Household water costs could nearly double in some American cities, new research suggests, as climate change further stresses municipal water systems. 

Researchers at Stanford University and other institutions studied how a hotter, drier climate is poised to spike water bills for residents of Santa Cruz, California, in a peer-reviewed study published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability. While the study focused on that coastal city, the outlook is similar for many cities that will be forced to make costly upgrades to water systems as climate change intensifies, said lead author Jennifer Skerker, who worked on the research while studying for her doctorate in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. 

Without significant government funding, the costs of new water transport systems, desalination plants and sewage water reuse systems are likely to be borne by individual water systems, which are expected to pass them onto consumers through water bills.

“So this really pits water affordability against water reliability, when in reality we need both of these to have safe, accessible and affordable water for everyone,” said Skerker, who now works for a local water utility.  

Though low-income residents use significantly less water, they will be hit hard by rising rates, which force them to spend a larger share of their resources, she said. Water rates have increased at three times the rate of inflation over the past two decades, as water providers updated aging infrastructure and addressed deferred maintenance backlogs.

The research comes as many Americans are already struggling with high energy bills: One in six American households are behind on utility bills, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. While rising electric prices have sparked outrage among ratepayers, regulators and state lawmakers, relatively cheaper water has not always received the same level of attention. 

“I think water affordability definitely needs to be part of the conversation with energy affordability,” Skerker said. “…On the water side, households might be using less water than is healthy, or we can even see households making tradeoffs between paying for water or energy, or paying for groceries or medical bills.”

Like other Western cities, Santa Cruz has implemented many water conservation practices: By 2021, locals had cut water use by nearly two-thirds over two decades. That leaves few low-cost options to increase water supplies in an area entirely reliant on surface water.

The study lays out several potential scenarios for local water bills depending on climate conditions and water investments. In one of the driest scenarios, researchers predict median water bills for the poorest residents could rise from about $60 to $111 per month (in 2026 dollars) by the middle of the century. That means more than one-third of households in Santa Cruz could struggle to afford water. 

The study acknowledges that cities with larger reservoirs, more interconnected systems or access to lower-cost water sources may not experience the same acceleration in water bills. But it does envision “water affordability hotspots” across the country as more areas struggle to source and treat enough drinking water.

“It does seem unsustainable,” Skenker said, “and I think cities really need more help from the state and federal government.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

In a new lawsuit, environmental groups are alleging the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources backtracked on the agency’s plans to conduct a full environmental review for a $15 billion data center campus in Port Washington.

The post Groups sue Wisconsin DNR over environmental review of Port Washington data centers appeared first on WPR.

A pair of environmental groups filed a lawsuit Friday in Ozaukee County Circuit Court alleging that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources skipped a required environmental review process at the request of the company that is building a massive data center in Port Washington. 

The lawsuit, filed by Midwest Environmental Advocates on behalf of the Sierra Club, alleges that the DNR backed off from requiring an environmental impact statement  after the company, Vantage, said it would “kill the project.” 

Communications between data center representatives and DNR staff, obtained by the groups through open records requests, showed Vantage complaining about the EIS requirement. The DNR ultimately conducted a more limited environmental analysis summary. 

Vantage, Oracle and OpenAI are currently constructing a $15 billion hyperscale data center in the community. The data center will cover 672 acres and in its first phase require 1.3 gigawatts of power. 

In the lawsuit, the groups argue that by not conducting the full environmental impact statement, the DNR ignored the potential impacts of the construction and operation of the massive data center on the local wetlands, water supply, air quality and energy demand. The lawsuit states that failing to conduct the full review before granting permits for the data center violates Wisconsin’s Environmental Policy Act.
“The Port Washington data center is unlike anything Wisconsin has seen before,” Elizabeth Ward, director of the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin chapter, said. “It will completely transform the local landscape, consume staggering amounts of electricity and water and significantly increase fossil fuel emissions. At a time when scientists warn that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we cannot afford to be making long-term decisions that move us in exactly the opposite direction.”

The DNR permitting is not the only legal dispute the project is currently facing. Earlier this year, the state’s Public Service Commission instituted a tariff that outlines how data center companies must pay for the required energy use and compels them to put up a large amount of collateral for necessary infrastructure improvements. The tariff is designed to insulate regular Wisconsinites from seeing their energy bills increase or being left to cover the costs of massive upgrades to the grid if a company fails or abandons the project. 

Oracle has argued it doesn’t have enough funds to meet the collateral requirements and appealed to the PSC to reconsider. This week, the PSC declined that appeal, setting up a legal battle over the tariff. 

A DNR spokesperson said the agency couldn’t comment on active litigation.

The Phantom Lake Summer camp opened its doors to boys in 1896, and 130 years later it’s still going strong and giving all kids opportunities to enjoy the outdoors.

The post Wisconsin summer camp, one of the oldest in North America, turns 130 appeared first on WPR.

If you think you're seeing less nature on your nature walks or fewer birds while birding, you're not wrong. WPR's Lee Rayburn spoke with a researcher on Wisconsin's striking biodiversity loss — and how we can get it back.

The post Biodiversity biopsy: How we can reverse species loss in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

The Sadie Ann — a 65-foot vessel described as a floating classroom — will be used for both research and instruction. 

The post UW-Superior’s new floating classroom is (almost) set to sail toward its Great Lakes home appeared first on WPR.

A Wisconsin man is among seven former staff of the Environmental Protection Agency who are suing federal regulators for their firings, alleging the agency violated their First Amendment rights.

The post Former EPA staffer from Wisconsin sues after he was fired for signing letter of dissent appeared first on WPR.

Demand for internet access and electronic storage has grown alongside digital technology itself. At the center of that growth are the energy infrastructure and data centers that governments and companies began developing in Northern Virginia in the late 20th century. Today, the region houses the world’s largest concentration of data centers, making Virginia the nation’s digital capital.

