In a county where one in four adults read at or below a third-grade level, Literacy Services of Wisconsin is doing what it can to help break down adult literacy barriers. 

“We are here to provide educational opportunities for those who maybe either didn’t feel engaged in traditional classrooms or are just looking to improve their skills now,” said Holly McCoy, executive director of Literacy Services of Wisconsin.

On July 16, the organization opened its new headquarters, at 1737 N. Palmer St., in the Brewer’s Hill neighborhood. Literacy Services provides free help to Milwaukee-area adults looking to continue their education, including GED prep, help in the transition to college and more.

More space brings bigger opportunities

The organization’s new headquarters includes several classrooms, space for virtual learners and a lounge. 

Students can learn directly from Milwaukee Area Technical College professors teaching on site in the new dedicated MATC classroom.

MATC works with Literacy Services to help students transition from “community to college,” McCoy said. Classes typically build the necessary literacy and numeracy skills to succeed in college courses. Last year, 63 students transitioned from Literacy Services to a post-secondary school.

“We are kind of known for GED, whereas, like when people think of MATC, they think college,” McCoy said. “We kind of create the bridge.”

Literacy Services is also raising funds to develop a GED testing room with four stations. As the organization works to raise funds, it did receive good news recently as a $235,000 freeze in federal funding was lifted. 

Frozen funds had presented major challenge

Literacy Services was one of many adult education programs waiting on federal funds frozen by the Trump administration. The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, which supports adult education programs, covers about 10% of Literacy Services’ budget.

The Trump administration had frozen nearly $7 million in federal funding for adult education programs in Wisconsin, impacting Literacy Services of Wisconsin and MATC. It was announced Friday, July 25, that the Trump administration had released $6.8 billion in frozen federal education funding.

McCoy said before the funds became available that losing them would have a “tremendous impact” on her organization’s programming.

“We’ve thought about these things and we definitely don’t want to see a disturbance to our students,” McCoy said.

‘Open to the community’

As the headquarters moves from downtown to Brewer’s Hill, McCoy looks forward to growing roots in a more accessible and centralized location. 

“I love the fact that we are in a neighborhood,” McCoy said.

Ray Hill, executive director of Historic King Drive Business Improvement District 8, is excited the new center is in her district. 

“This location matters. It’s not tucked away. It’s in one of Milwaukee’s most historic and visible neighborhoods. It’s accessible, it’s walkable, and, most importantly, it’s open to the community,” Hill said. “Having invested in partners like LSW here creates an effect.”

Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the new location opens doors for Milwaukee adults who want to grow, learn and thrive. 

“Here in our city, we believe that it’s never too late to finish your education, to earn a diploma, or even to pick up a brand-new skill,” Johnson said. “Literacy Services is making all of that possible, and I’m proud that Milwaukee is a place where opportunity doesn’t stop, it actually expands. It grows.”

Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

New center helps Literacy Services of Wisconsin expand adult education in Milwaukee 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 PFAS advisory sign along Starkweather Creek. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Now that work on the state budget is complete, environmental groups and residents of communities affected by PFAS contamination believe progress can still be made on getting money out the door to help remediate water pollution across the state. 

Since the last biennial budget was passed, $125 million in funds meant to help with cleaning up contamination of water from PFAS has been sitting untouched with no legislative mechanism for getting that money out to communities.

PFAS, a family of man-made chemical compounds known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment, have been connected to cancer and other diseases. The chemicals have been used in products such as firefighting foam and household goods such as non-stick pans and fast food wrappers. Communities across the state have found PFAS contamination in their water. 

During the last legislative session, early hopes of compromise crumbled after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach agreement on a provision aimed at protecting “innocent landowners” from being subject to enforcement actions for PFAS contamination under the state’s toxic spills law by the Department of Natural Resources. 

Republicans, including the bill’s author, Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) argued the bill had to include language that protected people who have PFAS contamination on their property through no fault of their own. Democrats said the language in the bill defining innocent landowners was so broad that it would exempt property owners responsible for pollution from being held responsible. 

Ultimately, Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill. 

Wimberger and Rep. Tim Mursau (R-Crivitz) authored legislation this year to get the $125 million earmarked for PFAS remediation out the door. 

