New research out of Ohio State University found the rate of bird decline was quicker in areas with more intense agricultural practices.

The post Bird populations are shrinking faster in agriculture hotspots — including the Midwest, study finds appeared first on WPR.

On Wednesday students at Morse Middle School in Milwaukee played Earth Day-inspired bingo and helped clean up around their school's campus. Now a creative greenspace, the area was once four city blocks of concrete before staff applied for Morse to become one of the City of Milwaukee's Green Schools.

The post Milwaukee Public Schools celebrates Earth Day on sustainable playground appeared first on WPR.

 The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state's lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an aging pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court.

The post Supreme Court rules for Michigan in its fight to shut down Line 5 appeared first on WPR.

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom. It is  part of the Grist series Vital Signs, exploring the ways climate change affects your health. This reporting initiative is made possible thanks to support from the Wellcome Trust.

Bailey Magers and Sunil Kumar cut strange figures on Pensacola Beach. Bags of disinfectant solution surrounded them on the white sand; their gloved hands juggled test tubes while layers of rubber and plastic shielded their skin from the elements. As the two organized their seawater samples on the popular Florida beach last August, an older woman wearing a swimsuit walked over to ask what they were doing.

“We’re just actively monitoring water quality,” they told her, but she pressed on.

“Are you looking for that flesh-eating bacteria?”

“We’re looking into it,” they replied, hoping not to frighten her. The woman turned back toward the ocean, her curiosity satisfied. As she walked away, Kumar noticed that she had scrapes and bruises on her body. A few minutes later, he watched her step into the waves. He shook off a chill and returned to the task at hand. 

Magers and Kumar study a bacteria called Vibrio, part of a lineage of ancient marine species that likely emerged sometime around the Paleozoic Era. Enormous, shallow seas flooded the massive, interconnected supercontinents that constituted the Earth’s landmass at the time, and complex marine ecosystems developed that thrived in these temperate, freshly-formed bodies of water. Researchers think there are more than 70 Vibrio species in the environment today, hundreds of millions of years later. The organisms float in warm, brackish water, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. 

A small number of Vibrio species can sicken and even kill. In worst-case scenarios, a person who has been exposed to the most dangerous of them — by swimming in brackish water with an open wound or ingesting a piece of raw shellfish that is contaminated with the tasteless and odorless toxin — may find themselves with only hours before the flesh on one or more extremities starts to bruise, swell, and decay. Without the quick aid of powerful antibiotics, septic shock can set in and lead to death. Anyone can get infected, though it is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. Research shows that temperature and salinity are the largest predictors of how widespread Vibrio bacteria are. As water temperatures rise, so does the concentration of Vibrio in seawater — boosting the risk of infection for beachgoers and shellfish consumers. The bacteria start getting active in water temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as coastal waters warm throughout the summer. In recent years, scientists have documented Vibrio expanding into places that were once too cold to support the bacteria, pushing as far north along the U.S. East Coast as Maine and appearing with more prevalence in temperate seas around the world. 

Vibriosis infections in general are the leading cause of shellfish-related illness in the U.S. They have increased “more than any other illness caused by a pathogen in the U.S. food supply” since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, started keeping tabs on such illnesses in 1996, according to a 2019 analysis by the International Association for Food Protection. The report attributed the precipitous rise to a “perfect storm” of factors that include climate change, food handling practices, expanding globalization, a patchwork of regulatory oversight, and improved diagnosis. 

On their conspicuous expeditions to Pensacola and other Sunshine State beaches, Magers and Kumar are trying to understand where, and when, harmful Vibrio species are present across the state. The research they’re doing is part of an ongoing effort by a laboratory at the University of Florida to create a Vibrio early warning system for the eastern United States — a program that can alert public health departments to high Vibrio concentrations in any given area a month in advance. How many limbs would be saved, Magers wonders, if doctors and nurses could be warned ahead of time that their emergency rooms would soon see an uptick in these chronically underdiagnosed infections? 

The work serves more than one purpose: As Vibrio bacteria spread north into cooler waters, they serve as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions — giving researchers a heads-up that the familiar composition of marine species in their local waters may be starting to shift. In Europe’s Baltic Sea, for example, a spike in Vibrio infections in July 2014 closely mirrored a heatwave that rapidly warmed the shallow sea. The incident showed researchers that Vibrio spikes herald unusually warm marine conditions — and they have since been utilized as barometers for ocean heatwaves and sea-surface warming patterns, not just food safety.

“We see Vibrio as the indicator for climate change,” said Kyle Brumfield, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland who has been studying the bacteria for a decade. “We can use the presence of Vibrio and Vibrio cases as a proxy for water health in general.”

The CDC estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Of those 80,000 cases, most are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most commonly results in gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The vast majority of the deaths, however, are caused by a type of Vibrio called vulnificus — the Latin word for “wound-making.”

Vulnificus is so potent it can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. In the last five years, the CDC registered 429 such vulnificus cases, plus 136 foodborne cases. But even though foodborne cases are less numerous, the patients that contract vulnificus by eating contaminated shellfish are more likely to die than those infected via open wounds. Thirteen percent of those nonfoodborne cases died, compared to 32 percent of people who got the infection from eating seafood. Most cases occur in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions.

As far as infectious diseases go, vulnificus is exceedingly rare: The CDC reports between 150 and 200 cases a year. The sexually-transmitted disease chlamydia, by comparison, one of the most common bacterial infections in the U.S., infects northward of 1.5 million Americans annually. But vulnificus’ astonishing speed and high fatality rate — 15 to 50 percent, depending on the health of the person exposed and the route of infection — makes it a unique public health threat, particularly as climate change grows its pathways of exposure. 

Vulnificus is not the kind of pathogen you’d want behaving erratically, but that’s exactly what it’s been doing since the late 2010s. Across the Eastern Seaboard, local and federal health officials have been reporting “unusual increases” in vulnificus prevalence — jagged spikes in infections that appear to correspond to extreme weather events like hurricanes and marine heatwaves.

In 2022 and 2024, years when the brackish water that Vibrio bacteria thrive in was pushed inland by major hurricanes, Florida’s public health department reported 17 and 19 deaths, respectively, linked to vulnificus exposure via open wounds. North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut also saw small clusters of infections during a record-breaking heatwave in the summer of 2023. “As coastal water temperatures increase,” the CDC warned in its investigation of those outbreaks, “V. vulnificus infections are expected to become more common.”

A 2023 study that analyzed a 30-year database of confirmed vulnificus infections from outdoor recreation along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts found the northern boundary of infections has moved north by a rate of 30 miles per year since 1998. The study noted that “V. vulnificus infections may expand their current range to encompass major population centers around New York,” and that annual case numbers may double as temperatures rise and America’s elderly population grows. 

“In the 1980s, Vibrio abundance would increase in the late spring and stay high through the summer and drop in the middle of October,” Brumfield, who conducts research on Vibrio in Maryland, said. “Now … we can pretty much find them almost year-round.”

Two ways to get infected

Just how worried we should be about the changing dynamics of Vibrio bacteria depends on who you ask and what you read. The gruesome and fast-acting nature of the vulnificus infection makes it enticing fodder for local and national news media, fueling a spree of terrifying reports every time a new severe infection or death surfaces. “Virginia dad wades in calf-high water, dies 2 weeks later of flesh-eating bacteria that ‘ravaged’ his legs,” read a recent headline in People magazine. “2 dead after eating oysters, contracting flesh-eating bacteria, officials say,” per a 2025 web story about two deaths linked to oyster consumption in Louisiana and Florida. Like many others in their mold, neither story mentions how rare the bacteria are. 

The press is bad news for some in the seafood industry, which does not welcome a national conversation about the rise in vibriosis cases, vulnificus in particular. Shellfish farmers and industry representatives that Grist spoke to in Florida and New York argued media attention on the safety of their products is unwarranted. “‘Flesh-eating bacteria,’” said Leslie Sturmer, a researcher who works for the University of Florida’s shellfish aquaculture extension program and consults with the shellfish industry on research and regulation — “the media loves it.”