That growth has brought major economic benefits for local governments, but it has also divided communities increasingly weary of the facilities’ heavy demands on water and energy, among other impacts.

The commonwealth’s rise as a global digital leader did not happen overnight, said House Technology Committee Chair Cliff Hayes, D-Chesapeake. It was a result of years of persistence, long-term planning and problem-solving.

”This designation for the commonwealth to be the digital capital not only of this country but of the world has taken a lot of stamina, resilience and vision,” Hayes said.

Hayes said leadership also means adapting to new challenges. This year alone, lawmakers passed an entire package of bills aimed at further regulating the industry, while the fight over tax incentives remains largely unsolved.

AOL’s move 

Ashburn’s rise as one of the largest digital infrastructure hubs began in 1997 with the arrival of America Online, or AOL, then the primary internet gateway for many users. Soon after, UUNet/WorldCom and the relocation of the Metropolitan Area Ethernet East, a major internet exchange and traffic hub, helped create unmatched fiber connectivity, turning Loudoun County into a key internet crossroads and destination for other businesses.

Buddy Rizer, executive director for Loudoun County Economic Development, said AOL’s decision to locate in Loudoun helped make the internet mainstream for Americans and anchored the infrastructure that turned Loudoun and Virginia into the world’s leading internet hub.

“You can’t overstate the importance of AOL, right? AOL didn’t invent the internet, but they made it accessible to ordinary Americans at the moment that the commercial internet was starting to take off… by the late 1990s AOL had 20 million subscribers, and roughly half of U.S. homes that had internet were using AOL by 1997.”

Rizer said once Loudoun established core infrastructure and attracted a few anchor companies, growth became compounding: infrastructure drew companies, companies brought more infrastructure and the cycle continued for roughly 20 years.

Data storage and computing explodes 

While data centers have existed in Virginia for decades, the recent rise of artificial intelligence has accelerated demand for the warehouse-like facilities that store and process data around the world. 

Ali Mehrizi-Sani, a professor at Virginia Tech, said Northern Virginia had many of the right ingredients to attract the industry even before the state sales and use tax exemption passed in 2008.

“The fact is that we have a lot of customers of data, and that’s really the federal government and their contractors,” Mehrizi-Sani said. “They use a lot of data, so really just proximity to Washington, D.C. has been a main driver of honestly everything in Virginia, including data centers.”

The early development of the internet exchange points in Virginia, combined with large stretches of undeveloped land in Northern Virginia, also helped fuel the industry’s growth. Loudoun County, for example, was far more rural than it is today.

Loudoun recorded 71 operating data centers, the most of any locality in the commonwealth, according to a 2024 study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Statewide, 131 data centers were operating at the time. 

“That’s why you see data centers are coming further south, even to areas like where I live in Roanoke and Botetourt County, essentially in search of land,” Mehrizi-Sani said.

He said data centers have also remained in Virginia because electricity rates are comparatively lower than in other parts of the country. Another major factor is the state’s sales and use tax exemption.

Tax breaks and tax gains

In Loudoun, data center revenue has generated substantial tax income year after year, providing the county with more than $100 million annually to support schools and government services.

The revenue stream — estimated at about $1.3 billion in 2027 — has grown enough that the county has reduced real estate tax rates for homeowners every year for the past decade, according to county officials. 

Revenue from data centers has also allowed county leaders to propose reducing the personal property tax rate on vehicles beginning in tax year 2026 and eliminating the $25 vehicle license fee.

In 2008, the General Assembly approved a statewide incentive allowing data centers to avoid the state’s 5.3% sales and use tax, which at the time was estimated to save the industry about $1.5 million annually. Data centers routinely refresh computer equipment and software, the exemption can significantly reduce costs every few years. 

Now, however, the cost of the tax break has ballooned to about $1.9 billion annually in foregone state revenue. 

While the tax break had previously been extended, and former Gov. Glenn Youngkin sought to continue it through 2050 in his final budget proposal, debate over potentially ending the incentive led to months of negotiations and brought Virginia to the brink of a government shutdown after lawmakers failed to pass a budget until the final days of June.

Some lawmakers argued the industry had benefitted enough from the tax exemption. At the same time, concerns over rising energy costs and environmental impacts prompted legislators to look for ways to reclaim some revenue from the trillion dollar industry.

But Gov. Abigail Spanberger led the push to preserve the tax break, arguing Virginia had “made an agreement” and should not reverse course. The exemption is currently set to expire in 2035 unless lawmakers change it before then.

“We know technology is not bad,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, said last month. “We all can benefit from technology, but we, as a government, have not done a good job in managing the regulations and the impact on our communities, and that’s what we’ve got to rein in. But we’ve also got to rein in the fact that data centers – they’re some of the largest corporations on the face of the Earth, trillion dollar organizations – are getting tax exemptions right now.”

While the exemption ultimately remained in the budget, lawmakers approved a new energy consumption tax on data centers expected to bring in a total of $600 million annually, or $1.2 billion over the biennium. The industry will pay 1.1 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed up to the cap, with any excess refunded at the end of the fiscal year.

Dominion Energy and Mecklenburg, Northern Virginia, and Rappahannock electric cooperatives reported in 2023 that data centers used about 5,050 megawatts of power that year, based on peak-load forecasts, according to the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

“What I have found is that some of the businesses coming to our commonwealth, they want to make investments in our communities and in our workforce. The consumption tax, as we’ve conceived of it here in the commonwealth, is one that’s based on fairness,” Spanberger told The Mercury last month.


Lawmakers also approved new water use regulations for data centers in areas designated as water scarce and within the water management area east of Interstate 95.

Virginia has a new two-year budget. Here’s what lawmakers now require of data centers.

The changes aim to push facilities away from evaporative cooling systems that consume millions of gallons of water annually and toward more efficient technologies. Also, for the first time, the state will regulate data center noise levels. 

The General Assembly also passed bills requiring cleaner backup generators that emit fewer carbon emissions and measures intended to help localities better assess the residential and environmental impacts of proposed facilities.