Sara Walling, Clean Wisconsin’s water and agriculture program director, says she’s “hopeful” that discussions between the Republican bill authors, Evers and affected residents have been productive. 

“There is opportunity now I think that the budget is done for Wimberger and others, of course, to pay attention, put a little energy into this, and really sit down and hash out the provisions in there, and get to a point that there’s something hopefully that we can all live with, and that will get the money to impacted communities and private well owners and all the things that the money is intended to be used for,” Walling says. 

While people see progress being made, there are still objections to the legislation. Wimberger and Mursau have proposed two bills, one of which exempts certain groups of people from enforcement under the spills law. 

Exempting ‘innocent landowners’

The exemptions include anyone who spread biosolids or wastewater contaminated with PFAS onto a field while in compliance with a DNR permit; owns land on which contaminated biosolids were spread under a permit; a fire department, public airport or municipality that used PFAS-contaminated firefighting foam to train for or respond to emergencies; solid waste disposal facilities that accepted PFAS and anyone that owns, leases, manages, or contracts for property on which PFAS has moved through the groundwater (unless they caused the contamination on another piece of property). 

Earlier this year, Evers suggested he’d support exempting farmers and residents from being held financially responsible for cleaning up PFAS contamination if they unknowingly caused it by spreading contaminated biosolids. 

But Walling says she’d like to see that language tightened further to make sure it does not create a loophole for responsible parties. 

“The provisions that are laid on that out there now just provide far too big of a loophole for who would be considered an innocent landowner in the current bill language,” she said. “And we really want to see that tightened so that truly innocent landowners, the passive receivers, the farmers out there who unknowingly were accepting municipal biosolids … those are the innocent landowners that I know that the authors are trying to protect.” 

What’s an allowable level of PFAS?

The other bill creates the mechanisms and grant programs through which the $125 million would be awarded to affected communities. 

Doug Oitzinger is the former mayor and a current city councilmember of Marinette and a founder of a group of community members fighting to clean up PFAS pollution in his area from the manufacture of fire suppression technologies by Tyco/Johnson Controls. 

Oitzinger says he’s wary of a provision in the bill that exempts private property owners who don’t qualify as innocent landowners from enforcement under the spills law unless the level of PFAS present violates an existing state or federal standard. The federal government doesn’t regulate groundwater and for years the state Department of Natural Resources has been unable to promulgate an administrative rule that sets the allowable amount of PFAS in groundwater. 

The DNR failed once because of a deadlocked vote on the state Natural Resources Board and a second time because the proposed rule had a potential economic impact greater than $10 million and therefore required approval of the full Legislature under a law known as the REINS Act. 

The DNR is currently working on the economic impact analysis of another proposed groundwater standard. Oitzinger says he’s doubtful that proposal will stay clear of the REINS Act. So, he says, he’s working with Mursau to include a groundwater standard in the bill. 

The most significant amendment Oitzinger is fighting for in the legislation is the creation of a temporary standard for the regulation of PFAS in Wisconsin’s groundwater. 

“We’ve been working to see if legislatively, we can get something that does not undermine the spills law to get the $125 million out the door, that the governor would sign, that we would be in support of and, at the same time, establish some kind of interim groundwater standard for PFAS,” Oitzinger says. 

As someone fighting for a community that’s been heavily polluted with PFAS, Oitzinger says his goal is to find a compromise that helps people get clean water, even if environmental and industry groups aren’t fully satisfied. 

“It doesn’t do us any good to get into our respective camps and not find common ground,” he says. “And then the bill reaches the governor’s office and he vetoes it. That’s not helping anybody, so we’ve got to find compromise. Some of the environmental groups won’t like it, and certainly I think some of the industry lobbying groups won’t like it, but this is what we’ve got to do.”

Nichole Robarge, right, describes the challenges faced by people with disabilities she assists when enrolling in Medicaid. With her is Kathleen Cummings, who provides similar assistance to people 60 and older. Both said impending changes to the program are likely to increase those challenges. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

With the Congressional mega-bill that cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid now law, people who have relied for their health care on the state-federal insurance plan and their advocates are scrambling to figure out  how and when it will hit home.

The timing of many of the law’s changes is still uncertain.

