rules would ensure that activities on these lakes and streams are not completely exempt from regulation but instead would need general and individual permits.
That is, the DNR simply wants to review plans for construction on the shores of our public waters to ensure that the public's right to continued use of these waters for recreation and navigation will be protected, and that the Public Trust Doctrine will be upheld.
Those who are in favor of harming our lakes and rivers complain that the DNR rules will give protections to one-half, or even three-quarters of the waters of the state. A better complaint would be why the other half is not being protected. We should not have lists of waters that will be protected and others that won't. Under the Public Trust Doctrine, the state should be protecting all waters.
The Public Trust Doctrine is in our state constitution and stands for a simple proposition: the waters of Wisconsin belong to the people of Wisconsin and our elected leaders have a sworn duty to protect those waters for us and for future generations.
The Legislature's vote to suspend the DNR's rules was a vote to harm public waters, a blow to Wisconsin's $11 billion tourism industry, and yet another insult to an already underfunded and short-staffed DNR. Our elected officials should be ashamed of their attempt to block the DNR's efforts to protect our public waters and of its blatant disregard for the Public Trust Doctrine.
\ Scanlan is executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates, a nonprofit environmental law center in Madison.