Public policy 

In 2010, Virginia created a retail and sales tax exemption for data centers, a factor companies have consistently identified as important in site selection.

Loudoun designated large areas for industrial and employment uses where data centers could be built, helping reduce development timelines and support continued growth. 

Through successive comprehensive plans, Loudoun also reserved large tracts of land in eastern Loudoun — near Washington Dulles International Airport and the W&OD Trail — for industrial and employment uses close to existing fiber networks and electrical infrastructure. The move ensured a long-term supply of development-ready sites for large-scale data center campuses.

Opposition from residents has grown in recent years, with hundreds of community members attending local government meetings to oppose projects near homes, drinking water supplies and high-voltage transmission lines. Residents have urged lawmakers to impose stronger regulations and seek greater financial contributions from the industry for supporting infrastructure.

What’s next 

Last week, lawmakers ordered a work group to study how the data center tax exemption could be phased out or modified to generate additional state revenue. A report is due in November.

While Spanberger has described the new consumption tax as “fair,” the data center industry disagrees. After lawmakers approved the budget amendments last week, Data Center Coalition CEO Josh Levi said the new tax will “drive away investment and job creation, and tarnish Virginia’s reputation.”

“The message to businesses in all industries is clear — Virginia is no longer a reliable partner,” Levi said in a June statement.

Rizer argued that Loudoun’s and Virginia’s future depends on treating data centers as a foundation for broader technology growth while maintaining a stable and predictable business climate. 

“You can’t take success for granted … the principle that made us successful is a predictable, welcoming environment with predictable tax and policy issues,” Rizer said. “The only way that that success can go into the future is by staying grounded in those principles that brought us this far.”

As for federal involvement in an issue that has become a national flashpoint, Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was governor when the tax exemption passed, said states should decide individually how to manage data center growth rather than adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.

“(Data centers are a) global phenomenon, and being a leader in this important area is good for America’s national security and for Virginia’s economy,” Kaine said. “But there are real challenges when it comes to water, power and land use, so local communities must get a say when it comes to how to handle them.”

Virginia has become the state that many others are watching as they weigh to and regulate the growing data center industry. Lawmakers now face balancing the promise of economic investment with mounting concerns from residents pushing back against continued expansion.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the correct amount of data center revenue in Loudoun for fiscal year 2027, which was $1.3 billion, not $890 million as previously reported.

President Donald Trump has shown the immense power of the executive branch to stymie offshore wind development, as nearly all projects are in waters where federal agencies operate as the landlord.

Now, as the feds block new permits and dangle billion-dollar buyout offers to convince developers to walk away from their projects, state leaders are hoping some companies share their conviction that the industry can be revived after Trump leaves office.

“Any honest assessment of where we need to be to meet our climate goals depends on a thriving offshore wind sector,” said New York state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat.

New York and many other East Coast states have set aggressive targets for offshore wind power, both to meet rising energy demands and transition to clean energy sources. But Trump’s attacks on the industry threaten to scare off companies from making the massive long-term investments required to pursue offshore wind projects.

“If there’s no business opportunity here, then they’re not going to stay here and invest here,” Gounardes said. “They’re not going to lay around with good intentions doing nothing, and we’re going to lose out because of that.”

Federal opposition

Last week, Trump’s Department of the Interior announced a $129 million deal with Duke Energy to relinquish its lease to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of North Carolina. The company pledged to reinvest the money into other forms of energy.

Since March, Trump officials have struck four such agreements totaling more than $2.5 billion to get developers to give up on their offshore wind plans. Some analysts say the federal government’s ability to blockade pending projects has caused some companies to reconsider their investments.

“If you have a lease that appears to be going nowhere for at least the next three years, you want to pivot to other options,” said Timothy Fox, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, an independent research firm. “There’s still a lot of leases out there, but the Trump administration has made this aggressive push, and we think there could be future similar announcements.”

According to Fox, developers hold leases for roughly two dozen other offshore wind areas, agreements that could be targeted for similar buyout deals.

While developers consider buyout offers from the federal government, state leaders say such deals are illegal. Seven states filed a lawsuit earlier this month saying the administration lacks the authority to cancel the leases and pay out funds, focused on a March deal with TotalEnergies to block a project off of New York.

The lawsuit challenges the administration’s use of a federal fund set aside to pay court judgments and settlements of lawsuits against the government. The deal, state attorneys general argue, “is not the result of a compromise settlement between adverse parties, but rather an agreement resulting from [federal officials’] pretextual national security concerns and TotalEnergies’ desire to receive unauthorized compensation for an expensive offshore wind lease.”

The state of California has also announced that it intends to file a lawsuit over another buyout targeting a lease area off the state’s Pacific coast.

Since taking office, Trump has halted permits and leases for other planned offshore wind projects, canceled hundreds of millions in funding to support manufacturing and ports and ended clean energy tax credits. His administration also issued stop-work orders for five offshore wind projects that were already under construction, but courts have overturned those orders and allowed work to resume.

Aside from the five wind farms currently being built, progress on dozens of other pending projects has ground to a halt.

“There’s little to be done if the federal government still controls the permits, leases and pace of development,” said Fox, the researcher.

State goals

The clash comes as many East Coast states have been counting heavily on the maturation of the offshore wind industry to meet their energy needs. Eight Atlantic states have committed to building more than 45 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040 — enough to power more than 30 million homes. They’ve made major investments in ports, manufacturing facilities, transmission infrastructure and workforce training.

In addition to their climate goals, many states are facing surging energy demands, largely driven by data centers and artificial intelligence.

State leaders say that offshore wind farms can harness massive amounts of electricity, especially during nighttime and winter periods when solar power is in short supply. For heavily populated East Coast states, with limited areas to put sprawling energy projects on land, tapping into strong winds over the ocean has become a major part of their strategy.

