Posts Tagged ‘sprawl’

CARPC Comes Through for Clean Water

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Capitol Area Regional Plan Commission really came through for clean water in Dane County. (See message below from Stefi Harris.)

Many thanks to Western Dane County Coalition for Smart Growth & Environment and CRANES for all of their advocacy & research on this. And it even looks like Falk even kind of stuck her neck out on the issue!

-Mike

Mike,
Last Thursday 5-13-10 in a vote of 6 to 6, with one abstention, CARPC denied the City of Verona urban service request for 265 acres near the Sugar River and Badger Mill Creek, southwest of the city. Verona intended to eventually develop over 1500 acres in that area. Verona’s case has a long history. It asked the old Regional Planning Commission about six years ago for an urban sewer extension. Verona was told then that it would be problematic because of the sensitivity of the area to any kind of development. They were advised to get a study of environmental resources and impact of development on those resources for the entire 1700 acres north/northeast of the confluence of the Sugar River and Badger Mill completed before they apply again. That study was completed sometime in early 2009. It was done by Montgomery Associates. Verona paid them $90,000 for the work. I read it and actually studied it. In many places the authors minimize the value and importance of natural resources. They only talk about how environmental impacts can be mitigated by stormwater control structures. They do not discuss what could be done in case of failure of such structures.  They also refuse to discuss impacts of municipal groundwater withdrawals on streams and wetlands as well as the impacts of development on coldwater aquatic communities such as live in the Sugar river and Badger Mill Creek.
Kathleen Falk and her assistant Topf Wells came to talk to the Commission on Thursday. ( A copy of her speech to CARPC is below.)
The deliberations lasted three hours. CRANES and ourselves worked on Verona, on and off, for about 10 months from our two ends. On the way in we knew we had four sure votes. We needed six to prevail. But that was the best we could do.  It was sheer suspense from the beginning to the end. We just got lucky. We could have very easily  lost if deliberations took a slightly different course. But that is another story.
I thought you might be interested.
All the best.
Stefi
—– Original Message —–
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2010 9:20 AM
Subject: Memo below

5/14/10

The County Executive presented the testimony below to the CARPC Commission last night.

DATE:   May 13, 2010

TO:             Members, CARPC Commission

FROM:   Kathleen M. Falk
Dane County Executive

RE:             Verona USA Expansion Request
I respectfully ask that you vote to deny or substantially modify Verona’s request for an Urban Service Area expansion in the Upper Sugar and Badger Mill Creek corridors and watershed.

CARPC’s first and foremost responsibility is to protect water quality.  The more valuable, rare, and precious the resource, the higher degree of protection – that’s a common sense principle that just about everyone can agree to and CARPC should follow.

Other points of agreement are also, I think, clear.  The Upper Sugar River and Badger Mill Creek are valuable, rare, and precious resources.  Badger Mill Creek is a productive trout stream (and yes, I have fished it and even caught trout there) with wild and stocked populations of brown trout, located within a few minutes of rapidly growing neighborhoods in a major metropolitan area.  It also has great opportunities for further restoration and public use.  Public and private resources, lots of time and lots of money, have been devoted to Badger Mill Creek, (for example, dozens of volunteers from the Dane County Conservation League and Trout Unlimited, the extraordinary aeration system installed by MMSD, the inclusion of much of this area in the County’s Parks & Open Spaces Plan).  All of this has produced results.  As my staff reminded your staff, the latest information on Badger Mill that arrived in our offices in the last two weeks show that the trout population is now at a 15 year high.

In the extensive questioning concerning this request that occurred at the last meeting, it also became clear that we cannot be reasonably sure that the recommended conditions will adequately protect these resources.  I also believe this is one of only two USA expansions of all the many you have reviewed for which CARPC staff has not recommended approval.

The course CARPC should follow if it is to remain true to its mission is to deny this USA request or to reduce it in size so that it poses less of a threat to these resources.  As an example of the latter, CARPC could approve a much smaller USA in order to accommodate the Dean Clinic facility, which is in the area furthest from some of the most valuable resources. Either denial or partial denial would be the careful, cautious, conservative, conservation-oriented course these resources deserve from you.

You are a water quality planning and protection agency.  You should and must be champions of valuable water resources.  Approving this USA expansion will be a fatal mistake for CARPC.  In a very candid exchange with the Chair, whose hard work and good intentions I acknowledge and respect, he made it clear that he thought CARPC rejection of this request would cause the City of Verona to reject the FUDA process.  He, and I think in this discussion he represents the views of some other Commissioners, believes FUDA to be an absolutely voluntary process; that communities can wholly decide whether to participate or not.  Both beliefs are, however well intentioned, wrong and will make it impossible for CARPC to function.  With the precedent of this decision, should you grant this USA, any and every community will demand approval of USA expansions as a condition of participating in FUDA. What then is the point of FUDA?  Secondly, every community that formally voted to create CARPC knows that, by the charter approved by them and the Governor, FUDA is the process by which CARPC will pursue its water quality planning responsibilities and that those FUDA’s will form the basis of future USA recommendations.  That is why, by the way, there are eleven “shall’s” used in the charter’s description of CARPC and communities’ participation in FUDA.  Participation in FUDA’s can and should be a prerequisite, not a reward, for approval of USA requests.

No one else in this County but me has taxed citizens to preserve the RPC staff when that agency was destroyed and to then create the CARPC you are today a part of.  Specifically, I have levied almost $4 million in property taxes since 2004 for those purposes.  I did so willingly, publicly, and enthusiastically because I believed this agency and the FUDA process could be the means by which the protection of key natural resources and urban development could mutually proceed via a fair, well informed, and public process.  I have come to question my belief as I have witnessed CARPC approval of thousands of acres of new development approved in 27 USA’s with no discernable progress on FUDA.

CARPC has moved too far from its clearly stated mission.  The FUDA requirements and schedules are clearly stated in the charter document that was reviewed and approved by almost every Dane County municipal government.  That document laid out the priority area and committed CARPC to

    • “provide the [environmental] information described in Item a. to areas with the highest environmental sensitivity and growth pressure within three years of the date the CARPC commences operations.  g.  Communities shall submit their proposed Future Urban Development Area within 24 months of the date they receive the data from CARPC.  If a community does not meet this timeline, the CARPC shall not act on any individual USA expansion requests until the proposed plan is submitted.  CARPC may grant one six-month extension to this timeline.”  (ll. 170-179 of the charter)  (emphasis added)

CARPC is now in its fourth year of existence, with no FUDA’s created.

Approval of this USA will, in my judgment, ruin any prospect of FUDA succeeding.  At that point, County taxpayers are wasting their money ($700,000 a year on CARPC) on functions that can be handled by the DNR.  I cannot, in good conscience, continue to support CARPC if you make that unfortunate decision.

