Zach Skrede learned that previous owners had dumped roofing material containing asbestos on his land, and had failed to clean it up.
Tag: pollution
Posted inEnvironment
A tiny Wisconsin town tried to stop pollution from factory farms. Then it got sued.
Wisconsin’s largest business lobbying group accuses Laketown officials of overstepping in passing an ordinance to limit pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations.
Posted inEnvironment
‘Something has to be done’: Living along Madison’s Starkweather Creek, one of Wisconsin’s most polluted waterways.
The latest contaminants of concern in the creek draining Madison’s East Side: PFAS, hazardous chemicals being flagged across Wisconsin.
Posted inEnvironment, Government, Water Watch Wisconsin
Disputed expansion of dairy watched for statewide impact
In a Green Bay hearing beginning Tuesday, a controversial attempt to expand a dairy farm set to become the fifth largest in Wisconsin will be challenged in a case that could have a far-reaching impact on how Wisconsin regulates industrial-size livestock farms.
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Government, Wasted Places
Wasted Places: Brownfields stories from our collaborators
Wasted Places is a collaborative investigation by six nonprofit newsrooms into federal and state programs designed to cleanup and redevelop polluted tracts known as brownfields.The project was coordinated by the Investigative News Network, and reported and written by the Connecticut Health Investigative Team, City Limits, Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and INN.
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Government, Wasted Places
Map: Brownfields nationwide
Sites that have been funded through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s brownfields program, as of August 2012.
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Government
Wasted Places: Slow, underfunded EPA program falls short in toxic site cleanups
The stated goals of the federal government’s Brownfields Program are to fund the cleanup of contamination, to improve the quality of life of blighted communities and to provide economic stimulus. But an investigation by nonprofit newsrooms across the country, coordinated by the Investigative News Network, found problems in every community examined.
Posted inEconomy, Environment, Government, Wasted Places
Recession worsens brownfields backlog in Wisconsin
While the state has made some progress with the backlog in the past two decades, a “startling” number of plant closings during the recent recession has created “an entirely new generation of brownfields,” according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Posted inEnvironment, Government, Health & Welfare
Toxic Legacy: Gas customers may have to eat some costs for plant cleanups
Whoever is deemed responsible for the century-old toxic waste in Ashland, community residents — and others in Wisconsin — will pay for millions in cleanup costs.
Posted inEnvironment
Audio slideshow: Toxic Legacy
The Kabasas, whose home is surrounded by a Superfund site with century-old pollution, are divided on whether to worry about it.
Posted inEnvironment, Government, Health & Welfare
Toxic legacy: Century-old tar plumes under Lake Superior stir health fears — and a cleanup could be years away
Millions of gallons of contaminated groundwater and thousands of gallons of gooey black coal tar lie underneath Ashland’s downtown waterfront. It is by far the thorniest cleanup of an old manufactured gas plant in Wisconsin — both because of the difficulty in cleaning it up, and in finding someone to pay for it.
Posted inWisWatch Blog
Data for fishermen: How long until the fish are safe?
In the best-case scenario, we’ll be able to eat all the Lake Michigan lake trout we want without worrying about getting cancer from the PCBs — in another 20 years. Less optimistically, we might have to wait until 2046.