Paul McCormick, an oyster farmer in Long Island who sells 750,000 oysters a year, thinks all press is bad press. “Even if the title of your article says ‘New York oysters are the safest oysters in the universe,’” he told me on the phone from his office in East Moriches in January, “you’ve already created a problem.”

In unrefrigerated oysters left out in warm conditions, Vibrio bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. But in 2010, states began deploying strict protocols known as “Vibrio control plans,” which require harvesters to rapidly cool their catch onboard and then refrigerate it at a shellfish processing facility within a set number of hours. The measures have proven effective at stopping the growth of Vibrio in harvested shellfish and preventing disease.  

The fact that infections can happen in one of two ways — shellfish consumption and seawater exposure — makes it easy to shift blame and point fingers. Consumers have more control over how much exposure they have to Vibrio than they have with E. coli, for example. A person with a kidney condition can choose not to eat oysters on the half shell. E. Coli, often found in raw vegetables, is far tricker to avoid. Likewise, someone with an open wound can opt not to bathe in brackish waters if they are aware of the risks lurking in the surf.

For shellfish industry representatives, personal responsibility is the primary way to bring caseloads down. “The person is the risk,” said Sturmer. “Not the climate, not the water, not the bacteria.” Implicitly, this appears to be the government’s position as well: There is currently no numerical threshold at which state public health agencies will “shut down” a beach for outdoor recreation, though states will issue public advisories and, very rarely, close beaches if they happen to find high levels of Vibrio in the water.

But that perspective doesn’t account for the rapid marine changes brought on by climate change, the patchiness of vibriosis awareness, and the fact that Americans often make personal decisions that are at odds with their own health and safety.

The shellfishers Grist spoke to fully acknowledged the research underpinning Vibrio’s spread. McCormick studied environmental science in college, and Sturmer is running her own climate experiments in a laboratory in the fishing town of Cedar Key, Florida, putting different kinds of clams and oysters through heat stress tests to determine which species are best equipped to weather the decades ahead. Marine mollusks are uniquely threatened by rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, issues that can lead to thin shells, low crop yields, and mass die-offs on farms. A detailed understanding of climate science, in other words, is good business for those who make their living fishing.

The problem, according to Sturmer, is that shellfishers have been unfairly singled out for a health issue that doesn’t affect most consumers and is more often contracted by ocean bathing rather than raw oyster consumption. While beaches stay open even when Vibrio bacteria are present in the water and lead to infections, a small number of foodborne vibriosis cases can trigger state closures of shellfish harvesting areas and product recalls. The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science noted that these precautions “erode consumer confidence and likely decrease sales.” 

The panic that ensues after media reports of Vibrio infections has a similar effect: A 2024 study asked more than 350 shellfish consumers in Rhode Island — a state that relies heavily on its shellfish industry, particularly in summer months when people vacation along the coastline — to bid on entrees of raw oysters and clams. After showing study participants a real newspaper article about a 2015 Vibrio outbreak linked to an oyster farm in Massachusetts, the researchers reported that the news had a “significant negative impact” on participants’ willingness to bid on oysters. It had a depressive effect on clam sales, too.

“You should really be out there beating the drum on botulism or salmonella or E. Coli,” Sturmer told me on a recent visit to her lab in Cedar Key. “Why worry about [vulnificus] when the number of cases are so minimal?” Sturmer is quick to point out that even the term “flesh-eating bacteria” is a misnomer. She’s right, in a sense: The bacteria doesn’t “eat” tissue; it destroys it. But it’s hard to say whether someone who has survived a bout of necrotizing fasciitis, the medical term for what vulnificus does to the flesh, would care to dispute the difference.

Protecting consumers from being sickened by the deadly bacteria isn’t as simple as trusting people with underlying medical conditions not to eat shellfish. Americans consume 2.5 billion oysters every year, half of which are eaten raw. Vibrio infections, which most often resemble food poisoning, are still underreported and underrecognized, even among individuals who are most at risk of developing a severe infection. Vulnificus infections are also underreported, but much less so than other Vibrio-related infections because they often require a hospital or emergency room visit. 

“I’ve cared for many people with salmonella infections and water-borne infectious processes, but this is the one that is likely the most serious,” said Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine who is also a practicing infectious disease doctor in Gainesville, and has seen limbs and lives lost to vulnificus. 

Identifying coastal areas most at risk

When it comes to preventing Vibrio infections, the work Magers and Kumar are doing could take some of the onus off of individual responsibility. The researchers are identifying which parts of the eastern U.S. coastline will be most risky for overall vibriosis infections, and vulnificus specifically, as waters warm. Alongside a group of microbiologists from the University of Maryland, including Brumfield, the scientists have developed a computer model that can predict how high the vibriosis risk will be in any given coastal county on the Gulf or East coasts a month in advance. The team trained their model by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. 

The system is far from perfect. When the model was first trained and evaluated, it was only 23 percent precise in pinpointing high-risk counties, meaning just one in four of the counties the program labeled as high-risk actually ended up seeing a vibriosis case in a given month. But it was very good at determining which counties were low-risk, capturing those regions with 99 percent precision. And it improved over time as the quality of the data they fed it got better. When they had the model do a test run on data collected by the Florida Department of Public Health from 2020 to 2024, 72 percent of total cases occurred in counties the tool flagged as high-risk for vibriosis. 

Perhaps most significantly, the model was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

The tool is geared toward predicting water-borne infections, but it may also provide useful information to the shellfishing industry, though the system isn’t a replacement for the established protocols farmers already use — protocols that have proven to be effective, particularly in states that are aggressive about enforcing them. What the new tool could do, however, is supplement those Vibrio control plans, especially when an upcoming weather pattern deviates from the historical norm — something that has been happening a lot lately.

States currently use a rolling five-year average illness rate to calculate how many minutes or hours harvested shellfish can stay on a boat before moving into indoor refrigeration. In February, for example, Florida shellfishers have to get their oysters into refrigeration by 5 p.m. on the day of harvest. In July, they have no more than two hours, or they have to cool their catch in ice slurries on board. But these timetables don’t account for sudden temperature anomalies.

“It’s going to be 80 degrees this week in Alabama,” Andy DePaola, a Gulf Coast oyster farmer, told me in February. “Yet I can keep my oysters out for, like, 14 hours, because the rolling five-year average is 20 degrees less than that anomaly.” (DePaola is also a microbiologist who worked on Vibrio at the FDA for the better part of 40 years, and is the author of the 2019 analysis that diagnosed the “perfect storm” for Vibrio spread.)

But the shellfish industry doesn’t appear enthusiastic about the idea of assigning counties a risk category based on Vibrio prevalence. Vibrio researchers, by their own admission, haven’t done a good job of reaching out to shellfishers to find out how such a tool would work best for them. At an August meeting of the Delaware Bay Section of the ​​New Jersey Shellfisheries Council last year, the director of a shellfish research laboratory brought up the idea of using Vibrio predictive models to “determine optimal days to harvest to reduce the transfer of infection to humans.” A lengthy discussion ensued. The consensus, ultimately, was that the model was a bad idea, and could be “used against the industry.”

Not all shellfishers are dead set against the kind of work Magers and Kumar are doing. “If Vibrio is an indicator of global warming, then that’s just an unfortunate bad luck scene for us,” McCormick, the Long Island oysterman, said. But it’s hard for him to see what relevance that research has to an industry that already has its own methods of controlling Vibrio. “In my mind that exists in one realm and the safety of our oysters is a whole different thing.”

As we move deeper into the 21st century, however, those two realms will have more overlap. If countries keep up their current pace of greenhouse gas emissions, most coastal communities along the East Coast will be environmentally primed for vibriosis outbreaks during peak summer months by midcentury. It won’t be a question of if there will be more vibriosis cases — it will be a matter of how to manage them. That’s the scenario Magers and Kumar are preparing for.

“In 30, 40, 100 years, these models won’t even matter because the risk is so high,” said Magers, the lead author of the predictive modeling study. “When it gets to that point, it would probably be a different kind of modeling strategy where we’d be modeling case numbers instead of infection risk.” 