You have before you a rare, important, and difficult intersection of several issues joined in this USA decision:  the protection of some valuable public resources and the continuation of what could be a key planning process for our orderly, sustainable growth.  To have both, please vote to deny or modify this USA expansion.

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Posted in Dane County Politics, Environment, Places That Don't Suck, Places that Suck, Urban Design/Planning/Geography | No Comments »

City of Verona Set to Destroy Class II Trout Fishery

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Once again, the Western Dane County Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment has an excellent analysis of how yet another new sprawl development will harm our water resources.

4-5-10

To: Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) Members

From: Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment (WDC/SGE)

Re: City of Verona Urban Service Area (USA) amendment request

The CARPC staff report on the City of Verona USA amendment request issued on June 11, 2009 concludes with eleven specific recommendations to be imposed on Verona as conditions for the requested approval. These recommendations were put in place in order to minimize water quality impacts of the proposed development on the extremely sensitive exceptional Upper Sugar River and Group 1 wetlands located in the State Natural Area, coldwater Badger Mill Creek and other minor wetlands present in the area. Because the City of Verona deemed some of the CARPC staff recommendations as “unreasonable restrictions”, the decision on the request was postponed and the case was sent to the Environmental Resources Technical Advisory Committee (ERTAC or TAC) to be resolved.

The newly-emerged set of recommendations (CARPC staff report 4-8-10), resultant from TAC’s involvement, represent a weakened version of what was originally offered by the CARPC staff in June 2009. These new recommendations if approved, undoubtedly will have an additional negative water quality impact on the affected resources.

Here is a description of how the two sets of recommendations differ and what is missing in recommendations.

Control of runoff volumes and peak rates

Although both versions of recommendations offer control of peak rates of runoff to pre-settlement levels in all storms, they largely differ in volume control standard. While the old version insists on maintaining the pre-development runoff volumes, which is the same as 100% volume control to pre-development levels, the new version calls for the post-development volume control of only 90%. This particular difference in runoff volume control is significant.

According to the CARPC staff report of 6-11-09 (p 37), even if peak runoff rates from sites are controlled, increases in runoff volume from a site can lead to increases in flood peaks at downstream locations. Increased runoff volumes lead to other unwanted consequences, such as stream bank erosion, stream bank destabilization, sedimentation, increased water temperatures and degradation of biotic communities. The report goes on to say that even relatively small amounts of urban land use in a watershed can lead to major changes in biotic communities and that there is a relatively low threshold point for these changes to take root, beyond which there is no recovery of lost water quality (p 40).

A 10% difference in volume control standard between the two sets of recommendations might appear as unimportant at the first glance. Nevertheless it is significant. The event based modeling for Shady Woods Residential Development  (CARPC 12-15-09) demonstrates that 90% volume control standard will lead to runoff volume increase anywhere, between 38% to 156%, depending on the type of vegetation and soil conditions present at the pre-development level. At any rate, the CARPC staff report of 6-11-09 (p 48), expresses the opinion that all new development in Badger Mill Creek and Sugar River sub-watersheds should uphold no increase in runoff volume standard. It calls it “the only practicable approach that would prevent further degradation of these sensitive cold fisheries.”

And the following statement is what the same CARPC staff report (p 41) had to say in reference to Verona’s proposal to recommend for 90% runoff volume control to predevelopment level, 100% peak runoff rate control to pre-settlement level and 80% reduction of suspended sediments – all three measures now a part of the current proposed recommendations:

“Although these measures and standards are above current minimum standards, and will reduce the likely impact of the proposed development, they do not completely address the current state of the receiving waters. To address the potential adverse impact of increased runoff volumes in the Badger Mill Creek and the Sugar River downstream of the confluence, it is important to maintain post-development runoff volumes equal to predevelopment volumes up to the 100-year storm event for all new development (100% pre-development stay-on volume). This will promote the goal of maintaining existing hydrology, which is critically important to maintaining the health of Badger Mill Creek, Sugar River, and the biological communities that they support.”

TAC recognized the benefits of runoff volume control to 100% of pre-development volumes. However, it has decided that concerns over additional costs are more important than the full water quality benefit such measure would produce. But this is an unacceptable argument when proposed by a committee serving a regional planning commission responsible for protecting the environmental quality of the county’s land and water resources.

Caps on the extent of the infiltration areas

The original CARPC staff recommendations ask for maintaining the pre-development recharge rates with no caps on the extent of infiltration areas. The 4-8-10 CARPC Executive Summary (p 4) continues to support this position in the body of the text:

“Allowing a cap has the potential for reducing the volume control and recharge required to well below the recommended standard and could result in inconsistency in the effectiveness of the standard between amendments.”

It views pre-development recharge rate caps as “a large loophole, where the developer is allowed to maximize the development beyond the carrying capacity of the site and insists on limited mitigation because of their development choices.” (pp 4 & 5).

However, the specific new recommendations omit all reference to the “no-cap” rule. Therefore in spite  of what is stated elsewhere in the document, the lack of reference to “no cap” rule in recommendations reserves the option for the City of Verona to use the much weaker Dane County ordinance, which allows such caps on 1% or 2% of the total site area to be used for infiltration, dependant on type of proposed development.

Limitation of the size of the infiltration area affects the amount of water that gets infiltrated and eventually recharged to groundwater. It is especially important in this case because of the sensitivity of the water resources involved, and because of very difficult soil and terrain conditions which do not lend themselves to easy infiltration.

Water temperature control

Both the original and new sets of recommendations require thermal impact mitigation. Nowhere in any CARPC reports is there any mention of how this goal would be met. Both Badger Mill Creek and the Sugar River are classified as coldwater communities. In an earlier CARPC case involving a proposed USA amendment affecting Black Earth Creek, lack of demonstrable assurance that coldwater temperatures in that creek would be protected against the proposed development, played a role in CARPC denying that application. By contrast, in the case of the City of Verona, a proposed development affecting two coldwater creeks, one of them exceptional water resources, absence of any concern about how thermal impact mitigation would be met noticeably stands out.

An excellent recommendation, of total runoff peak control rate to pre-settlement levels in all storms, should be followed by an explanation of how it is expected to work in conjunction with thermal mitigation. The standard in peak flow rate control is extended detention for 1-year, 24-hour storm to be gradually released over 12 hours in cold watersheds (CARPC staff report 6-11-09, p 42), and over 24 hours in warm watersheds. But what will happen with larger volumes of water in larger water storms? Is the runoff allowed to warm up during longer retention, in order to control peak flow? Or will it be released quicker in larger volumes in order to avoid warming? These are the types of questions that any reasonably coherent, although not necessarily complete stormwater management plan should have been able to provide the answers for.

