Dear Senator:
We urge you to support S. 878, the Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act, introduced by Senators Lautenberg and Voinovich, which will help ensure the safety of U.S. beaches by enhancing the capacity of local beachwater monitoring and public notification programs, authorizing use of funding for identifying and cleaning up sources of pollution, and improving standards for timely public notification of contaminated beachwaters.
The following opinion piece by Cheryl Nenn was printed in the Journal Sentinel on June 13.
Privatization of public water services has been occurring in the United States with vigor since the early 1990s. In these tough economic times, cities are struggling to pay for escalating costs of repairing aging water systems and attempting to balance their budgets.
In 2007, Milwaukee Riverkeeper (then Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers) successfully nominated the Kinnickinnic River for one of the nation’s Most Endangered Rivers. Our objective was to shed some light and advocate for funding for this river that had been neglected—laced with toxic contamination, lined with concrete, degraded, and ignored over the years.
The Journal Sentinel reports on Waukesha's request for Lake Michigan water:
Waukesha - After nearly five months, environmental groups monitoring the Water Utility's bid for Lake Michigan water should get further details this week on the proposal to annually pipe billions of gallons to this city.
On Jan. 7, six environmental agencies submitted several dozen questions to the utility seeking details of how it plans to replace its well water with water from Lake Michigan.
Milwaukee Riverkeeper and our partners in KPOW (Keep Public Our Water) celebrated today when it was announced that Milwaukee Common Council tabled discussions about privatizing Milwaukee's water.
KPOW, a group of nonprofit organizations and private citizens, spoke out loudly against the sale of Milwaukee's Water Works to a private company. The group believes that water is a resource that belongs to the public, and should not be sold to the highest bidder.
The Shephard Express wrote an article raising questions about the proposed sale of Milwaukee's Water Works to a private company.
But is privatizing the Water Works the best answer for the city’s budget woes? Have other options been considered? “Given the fact that we have these budget issues, it concerns me that the city would pay out money to hire an adviser to grease the wheels for privatization without having any public input,” said Cheryl Nenn, Milwaukee riverkeeper at Friends of Milwaukee’s Rivers.
The Milwaukee County Board on Thursday approved 15-4 the sale of Milwaukee County land in Wauwatosa to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for construction of an engineering campus.
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors also considered and rejected suggestions ranging from tabling a decision to requiring the county give $2 million from its portion of the land sale toward an engineering scholarship program for women and minorities.
In the first practical application of the landmark Great Lakes Compact, state regulators on Thursday approved the diversion of Lake Michigan water to an area of New Berlin outside of the lake basin.
For Milwaukee, the state Department of Natural Resources' approval means an estimated $1.3 million in annual water sales for the city's utility. For New Berlin, the agreement means a dependable source of safe water in an area where ground water is plagued with unsafe radium levels.
The Milwaukee County Board will vote tomorrow, May 21, on the sale of 89 acres of County Grounds land to UWM for the development of a new engineering campus. (More information about this issue.)
Please call your county supervisor TODAY to urge him or her to vote against this proposed land sale!
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s long-range plan shows the potential for development of new buildings for the College of Engineering and Applied Science. The plan proposes six new buildings on the northeast corner of Kenwood Boulevard and Cramer Street, where there are two buildings and a parking lot. Rendering Courtesy of UW-Milwaukee.
Privatization of public water services has been occurring in the United States with vigor since the early 1990s. In these tough economic times, cities are struggling to pay for escalating costs of repairing aging water systems and attempting to balance their budgets.
Milwaukee Riverkeeper and our partners in KPOW (Keep Public Our Water) celebrated today when it was announced that Milwaukee Common Council tabled discussions about privatizing Milwaukee's water.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s long-range plan shows the potential for development of new buildings for the College of Engineering and Applied Science. The plan proposes six new buildings on the northeast corner of Kenwood Boulevard and Cramer Street, where there are two buildings and a parking lot. Rendering Courtesy of UW-Milwaukee.