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Know the facts about Vibrio, a bacteria found in coastal waters and raw oysters

Stay informed about your risk level as you enjoy fresh shellfish and beach trips this summer. 

By Lyndsey Gilpin

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom.

What is Vibrio? 

Vibrio is a type of bacteria that has been around for hundreds of millions of years; researchers have identified more than 70 species. These species are mostly harmless, but some can cause infection. The bacteria thrive in warm, brackish (slightly salty) water such as estuaries and bays, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. Serious infections typically happen either through exposure to an open wound in saltwater or, more rarely, ingestion of raw shellfish that contain the bacteria. 

The concentration of Vibrio in coastal waterways is higher from May through October, when temperatures are warmer. Most U.S. cases are in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions. Vibrio is tasteless and odorless. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis (an infection caused by the Vibrio bacteria) occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Florida has the highest number of cases, with about 20 percent reported from the Indian River Lagoon region, a popular recreation destination on the Atlantic Coast. 

What happens if you come into contact with Vibrio?

Most people are not at risk of developing illness, or they may have only mild symptoms. However, those with compromised immune systems can develop life-threatening infections. 

The majority of the 80,000 annual U.S. cases are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most often infects people via the raw seafood they eat and usually leads to gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, fever and chills, weakness, fatigue, and headache. 

A different type of Vibrio, vulnificus, is much less common, but can cause severe illness. The infected wound may be red, swollen, and painful, or you may develop mild gastrointestinal issues such as watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, or vomiting. Symptoms typically appear within 12 to 24 hours and can last up to seven days. Healthy people tend to fight off the infection on their own. But if flesh on one or more extremities to bruise, swell, and decay, or symptoms of sepsis occur, it is a medical emergency. Vulnificus can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. This severe infection is rare, but it has a 15 to 50 percent fatality rate; the vast majority of the 100 annual deaths are from this strain. A severe vulnificus infection is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

How concerned should I be — and how do I stay safe? 

You don’t necessarily need to avoid oyster bars or cancel your beach trip, but you should know how to stay informed and take precautions. Here are a few ways to do so:

• Be aware that there are many fearmongering headlines about flesh-eating bacteria, despite vulnificus being one of the rarest forms of Vibrio exposure. Vibrio doesn’t attack random healthy flesh — there must be exposure through an open wound (a break in the skin) or it must be ingested, most often through raw shellfish. People who get sick often have underlying health conditions. 
• If you don’t feel well after eating raw seafood or swimming in brackish water, don’t wait — go to the doctor. Some medical professionals, particularly those in areas where the bacteria hasn’t historically infected people, don’t know what vibriosis is. Advocate for yourself — ask for a test. 
• If you have liver disease, your risk is much higher than the general population’s. Keep an eye out for public health advisories from state and local health officials and avoid swimming in ocean water with an open wound or consuming raw shellfish in warm months. Note that ocean temperatures, especially along the lower Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, have been elevated outside the typical seasonal range in some recent years.
• Be aware when eating raw shellfish, particularly raw oysters. It’s best to be confident that the shellfish was refrigerated and stored in compliance with government standards. The vast majority of foodborne Vibrio cases lead to food poisoning. (Food poisoning from bacteria is always a risk when eating uncooked shellfish and many other foods like salads or deli meat.)

How is climate change affecting Vibrio?

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. The bacteria start getting active in temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as waters warm throughout the summer. Vibrio is expanding into places that were once too cold to support it, farther north on the U.S. East coast and in other temperate seas around the world. As it spreads, it serves as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions.

What’s being done to address Vibrio?

There’s a lot of research happening to better understand the risks these bacteria pose under changing environmental conditions: A group of microbiologists at the University of Maryland, alongside other scientists, have developed a computer model that can predict how high the risk of vibriosis will be in any given coastal county in the eastern U.S. a month in advance. The team trained its model, which is still under development, by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. It’s far from perfect, but it’s improving. And it was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday handed Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel a victory, offering a unanimous decision that laid to rest a yearslong debate over whether her case to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline should be heard in state or federal court. 

In an 14-page opinion penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court held that Enbridge had missed its 30-day window to have the case removed to federal court, with the Canadian energy company making its request 887 days after receiving Nessel’s initial complaint. 

The company’s Line 5 pipeline has been a long-running concern for tribal nations and environmentalists in the region, with Nessel calling it a “ticking time bomb” for the Great Lakes.

Running from northwestern Wisconsin into Sarnia, Ontario, the 645-mile long pipeline passes through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with a four-mile segment of dual pipelines running through the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan meet. The pipeline carries up to 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids through the straits each day.

“Today’s decision honors the truth that the Straits of Mackinac are not a bargaining chip and reaffirms what Tribal Nations have always known – we have the right and the responsibility to protect the Great Lakes,” Bay Mills Indian Community President Whitney Gravelle said in a statement. “The Supreme Court saw through Enbridge’s delay tactics and upheld the rule of law. This is a victory for our waters, our treaty rights, and the next seven generations who depend on the Great Lakes for life itself.”

In an emailed statement, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy noted that Nessel’s case has been stayed, awaiting the results of an appeal in another court case, which Enbridge filed against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources after they revoked the company’s easement to operate Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac.

The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan in December ruled that the move was unenforceable, with the Pipeline Safety Act of 1992 preempting states from placing safety regulations on interstate pipelines. Whitmer has appealed the decision.

“Setting aside the procedural decision, the fact remains that the safety of Line 5 is regulated exclusively by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration,” Duffy said, noting that the agency has not identified any safety issues that would warrant its shutdown.

Earth Day 2026 arrives less than a week after Wisconsin was battered by a succession of unseasonably severe thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes. A lack of snow in the West this winter has raised fears of an especially difficult wildfire season — raising air quality concerns across the Upper Midwest this summer. The administration of President Donald Trump has made drastic changes to the budget and structure of agencies such as the EPA and U.S. Forest Service, reducing staff at agencies that manage air and water quality and protect public lands. 

Nearly 60 years after Earth Day was founded by Wisconsin Gov. Gaylord Nelson, environmental advocates and elected officials celebrated the holiday noting the state, often labeled a “climate haven” for its easy access to fresh water and northern location, is not immune from the damaging effects of climate change. Still, they said, there are small victories happening every day across the state. 

Gov. Tony Evers spent the week on a statewide tour touting efforts to plant more trees, conserve more land and use more sustainable sources of energy. 

In 2021, Evers signed a pledge that Wisconsin would plant 75 million trees and conserve 125,000 acres of forestland by the end of 2030. In a Tuesday news release, Evers’ office announced that in 2025 the state planted nearly 12 million trees and conserved more than 7,800 acres of forestland in the state in 2025 — bringing the total to more than 54 million trees planted in five years. 

“Conservation and protecting our natural resources are core to who we are as a people and as a state — it’s in our DNA, and here in Wisconsin, our work to conserve and protect our lands, waters, and air and respond to an ever-changing climate has never been more important,” Evers said in a statement. “From flooding and severe weather events to unseasonable snow droughts and everything in between, it’s clear that climate change is an imminent threat to our state, economy, and our kids’ future. That’s why, since Day One, my administration and I have been working to conserve our natural resources and tackle the climate crisis head-on, but there’s always more we can do.” 

While Evers touts the work his administration has done to protect the state’s environment, the main tool the state has used to conserve public land for the last four decades — the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program — is set to expire this summer due to Republican opposition to land conservation and the Legislature’s inability to reach a deal to reauthorize the program before adjourning for the year. 

Howard Lerner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said at an online news conference Tuesday that there are still wins happening for the climate. 

“We are getting things done in the Midwest, even while the Trump administration maintains its assault on core environmental values and rolls back years and years of federal progress,” he said. 

He noted that a variety of groups across the Midwest worked together to protect the funding in the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. He  added, however, that more work will have to be done to protect Great Lakes shoreline communities from the effects of an increasingly fluctuating water level. 