What is the enforceability in Wisconsin of Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources 2006 criteria?

One of the more curious new recommendations is that the criteria for maintenance of wetland water levels provided by the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources 2006 be used by Verona. Although these criteria might be the best ones in existence, it is highly questionable how either CARPC or DNR would ever be able to legally compel a Wisconsin municipality that it failed to follow Minnesota’s regulations, if the need to sue over water quality should ever rise.

Delineation of environmental corridors

Both recommendation sets call for delineation of environmental corridors based on wetland, stream and floodplain delineations, as well as on CARPC requirements. However, the new recommendations have dropped all reference to a 300 ft vegetative buffer for the commercial area east of STH 69. This buffer, described in the original staff recommendations, is needed to protect the lower portion of Badger Mill Creek and associated wetlands. Similarly, a recommendation that the western portion of Area W be designated as environmental corridor in order to protect the shallow groundwater in that area was also eliminated. These sacrifices of water quality protection obviously were done for the convenience and monetary benefit of the would-be developers of these areas and their municipal partner.

Area W

Most part of Area W is unsuitable for infiltration because it contains sub-areas where such infiltration is inhibited either by fine-grained soils or by shallow, fractured limestone or by high water table. The original staff report suggested several alternative approaches to address this problem. CARPC Executive Summary of April 8, 2010 reports that the resolution of the infiltration problems in this area would not be a part of the conditions for the approval of this amendment. According to the summary (p 4),

“The City prefers to maintain its flexibility”.

But flexibility in environmental protection almost always generates environmental degeneration.

Will the recommended water quality standards deliver the intended performance?

The CARPC Executive summary quotes a DNR letter which states, that without performance measurement of infiltration practices there can be no assurances that the infiltration practices are working as intended and that water quality is protected (p 3).

In the City of Verona’s USA amendment request, performance measurements of infiltration practices are not the only unknown variable. The amendment area is a large mosaic that comprises challenging terrains and difficult infiltration conditions that include steep slopes, shallow and in many places fractured bedrock, high water tables and deep fine grain sands. Nothing even approaching a stormwater management plan has been submitted to CARPC for review, let alone submitted to “performance measurement”.  And yet CARPC staff, in spite of its earlier more cautious approach expressed in the 6-11-09 report now seems to be all too ready to gamble with water quality of not just one coldwater stream, but of two, one of which happens to be an “exceptional water resource”. What will happen if Verona’s request gets the needed approval now and its still unknown eventual stormwater management plan gets implemented and fails to work as promised? Who will ever undo the damage to the Upper Sugar River, Badger Mill Creek, the wetlands, the State Natural Area?

The City of Verona and Stormwater Management

Many of Verona’s best management practices (BMPs) date to the1980’s when water quality mitigation standards were lower. Now those facilities need retrofitting to improve their performance. Any such work on BMPs requires large sums of money, which are not easily allocated for these purposes.

As of 6-1-09, the City of Verona had 61 detention basins, two infiltration basins and one bioinfiltration basin. 47 of these facilities are public, 15 private and three are of unknown ownership. The City inspects them on irregular basis and repairs them as need arises, usually after reported flooding.

As of December 2008, Verona was under watch for total suspended soils (TSS), the only pollutant under formal reduction regulations by DNR. In order to reach its goal of 40% TSS reduction the City needed to reduce its base load by 139 tons per year. At that time the City was reducing TSS by 83 tons or 24%. The estimate for 40% TSS reduction was  $2.7 million.

All municipalities, including the City of Verona are mostly concerned with expanding their tax bases. Regardless of their public propaganda to the contrary, water quality is never their primary focus. It is unwise of the CARPC to ignore their own responsibility as a watchdog agency for water quality, and turn over these watchdog responsibilities to a municipality and its private developers, letting them dictate terms and conditions under which the CARPC’s recommendation of the amendment approval would be issued to DNR.

It is equally unwise to contemplate recommending anything for approval before a detailed stormwater management plan has been produced and shared with the public. When it comes to water quality protection, no municipality should ever be allowed to do its “own thing” in an environmental area that is difficult to mitigate, with high potential to harm sensitive water resources, such as suggested that the City of Verona should be allowed to do in Area W.

Backed by NR 121.05 (1) (g) 2. c., which based on considerations of water quality, allows for exclusion from a USA of  steep slope, highly erosion-prone soils, limiting soil types, recharge areas and other physical constraints, the proposed amendment area should be rejected. As long as such is done for solid water quality reasons, expressed in open deliberations, DNR will have the means of proving that it backs a CARPC decision.

Stefi Harris and Arnold Harris

WDC/SGE

3427 County Rd P

Mt Horeb WI 53572

stefiharris@tds.net

arnoldharris@tds.net

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Pay No Attention to the Trainwreck on the Left

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Reluctantly, very reluctantly, and after much pleading from the organizers, I agreed to show up to a meeting entitled, “What’s Up With The Left in Madison.”

My reluctance was based in my long involvement with Progressive Dane from its inception (’93?) until a couple of years ago. For all of those years I tried to get the party’s leadership as well as elected officials to understand the economic & environmental trainwreck around the bend if they didn’t start applying the brakes to all of that car-mandatory development out in the ‘burbs. I even worked hard for countless candidates — many of whom won — who promised to do something about all of the bad planning.

All of those efforts were to no avail.

Not only did they not listen, but PD alders & county supervisors actively accelerated the paving at an alarming rate.

The result:   An economic and environmental policy trainwreck with one train piling into the next in a fog of bad decisionmaking.

Trainwreck #1: Foreclosures. Housing in Madison’s ‘burbs, extending out into rural subdivisions and horsey-doggie sprawl, is now so far flung and anti-pedestrian and anti-transit that the poor, the young, the elderly and the conscientiously carless cannot access it. And for those who just value a human-scaled place (regardless of their socio-economic demographic pigeonhole), it has no value. This destruction of value was brought about by a widely recognized lack of universal access planned into these developments. Walls of distance and speeding car traffic as it were.

In a sense, cosmic justice prevailed as the foreclosure crisis hit car-mandatory places the hardest. Unfortunately, however, it is hurting us all, as the cratering real estate values out there are devastating Madison & Dane County’s tax base.

These economically unsustainable development patterns were heartily supported by elected progressives with nary a peep from party membership (yours truly excepted, of course).