“Offshore wind is key to a future that allows us to move off of fossil fuels,” said Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat who has been a strong backer of offshore wind. “Every time the (Trump administration) makes these moves, it reminds me that their numbers show how much offshore (wind) would allow us to retire fossil fuel plants.”

Trump has long opposed offshore wind, falsely asserting that it harms whales, is unreliable and drives up energy costs. While offshore wind generation is intermittent, it has a much higher capacity factor than onshore renewables, meaning that it operates for longer periods at its maximum output level. New offshore wind projects have capacity factors that match some gas and coal-fired power plants, according to the International Energy Agency.

While still more expensive than onshore renewables, offshore wind projects globally produce electricity at a rate cheaper than natural gas and coal plants, according to Energy Solutions Intelligence, a digital consulting platform.

Backers and energy analysts say offshore wind in the U.S. should become cheaper over time as supply chains mature and investments in ports and other infrastructure pay off.

The Department of the Interior did not grant a Stateline interview request about its buyout deals for offshore wind projects, but the agency has claimed in statements that the deals will lower energy prices.

Changing plans

Many state leaders acknowledge that the delays caused by Trump’s opposition will cause them to miss their targets for building new projects over the next 5 to 10 years. But they say the industry is still essential for meeting their long-term climate goals and energy needs.

“I don’t think anyone is at the point of saying no offshore wind ever again,” said Gounardes, the New York lawmaker. “It might not be part of the alchemy in the near future, but it certainly must be part of the alchemy to meet our overall goals.”

For now, state leaders are hoping their ongoing commitments to offshore wind will convince developers to wait out the remainder of Trump’s term and stay in the U.S. market.

“[The buyouts] are a blow to the industry, but it’s not a death knell but there are other projects out there that are still in some stage of development,” said Sam Schacht, project director for offshore wind with the Clean Energy States Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of state energy agencies.

“There’s this bad news story happening about the attempts to erode these future projects, while at the same time there’s a very positive story about the projects that are under construction and producing power now and their ability to capably meet states’ power demands.”

While states play the waiting game with offshore wind, they’re making new plans to meet their energy needs in the near term. Lawmakers in Maryland have invested in battery storage, which Charkoudian described as a “no-regrets” option that can help meet energy needs today while complementing offshore wind once it comes online.

Other states, including New York and New Jersey, have looked at increasing subsidies for nuclear power.

“I wouldn’t say that they’re giving up on offshore wind, but states are pivoting to other carbon-free resources that  are favored by this administration, namely nuclear power,” said Fox, the energy researcher.

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

After denying requests for disaster relief to Wisconsin over recent months, President Donald Trump has approved $22.6 million in assistance to several counties that experienced extreme weather in April. Wisconsin Emergency Management determined that over $27 million in damage occurred as a result of the historic April storms that hit communities, bringing tornados, heavy rain and flash flooding.

The storms broke records as rivers overflowed and skies darkened under heavy cloud cover, high winds and torrential rain. According to the National Weather Service, a record-breaking 8.56 inches of precipitation accumulated in Green Bay during the month of April, breaking the prior record set in 1929 by more than 2 inches. Wausau also broke the record for precipitation with 8.74 inches accumulating in April, compared to the 6.06 inch record set in 1954. Historic flooding flowed out along the Wolf River basin in Shiocton and New London, as well as near the Embarrass and Peshtigo rivers near Porterfield. The Menominee River at McAllister reached its second highest level on record, and multiple dams overflowed in Waupaca and Shawano counties.

Residents living in the counties of Bayfield, Brown, Jackson, Jefferson, Juneau, Kenosha, Manitowoc, Marathon, Milwaukee, Outagamie, Racine, Rock, Sauk, Vernon, Washington, Waukesha, Waupaca and Winnebago, along with the Oneida Nation, will have access to the assistance. The funding will cover temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs. Federal funding is also available to state, tribal, and local governments which are eligible for assistance, as well as certain private nonprofit organizations to help replace damaged facilities. 

Trump posted on Truth Social that he’d contacted U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany — the Republican candidate he  endorsed for Wisconsin governor —  about greenlighting the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assistance. Trump said that “the wonderful people of Wisconsin are in good hands with Tom,” alongside other Republican politicians which have been endorsed by the president. Meanwhile, Tiffany posted on X saying he called the White House after the storms and thanking the Trump administration “for their partnership.” Tiffany said in his post, “We’ll keep working to ensure every Wisconsin community has the resources needed to recover.”

Trump’s effort to spotlight Tiffany in connection with the announcement of emergency assistance comes ahead of the gubernatorial primary in August. Tiffany is the leading Republican contender, while six Democrats with a range of experiences and political leanings are competing for their party’s nomination. 

When Trump first announced the emergency relief for Wisconsin, saying he had contacted Tiffany to inform him, neglecting to mention the current Gov. Tony Evers, Evers said in a statement posted to X, “Wisconsinites and I will believe it when we see it.” 

“President Trump and the Trump Administration have declined tens of millions of dollars in Wisconsin disaster relief requests,” Evers wrote, “and have been playing politics by withholding emergency FEMA assistance from states across our country that’s supposed to go to helping families and communities rebuild and recover after a disaster—and all while he uses taxpayer dollars to build himself a golden ballroom.”

In February, the Trump administration denied disaster relief — for a second time — which would have helped Wisconsin communities recover from historic, record-breaking flooding and storms that hit in August. Over 1,800 homes in the Milwaukee area alone were left either damaged or destroyed, and multiple parks were left virtually underwater. The state fair shut down early as people fled the fairgrounds through waist-high water, and some were left stranded on roadways after their vehicles were flooded. Collectively, the August floods caused about $76 million in damage to private homes and public infrastructure, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. 

A letter sent to Evers by FEMA in February said that assistance was “not warranted” but didn’t explain the rationale the agency had used to make that decision. Flood assistance was also denied for Milwaukee in November and October. A month after the FEMA denial, Wisconsinites endured a historic blizzard so bad that it shut down plowing services in a state used to snowfall. This summer, residents have been contending with a dangerous heatwave. 