“When all is said and done, the impacts of climate change are leading to much greater fluctuations in Great Lakes water levels, and they’re leading to more intensive storms, high winds, heavy waves that batter the shoreline,” he said. “That puts a heavy impact and burden on our shoreline communities and on the shoreline infrastructure, and that’s infrastructure that we’ve got to protect and find ways of doing that.”

But the Great Lakes are also struggling with water quality, he said, largely in the form of contamination from factory farms that can lead to toxic events such as algae blooms. He said that in the wake of the federal government stepping back from its role protecting wetlands and waterways from runoff, Midwest states need to do more. 

“We need to get policies in the states that reduce the amount of phosphorus, nitrates that flow into the water supply,” he said. “I think you’re going to see that [concentrated animal feeding operations] are going to be a bigger story going forward. Communities don’t want them, and E. coli and local water supplies and more toxic algae blooms in the Great Lakes is something that the public, I just don’t think is willing to tolerate.”

The darkened sky in the early afternoon, the tornado sirens wailing as baseball-sized hail shattered windows and dented car roofs, sounding like a series of explosions as drivers hurried home at 4 p.m. last week — all of it felt like the eerie first scene in an apocalyptic movie. 

This is not a drill, I thought, watching the clouds tumbling and boiling overhead as my car radio and my phone began shrieking in unison and a robotic voice informed me that I should take shelter immediately from a tornado that was moving at 20 miles per hour directly toward my neighborhood. 

We’ve all grown accustomed to the low background hum of climate anxiety. Suddenly it’s as loud and immediate as the crack of a giant hailstone on the windshield. 

The changes to the planet we’ve been warned about for decades are suddenly hitting too close to home to ignore. Over the last year in Wisconsin we’ve endured smoke-filled skies from summer forest fires, massive floods, wild temperature swings and scarier, more serious storms. 

This should be a wakeup call. But instead of accelerating efforts to head off climate catastrophe, our federal government is canceling renewable energy contracts and pushing for more coal plants, more oil drilling, more toxic mining on public lands, undoing protections for clean air and water, and accelerating the destruction of our shared environment in order to extract resources and build more wealth for a handful of people in the short term. 

The price of this heedlessness is so enormous it hurts just to think about it. 

Two days after the hail storm and tornado warnings sent me and my neighbors scrambling for cover, the U.S. Senate passed a bill to allow sulfide mining in the Superior National Forest, on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — an inexpressibly beautiful place that is precious to my family, the scene of some of the most formative experiences of our girls’ childhood, and the most visited wilderness area in the U.S. The Forest Service spent years studying how acid mine drainage — the toxic byproduct of sulfide-ore mining — could contaminate the interconnected lakes and streams that make up the Boundary Waters. Once that contamination starts, there is no way to reverse it, which is why an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans weighed in against the mine, and the federal government blocked it. Until that protection was overturned last week.

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith took a heroic stand on the Senate floor last Wednesday, arguing late into the night, trying to persuade her colleagues not just to hold off on destroying this pristine place, but to forgo using an obscure maneuver that, in a 50-49 vote, redefined land management and knocked down longstanding protections for every piece of national forest in the country. 

My colleague J. Patrick Coolican, editor of the Minnesota Reformer, described Smith pleading to an empty chamber, “I dearly hope the members of this body will think about their legacy in protecting the great places in this country.”

No future president can reinstate the mining ban that protected the Boundary Waters now that Congress used the obscure Congressional Review Act to strike it down. And it’s bigger than that. With their vote to open up mining near the Boundary Waters, “lawmakers have called into question the validity of every management plan issued by the U.S. Forest Service over the past several decades,” Alex Brown of Stateline reports. “That could result in legal chaos for thousands of permits covering logging, grazing, mining and outdoor recreation.” As Smith warned her Republican colleagues who want to protect the public lands they cherish in their home states, their vote means it’s now open season on those lands, too.

I couldn’t bear to talk with my daughters, who have spent every summer they can remember in the Boundary Waters, about the vote last week. 

But this week, Earth Week, it’s time to confront it. All is not lost. Just as they stood up to the masked federal agents who descended on Minneapolis to tear immigrant families apart, Minnesotans are organizing to fight Twin Metals, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chilean mining company Antofagasta, as it seeks state permits to open up its toxic mine. While mining proponents tout the mine as a job creator (ignoring the economic costs of destroying the nation’s most-visited wilderness), the Senate’s action mostly benefits a foreign mining company, which has a history of flouting environmental regulations and creating toxic spills in other countries, and which will likely sell the copper it extracts from Minnesota to China.

The least we Wisconsinites can do is to help our neighbors as they try to repel this deadly invasion and seizure of a priceless natural resource.

Friends of the Boundary Waters, based in Minnesota, is filing a lawsuit arguing that the congressional maneuver that opened up the mine is illegal. The group and its allies are also urging the Minnesota DNR to cancel Twin Metals’ leases for the mine, and pushing the Minnesota state legislature to ban mining in this sensitive area.

As Wisconsin Sen. Gaylor Nelson, the founder of Earth Day put it in his 1970 speech kicking off the modern environmental movement, protecting the environment is “not just an issue of survival, but an issue of how we survive.” 

“Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty,” he said. “….Our goal is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all human beings and all other living creatures. An environment without ugliness, without ghettos, without poverty, without discrimination, without hunger and without war.”

We need to protect that vision of life from the forces of greed and destruction that are engulfing us. We can’t let them write the end of the story.

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Wisconsin is more than halfway toward its forest conservation and tree planting goals, Gov. Tony Evers announced ahead of Earth Day.

The post Wisconsin has planted more than 54M trees since 2021, but forest conservation goals at risk appeared first on WPR.

The U.S. Forest Service’s plan to close scores of research stations could threaten the nation’s wildfire readiness, many foresters fear, and erode decades of work to understand timber production, soil health, pests and diseases, watersheds and wildlife.

Late last month, the Forest Service announced plans to close 57 of its 77 research stations, located across 31 states, merging them into a single organization in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The agency described the move as a way to consolidate, not cut, the agency’s scientific work, and “unify research priorities.”

It’s unclear how many scientists will be affected by the transition, but it comes as part of a larger agency reorganization that is expected to move roughly 5,000 employees to new outposts. Forest Service leaders have framed the closures as a way to reduce the agency’s real estate footprint, citing a facilities budget Congress has shrunk, as opposed to curtailing its scientific work.

But many longtime foresters fear the closures will threaten vital research that has been the backbone of forest management for state agencies, timber companies and tribes. Many of the research stations slated for closure study fire behavior, forecast smoke dispersal and help inform evacuation decisions.

“The research arm of the Forest Service is one of the unsung heroes in forest management around the world,” said Mike Dombeck, who served as chief of the Forest Service under President Bill Clinton and remains a vocal conservation advocate. “It is the premier forest research entity in the world, on everything from invasive species to wildland fire risk, watershed protection, basic silviculture and harvest methods.”

The Forest Service’s revamp also will relocate the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and restructure its regional management system.

The Forest Service did not grant a Stateline interview request. The agency has not said how much money it expects to save by closing the research stations.

Many Western leaders are skeptical that the consolidated operation will be able to replicate the work of the existing research stations. State officials said they’ve been given few details about how the transition will play out and whether existing research will continue.

In Washington state, the Forest Service plans to close research stations in Seattle and Wenatchee, while maintaining a facility in Olympia.

“The station in Seattle does some of the most practical-based research that we use for fire and forest management,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “We don’t want to lose that work. They’ve said they’ll keep Olympia open, but we don’t know what that looks like. Are they making sure we don’t lose the ongoing research?”

Forestry veterans say it’s important for the agency to continue its scientific work across a wide variety of forests and climates.

“This is research that’s been going on for decades or even a century or more,” said Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for agency workers. “They’re able to see how climate change impacts are playing out in a dry ponderosa forest or a humid hardwood forest. There are research plots and experimental forests that have been diligently studied for decades. This could be a loss of a lot of knowledge.”

The Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory, for instance, plays a crucial role in issuing wildfire smoke forecasts that are relied on throughout the Northwest. After a hot, dry winter, that work could be critical as a dangerous wildfire season approaches.