Did the price crash have to happen, given the national foreclosure crisis? Nope. Most of our walking/biking/transit-friendly ‘hoods have either a) maintained their value or b) actually increased in value. This same trend has occurred across the country with human-scaled neighborhoods holding their value while cul-de-sacs tank in the same region. Instead of seeing the foreclosure crisis for what it is — a disaster for all — progressives see it as an opportunity to…squat! (Yes, this is the next direct action actually proposed at the meeting.) So ok, it will make for great theater. And I like theater. But then what? Do we sit there all self-satisfied that we have stuck-it-to-the-man while continuing to support policies that continually drive down our tax base?! What sort of vicious cycle of insanity is this?

Trainwreck #2: The abovedescribed tax base destruction (developers churning out soulless subdivisions -> 1960s-educated planners collaborating -> ‘progressive’ elected officials wielding rubber stamps approving every car-mandatory subdivision ->  gullible homebuyers (or, perhaps more likely, homebuyers given no choice) -> crazy bankers -> (soon) crazy squatters) is now squeezing every city & county department, including those departments forming the social safety net advocated for by the good progressives. At today’s meeting, progressives at first stood stunned, then started casting about for scapegoats. People, only one department has continued to receive double digit year-over-year budget increases, and it is the very people who brought the housing crisis to you in the first place: The highway department! Pavement expansion is raging at 10 times population growth + inflation. TEN times! That’s good money chasing after bad, folks. We’ve been there, done that…and crashed. Yet we keep piling the people’s cash into the same bad land use patterns. It’s not a goat you’re looking for, it’s a hog; and the hog sits in the chief of highways seat. And your endorsed ‘progressive’ elected officials continue to slop that hog.

The car-mandatory nature of our elected leaders’ policies has created trainwreck #3: Increasingly filthy air, thanks to city-mandated driving (a direct result of car-mandatory places). The air is getting so filthy, in fact, that Madison is soon to be designated a dirty air zone by the EPA (‘non-attainment’ in the jargon). This will seriously damage Madison’s ability to attract & retain good jobs, as potential employers will recoil at the extra hoops mandated by the feds when air pollution exceeds the allowable levels.

And while progressives perseverate mightily about the need for good, family-supporting jobs, they fail to see the environment as anything but a white environmentalist/elitist/hobbyist’s concern. (Emphasis on white; there was much hand-wringing about the overwhelming whiteness of the progressive community.). Folks, dirty air is bad for everybody. But the poor — disproportionately non-white — will be disproportionately hit. Those jobs the poor need? Gone thanks to dirty air. (Milwaukee and other rustbelt cities, perpetually under the EPA’s thumb have been hemorrhaging jobs since the inception of the Clean Air Act. Coincidence? Me thinks not. And no, it isn’t the Act’s fault, it is the fault of short-sighted local & state leaders who worship cars more than their constituents’ economic and physical health.)

Then there are the children of the poor. We know that they will suffer disproportionately from air pollution-induced asthma (do I need to go into how bad this is for the developmental progress of a child?).

Fighting against dirty air is not a hobby. Nor is it only a concern of only white enviros.

Trainwreck #4: Dirty drinking water. So much land is paved over that our aquifers are no longer recharging as they should, thus rendering increasingly contaminated water. Combine the paving with constant leaking of petrochemicals onto that pavement (tire & brake grit, exhaust that settles on soil & pavement, oil leaks, etc.); then, after a rain, that filth rushes across that pavement, to sewers, then directly to our surface waters (which now feed the aquifer thanks to paving over of infiltration zones) and you’ve got a recipe for hydrologic disaster…. Case in point: the combination described here has put the kibosh on developing a well for the industrial southeast side, perhaps imperiling hundreds of jobs. Jobs, people!

The biggest trainwreck of all is upcoming: energy. The $4/gallon summers of 2007 & 2008 were the first dominos to set in motion the housing market catastrophe. (In car-mandatory places families faced 2 choices: fill the SUV or pay the mortgage; in the end, neither was economically sustainable.)

But that is nothing compared to what we will be facing soon.

So far, the military has been able to keep the oil supplies open, but the endless wars over oil are proving to be costly in lives, treasure, constitutional rights and basic justice. Social justice advocates often bemoan the de-facto military draft (crushing economic necessity forcing individuals to ‘volunteer’ for the military, etc.), but they typically fail to see first causes: Most of our military is now dedicated to fighting for oil. The world’s #1 consumer of oil? The military. For what? Fighting for oil. The snake is eating its tail.

That is to say, expect even more of the above.

Unless. Unless, we get a handle on our resource consumption and the fouling of our own nests. Because folks, if we don’t, there won’t be any justice left to attain. For anyone.

But this was entirely too mind-blowing for the good progressives to grasp at the meeting Saturday. When we were asked to write down our vision for the city if we achieved a progressive majority on the city council, most people dreamed their dreams as the exercise intended. Affordable housing for all. Racial harmony. Family supporting jobs. Full funding for social services. A strong Regional Transit Authority. And on & on, the same litany we’ve come to know & love about the progressive vision. (And yes, I do love it. As far as it goes. Which isn’t far enough to do any of the above….)

My response to what Madison would look like with a progressive majority? Massively increased paving over of rich, precious, Dane County farmland. Dirtier air. Filthier water. More car traffic. Poor people cut off from jobs due to walls of distance. Planning that plans universal access out of our urban landscape.

Face it, our ‘progressive’ elected officials voted for all of the above in the past and continue to do so. There is no evidence it would change with a majority.

Thus, many of us have simply quit working for any candidates. (At least until we see some evidence of real change.) With the loss of key electoral volunteers, progressives have continued to lose strength on the council.

For no amount of pressure from organized groups seems to have any bearing on their decisions. Neither 20 hours a week of volunteer labor….Nor being a ward captain turning out margins of victories….Nor cold hard progressive cash…Nothing seems to work with these people. (This was, thankfully, alluded to by several other participants).

Many at the meeting lamented the high level of apathy in Madison. I strongly disagree. This city is so organized around mutually supporting — and countless — progressive causes that it should be clear to our elected officials that we do, in fact, want progress. Not Detroit’s vision of a city-enforced car mandate. Not the Teabaggers’ vision of an unstable, grindingly impoverished and violent future. We have stated over & over that we want something better. In fact, I view Madison’s strong civic culture much like a venerable Roman arch, with each organization forming the arch & wall (each brick in the pillar or stone in the arch representing an organization) mutually reinforcing neighboring, allied organizations.

We all hang together or....

But when the keystone element at the top is missing/weak/lacking in conviction, the whole edifice falls apart. In this metaphor, the keystone element is each of our elected officials. Given that they are universally AWOL with regard to the desires of their constituents, the whole edifice falls apart, just as a Roman arch would.