“This bill was written very hastily,” said Tami Jackson, policy analyst for the Wisconsin Board for People with Development Disabilities (BPDD), at a discussion of the law Thursday morning in the Wisconsin Capitol.

“There are implementation dates for various pieces of Medicaid that are not all in alignment,” Jackson said. “So, you’re going to get this in waves.”

Janet Zander of the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources paraphrased promises from members of Congress who publicly defended the bill.

“It’s really easy to listen to what we’re hearing about — ‘This isn’t going to harm us here in Wisconsin. We’re not doing anything that’s going to hurt older adults, people with disabilities, low-income families,’” Zander said. “Those of us who are working in these programs know that’s not the case at all.”

The new law imposes requirements for Medicaid participants to work or be preparing for work — although a majority already are working — or else be approved as exempt from having to meet the requirement.

That provision’s implementation date of Jan. 1, 2027 is less than 18 months away, Jackson said. And it could be up to a year before the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) produces an administrative rule to direct states on how they manage the requirement.

That doesn’t allow for much time to work out “20 or 30 unanswered questions” about how to require people to demonstrate they’re working, qualify for an exemption or prove that they’re exempt, Jackson said.

The added requirements will also impose new demands on agencies in charge of implementing the Medicaid changes in each state, as well as county agencies that help people navigate the program.

“If you are ramping up the workload and how much people have to do, and ramping up the staffing it takes to do that, that’s a lot more that counties are going to be doing locally, or will have to do,” Jackson said. “That’s going to exacerbate how many people lose coverage.”

Other items have no implementation date — which is usually interpreted as taking effect with the bill’s signing, said William Parke-Sutherland, government affairs director at Kids Forward.

“This bill, which is being kind of talked about as a tax and spending bill, is really a health care redesign bill, and it makes the most substantive changes to the health care system that we’ve seen since the Affordable Care Act,” Parke-Sutherland said.

That national health care law had four years to be implemented. With the new Medicaid changes, “we have no time in comparison.”

But the probable long-term impact remains dire, advocates said — making it harder for people to get coverage and keep coverage.

Taking together the projected loss of Medicaid coverage as well as the projected loss of Affordable Care Act coverage for low-income people who lose subsidies for their premiums that expire at the end of this year, as many as 17 million people in the U.S. could lose health care and long-term care coverage, Zander said.

The state Department of Health Services estimated in April that at least 52,000 Wisconsin residents could lose Medicaid coverage. Changes the Senate made in the bill will likely increase those estimates, however, according to advocates.

Safety-net barriers, old and new

As ultimately passed by the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and signed into law by President Donald Trump, the legislation has thrown new barriers in front of the nation’s safety-net programs, including Medicaid as well as the federal food aid program, SNAP.

Existing barriers were already very high, advocates said.

Kathleen Cummings works for the Columbia County Aging and Disability Resource Center assisting people who are 60 or older applying for Medicaid and other benefit programs. Based on their annual income and total assets, some people on Medicare also qualify for Medicaid to cover their out-of-pocket Medicare costs.

Cummings recounted the experience of a woman who had qualified for Medicaid but recently contacted her because she was getting bills for her health care. The woman accidentally failed to renew her Medicaid coverage when the renewal form she received got buried in a flurry of other Medicaid-related mail, Cummings said.

Under current law the client can get coverage retroactively for bills incurred in the last three months. But with the new law, “that will be changing to 30 days, so we will not, in the future, be able to request that backdated coverage for bills under the situation that she is in,” Cummings said.

Another client has had extensive treatment for lung cancer, she said. The man “is just barely, barely over the federal poverty level” — about $1,300 a month.

“A lot of my clients are very proud and do what they can with what they have,” Cummings said. “But when something like lung cancer comes along, he’s suddenly faced with all these bills that he only had limited coverage [for].”

She’s helping the man apply for Medicaid coverage backdated three months to cover those bills, she said. “Once he shows proof that he qualified, which he will, [he can] get some of these bills paid.”

Nichole Robarge also works for the Columbia County ARDC, helping people from ages 16 to 59 who qualify for federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits and other programs.

Robarge said that currently the disability application takes 12 to 18 months for a decision. As many as 85% of applications are denied at first, she said, and about 20% get overturned on appeal, which takes another 18 to 24 months. A second appeal, with a hearing before an administrative law judge, can take another two years.