These are just the latest bouts of extreme and dangerous weather which have challenged the ability of residents to adapt and of local and state governments to respond. Researchers have long warned that extreme weather including more intense flooding, heatwaves and blizzards would become more common due to climate change. Trump has called climate change a hoax and his administration has cut back the federal programs to improve climate resilience. 

Eighty years ago, the DNR, which was the Wisconsin Conservation Commission at the time, set aside five lakes creating the Northern Highland Fishery Research Area. Any angler who's fished on these lakes has reported back things like what they were fishing for, the lure they used and catch rates.

The post These 5 northern Wisconsin lakes were set aside 80 years ago for research appeared first on WPR.

This story was first published by WyoFile.

PARK CITY, UTAH — The U.S. Forest Service received roughly 300 applications for the 15 new state director jobs created during a major agency reorganization that’s dissolving regional offices the agency’s first chief, Gifford Pinchot, created nearly 120 years ago.

That’s 20 applications per job, on average, for well-paying “senior executive service” positions at a federal agency that employs roughly 30,000 staff.

It’s a figure that, to many, suggests stunningly little interest in the jobs and a reminder that it remains a tough time to be a Forest Service employee tasked with managing 193 million acres of the United States.

But U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz on Tuesday sounded upbeat about the 300 applications, a datapoint he offered without prompting. Applicants are a mix of Forest Service veterans and outside candidates, and there are more than he needs to fill the state director jobs and restructure. Schultz’s team has already narrowed the pool of candidates and is starting to arrange for interviews, he told WyoFile from a boardroom at Park City’s Deer Valley Resort.

“I expect [interviews] to begin within the next couple weeks,” Schultz said.

The Trump administration’s pick to lead the Forest Service took a break from the Western Governors’ Association conference and sat down with WyoFile to discuss the status of the agency’s workforce and looming structural changes that were signaled in summer 2025 and formally set in motion this spring. The University of Wyoming graduate spoke just over the Wasatch Range from Salt Lake City, where he’s planning to live and work after relocating the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C.

Nearly five dozen research and development stations may also be shuttered, and their staff will be clustered at more centralized operations instead.

All these changes are coming quickly.

Schultz says he will wait until after the already deadly, active wildfire season dies down before reassigning regional personnel and opening the doors on state offices.

“Sometimes toward the end of October, early November is when we’d be looking at getting those offices operational,” the Forest Service chief said.

Wyoming’s office is coming to Cheyenne, though the building has not been selected. The state offices in the Equality State and elsewhere will house an estimated “six to eight” staff, and will include positions specializing in communications, legislative affairs, tribal affairs and other “liaison-type” roles, Schultz said.

“The intent is not to replicate the regional model,” he said. “It’s to have those positions supervise the forest supervisors, and also to be a liaison with states, with counties, with tribes.”

A former Idaho Department of Lands director, Schultz moved to the private sector and was an executive with an Idaho logging company before U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins hired him away in February 2025. Restructuring the Forest Service will concentrate resources and decision-making in the states and communities where national forestland is part of the landscape, he said.

“What we’re trying to do is basically bring the Forest Service closer to the people that we serve,” Schultz said. “The change from regional offices to a state director role is to really empower folks closest to the ground — district rangers and others who make decisions.”

It won’t be immediate, but eventually national forests like Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton, Shoshone, Bighorn, Medicine Bow-Routt and Black Hills should experience an increase in staffing and money as resources are diverted away from regional offices in places like Denver and Ogden, Utah, Schultz said.

“That is the intent,” he said.

Yet, the reorganization is also immensely controversial. Partly that’s a product of the administration spearheading the changes.

President Donald Trump’s second term started by bringing a wrecking ball to the federal government. The face of the aggressive, abrupt job cuts, now-trillionaire Elon Musk even wielded a chainsaw on stage to signify the actions of his now-defunct “Department of Government Efficiency,” which trimmed the Forest Service’s workforce by about 18%.

Forest Service employees express skepticism

Many Forest Service employees are unsettled by the structural changes afoot. Retired White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams, who took a buyout during the DOGE era, criticized how hastily the reorganization was decided and implemented.

“This is turning over 100 years of organization,” Fitzwilliams said. “This is not thought out. And it’s chaotic.”

The Forest Service rolled out its plans in the absence of public review, Fitzwilliams pointed out. Except for stakeholders like the timber and fossil fuels industries, he said the reorganization wasn’t vetted and caught almost everyone off guard.

“I know for a fact, ranking members of resources committees on the Senate side and the House side, they learned about it when you and I learned about,” Fitzwilliams said.

But Schultz argues the concept of restructuring has been kicked around for nearly two decades. There’s been talk of redesigning the Forest Service to a state-focused system since 2008, and the effort became more formal in August 2024, he said.

Retirees who are formally organized have also voiced concerns.

Bill Avey, who chairs the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, told WyoFile that he feels the reorganization is “not in the best interest of the public or the national forests or the Forest Service itself.” He worried that the new structure will lead to the Forest Service becoming beholden to state politics.

“These are national forests; they aren’t state forests,” said Avey, who supervised the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. “The forests are going to be much more influenced by the politics of the state, when they should be managed for the people of the nation.”

The Forest Service state directors will be hired into career positions, and are not political appointees, according to Schultz.

But those assurances didn’t allay the concerns of Avey, who pointed to how state offices and directors function at the Bureau of Land Management.

“State directors are very political positions,” Avey said. “We’re worried about increased politicization of the Forest Service.”

Steve Ellis preceded Avey in chairing the National Association of Forest Service Retirees. His career started at the Forest Service but crossed over to the BLM, where he became the Idaho state director and then deputy director for the whole agency.

“So I know both the structures,” Ellis said. “Democratic and Republican governors in the West, my observation is they always liked the BLM model better.”

Two weeks ago, the bipartisan Western Governors’ Association pledged its support for the Forest Service restructuring in a letter.