In the case of Madison, the people are doing a yeoman’s job of holding things together, pulling together the increasingly tight resources they have in their non-profits to make things work as best they can for those who have very little. Yet there was a lot of self-flaggelation/blaming ourselves for this sorry situation. Again, I vehemently disagree; the hardworking, civically-engaged people of Madison are not to blame. What is missing is that strong keystone element, starting with the out-of-touch mayor, but including every alder — yes, the ‘progressive’ ones inclusive.

There is no hope of getting through to the current crop of elected officials. In their hands, our destiny lies in gluttonous energy use, car-mandatory land use patterns, transportation only for the well-wheeled, dirtier & dirtier air  and filthier & filthier water.

They simply do not have the capacity to get it.

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Posted in Dane County Politics, Energy Efficiency, Energy Efficient Places, Environment, Greenwashers & Greenwashing, Health, Madison Politics, Politics, Public Transit, Urban Design/Planning/Geography | No Comments »

Dane County Towns Ass’n: Adjust Your Attitude!

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Brought to you by Dane County Towns Association

Having a poli-sci BA and an MS in geography means that I geek out over good land use policy analysis (in case you hadn’t clued into that already!).

Below is one of the best analyses I’ve ever seen with regard to Dane County’s rural land use policies. Stefi & Arnold Harris of the Western Dane County Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment are truly fighting the good fight out there.

3-15-2010

to: Dane County town boards
from: Stefi Harris, Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment
re: DCTA ineffectiveness protecting town lands from annexation

As a rural resident of the Town of Cross Plains in western Dane County for 34 years, I have witnessed the increasing disappearance of farmlands and other open spaces of the towns in our county as they have been incrementally swept into the encroaching black holes of annexation by their neighboring cities and villages. All these annexations have been for development largely denied to the towns by countywide comprehensive planning. Mostly of them were instigated and conducted not because they made any sense from the planning point of view but to feed a class of land speculators and developers who buy up these town lands at farmland prices in order to enrich themselves with high-priced lots for urban sprawl.

Presently, there is only one venue in Dane County where towns might hope to affect the outcomes of city/village grabs of their lands and tax bases. That venue is CARPC, the appointed body to which all Dane County cities and villages must come in order to get recommendations to the WI-DNR for approval of their sewer service area extensions. Without those recommendations they can do only limited development on annexed town lands.

The main culprits in this destructive development are the cities, villages, land speculators and developers. However having monitored actions of the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) since mid 2008, I now understand that the Dane County Towns Association (DCTA), either through willfulness or bad judgment, is equally responsible for enabling CARPC to act as little more than a well-oiled machine for converting town farmlands and other open spaces to urban sprawl after these lands have been annexed by the cities and villages. And here it is how that happens.

CARPC has 13 members, appointed as follows:
– Dane County Towns Association (DCTA), three members;
– Dane County Executive, three members;
– City of Madison, four members;
– Dane County Cities and Villages Association (DCCVA), three members.

CARPC’s rules require a majority vote of eight of the 13 members to pass a positive recommendation for an urban service area (USA) extension on to WI-DNR. The pro-development forces have overcome that hurdle by organizing a CARPC voting bloc which includes all three DCCVA appointees, at least three of the four Madison appointees, and at least one of the three DCTA appointees, but frequently all three.

DCTA and its appointees, all of whom have been elected Dane County town officials, have a unique opportunity to counter the cities/villages bloc and discourage future unjust annexations of towns’ lands by making them through its CARPC actions unprofitable for developers. In order to accomplish this, they would have to form a voting bloc with the appointees of the Dane County Executive and with one vote that usually comes with Madison appointees.

However, DCTA historically and presently, almost always wastes its limited political capital opposing the County Board of Supervisors and the Dane County Executive in any and all land use controls. Mostly, this is an extension of the political orientation of the DCTA leadership. They act as though it were the Dane County government rather than the cities and villages that has been annexing their lands and exercising frequently unfair extra-territorial jurisdiction against their membership – the Dane County towns – rather than the cities and villages with whom their CARPC appointees typically walk in political lockstep.

From Mar 27, 2008 to the present, CARPC has reviewed as many as 20 service area extension requests. Some of these represented limited service areas (LSAs) of minor acreage. Others are cases in which there were specific agreements between a town and a neighboring city or village, such as the recent City of Middleton-Town of Westport CUSA review and approval by CARPC. And there was a single case where CARPC actually turned down a request by the Village of Mazomanie to extend the sewer lines on lands taken from the Town of Mazomanie without as much as a courtesy call.

But over 2/3 of the land area awarded to urban expansion during the same period or over 2070.7 acres, involved cases where CARPC approval was given even though towns had no say in annexations preceding these approvals. In each such occurrence, CARPC more or less rubber-stamped the municipal proposals. In all these cases, DCTA’s appointees mostly joined forces with the DCCVA and City of Madison appointees in a solid voting bloc.

The rubber-stamp approvals of the Madison, DCCVA and DCTA appointees are further reinforced by CARPC staff, led by an environmental engineer who routinely uses his position to lead board discussions to favor approvals of the urban service area requests, despite numerous clear violations of the Wisconsin NR 121 regulations dealing with water quality issues, and even has been seen to interrupt commissioner discussions in order to sway one or more dissident commission members to vote approval of his favored projects. WDC/SGE has researched and brought to the attention of CARPC, its staff and its commissioners technical information about many water quality-related proposal violations, to which little attention has been paid.

Moreover, CARPC rules allow broad opportunities for the applicant cities and villages, and along with them, their pet land speculators and developers, to testify at length, including use of extensive PowerPoint presentations. In contrast, opponents of these developments are permitted only three minutes per person to speak, with no such presentations. So each such meeting and all CARPC deliberative procedures, operate like a carefully coordinated card game in which the deck is stacked against the interests of the towns themselves, smart growth planning of Dane County, and Wisconsin’s environmental protection legislation.

A typical example of CARPC decision-making was at the March 11, 2010 CARPC meeting, concerning the City of Fitchburg Central Urban Service Area (CUSA) amendment request for 397.7 acres. At that meeting, DCTA appointee Ed Minihan, who is also chairman of the Town of Dunn, raised the objection to Fitchburg’s request based on two significant unanswered concern that directly affect his town. Those concerns involved unresolved issues over increased flooding in the Town of Dunn and degradation of South Waubesa Marsh, both due to the City of Fitchburg proposed urban service extension. This marsh is known as both a unique and an outstanding wetland area. Increased resale property values in the Town of Dunn can be in part credited to the proximity of pristine South Waubesa Marsh natural area. The town has also submitted its letter of objection over Fitchburg’s proposal to CARPC. Commissioner Minihan argued his objections clearly and concisely during Thursday’s CARPC deliberation. But what followed might surprise you. His two fellow DCTA appointees, commissioners Phillip Van Kampen and Susan Studz, ignored his comments, sided with the cities and villages, and voted against the Town of Dunn’s objection. Their votes were particularly hard to swallow because these two members never responded to Minihan’s objections and provided no coherent water quality or other reasons for going against the Town of Dunn. They gave him no backing whatsoever, despite that they were appointed to CARPC to represent the interests of Dane County towns.