In Wisconsin, approval for SSI automatically qualifies a person for Medicaid coverage. Until the SSI decision is resolved, however, the applicant has to apply for Medicaid separately, Robarge said — something that a disability can make much more difficult.

She pulled out the Medicaid application, which currently must be completed annually — a 41-page document that is a half-inch thick.

“Can you imagine getting one of these in the mail and having a cognitive disability or a physical disability, or maybe you had a stroke?…Or maybe you can’t read at all,” Robarge said.

“I bought a house and had less paperwork. I’ve bought a car and I’ve had less paperwork than what it takes to fill one of these out,” she added. “It’s tedious and it’s treacherous … This first barrier is huge, and this is even without getting the documents that you need to provide the proof that they’re asking for.”

Unintended consequences

The new law is poised to make those delays worse, advocates argue — blocking people from Medicaid coverage even though they meet the program’s qualifications.

“Medicaid is a wildly complicated program,” said Lisa Hassenstab, public policy manager for Disability Rights Wisconsin. “What we’ve seen in this bill is that all of these little changes [and] the unintended consequences, because people don’t understand what the program is. They don’t understand what it is, and so they don’t understand what the impact of these changes is really going to be.”

One thing the law won’t do, advocates said, is protect taxpayers.

“It won’t protect me,” said Tyler Engel, whose Medicaid coverage enables him to live more independently in the community with coverage for his caregivers.

“This bill saves money by making it so that, for somebody who is now currently eligible for health care, the provider who provides that care is not going to get paid,” Parke-Sutherland said. “This saves money by people who are currently eligible for health insurance” with federal help “not getting health insurance or having to pay more for it. That’s the only way that this bill saves money.”

Two-thirds of Medicaid participants are working, and therefore they are taxpayers, too, Jackson said.

“It’s a cost shift to the taxpayers,” said Jackson, because when people aren’t covered by Medicaid, “somebody else picks that up — whether it’s uncompensated care, whether it’s a medical bankruptcy, whether it’s your private insurance or your group premium going up.”

“If you stop paying for care, people’s care needs don’t go away,” Parke-Sutherland said. “You still pay. So this isn’t a boon to the taxpayers.”

Enbridge is working to reroute Line 5 off the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin, but the tribe is fighting the permit process. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Sierra Club and a coalition of other environmental groups announced Thursday that they had broken the world record for the largest display of origami fish in an effort to bring attention to Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline, which passes through northern Wisconsin and Michigan. 

Line 5 has been the target of sustained activism for years, with environmental groups and Native American tribes arguing the pipeline’s continued existence puts the water supply for thousands of residents at risk.

By next year, Enbridge, the Canadian company that owns the pipeline, must reroute a part of the pipeline that runs through a portion of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa tribe’s reservation. As the company works through the permit process for moving the pipeline, the tribe and environmental groups have pushed the state Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers not to approve the permits. 

The tribe says the pipeline’s continued operation, even if it no longer runs across tribal land, will harm water quality in the watershed, encourage the growth of invasive species and damage wetlands, diminishing their ability to filter pollutants out of runoff before reaching surface waters.

Fish were folded by people in all 50 states, Canada and Mexico. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Sierra Club of Wisconsin commissioned the creation of more than 70,000 origami fish to bring attention to the activism against the Line 5 oil pipeline through northern Wisconsin. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Line 5 also runs under the Straits of Mackinac between Michigan's peninsulas. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

State Rep. Francesca Hong fashioned two of the origami fish into earrings. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) and Sierra Club Deputy Press Secretary Megan Wittman pin fish onto a board. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

At a two-day hearing in May, tribal members testified against the Army Corps’ approval of the permit. A series of hearings are set to be held from August-October on a challenge to the DNR’s permitting decision. 

The Sierra Club organized the origami fish project to  bring attention to the years of activism against Line 5 and the continued fight against its path through the Bad River reservation and under the Straits of Mackinac between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas. 

The Trump Administration, as part of its effort to increase production of oil and other fossil fuels, has expedited permit approval of a new pipeline tunnel in Michigan.