In Vermont, the Burlington research station slated for closure studied maple syrup production and the effects of acid rain on different tree species, according to VTDigger.

And in Mississippi, the Southern Institute of Forest Genetics, also on the chopping block, has guided tree improvement programs that improved growth and pest resistance in Southern timber forests.

Some conservation advocates are concerned that the research station closures are aimed at suppressing studies that might show the environmental harms of logging or mining. President Donald Trump has pledged to increase timber production on federal lands. He has moved to limit environmental reviews and protections for endangered species to speed up logging projects.

In an interview with the Deseret News, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said that the move was designed to ensure that the Forest Service’s research “will better align with the priorities of the administration” — minerals, recreation, fire management and “active management” of forests, which can include timber harvests and thinning projects. He said the research would support not just forests but also private landowners.

“It’s not streamlining, it’s dismantling,” said Chandra Rosenthal, Western lands and Rocky Mountain advocate with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that defends whistleblowers in the federal service. “It’s going to really impact how the Forest Service makes decisions on the ground. The way the Trump administration is trying to make a lot of decisions is gut feelings.”

In a webpage set up to respond to news coverage of the move, the Forest Service said it is a “myth” that the station closures will eliminate scientific positions or cancel research programs. But many forestry veterans said that attrition is inevitable, as researchers are asked to move their families across the country to work under a new model with few details.

“There’s concern that we’re going to see a lot of really good individuals who cannot uproot their families that we’ll lose,” said Geissler, the Washington state forester. “It’s taken a long time to develop that kind of expertise. It’s scary.”

Foresters in both conservative and liberal states said they rely heavily on the research the Forest Service provides. Most were unwilling to comment extensively about the closures without seeing more details.

“That work is absolutely important, and I sure hope it continues,” said Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris. “I don’t think research should stop. It may need to look a little different.”

Some leaders said there may be opportunities for states, through forestry agencies and universities, to pick up the slack and ensure research continues, even if the Forest Service is no longer playing a lead role.

“This is still a little bit of an unknown area, but we’ll have to make sure that if there’s a gap there, that we’re working with our universities and (state) research centers to make sure that is still being provided,” said Utah State Forester Jamie Barnes.

Nick Smith, public affairs director with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, expressed support for the agency’s effort to consolidate its work, saying he’d had “limited interaction” with the research stations.

While some of the Forest Service’s work is controversial, agency veterans say its research program is valued by loggers and tree-huggers alike.

“Nobody was asking for this,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment during the Obama administration. “There was no call to do anything like this.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

Congress’ move to allow mining in a national forest near a wilderness area may have broad ramifications across the country.

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to overturn a mining ban in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest, the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

By using an obscure tool known as the Congressional Review Act to open the national forest for mining, lawmakers have called into question the validity of every management plan issued by the U.S. Forest Service over the past several decades. That could result in legal chaos for thousands of permits covering logging, grazing, mining and outdoor recreation. 

Over the past year, Congress for the first time has used the Congressional Review Act to revoke management plans for regions managed by the Bureau of Land Management, seeking to allow more mining and drilling. Such plans had not previously been considered “rules” subject to lawmakers’ review. 

Under the act, federal agencies must submit new regulations to Congress before they can take effect. Because management plans, which function as high-level guidance documents, were never considered rules, federal agencies did not submit them to Congress for review. 

Using a new legal theory, Republicans in Congress have opened reviews and revoked several specific plans that limited resource extraction in Alaska, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. But those actions call into question whether more than 100 other such plans are legally in effect, since they are now considered rules that were not sent to Congress as the law requires.

Public lands experts say the new interpretation could create legal jeopardy across hundreds of millions of acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management, threatening any permit issued under a management plan drafted after the passage of the Congressional Review Act in 1996.

Now, for the first time, Congress has used the review tool to overturn a management decision on Forest Service land. 

“There’s a huge playing field of actions that would be forbidden if none of these management plans are lawfully in place,” Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration, told Stateline earlier this year. “This could bring things to a screeching halt.”

Longtime outdoors writer Wes Siler, who has written extensively about the Boundary Waters review battle, said in a post Thursday that the vote will “destroy the Forest Service’s ability to conduct regular business for the foreseeable future.” If the agency’s management plans suddenly become invalid, he wrote, “not only could this grind industrial operations on (Forest Service) land to a halt as all of this winds its way through federal court, but it could also set (the Forest Service) the task of re-doing 30 years of work.”

On Thursday, the Senate voted 50-49 to revoke a Biden-era plan that banned mining on land in the Superior National Forest. The resolution will now go to President Donald Trump for his signature.

A Chilean mining company has proposed to mine for copper, nickel and cobalt along Birch Lake in Minnesota. The planned mine would sit at the headwaters of the wilderness area’s watershed. The Boundary Waters is the most popular wilderness in the country, and advocates say the water is so pristine that many visitors fill their bottles straight from the surface of its lakes.

Wilderness proponents say such mines have a long track record of pollution, and leaks from the proposed site would flow downstream and irreversibly contaminate the treasured Boundary Waters.

U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, the Minnesota Republican who sponsored the review action, has said the mine would bring jobs to the region. Opponents have argued that the tourism economy centered on the Boundary Waters is a larger economic driver, and noted that the mine will be run by a foreign company that will likely export the copper to China. 

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, led the effort to uphold the mining ban on the Senate floor. Following the vote, she said that supporters of the Boundary Waters would likely mount a legal challenge, questioning the use of the Congressional Review Act to revoke a public land order from the Forest Service. 

“I question the legality of what Congress did,” Smith said, according to the Minnesota Reformer.  

Two Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, also voted against the measure. Tillus also questioned the use of the Congressional Review Act.

“It’s a precedent that I think our Republican colleagues are going to regret,” he told The Minnesota Star Tribune. 

The Forest Service oversees nearly 200 million acres of land, managed for multiple uses, including timber harvests, grazing, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. Some legal experts fear the management plans governing those activities are now in legal jeopardy. 

“That right there is chaos,” Peter Van Tuyn, a longtime environmental lawyer and managing partner at Bessenyey & Van Tuyn LLC, told Stateline earlier this year. 

“Those (plans) go across the full spectrum of what land managers do: conservation and preservation, mining approvals, oil and gas drilling, resource exploitation, public access and recreation,” he added. “There’s a very real chance that a court could say that a resource management plan was never in effect and all the implementation actions under the umbrella of that plan are invalid.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the Trump administration’s approach to energy production Monday, as Democrats on a U.S. House Appropriations panel accused the department of kowtowing to oil and gas interests at the expense of renewable energy.

Burgum said President Donald Trump’s administration aimed to ease regulatory burdens on oil and gas producers, and said former President Joe Biden sought to shut out those industries in a misguided attempt to boost renewable energy sources. 

Burgum indicated at several points that what Democrats called a pro-oil-and-gas bias was a correction to Biden’s “over-rotation” toward wind and solar.

“The last administration said ‘all of the above’ and then there were a set of rules that were completely punitive against the stuff that we needed to actually, you know, have baseload power in this country,” he said about Biden’s oil and gas policy. “It was just too early. It was too premature to say we’re going to shut all that down and we’re going to transition.”

But Democrats on the House Appropriations Interior-Environment Subcommittee said the Interior Department under Burgum was doing exactly the opposite: subsidizing fossil fuels while discouraging solar and wind power.

“Shortly after taking office, the White House moved quickly to halt offshore wind development and took steps to rein in solar and wind projects,” Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said. “Why? Why are we kneecapping industries that create jobs, expand our energy supply and help address the climate crisis? Because this administration’s energy policy is based on political grievance, ideological hostility and, of course, propping up big oil and gas.”

California Democrat Josh Harder called for an overhaul of permitting regulations to enable faster construction of renewable energy infrastructure. Some of that responsibility fell to Congress, he said, but he complained that Trump was making it even harder for wind and solar projects to get off the ground.

“There is, again, one standard for one type of energy and another standard for another type,” he said. “I hear the complaints about previous administrations putting their thumb on the scale. What I see now is secretary-level approval required for one type of project, but not for another. And again, I don’t think that’s sustainable or good policy.”