Mr Van Kampen has been on CARPC for a long time and has had a fair track record until he was appointed chairman of CARPC at the March 11, 2010 meeting, replacing Jeff Miller, a DCCVA appointee. One must assume the cities and villages bloc of commissioners supported him as chairman because they assumed he would continue their status quo of the obvious CARPC bias in favor of awarding urban service area extensions at the expense of the towns from which the lands for these extensions have been grabbed.

Susan Studz is new to CARPC. She was recently appointed by DCTA to take the place of the late Harold Krantz, a town leader of great experience. To Krantz, by contrast, the interests of the towns always came first in any CARPC discussion or vote. He frequently voted against city/village proposals where town interests were not served.

If this type of mindless action of some of the DCTA appointees on CARPC continues, many of us who live in towns of this county fear what will happen to our towns when the land tracts that have been recently ripped out of their territories inevitably come to CARPC review.

Here, along the northern boundary of the Town of Cross Plains, the Village of Cross Plains in early 2009 annexed a large chunk of town’s territory through gerrymandering. It did that with no prior discussion with the town. The land in question is a recharge area for Garfoot Creek, a high quality trout stream, classified as an exceptional water resource. The village wants to convert this area into a dense suburban neighborhood. This process would inevitably degrade Garfoot Creek from the exceptional water resource with living, breeding trout, into an impaired waterway that could barely support a forage fishery. The town wanted to keep that area as farmland with low-density residential development under its 1 split per 35-acre rule. The town wanted to continue protecting the creek, because a healthy stream with quality fish is an attractant. Among other things it increases property values in an area where it flows.

Many of us in the town familiar with this recent hostile action of the DCTA appointees to CARPC, Van Kampen and Studz against the Town of Dunn are worried that if the case involving former Town of Cross Plains territory would come in front of CARPC now, that there would be no stopping of the Village of Cross Plains sewer service request and creek degradation and destruction. Furthermore, awarding the Village of Cross Plains a sewer extension through CARPC would only encourage the village to further encroach and take land from our town.

If DCTA or its CARPC commissioners ignore towns’ objections and are unwilling to lead by example and vote down cities and villages urban service area amendment requests whenever necessary, then how is anyone else on CARPC expected to help the towns? What is the sense of any town in Dane County using their taxpayer’s money to pay dues to DCTA if that organization is not sensitive to the overriding interests of their own members?

One of the unique sets of data that WDC/SGE has assembled are written surveys completed by residents of more than a dozen Dane County towns as part of their comprehensive planning projects during recent years. Notably, more than two-thirds of all rural residents surveyed clearly indicated that they want to keep the town lands rural and that they want to strongly limit development on the town farmlands and open spaces. This data directly contradicts the political assumptions of some who imagine that rural residents would support urban development all around the county, typically as enrichment schemes by a very small number of individuals. On issues such as these the majority of Dane County town residents is more in tune with the statewide Wisconsin Towns Association, who strongly favor smart growth planning and protection of town lands from unwanted development. The time has come for attitudinal adjustment of DCTA leadership. DCTA leadership should be made accountable for any hostile action by its CARPC appointees against towns whose cases come in front of that body.

Stefi Harris
Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment
3427 County Rd P
Mt Horeb WI 53572

Imagine.....There used to be a farm here.

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Mayor Pave Drives Off A Budgetary Cliff

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Wisconsin State Journal headline screams:

“Madison to face budget deficit for the first time in at least 20 years.”

Wow. We had no idea this was coming, now did we?

As usual, Dean “the last journalist standing” Mosiman gives Mayor Pave a pass, and fails to address the root cause of the emerging budget catastrophe: Mayor Pave’s paving proclivities. (I guess sycophancy pays off).

For a better perspective on how paving has produced this very-predicted budget catastrophe check out this key quote from that abovelinked November 2008 Op-Ed regarding 2009′s budget:

This is a highway-heavy road budget, as anti-green as it gets. And when I say anti-green, I’m not necessarily talking about the tree-hugging kind. This budget is bad for our economy. The emphasis on cul-de-sacs, cars and sprawl sets us up for broken budgets forever.

Forever just started.

And forever is getting worse given 2010′s continued paving spree (more critique here).

Note to Madison’s pliant council: You can’t go on jacking up paving budgets by double digits, year after year, and expect to achieve responsible budgets. You simply cannot. Cut up the credit card (i.e., rein in all that roadbuilding debt), sharpen your pencils, and set up a budget that is within your means. You’ll find that supporting deathmobiling to the exclusion of all else just won’t be sustainable economically, much less environmentally.

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Victory for Black Earth Creek!

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Black Earth Creek, an example of a restored trout stream par excellence, has been spared a massive assault. Western Dane County will stay a little more rural for a bit longer. Bicyclists, nature lovers, fisherman — indeed anyone who breathes — should be thankful to a hard working group of people who made this happen.

Stefi Harris and the Western Dane County Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment are to be commended for a fight well fought…and won!

Capital Area Regional Planning Commission members: Thank you. Thank you for your good judgment, and backbone.

Way to go gang!

Here’s the word from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources (apologies for losing the letter’s original formatting):

101 S. Webster St.

Box 7921

Madison, Wisconsin 53707-7921

Telephone 608-266-2621

FAX 608-267-3579

TTY Access via relay – 711

Jim Doyle, Governor

Matthew J. Frank, Secretary

November 23, 2009

Carl A. Sinderbrand

Axley Brynelson, LLP

P.O. Box 1767

Madison, WI 53703

Subject: Village of Mazomanie Request Regarding Amendment to Dane County Water Quality Plan

Dear Mr. Sinderbrand:

Your letter to Thomas Gilbert, Bureau of Watershed Management, dated August 21, 2009, has been referred to me. That letter, submitted on behalf of the Village of Mazomanie (Village), requests the Department of Natural Resources (Department) to review the June 11, 2009, decision of the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) to not approve an amendment to the Dane County areawide water quality management plan (plan). The Department declines to reconsider that decision.