The previous origami fish record was 18,303. With the help of folders from all 50 states, Canada and Mexico, the Sierra Club has created a display of more than 70,000 origami fish. On Thursday, the fish were put on display in the Sierra Club of Wisconsin’s Madison office as staff continued pinning them onto boards. A press conference about Line 5’s effect on Wisconsin’s water was held in front of the boards full of paper fish. 

State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) told the Wisconsin Examiner the fish project was a symbol of people’s ability to work together to fight injustice. 

“You topple regimes with people power,” she said.

Hong added that even if the Line 5’s permits are approved, the “fight to protect water has renewed energy” because of it. 

Despite the years of activism and push for the DNR not to approve the permits, there is little the department can do to stop the project. The DNR’s authority is limited so that if the proposed project fits within state laws, the permits must be approved, something that Hong said needs to be changed.

“We certainly have to look at amending those laws and holding polluters responsible, not compromising hundreds, thousands of people’s drinking water for tens or hundreds of jobs,” she said. 

The fish display will be available to view at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee on Saturday.

Pelican River area in Wisconsin (Jay Brittain | Courtesy of the photographer)

When Gov. Tony Evers made his 2025-27 budget proposal in February, it included an annual $100 million appropriation to fund the broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program for another 10 years. The budget he signed after 1 a.m. Thursday included zero money for the program, which is set to lapse next summer. 

While a separate piece of legislation to re-authorize the program has been introduced by Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), the failure to provide added money in the budget has raised concerns that the program — which allows the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to provide grant funding to acquire, conserve and maintain public lands — could fail to survive the political tumult of divided government and die. 

Even though the conservation of public lands is widely popular among both Democratic and Republican voters in the state, a handful of Republican legislators have grown increasingly hostile to the program, particularly since the state Supreme Court ruled last year that the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance doesn’t have the authority to hold up grants issued by the DNR through the program. Republicans complain that the acquisition of public land takes parcels off the property tax roles and prevents development projects. 

The Kurtz and Testin proposal aims to reach a compromise by re-authorizing the program while adding more legislative oversight by requiring that any land purchases over $1 million be approved through legislation. 

“While I recognize all that has gone into reaching this compromise budget, I must share that I am deeply disappointed that Republican leaders would not agree to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program — even for just one more year through 2027,” Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) said in a statement. “Here’s the situation now: Knowles-Nelson reauthorization expires on June 20, 2026, giving the Legislature one year to take action before the deadline, and Republicans have indicated they will bring this back to the agenda this fall. Trust that I will keep up the pressure on Republicans and hold them to their word. I will continue to be a strong advocate for this long-standing bipartisan promise.” 

The lack of stewardship program funds in the final state budget led Evers to use his partial veto authority to prevent spending money on five individual public lands projects that legislators had earmarked in the bill. 

“I object to providing an earmark for a natural resources project when the Legislature has abandoned its responsibility to reauthorize and ensure the continuation of the immensely popular Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program,” Evers stated in his veto message.  “Instead of renewing the program and helping the many, the Legislature has opted to benefit the politically connected few. The Legislature must do its job and renew the Warren Knowles-Gaylord Nelson Stewardship program.”

Timber strategic plan 

The DNR budget also includes funds for a $1 million grant to the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association (GLTPA) and the Wisconsin Paper Council to craft a Forestry Industrywide Strategic Plan. 

This provision was included by the Joint Committee on Finance in its late night session last Friday and has raised concerns from some environmental groups that it is a giveaway to industry groups to push for increased extraction of resources from the state’s forest lands. 

“Taxpayers should not be made to underwrite private industry studies with no public benefit or input. Would they decide how to manage local, state, and federal forests in this study? Would it be published?” Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said. “One million dollars is very generous with taxpayer dollars for a sketchy study  with no public benefit.”

The GLTPA has been involved in efforts in Wisconsin’s Northwoods to oppose conservation projects and move local land use policies to be more pro-extraction by encouraging increased logging and the expansion of the state’s mining industry. 

The association’s director, Henry Schienebeck, has been influential in Oneida County’s effort to rewrite its comprehensive plan to be friendlier to industry and worked with American Stewards of Liberty, a Texas-based right-wing anti-conservation group, to oppose land conservation such as the Pelican River Forest. 