Burgum responded that the administration was pro-hydro power and pro-nuclear, but was wary of “weather-dependent, intermittent” solar and wind power because those sources can be more expensive for ratepayers.

Cutbacks in parks, Bureau of Indian Education 

The topic of Monday’s hearing was Trump’s $16 billion budget request for the Interior Department for the next fiscal year. The request would keep the department’s funding roughly even with the current fiscal year, which was a nearly 12% cut from fiscal 2025.

Democrats voiced their disapproval of that new baseline, including a $757 million cut to National Park Service operations.

“The department is on a dangerous course,” Pingree said. “This budget would only make the damage worse, and as the ranking member of the subcommittee, I will do everything in my power to oppose these reckless cuts and fight the administration’s destructive policies.”

Members of both parties raised questions about proposed cuts to the Bureau of Indian Education budget after the Department of Education offloaded part of its responsibility in that area to Interior. 

The BIE would receive about $437 million less under the proposed budget, a roughly 32% cut.

“While your agency begins to manage these new programs, I would strongly recommend — I’m sure you will — carrying out thorough tribal consultations to ensure that there are no funding award delays or program disruptions that would potentially harm,” full Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole told Burgum.

Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, is the first Native American to lead the Appropriations Committee.

Full committee ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who is also the top Democrat on the subcommittee that oversees Education Department funding, said she was concerned about the shift.

“I worry about transferring the programs from Education,” she said. “Quite honestly, (BIE) doesn’t have a great track record, and I don’t know whether or not the funding that goes along with those programs is going to come over.”

Burgum said 16 full-time staffers in four Education Department programs would transfer to the BIE, along with all the funding for the programs.

Local issues

Members also raised a host of specific concerns.

Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum criticized the U.S. Senate vote last week to undo restrictions on mining in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.

Rep. Jake Ellzey, a Texas Republican, focused much of his time on poor conditions at Maryland’s Fort Washington, a unit of the National Park Service a short drive from Washington, D.C.

Ellzey pointed to photos of buildings in need of repair and noted that a longtime park ranger retired last year and her role has not been filled, leaving only two rangers across almost 350 acres.

And subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican, joked that the Bureau of Land Management’s $144 million wild horses and burros program was his top priority.

“If you can solve that problem, I don’t care what happens to the rest of the budget,” Simpson said. “We’ve been trying to deal with that for so long that it’s crazy.”

Clouds of tear gas engulfed the Ridglan Farms Biomedical research facility, as police repelled hundreds of animal rights activists attempting to breach the facility to carry away  thousands of beagles bred and housed inside. The activists gathered at Ridglan in the Dane County village of Blue Mounds on Saturday, a day ahead of the date  they’d publicly announced for the planned rescue action. 

Wayne Hsiung, a lawyer and animal rights activist from California who was one of the lead organizers of the action, was reportedly among the first people arrested. The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said on social media that he was arrested “within minutes” for conspiracy to commit burglary. As the activists attempted to enter the Ridglan facility for the second time in a little over a month, they were met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Activists  said some people  were severely beaten by law enforcement. One participant, Nicholas Dickman, lost multiple teeth after officers beat him after Dickman crawled through a hole activists made in the  fence around the facility, according to a press release prepared by the Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs. 

The conflict comes after weeks of escalating tensions around the controversial facility. Ridglan keeps thousands of beagle dogs bred specifically to be used in biomedical research. Ridglan maintains its own research wing, but also sells the dogs to other facilities for use in experiments. Critics of Ridglan have long accused the facility of subjecting the dogs to cruel and inhumane conditions. Last year, a special prosecutor appointed by a Dane County judge found that violations of Wisconsin’s animal cruelty laws had occurred at Ridglan. Instead of filing charges, the special prosecutor reached a settlement deal with Ridglan that gave the company until July to shut down its breeding operation. 

Animal rights advocates denounced the decision to let the beagles remain at Ridglan until July. This prompted a first attempted rescue by dozens of activists in March. More than 20 beagles were taken from the facility and  some were adopted. A few of the dogs were intercepted by police and returned to Ridglan. The group forced its way into the buildings housing the dogs, breaching fences and breaking locks. Some of the activists reported that the dogs they pulled from gated enclosures were living in cramped and unsanitary conditions. Although 27 people were arrested, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett didn’t refer charges to the district attorney’s office until last Thursday, after the activists announced their plans to return to try to get more beagles out. Barrett called the activists “outside groups” who used violence to breach the buildings and “stole dogs from the facility.”

On Saturday, at least 25 people were arrested, a coalition spokesperson said in an email statement to the Wisconsin Examiner. Two people have been charged with tresspassing, one with reckless driving, and four with felony burglary. Hsiung reportedly said in a call from jail that “only a deeply corrupt system will use tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful activists saving dogs. We are seeing the worst in humanity today. But in the courage of the rescuers, also the best.” The coalition  said in a statement that Hsiung was questioned by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The FBI refused to comment for this article. 

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on social media that a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) had been used to warn people that they’d be arrested. The statement said  that hundreds of people attempted to breach the gate, while others “blocked roadways to slow the response of law enforcement and other emergency vehicles.” It also said that one of the activists reckless drove a vehicle around the property before “law enforcement stopped it and arrested the driver.” 

The sheriff’s office also said  that some protesters were peaceful while others ignored warnings and attempted to break into the facility, and that 40mm munitions (tear gas) and pepper balls were used. Dane County deputies were assisted by other law enforcement agencies, though the sheriff’s office  did not name them in its statement. 

Sheriff Barrett said that “it was clear from the beginning that this was not going to be a peaceful protest.” Barrett said the use of force was “appropriate and proportionate to the behaviors observed” and that “resorting to crime, chaos, and violence is not the solution.”

The sheriff’s post included pictures of activists dressed in white biohazard suits, carrying equipment like sledgehammers and power saws to breach the facility. 

Lisa Castagnozzi, a resident of Milwaukee County who participated in the action, told the Examiner that she’d been concerned about Ridglan for at least eight years, ever since she read about the facility’s 311 animal cruelty violations cited by the state, “and yet, they just keep reporting these violations and nothing ever happens.” 

“So everyone — myself included — have tried over eight or nine years now, for me eight, all of the legal channels. You know?” Castagnozzi said. “All the advocacy channels. Going to hearings. Signing petitions. Calling our Congress people. Going to Madison to talk to people at [the state Department of Agriculture and Trade], U.S.D.A., meeting with legislators, being part of Dane4Dogs…I mean literally trying to get any of the four major authorities in Wisconsin to take action. Like we know that there’s cruelty there. Why is no one taking action?”

In frustration, Castagnozzi said she and many others decided to go to Ridglan on Saturday. Originally, the second action was announced for Sunday, and Castagnozzi said that she, like many others, was surprised that the action was moved up a day to Saturday. When they arrived at Ridglan, Castagnozzi said she saw what she thought was smoke in the air as the police fired tear gas and people tried  to get through the gates. Castagnozzi’s team decided to keep their distance, and then people started coming down the hill towards them with injuries. 

One man, she said, “had been pepper-sprayed in the eyes, like brutally. And then from that moment on, for the rest of the day, for me…my team was scattered and there’s so many people and chaos. …  people were shot with rubber bullets. People went to the hospital. Knee injuries. A professor from Sheboygan I know, she was shot in the chest and she had to go to the hospital and make sure it wasn’t a broken rib. A lot of injuries, and tons of people with serious chemical, you know, in the eyes, in the face, in the skin, in their lungs, I mean people were just passing out.”

Castagnozzi also said that she saw people who identified themselves as neighbors and supporters of Ridglan blocking roads with their vehicles and not allowing people to pass. 

On Sunday, sheriff’s deputies were still in the area blocking a road to Ridglan and monitoring passing cars. A planned vigil was not held at the farm. Instead, dozens of activists gathered at the Capitol, saying they would not give up on freeing Ridglan’s beagles.

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With its light yellow flowers and heart-shaped, dark green leaves, fig buttercup looks as pretty as its name. But scientists say this invasive plant is spreading quickly across Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota and will outcompete and kill native plants.