There is no statutory or administrative rule procedure that directs the Department to review regional planning agency decisions to deny amendments to areawide water quality management plans. Section NR 121.07, Wis. Admin. Code, establishes the procedures for approval of plans and plan amendments for designated areas of the state (such as Dane County). Section NR 121.07(1) (a), Wis. Admin. Code, provides that the Department shall review and approve or disapprove each plan for designated areas. Section NR 121.07(3), Wis. Admin. Code, provides that the Department may approve a planning agency’s amendments to a plan for a designated area. There is no provision in s. NR 121.07, however, that directs the Department to review and approve or disapprove a planning agency’s decision to deny a proposed amendment to a plan for a designated area.

In addition to this lack of procedural direction, there is a significant practical reason for the Department not to reconsider denials of amendments in designated areas. Dane County is a designated area for areawide water quality management planning, under s. NR 121.06, Wis. Admin. Code. The Department contracts with CARPC to conduct water quality management planning work in Dane County. In my March 18, 2009 letter to Jeffrey Miller, chair of CARPC, I made it clear that,

“We strongly believe that CARPC plays a necessary and critical role in shaping the future of Dane County. We are relying on CARPC to provide land use and water quality resource information and analysis, and a strong direction for local planning efforts.”

Further, I went on to state that,

“In reconsidering the Mazomanie amendment request, the Commission should focus on water quality impacts as the primary basis for a decision, and should consider the guidance and direction in this letter.”

CARPC has taken the focus suggested in our letter and the Department defers to their judgement in this case. As stated, the Department has procedures to review plans and approved amendments to plans and does review those decisions by planning agencies for designated areas. By approving or disapproving plans and plan amendments previously approved by regional planning agencies, and by re-evaluating the approval status of plans at least every 5 years, the Department fulfills its responsibility to protect, maintain and improve the quality and management of the waters of the state in designated areas. Since denials of amendments to plans in designated areas do nothing to change plans previously approved by the Department, they would result in no change to water quality, such that the Department has little or no reason to reconsider them. In fact, to do so would take resources away from other priority work of the Department at a time when those resources are in very short supply.

The Department has not historically been involved in reviewing denials of amendments to plans, unless the planning agency has failed to provide a water quality basis for the denial. If CARPC or another regional planning agency denies an amendment without stating a clear water quality basis for its denial, the Department has requested that the regional planning agency reconsider its decision. The Department did so in this case, by letter to CARPC, dated March 18, 2009. Specifically, I noted,

“Pursuant to state statutes and administrative codes (chapter NR 121), decisions regarding amendments must be based on water quality impacts and the cost-effectiveness of sewerage systems.”

However, once the regional planning agency states a water quality basis for not approving an amendment to a plan (as CARPC has done in this case), as long as the decision is consistent with the approved plan and was done in accordance with approved planning procedures, including a sufficient public participation process, the Department will not reconsider that decision, for the reasons stated in this letter.

The Department encourages the Village to work with CARPC to address the water quality concerns raised by CARPC when it decided not to accept the proposed amendment to the plan.

Sincerely,

Todd Ambs, Administrator

Division of Water

cc:

Jeffrey Miller, Chair, CARPC

Kamran Mesbah, Deputy Director, CARPC

Scott Stokes, President; Village of Mazomanie

Sue Dietzen, Clerk; Village of Mazomanie

Ron Adler, Chair; Town of Mazomanie

Maria Van Cleve, Clerk; Town of Mazomanie

John St. Peter, Edgarton, St. Peter, Petak & Rosenfeldt

Timothy Fenner, Axley Brynelson

Andy Morton – WDNR – SCR

Tom Gilbert – WDNR – WT/3

Robin Nyffeler- LS/8

Judy Ohm-LS/8

Update: Robbie Webber informs me that there is another group which needs to be thanked for their hard work:

Just an FYI that there is another group working very hard on the CARPC
issues, and they worked extra hard on the Mazo decision, in
cooperation with Arnold and Steffi Harris.

Capital Region Advocacy Network for Environmental Sustainability
(CRANES) has been meeting twice a month for over a year – more or less
since the new RPC was formed – to build a network/alliance of
environmental groups and individuals that are willing to speak up to
preserve the environment in Dane County (and beyond, but we are
working on Dane County first.) Many of the names will be familiar to
you.

Here’s a blog from Brenda back in March about our efforts to fight the
Mazo plan. It includes a letter that was sent out by the group urging
people to show up at the original CARPC hearing.
http://brendakonkel.blogspot.com/2009/05/will-regional-planning-be-emasculated.html

Indeed! Many thanks for all that great work!

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T. Wall’s Sprawl: Update on the Bishop’s Bay Paving, Shingling

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Below are the latest updates from the Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment (WDC/SGE).

Thanks again to Stefi & Arnold Harris for all of their hard work and astute research toward protecting Dane County’s rural areas from sprawl! Pit bulls have nothin’ on them!

Remember, the meeting is tonight, Thursday, November 12th at 7:00 PM in City-County Building, Room 315.

-Mike

11-12-09

To: Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC)

From: Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment (WDC/SGE)

We ask that Kurt Sonnentag, (CARPC) member and also the current Mayor of Middleton to recuse himself from any discussion and or vote on the City of Middleton and the Town of Westport CUSA amendment request for the area known as Bishop’s Bay. As a matter of public record we want a sworn affidavit of disclosure of any ex parte communications

which Mr Sonnetag might have had with the owner(s) or representatives of T Wall Properties LLC, or in absence of such contacts, a sworn affidavit that there has never been any such ex parte communications. T Wall properties are the development firm on whose behest The City of Middleton and The Town of Westport are applying for the CUSA extension.

Stefi Harris and Arnold Harris

And….

11-09-09

To:  Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC)

From: Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment (WDC/SGE)

Re: Request by the City of Middleton and the Town of Westport for the Central

Urban Service Area (CUSA) amendment

This is the follow up to WDC/SGE letter of 11-05-09 addressed to your agency. Since then, the CARPC staff report has been issued. We feel it is important to communicate to the commission our renewed as well as additional concerns over several major issues raised in the staff report.

Stormwater Runoff Control

The proposed development at Bishop’s Bay would replace large segments of the amendment area, now mostly in fields, woods and brush with impervious surfaces such as concrete, asphalt and roof shingles. Housing units are planned for 348 acres. Many of these would be large buildings with connected roofs and equally large parking lots that do not allow rain and snowmelt flow into the ground. Roads along with their right of ways, practically 100% impervious, would take up 83 acres. Commercial and institutional zones also nearly fully impervious would use up 51 acres and 46 acres respectively.

16.4 % of the amendment area is in steep slopes. The maps show many houses and a road in one such area. Under post-development conditions roads and houses cut into the hill slopes will effectively interrupt the inland flow and cause runoff. CARPC staff made no attempt to estimate runoff volume from any storms.  If such estimates were produced, they would show runoff volume sizes of many acres of water several feet deep covering large parts of the area.