DNR spokesperson Andrea Sedlacek said the department is “monitoring this and all other relevant DNR budget motions as the process plays out” but did not yet have information on what the development of the strategic plan would look like or if other people or groups would be involved in its development. 

But despite the grant being given only to industry groups, some environmental advocates say it’s a win. 

Fred Clark, former executive director of Wisconsin Green Fire, said the development of such a plan is something the organization has been advocating for over the past several years. Clark pointed to a study of the health of the state’s forests Green Fire published last year and said that because the state’s paper mills have largely been shuttered, there are fewer  places for the state’s foresters to bring their timber, destabilizing the industry. 

Without a plan to find new uses for the state’s timber, the economics of Wisconsin’s working forest lands could change, resulting in land sales and development that results in forests being cut down to use the land for other purposes — ultimately harming the health of Wisconsin’s forests. 

“The focus that we would like to see there is not necessarily on producing more timber, because we already grow a lot more timber than we harvest,” Clark said. “What we really think the state needs is a strategic focus on developing new forest products and helping expand and refine forest products markets so that we’ve got places for our wood to go.”

Clark said he foresees the development of the plan working through the state’s Council on Forestry, which includes members representing industry, environmental groups, state and federal agencies, legislators and landowners. He added that for the project to succeed it needs input from all those groups, including those with records such as the GLTPA. 

“We need everybody at the table for this, and there’s a wide range of points of view in the forestry community,” Clark said. “Great Lakes Timber Professionals have been an active member of the Council on Forestry almost since day one. We won’t succeed if we don’t have a pretty strong consensus all the way from the environmental groups to groups like Great Lakes Timber Professionals. So I think there’s a lot of common ground there. The most important next step for us is to see that there’s a really broad based committee within the Council on forestry that’s helping guide this work.”

A Green Light Metals crew hit water when it began digging a waste pit for its exploratory drilling project last week. Activists say it proves the project is occurring too close to the groundwater while the DNR and company say it's just rain water. (Photo obtained by the Wisconsin Examiner)

A Canadian mining company began work on an exploratory drilling project in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Taylor County earlier this month, triggering local concerns that the project could harm groundwater and the nearby north fork of the Yellow River as the company and state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) insist the permitting and regulatory processes are enough to keep the environment safe. 

Green Light Metals, which runs its U.S. operations out of Medford, owns the mineral rights to the Bend deposit in Taylor County, about 19 miles north of Medford, and the Reef deposit near Wausau. The Bend deposit, which has been explored before, contains copper, gold, silver and zinc. The deposit is estimated to contain more than 4 million tons of ore. If the drilling exploration is successful, it could lead to a larger underground mine. 

The start of work on the project is the beginning of the company’s efforts to expand its operations in the U.S. after it went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange earlier this year. 

“Wisconsin is open for business,” the company’s CEO Matt Filgate said on an investing focused podcast earlier this month. 

Company officials say their aim is to protect the environment while nodding to the possibility that a mine in the region could produce materials necessary for green infrastructure — mostly tellurium, a metal necessary in the construction of solar panels. 

“There are very detailed environmental review and environmental studies that are done on virtually every aspect of the surrounding environment,” Steven Donahue, a Green Light Metals board member, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in April. “An important component of that is the water resources, but it’s also all the ecosystems. It’s the engineering of the project, it’s how the project is going to be closed and reclaimed, and how it’s going to be able to protect the environment, not only during construction and operations, but also after it’s closed. All those facets of a project would be evaluated by the state.”

Views of the project within the rural, largely conservative county — President Donald Trump won Taylor County with 73.5% of the vote last year — vary widely. Much of the county is covered by the national forest, which Juliana Reimann, a Madison resident who grew up in the county and remains a regular visitor, says is a “magnificent, breathtaking natural environment.” 

Conservative hunters and fishers in the area are concerned about the drilling project’s potential effect on those activities in the forest or on the Yellow River. Still, some community members are hopeful the mine can bring some economic benefits to the community and others are keeping a watchful eye on the project without making a conclusion. 

“Some of the people who are in our group are adamantly opposed to any mine, period,” Cathy Mauer, a member of the Friends of the Yellow River, says. “Some of us think that so far they’re trying to be careful without being naive about it because the goal is to make money for their investors.” 