The post Invasive plant rapidly spreading through Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

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Beavers have been in the news these past few months in a variety of ways. The latest Pixar movie, “Hoppers,” features an animal lover who “seizes an opportunity to use a new technology to ‘hop’ her consciousness into a lifelike robotic beaver and communicate directly with animals.”

The filmmakers worked with a University of Minnesota ecohydrologist, Dr. Emily Fairfax, as a science expert, even naming a key character for her (Dr. Sam — for Samantha Emily Fairfax), per Minnesota Public Radio. She visited the studio several times and led a research trip to Colorado to help the team learn more about beavers and their habitat.

In that MPR story, Fairfax said Pixar did a good job showing how beavers can improve ecosystems with their dams.

“When you lose that beaver, you also lose the homes for the other animals, and I think that’s a message that not everybody really understands,” she told MPR. “If you trap a beaver out, if you remove its dam, you will take away a lot more than just the beaver from that ecosystem, whether you meant to or not.”

She also spoke to the question of beavers as a nuisance or pest, a topic I’ve been reporting on for a few years now and interviewed her about for a recent story.

Researchers have identified Wisconsin as being among the top 10 states for biodiversity loss, largely due to climate change and animal overexploitation. But a vocal minority serving on a beaver advisory committee that is drafting recommendations for the state’s Department of Natural Resources believes it’s time for a change: Beavers should cease to be framed as a nuisance species and instead as an ecosystem engineer that creates wetlands. That can help reduce some of the worst effects of climate change: droughts, floods and fire.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wildlife services program lethally removes beavers in Wisconsin and other states throughout the Midwest. In Wisconsin, wildlife services staff trapped about 2,200 beavers in 2025 and removed more than 800 dams.

The majority of beaver committee members — mostly composed of state and federal employees and interest groups — support the status quo. Those who do not have criticized the committee as stacking the deck against people who would advocate for substantive changes in policy. This makes, they say, the outcome a seemingly foregone conclusion. Some committee members have said a survey released to gauge the public’s tolerance of the critters frames beavers as pests and fails to mention the effectiveness of coexistence methods.

As Wisconsin Watch previously reported, the state has an arduous and often expensive permitting process to install flow control devices that can lower water levels in beaver ponds or prevent the blockage of culverts. That can usher landowners toward lethal solutions, the use of which Wisconsin law liberally allows.

People may hunt or trap beavers and remove their dams on their property without obtaining a license or reporting their catch. In fact, there are risks to ignoring one’s beavers.

People who own or lease beaver-occupied land and don’t allow their neighbors to remove them are liable for damages. Additionally, if a beaver dam causes damage to a neighboring property, the injured party may enter the property where the dam lies and remove it without being charged with trespassing.

Committee members petitioned to have Fairfax address the group. She stressed beavers’ role as a “keystone” species, on whom many plants and animals depend.

“It is harder to coexist,” she said. “But in many cases, it is worth it.”

Pest or nuisance? The role of beavers in ‘Hoppers’ and the real world is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A Bayfield County judge is weighing whether the Bad River tribe and environmental groups face irreversible harm if Enbridge continues building a new stretch of its Line 5 oil and gas pipeline around the tribe's reservation.

The post Could work on Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute come to a halt? Here’s what to know. appeared first on WPR.

During a nearly four-hour hearing Thursday at the Bayfield County Courthouse in the city of Washburn, Wisconsin, Bayfield County Circuit Judge John Anderson consistently pressed lawyers petitioning for and against a stay or stoppage of work to reroute the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline in northern Wisconsin on the standard he should use in determining the likelihood of success of a judicial review.

Environmental groups and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians have applied for a stay of the Enbridge project based on their petition for review of an administrative court judge’s decision in February to approve permits to go forward with a 41-mile pipeline project. The plan is to reroute the pipeline around the Bad River reservation, after a court finding that the existing pipeline is illegally trespassing on tribal land.

Pipeline opponents argued that the judicial review would ultimately be successful, in part because the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had inappropriately applied a state statute governing navigable waterways, and that ongoing pipeline work before the review is completed would result in irreversible harm. Even though the new route does not cross the reservation, it endangers water that the tribe depends on, Bad River representatives and environmental groups argue.

The legal counsel for the DNR and Enbridge pushed back, noting that there had been extensive work and public scrutiny of Enbridge’s permit application, and that there wasn’t a high likelihood of the judicial review succeeding.

Judge Anderson said after he received briefs from all parties by April 27, he will decide on the stay, depending on whether he is “convinced” the judicial review would “not go further.”

He framed his future decision on the negative chances of the review.

Arguments for the stay

“The Band has a significant interest,” said John Petoskey, an Earthjustice attorney representing Bad River. “It has an interdependent relationship, and it’s the only homeland it has ever had. The natural landscape is far more than a resource. It’s a way of life. That way of life requires a sustainable environment. It’s undisputed that the project will cause an impact.”

Judge Anderson questioned how to determine “irreparable” or “irreversible” damage.

Petoskey responded that destroying a wetland that has not been damaged in 100 years would mean the area will never be the same.

“When wetlands are destroyed, they don’t clean water or control floods and no longer provide services that help the tribe,” he said.

Petoskey also said the reroute will create a “belt” of restricted area around the reservation, where if tribal members go, they could be charged with a felony. However, later, Enbridge lawyer Eric Maassen, said Enbridge would recognize the rights of all tribal members who had a legal right to be on the land.

Robert Lee, representing the Sierra Club, League of Women Voters and 350 Wisconsin, expressed concern about at least 72 waterways the pipeline is supposed to cross.

He argued that under statute 30.12, only the riparian owners (landowners whose property adjoins or contains a natural waterway, and who therefore have the right to reasonable use of the water) can apply for permits for the waterways, and noted that Enbridge is not the riparian owner but a “co-applicant” with the riparian owners.

“Enbridge has the ability to acquire land,” he said, adding that all the company had obtained were easements with property owners.

“Under our view, that is unlawful if they are not the riparian owner,” he said.

Lee also noted that Enbridge had not been specific about what and where it would remove substances from navigable waters, and said under statute 30.20 the DNR had to know specifically what is to be removed to make a decision on a permit. He also noted that Enbridge said some bedrock would be destroyed but wasn’t specific where that would occur.

“If they don’t know the waters where blasting is to take place then public interest is not met,” he said.

Representing Clean Wisconsin, Evan Feinauer said, “They can’t build a pipeline and not do irreparable harm.”

Judge Anderson responded, “Can’t you say that about any project? Where is the line?

Feinauer responded, “Environmental resources will never be the same, even under the best-case scenario.”

Feinauer claimed the DNR didn’t have all the information in front of it when it issued permits, and Judge Anderson asked, “Whose fault was that?” Feinauer said Enbridge didn’t provide needed information on all the potential waterway crossings, including wetlands Enbridge had failed to include in its project proposal.

“I can’t think of a more important question than which wetlands,” said Feinauer.

Arguments against the stay

DNR counsel Gabe Johnson-Karp  said the factors Judge Anderson should consider in issuing a stay are “irrevocable harm” and “success on the merits” of winning the judicial review.  

“I have to consider the likelihood of success,” said Judge Anderson. “How do I do that if I don’t have the record yet?”  Anderson added that he does not intend to read all 113,000 pages of submitted documents.

Johnson-Karp also said the petitioners had failed to provide a “factual showing” of harm and had only addressed a “generalized harm.”

Anderson asked why the parties were even in court if four major waterway permits had not yet been issued. Johnson-Karp acknowledged a lot more work on the pipeline could be done before the four permits are issued.

Regarding the right to cross a navigable waterway and whether the application is solely the riparian owner’s responsibility, Johnson-Karp said the DNR has had a consistent practice of using a “co-applicant approach,” such as Enbridge is using, where Enbridge has an easement with owners.

Maassen also noted there were only four permits being pursued on the project, and he anticipated that they would be opposed.

Maassen said Enbridge has a “high confidence” it could lawfully work on the permit sites, and added, “Just because there are wetlands and forest doesn’t mean you don’t do infrastructure.”