“This state-based model will ensure strong communication between the agency and states and territories, and promote coordination on forest and rangeland management, recreational use, and wildfire mitigation and response,” Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox and Hawaii Democrat Gov. Josh Green wrote.

Salt Lake City HQ

Delivering the keynote address at the Western Governors Association conference this week, Schultz told the crowd that he’s “thinking about” giving the states more national forest management control. And he argued that there will be benefits to the coming headquarters move to Salt Lake City and the broader Forest Service restructuring.

“I currently have 26 direct reports,” Schultz said. “Under this new model, I’m going to have six reports. We’re going to align much like a normal corporate structure.”

Moving Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City has been criticized partly because of the first Trump administration’s 2019 reorganization of the BLM, which included moving its headquarters to Grand Junction, Colorado, a mid-sized city about the size of Casper. That effort failed spectacularly. Less than 13% of the 328 employees whose jobs were moved chose to relocate and only three employees ended up moving to Grand Junction, according to High Country News. In fall 2021, the Biden Administration Interior Secretary Deb Haaland moved the office back to Washington.

Schultz is hopeful the Forest Service’s 2026 headquarters relocation will go differently. Salt Lake and Grand Junction are “two fundamentally different communities,” he said.

“Salt Lake is a large metropolitan area — 1.6 million people,” Schultz said. “We’ve already gotten commitments from folks that are willing to go there.”

Asked if the Forest Service has goals for retention during the transitions, Schultz didn’t specify. He pointed out instead that only about 1% of the workforce will be asked to move throughout the entire reorganization.

“There could be fewer than 300 people that have to physically relocate,” the chief said.

Although the headquarters is officially changing locations, most of its employees will actually remain in Washington. Although the Forest Service’s fact sheet about the reorganization indicated that two-thirds of the National Capital Region positions would be relocated, the numbers shared by Schultz looked much different.

Out of the 750 people who are assigned to the Washington office, more than half are already remote, he said. That leaves roughly 350 employees who show up to the brick-and-mortar office on Independence Avenue.

“We’re expecting probably less than 50, at this point, may have to relocate out of the DC area,’ Schultz said. “Some of [the headquarters employees] are going to go to Maryland.”

Forest Service whistleblowers who wrote a letter to Congress have argued that leadership is underestimating the disruption and that mandatory relocations could impact as many as 1,900 employees.

Some 6,500 Forest Service employees were informed in a letter that their job would be affected by the reorganization in some capacity.

“It basically said in that letter that you may have a different supervisor, you may have a different structure, you may have a different job,” Schultz said.

As of Tuesday, those 6,500 employees haven’t been told what’s specifically changing.

“It’s still being worked on,” Schultz said.

Unions for Forest Service employees have called leadership’s communication style “engineered vagueness.” In early June, six congressional Democrats from Colorado wrote Agriculture Secretary Rollins a letter urging the Trump administration to disclose more information about the plans.

State of staffing

At the moment, the Forest Service has roughly 30,000 employees, Schultz said. The agency lost nearly 7,000 staff last year, according to Office of Personnel Management data. The great majority, 6,500 of them, accepted one of the “deferred resignation program” offers, he said.

“So it’s been largely voluntary,” Schultz said.

Current staffing at the Forest Service is at about the same level as it was in 2018, according to the chief. The workforce swelled in 2020 and 2021 due to funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but the Forest Service’s base appropriation didn’t grow enough to support the larger workforce, and in 2024 under the Biden administration the “ball had already started rolling” of how to right the books.

“Decisions had to be made on how to get the budget straight,” Schultz said. “We can’t overspend what Congress has authorized.”

In 2025, the Forest Service went without non-fire seasonal staff because of the budget crunch. That’s changed, however, and the Forest Service so far in 2026 has added more than 1,600 employees, OPM data shows. Most new staffers are seasonals doing recreation work, Schultz said.

While that fits with Schultz’s goal of bringing more resources to forests and ranger districts, the Trump administration’s proposed Forest Service budget for fiscal year 2027 goes in the opposite direction. Proposed funding levels for the National Forest System would fall by $438 million, or 24%, and research, operations and maintenance line items are cut even deeper. Some $620 million for the “forest and rangeland research” and “state private and tribal forestry” would be zeroed out completely.

In a May 13 budget-focused Senate hearing, Schultz did not put up a fight or ask for more funds.

Fitzwilliams, the retired White River National Forest supervisor, struggled to see how Trump’s Forest Service budget fits Schultz’s vision of beefing up resources at forests and ranger districts.

“More resources on the ground, I think we’d all agree that’s really important,” Fitzwilliams said. “You can’t say that and then stand behind the president’s budget proposal, which he does.”

Turmoil in the federal government over the last 18 months has caused the workforce’s job satisfaction to outright plummet, according to a survey of 10,000 workers. At the Forest Service, the depleted staff and the agency’s reorganization has been cause for plenty of bad vibes.

“They’re stressed,” Fitzwilliams said, “and morale is horrendous.”

The bald eagle has long been seen as a symbol of pride, strength and freedom for the United States. As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, one nest of the birds is attracting attention in Wisconsin for a rare sight: quadruplets.

The post Bald eagle pair in Wisconsin raises rare set of quadruplets appeared first on WPR.

State regulators have approved a permit allowing a Door County dairy farm to expand its operations over objections from environmental groups.

The post Wisconsin DNR approves CAFO permit for Door County dairy farm appeared first on WPR.

A coalition of more than 200 business owners from throughout the Great Lakes region is calling on the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to reject permits for Enbridge’s Line 5 tunnel pipeline, urging other business owners to sign on to a joint letter opposing the project.

Line 5 stretches from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario, with a four-mile segment of dual pipelines located on the lakebed within the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. 

In its call for support, the Great Lakes Business Network pointed to a recent spill of up to 1,900 gallons of drilling fluid in Wisconsin as part of Enbridge’s effort to reroute Line 5. The project came after a federal judge found the company had trespassed on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation for more than a decade by continuing to operate the pipeline following the expiration of its easement.