“I’ve found sometimes the people from Green Light are being, I don’t think they’re lying, I think they believe it, but I don’t think they’re being realistic about the potential problems,” she adds. “I think they’re being straightforward, they’re either optimistic or aren’t being completely realistic about the potential problems. And maybe we’re imagining the worst case scenario, which we need to. It’s the worst case scenarios that cause the problems. That’s what we have to plan for.”

Some environmental activists remain much more concerned about the possible effect of the drilling operation on the local water. 

“I really have such a love for that forest, and that drilling site is right smack dab in the middle of it,” Reimann says. “The project will impact groundwater, as I see it, heavily. And of course, groundwater is critical as drinking water.”

She adds that the health of the forest is important for the community’s ability to “thrive.” 

Wisconsin was under a mining moratorium from 1997 until 2017, which required companies that wanted to mine sulfide ores such as copper and gold to prove that other mines operated and were closed for 10 years without causing pollution. While business groups lauded the law’s repeal as opening up the state to billions of dollars in investment, drilling operations in the state have yet to result in a full mine being opened. 

With the repeal gone, the DNR’s permitting process for drilling operations requires companies to obtain a license and file a notice of intent to drill, which the state can deny, approve or approve with conditions. The company must then obtain a number of permits relating to stormwater discharge, dewatering operations, endangered species and wetland preservation. Because the site is within the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service also has its own permitting process. 

The DNR’s approval of Green Light Metals’ notice of intent included nearly two dozen conditions but despite that, environmental activists remain concerned about a number of aspects of the project. 

When the company drills into the bedrock where the minerals are, the drill must go through the layers, known as the glacial overburden, above it, which requires a steel casing to keep chemicals out of the groundwater. The company obtains cuttings from the bedrock that can be tested for the metals it is looking for. After drilling is complete, the hole is filled from the bottom up with cement, which pushes up the lubricants and water used in the drilling process and flushes out the hole. 

State regulations require that the pipe used to pump in that cement be submerged the entire time so as to prevent air pockets forming. This is often done using what’s known as a tremie pipe, but Green Light Metals is instead pouring cement through the drill rods themselves, which come in 10 foot sections and therefore require that crews stop as each piece is removed — a method that activists are concerned makes the process more likely to cause pollution but DNR metallic mining coordinator Molly Gardner says is common practice. 

The materials flushed out of the drill hole as the cement rises are then put into a lined waste pit dug by the company, encased with more cement and finally covered with the topsoil. 

Activists are concerned the company will not be thorough enough to protect the environment throughout this process.

“It’s like any industrial activity, there is room for error, and if not fixed, you could have a problem,” Dave Blouin, the political chair for the Wisconsin Sierra Club, says. 

Additionally, there has been a dispute about the type of land the company is operating on. Green Light Metals says there is some wetland in the area, but not where it is drilling, while activists say much of the area is wetland, directly connecting the groundwater with the Yellow River. A recent study by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey found that “the North Fork Yellow River and surrounding surface waters are connected to the shallow glacial aquifer.”

“The North Fork Yellow River is a river within the Chippewa Basin. Over 3,000 stream and river miles flow within the Chippewa River basin and with 156,200 acres of freshwater lakes, 22,711 acres of flowages and more than 150 acres of freshwater springs. The river basin watershed provides significant habitat, recreation, navigation and is a significant drinking water resource for northwest Wisconsin people,” Wisconsin Trout Unlimited said in a resolution opposing the Bend project. “Mining of metallic sulfide ores and minerals has a consistent proven record of surface and ground water contamination and pollution. This potential source of pollution threatens the groundwater of Taylor County and the surface waters of the Chippewa Basin watershed.”

When the company began digging the waste pit for its first drill hole last week, the crew hit water just four feet below ground, which opponents of the project say was the groundwater and proof the area is mostly wetland. 

State regulations require that waste pits for drilling “shall not be at or below the groundwater table at the time of the drilling activity and shall be constructed such that the base will remain above the normal local groundwater elevation.”

Reimann and other opponents believe the company moving forward puts the entire watershed at risk. 