If a three-month stay were issued, Maassen said, in actuality, it would be more likely to delay the project by six months as workers who had been assigned to the project would have left and more time would be needed to hire others.

Maassen also argued that Enbridge didn’t need to be the riparian owner on property it would only be working on in some cases for 24-48 hours.

And he contested the characterization that the blasting of bedrock is not in the public interest as a “woeful miscategorization.”

“If they can’t convince me there is a likelihood on the merits, does it end there?” Judge Anderson asked Maassen about the success of the judicial review and the request for a stay, and Maassen responded, “It does.”

Maassen added that if the pipeline didn’t proceed, it would increase the “threat to energy security” and place up to 700 union jobs at risk.

He also noted that there is a stay of a judgment in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit for Enbridge to stop using the existing Line 5 on the reservation by June 16. If  that judgement does not remain stayed, he said, it could negatively impact 10 refineries and cut off most of the propane supply for Michigan.

“There are no alternatives to this line,” said Maassen. “Some refineries will have to shut down, resulting in hundreds of millions of losses.

Lastly, Maassen said Enbridge is also requesting that the petitioners post a $49 million bond if a stay is ordered and Enbridge incurs a loss from the delay.

Petoskey, the Bad River lawyer, said the court did not have to consider economic factors when making decisions about wetlands, and he also noted courts have rejected requests for a bond when the litigants are seeking to protect environmental resources.

Lee, arguing for the Sierra Club, said the court has a responsibility to follow the “letter of the law to have riparian ownership,” and challenged the DNR’s use of “co-applicants” as a “made-up” application of the statute.

Asked by Anderson on the standard of success to be used in issuing a stay, Lee responded, “50-50 probability of success; that is sufficient.”

“I don’t think there is a reasonable likelihood of success,” countered Johnson-Karp on the chance the judicial appeal would succeed.

Anderson asked why Enbridge shouldn’t be the riparian owner or require Enbridge to buy the land? Maassen responded, “The whole notion that being a co-applicant is inappropriate I think is a bad argument.”

Anderson asked all the lawyers to submit briefs within 10 days, with specific attention on the issues he had raised during the hearing.

This report has been updated to reflect that Anderson is a Bayfield County circuit judge.

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Electric vehicle registration is on the rise in Wisconsin. But battery life unease is a roadblock preventing wider adoption of EVs. Wisconsin's DOT Secretary visited "The Larry Meiller Show" to discuss what the DOT is doing to alleviate the "plug-in panic."

The post Wisconsin DOT hoping to pump the brakes on EV users’ range anxiety appeared first on WPR.

The U.S. Senate voted 50-49 Thursday to allow sulfide mining in areas near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The vote ends President Joe Biden’s 20-year moratorium on mining leases across more than 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which was visited by nearly 150,000 people in 2024. 

Northeast Minnesota sits atop the Duluth Complex, a significant deposit of copper and nickel. Twin Metals, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta, wants to extract both minerals — along with cobalt and other precious metals — from underground veins near Ely and Babbitt, about a dozen miles from the wilderness area.

The resolution already passed the U.S. House, shepherded by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, a Republican who represents the 8th District, which includes the protected wilderness. The resolution is headed to the desk of President Donald Trump. He’ll sign it, having already initiated the push to end the mining ban. 

Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, issued a statement: “Today is a dark day for America’s most beloved Wilderness area, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and a stark warning call for public lands nationwide.”

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith was raw with emotion on the Senate floor late Wednesday as she argued against the resolution. 

“You may be wondering why I am standing here at nearly midnight keeping everyone up. Here’s why: Because I know people in Minnesota are wondering whether anybody in this building cares about what they think,” she said. 

She’d been reading letters from constituents arguing against threatening the pristine waters along the border between Minnesota and Canada.

“I dearly hope the members of this body will think about their legacy in protecting the great places in this country,” Smith pleaded to an empty chamber. 

Environmental protection groups say mining for copper and other heavy metals inevitably leaches sulfuric acid, toxic metals and other pollutants into surrounding water systems, harming the natural environment and imperiling tourism.

Smith and her allies say they’ll fight on. “We’ll continue our important job of protecting the Boundary Waters,” she said in a press call Thursday. “We have more work to do now.” She previewed potential litigation from outside groups, who could sue over whether the congressional process for undoing the ban was legal. “I question the legality of what Congress did,” she said.

Michael Fairbanks, the chairman of White Earth Nation, said, “We’re going to try to figure out how we’re going to combat this. I have a hard time wrapping my head around this.”

The industry and the building trades argue the new territory would reduce Northeast Minnesota’s economic dependence on volatile global markets for iron and steel. Its rich deposits of higher-value metals, along with gases like helium and possibly hydrogen, could offer a lifeline.

Opponents argue environmental degradation would lead to economic disaster for a region with a growing tourism economy, which relies on waters so pure that some people drink right out of the lakes, known as “dipping.” 

Protection for the Boundary Waters — and its removal — has swung metronomically in the past decade depending on which party has controlled the White House, with the administration of President Barack Obama denying mining leases, followed by Trump pushing for mining and then the Biden 20-year moratorium. Given the congressional vote, however, a future president couldn’t enact a substantially similar mining ban. A future Congress could, however. 

Despite the new federal regulatory relief, Twin Metals still faces major obstacles before it can begin. 

The company has not won the necessary state or federal permits, and a Democratic trifecta next year could stymie the project by passing a law protecting state lands in the same area and banning hard-rock mine permitting in the region. 

Even if they win the necessary permits and win in court in the face of inevitable litigation against the project, Twin Metal would face a hostile Minnesota public. 

Polls have long shown heavy majorities oppose mining near the Boundary Waters. 

The Trump administration on Wednesday issued a presidential permit for Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline crossing at the St. Clair River, renewing federal authorization for the decades-old infrastructure as part of a broader push to bolster cross-border oil transport.

The permit replaces a 1991 authorization for the Michigan crossing near Marysville in St. Clair County and allows the Canadian company to continue operating and maintaining the existing pipeline facilities at the international boundary. It applies only to the St. Clair River border crossing and does not apply to Enbridge’s separate proposal to build a tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac, which remains under review by state and federal regulators.

Similar permits issued the same day by Trump also cover several Enbridge pipeline operations in North Dakota, part of a wider effort to streamline energy infrastructure between the U.S. and Canada.

In the White House order, the administration said the permit authorizes the transport of crude oil and petroleum products across the border and requires the company to comply with all applicable federal, state and local regulations. It also mandates that the pipeline be maintained in “good repair” and holds the company responsible for environmental damages tied to its operation.

Sean McBrearty, coordinator for the environmental advocacy group Oil & Water Don’t Mix, said the move benefits Enbridge without addressing consumer costs or environmental risks. 

“Calling this ‘energy relief’ is a smokescreen. This permit won’t lower prices by a single cent. It’s a subsidy for Enbridge and paid for with continued Great Lakes risk,” McBrearty said.

Enbridge, meanwhile, welcomed the permit authorization.

“This important action enables Enbridge’s existing cross-border pipeline network, moving more than 3 million barrels a day, to continue safely and reliably delivering the energy that is foundational to both U.S. and Canadian economic competitiveness and security,” Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said.  

The Line 5 pipeline, built in 1953, stretches from northwestern Wisconsin through Michigan into Sarnia, Ontario, carrying 540,000 barrels of light crude oil, light synthetic crude and natural gas liquids a day.

The permit comes as legal disputes continue over Michigan’s attempt to shut down the pipeline and as tribal nations press treaty-based claims against the project.

McBrearty argues the administration’s action is part of a broader strategy to expand fossil fuel infrastructure.

“This is a political decision, not an energy solution,” McBrearty said. “Trump’s pipeline won’t lower gas prices. It won’t protect the Great Lakes. It will pad Enbridge’s bottom line and leave Michigan holding the risk.”

As Wisconsin sees more extremes, experts highlighted potential approaches that communities may adopt to strengthen resilience to climate impacts.

The post Wisconsin will see warmer, wetter weather — and more extremes, report finds appeared first on WPR.