Enbridge Spokesperson Ryan Duffy told Michigan Advance the company reported the release of the clay and water mixture used for drilling to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on Saturday, and that it had been contained using sandbags and silt fence and that the cleanup is well underway.  

“We will continue to work with the DNR on completion of the clean-up,” Duffy said in an emailed statement. 

Wisconsin Public Radio reported concerns from the Bad River Band and environmental advocates that the release violates Enbridge’s waterway and wetland permit, with one condition stating the company “shall not discharge drilling mud into wetlands, waterways or sensitive areas.”

The Bad River Band has also challenged the reroute, noting that the pipeline would still encircle the reservation and threaten waters, fish and wild rice, which are culturally sacred and economically critical to its members.

Tribal communities and environmental advocates have called for a shutdown of the more than 70-year-old pipeline for years, pointing to a series of anchor strikes which dented the pipeline, and the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill from Enbridge’s Line 6B as among their reasons for concern.

While Enbridge has agreed to replace the two segments of pipeline with a new segment housed within a tunnel embedded within the bedrock beneath the lakebed, opponents have raised their further concerns with the safety of the tunnel project, including unstable bedrock, high water pressure and the presence of gasses that could lead to an explosion.

Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community previously told Michigan Advance the tunnel would bore through several cultural sites, archaeological resources and what Anishinaabe consider to be the site of creation.

In order to move forward, the tunnel project is in need of permits from the United States Army Corps of Engineers and EGLE. Another vital permit granted by the Michigan Public Service Commission is under review by the Michigan Supreme Court, following challenges from tribal communities and several environmental advocacy groups.

While Enbridge has touted support from businesses in the region, the Great Lakes Business Network has rejected that notion, calling all business owners and leaders who care about the Great Lakes to submit their signatures by the close of business on July 2.

“We cannot stand by while a Canadian oil company claims to speak for our business community,” Great Lakes Business Network Co-Chairs, Pete Laing and Travis Hixton said in a statement. “The Great Lakes are our economic engine supporting tourism, shipping, real estate, and countless jobs. A decade of destruction to our bottomlands for an unnecessary tunnel is bad for business and bad for our future.”

Following the Great Lakes Business Network’s call for signatures, Great Lakes Michigan Jobs, which says it represents more 75,000 Michigan businesses, issued its own statement calling on EGLE to renew Enbridge’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit.

If reissued, the permit would allow Enbridge to release roughly 6 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Great Lakes per day between two facilities located on the north and south sides of the straits.

“We strongly support Line 5 and the Great Lakes Tunnel and urge EGLE to renew the permit to allow tunnel builders to treat and clean wastewater,” Mike Witkowski, the director of environmental and regulatory policy at the Michigan Manufacturers Association, said in a statement.

Crews spilled up to 1,900 gallons of drilling fluid on Saturday as they were working on Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute in northern Wisconsin.

The post Wisconsin regulators respond to drilling fluid spill on Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute appeared first on WPR.

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, established in 1989 to help Wisconsin obtain and maintain its natural areas expired Tuesday. Cause of death, according to advocates, was legislative obstinance. 

Initially created through a bipartisan piece of legislation, the program has helped local governments build boat launches, playgrounds, bike paths and hiking trails in every corner of the state; helped land trusts and non-profits obtain and conserve thousands of acres of forest land and helped the Department of Natural Resources grow and manage Wisconsin’s state parks. 

“Every single community has a boat launch, or a playground, or a neighborhood park, or a bike path that was funded with Knowles Nelson dollars,” said Charles Carlin, the director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, an alliance of 40 land trusts around Wisconsin.  “So, the state just looks a lot different than it would if we didn’t have Knowles Nelson, and we all have more opportunities to get outside and enjoy all these places that make Wisconsin special than we would have without the program.”

Since its inception, the program has enjoyed broad support from voters and been seen as a national model for land conservation systems. However, in recent years, a handful of Republican legislators — largely representing the northern parts of the state — began to sour on the program’s aims. 

This group has argued that too much land in northern Wisconsin has been conserved, leaving  struggling local governments without enough of a property tax base to fund their budgets or grow their communities. An analysis by the Examiner found that most of the public land in northern Wisconsin is national forest land and that land purchased through Knowles-Nelson is a tiny portion of Wisconsin’s public lands portfolio. 

Opposition to the program was supercharged after the state Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee was unconstitutionally exercising its power by allowing members to anonymously hold up any proposed land acquisitions through Knowles-Nelson. 

The decision angered legislators who had previously been able to quietly stop projects in their districts, and the program suddenly faced energized opposition. Proposals that aimed to bring together bipartisan support to continue the program from Gov. Tony Evers, a handful of Republicans and the Legislature’s Democratic caucus failed to gain traction during the most recent legislative session. 

“Scoring a few political points in the Capitol at the expense of your community and of your voters just encapsulates what people hate about politics right now,” said Carlin. “What happened this session is a very small number of Republican senators decided that political retribution inside the Capitol in Madison was more important than good policy for their constituents. That’s bad governance. It undermines their own communities, and I would hope that they are questioning that choice, perhaps regretting it. I think we’re all going to be looking to see what happens in November, and to see, gosh, are there consequences for choosing to govern like that?” 

With the program’s expiration this week, legislative Democrats have stated that if voters elect Democratic majorities in the Legislature and a Democratic governor next year, re-authorizing the program will be among the first priorities. 

Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said at an event Tuesday morning at Governor Gaylord Nelson State Park in Waunakee that with trifecta control of government, Democrats would bring the program back.

“Senate Republicans … have ensured that towns and cities across our state do not have the money to repair boat launches or keep our trails safe,” she said. “They have made it impossible for the state to preserve more of our landscape, giving developers free rein. They have decided to disregard the will of the residents, and no wonder why the Republican party is losing so much at the polls. The expiration of this program today is just another example of Republican failures, but my message to Wisconsin is very simple: Vote for Democrats in November, and we promise, especially with the Democratic trifecta, we will bring the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Program back in full force, so people can enjoy nature regardless of their zip code, every single place in the state of Wisconsin.” 

Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay), one of the authors of the failed Democratic bill to reauthorize the program, told the Examiner Monday that the expiration was just a “pause.” 

Habush Sinykin said that she’s working on ways to get a Knowles-Nelson bill through the Legislature no matter the result of the November elections. 

“We’ll find out just in a matter of months what we have to work with,” she said. “But we have quite a bit of give with regard to how we can keep the program going forward productively, in terms of funding and for oversight mechanisms. And again, I would be certainly grateful to be able to work across the aisle and with legislators in my own party to come up with the Knowles Nelson reauthorization program that makes sense for Wisconsin. It contributes so much to our state and local economies and quality of life. It really is a wise investment.” 

Even if a bill to restart the program is introduced immediately at the start of the next session and fast tracked to the governor’s desk, it could be close to a year before the program is back on track. Carlin said that because of the long-term planning required for the type of land acquisitions funded through Knowles-Nelson, the “ripple effects go way beyond that 12-month period of time.” 

“Every single land trust and every single local government is cash strapped, and they are strained for capacity as well. There’s more to do than there is people and money to get it done,” he said. And so, as the future of Knowles Nelson became more and more uncertain, you know, land trusts, they really ramped down their land acquisition planning. Because if they don’t have a sense of how the heck they’re going to fund a project, they don’t pursue it. And so what that means is, is fewer conversations are happening with prospective landowners, that fewer negotiations about land purchases are happening. And that’s not an on/off switch; it takes a while to ramp that up and to get going again.” 

Carlin added that the state knows there’s a growing maintenance backlog for the state’s outdoor recreation facilities and a need to help communities across the state build infrastructure to manage the effects of climate change. 

“By pulling the rug out from under ourselves to make those investments for a year, we’re causing delays that might wind up lasting three years or five years until we get ourselves back on track, even when Knowles Nelson is fully funded,” he said. “So you know what’s done is done, and now we’ve just got to figure out how to fix it and get back on track as quickly as possible.”

Wisconsin health and environmental advocates are hailing a federal appeals court decision that upheld the Biden administration’s tighter limits on soot pollution after two dozen Republican-led states challenged the rule. 

The post Wisconsin groups say federal appeals court ruling to uphold soot pollution limits is a ‘win’ appeared first on WPR.

Leaders in Wisconsin communities say they hope new federal grants aimed at cleaning up contamination can pave the way for redevelopment.

The post Smaller Wisconsin communities hope federal cleanup grants can jumpstart reuse of local land appeared first on WPR.

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, my son and I recently spent a week driving across the country, visiting Rocky Mountain, Arches, Great Basin, and Yellowstone National Parks. The trip reminded me that despite our differences, Americans share a common responsibility: to leave our country stronger and more prosperous than we found it.

Wherever we traveled, people wanted many of the same things: good-paying jobs, thriving communities, affordable energy and opportunities for future generations.

Those hopes are shaped by many decisions, but few are more important than how we produce, deliver and pay for energy.

Most families are not thinking about climate policy. They are thinking about utility bills, housing costs, job opportunities and whether their communities can compete in a changing economy.

A recent Wisconsin Conservation Voters poll found that 84% of Wisconsin voters are concerned about rising electricity costs — ranking utility bills alongside groceries as a financial stress.

Wisconsin families want affordable energy, reliable electricity, good-paying jobs and a stronger future for their children. Clean energy helps deliver all four.

More than 75,000 Wisconsinites already work in clean energy. Wisconsin manufacturers supply components used across the country. Electricians, engineers, construction workers, and skilled tradespeople are modernizing our energy system while helping businesses and homeowners lower energy costs.

This is not tomorrow’s economy. It is today’s.

Clean energy is an economic development strategy, a manufacturing strategy, a workforce strategy and an affordability strategy. Communities embracing innovation are attracting investment, creating jobs, and becoming more competitive.

Unfortunately, federal policy is moving in the opposite direction.

The Trump administration recently announced a $700 million taxpayer-funded effort to keep aging coal plants operating, including one in Wisconsin. At the same time, it has proposed spending approximately $2.5 billion to buy out offshore wind leases representing roughly 13 gigawatts of generating capacity while redirecting support toward fossil fuel development.

These decisions matter because they directly affect affordability, health and our future.

Americans are increasingly being asked to support aging coal plants through both their electric bills and their tax dollars. Extending the life of outdated infrastructure delays investment in newer technologies that are often less expensive and more reliable.

We are already doing this with coal plants in Oak Creek, Sheboygan and Beloit. We cannot keep repeating that mistake.

Wisconsin also faces another challenge.

Artificial intelligence is creating unprecedented demand for electricity. Two proposed data centers alone could require nearly four gigawatts of power, more electricity than every Wisconsin household combined.

Data centers can create jobs and economic opportunity. But they also require new power plants, transmission lines and grid upgrades.

The question is simple: Who pays?

Wisconsin families, farmers and small businesses should not shoulder those costs.

Large energy users should pay the full cost of the infrastructure they require. Utilities should be transparent, regulators should protect ratepayers and communities deserve a meaningful voice before billions of dollars are committed.

This is not a choice between economic growth and environmental responsibility.

The strongest energy policies lower costs, strengthen energy independence, improve reliability, create jobs and protect the resources that make Wisconsin such a great place to live.

Wisconsin has everything it takes to lead: innovative businesses, talented workers, world-class manufacturers and practical problem-solvers.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, we should remember that every generation is called upon to build something lasting.

For ours, that means building an energy system that is affordable, reliable, resilient and capable of powering Wisconsin’s economy for decades to come.

The clean energy transition is not happening because it is partisan. It is happening because it works.

The question is whether Wisconsin will build it, power it and prosper from it.