In addition to causing apparent flooding, stormwater runoff causes hydrologic changes on receiving bodies of water, reduces recharge to groundwater and stream baseflow, contaminates water (CARPC staff report 6-8-09) and alters ecology of waters and shores.

Water Quality Standards

CARPC staff reports claims that if stringent standards are applied to control of post-development peak rates, infiltration and groundwater recharge, then the runoff volumes could be controlled. However, a study using the USGS Precipitation Modeling System (PRMS), modified to reproduce more realistic conditions such as flow of water from impervious areas to infiltration practices and ponding as a factor in infiltration, contradicts the notion that infiltration practices can always preserve runoff volumes (Lathrop and Potter 2004:7,8). The study concluded that runoff volumes could only be preserved where development is moderate.

Similarly, evaluation of the effectiveness of a large number of detention basins in the North Fork watershed concluded that “these measures might mitigate some adverse effects of development if properly located and the development was not too high” (Hunt and Steuer 2001).

Introduction of over 500 acres of surfaces that range from completely impervious to substantially impervious, into an area, which currently contains very few such features, constitutes a high intensity of development. It is doubtful that runoff volumes could be controlled as promised.

In August 2009, CARPC staff attempted to impose on Verona similar runoff control conditions to the ones recommended for Middleton-Westport, namely stringent standards to be applied to peak rates, runoff volume and groundwater recharge rates. An answer came from Robert E Phillips the City of Madison Engineer. Phillips wrote that it is unclear whether these three conditions could be met simultaneously and that there is no current stormwater management model “truly competent to handle” all three requirements (Phillips letter to CARPC 10-7-09).

It stretches credulity to claim that minimally 7.6, or some other number of inches/yr of precipitation will be recharged in some areas when other factors that interface with recharge – evaporation, transpiration, interflow and infiltration cannot be accurately measured.

CARPC staff insistence that adequate level of recharge could be forced by engineered means are grounded more in optimism rather then in reality. Steuer and Hunt (2001:29) indicate that at Pheasant Branch, most of the recharge occurs during winter and early spring when snow is melting. That is precisely the time when stormwater infiltration basins and other similar facilities are still frozen or clogged and in no condition to handle their task.

An additional complication is that many standards, including the initially impressive ones, become diluted at implementation. For example, NR 151 regulations pertaining to post-construction performance standards for sediments, peak discharge rates and infiltration of runoff have several escape clauses that refer to situations where standards cannot be achieved and therefore are allowed to be lowered to “the maximum extent practicable”.

Lake Mendota

It is certain that increased runoff from the amendment area would not only impact Dorn Creek and Marsh, but would also impact Six Mile Creek into which Dorn Creek flows. At that point, Six Mile Creek flows through Governor Nelson Park and is graded by WI-DNR as an exceptional water resource.

While runoff volume control through attenuation of runoff peaks, although only arguably achievable, would make a positive difference downstream from development in Dorn and Six Mile Creeks, Lake Mendota is a different matter. It suffers from persistently high water levels. In the recent eight-year period its lake levels were at an elevated height for 788 days or little over ¼ of the time (CARPC 11-13-09 p 13). Because of sluggishness of the Yahara River system in processing of flows, peak runoff rate control at Bishop’s Bay development would have no positive effect (CARPC 7-11-09 report p 13) on Lake Mendota levels. The added runoff volume from that area would be counted as another contribution to flooding.

Groundwater

High-density urban development such as proposed would have dual impact on groundwater levels. Massive withdrawals of groundwater in hundreds of thousands of gallons daily would be basically exported from the area via the sewage treatment facilities. The proposed stormwater management facilities, despite of CARPC staff’s claim of maintaining the most stringent of standards, would never be able to capture enough water to replace even a fraction of that volume. The Lathrop and Potter study (2004), based on data collected at nearby Pheasant Branch, indicates that by 2020, baseflow in that creek would drop by approximately 12% as a result of well activity. Wetlands would also be affected. Their water levels would drop by 7% regardless weather water withdrawals were made from deep or shallow aquifer.

Imperviousness associated with any kind of modern urban development has the same effect as pumping wells on groundwater levels. It rapidly transfers much of the precipitation it captures into streams, rivers and lakes and does not allow much to return back into the circulation in the local water cycle.  The Lathrop and Potter study found that when groundwater withdrawals are considered together with increased imperviousness from urban development, then the effect on groundwater was amplified. Pheasant Branch Creek lost 63% of its baseflow and Pheasant Branch marsh lost 22%.

Requirements of NR 121.05 (2) (i) and NR 121.01

NR 121.05 (2) (i), requiring that best management practices needed to produce a basic level of control of nonpoint source of pollutants throughout the planning area be identified and evaluated, was ignored. The public will never be able to see and comment on that part of Middleton-Westport management plan prior to the hearing and to any decision-making by the commission.

CARPC staff recommendations allow for many parts of the proposed amendment to be left opened, subject to future changes that would come only after the decision to recommend for approval had already been delivered. Such a skewed interpretation of the NR 121 review process makes mockery of the public participation mandate. In all such instances it would be the CARPC staff, and not the Commission who would be making decisions on many important aspects of the final water quality plan amendment.  Such process places CARPC staff in a role of decision-makers that the state statutes never intended them to have.

Stefi Harris and Arnold Harris

Western Dane Coalition for Smart Growth and Environment

3427 County Rd P

Mt Horeb WI 53572

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Mayor Pave Hogwild For Highways

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Another data point in Mayor Pave’s continuing pursuit of pork and a more perfect Schaumburg:

The whole S & M (county highways S & M, that is) debacle hasn’t gone over well locally. These massive road projects (at the junction of Mineral Point Rd./County Highway M/Junction Rd.) are so ugly that even the highway-oriented common council has balked at the costs & the sprawl.

It is widely recognized that any road development that is so massive in scale will waste city resources for decades to come. Worse, it will undermine any hope of actually building a city as opposed to suburban sprawl. Contrary to his assertions that these massive highway expansions are necessary for healthy economic development for the city, the fact of the matter is, the benefits accrue entirely to people who live far outside of the city limits. City residents pay the price. In dollars and in health.

I’ve already seen the plans, and any hope of accessing the area by bike, walking or transit will be impossible. And this has been the heart of the criticism.

So the Pavin’ Mayor is backed into a corner: He’ll have to go for federal pork to make his project happen. Right now he’s spending precious lobbying time begging Representative Baldwin, Senator Feingold and Senator Kohl for highway bacon to make this highly unpopular project happen.

Schaumburg here we come!

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