“This drilling is taking place very close to the north fork of the Yellow River,” Reimann says. “It’s taking place in vast wetlands, the hydrology is such that any kind of contamination there will affect not only the Yellow River. The Yellow River flows to the Chequamegon Waters Flowage. People up there refer to it as Miller dam, that’s a very popular camping and fishing site, as well as close to the rice beds of the Ojibwe and ultimately those waters will migrate westward to the Chippewa River, to Lake Wissota and I guess ultimately to the Black River [and] to the Mississippi. You know that water doesn’t stay in one place, so it has a huge negative impact if those waters are contaminated.” 

But Gardner says those claims aren’t accurate and is confident in the department’s regulatory and inspection processes. She says the survey conducted by the company confirmed they weren’t drilling in wetlands and the water the crews found when digging the pit is just rainwater. She says the groundwater is actually 20 feet below the surface. 

The company’s wetland study was partially done as a “desk review” using maps, state data and satellite imagery. A field study by the company was conducted later, but “soils were not investigated,” and “WDNR Wetland Soils & Indicators (WSI) are prevalent across nearly the entire site,” a company memo states. 

“We’re looking at the access, we’re looking at the drilling operation, the sumps, the security, the safety, and everything that’s going on,” Gardner says. “We’re regulating, we’re inspecting that they follow their exploration plan.” 

She says that throughout the drilling process, which includes eight holes as part of the first phase and an additional 15 holes in the second phase, the DNR will have stormwater inspectors, exploration inspectors and Gardner herself on site at regular intervals and for occasional unannounced inspections. 

“It’s not common for the DNR to be able to go on site continuously with any type of construction projects,” Gardner says. “So mining and mining-related projects are allowed to have extra inspections to really ensure that things are going according to plan, because it is an important topic and it’s an important project, so we have more resources to do additional inspections for mining in relation to other types of construction projects.” 

Donahue, the company board member, says the company has been working with local officials and community members to keep them aware of what’s happening on the site and that the project will follow all “applicable regulations.” 

“The Green Light exploration team has been working diligently with the Wisconsin DNR and the U.S. Forest Service to secure all necessary permits and approvals for the exploration program,” he says. Green Light will work diligently to properly abandon the boreholes with the proper amount of cement in accordance with applicable regulations and permits.  In addition, the drill cuttings will be properly disposed by mixing the cuttings with cement in accordance with applicable regulations and permit requirements.”

Rep. Tony Kurtz testifies on his proposed legislation to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Organizations representing wildlife, land conservation and local governments testified Wednesday at a public hearing to push for the passage of a Republican bill to reauthorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program while advocating for a number of amendments to the bill’s text. 

The proposal’s authors, Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), say the current version of the bill is a starting point for negotiations. Without a deal, the 35-year-old program will lapse despite its popularity among voters. 

The challenge for legislators is that despite overwhelming public support for land conservation, a subset of the Republican members of the Legislature have grown opposed to the grant program. In their view, the grant program allows land to be taken off the local property tax roll and blocks  commercial development. 

That opposition has grown stronger since the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a 6-1 decision last year that the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee’s authority to place anonymous holds on stewardship grant projects is unconstitutional. 

Kurtz has said that without returning some level of legislative oversight, the Republican opposition to the program won’t get on board with reauthorizing it. But the bill also needs to be palatable to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers so that he will sign it and any Republican opposition to the bill could make the votes of Democratic legislators more important. 

In an effort to recruit  Republican holdouts, the bill includes a provision that requires the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to submit a list to the Legislature each January of any major land acquisitions costing more than $1 million the department plans to purchase with stewardship funds that year. The Legislature would then need to approve each proposed project in a piece of legislation and provide the required appropriation. 

To gain the support of environmental groups, the bill allows stewardship dollars to be used for the first time to fund habitat restoration projects. 

Following a recent trend of Republican-authored legislation, the bill separates the policy changes to the program from the budget appropriation to fund it in an attempt to sidestep Evers’ partial veto pen. 

Charles Carlin, the director of strategic initiatives at non-profit land trust organization Gathering Waters, said in his testimony at the hearing Wednesday that the bill’s authors had to “try and thread a challenging political path towards reauthorization.” 

At the hearing, testifying members of the public mainly highlighted two areas for improvement on the bill — clarifying how the DNR should prioritize habitat restoration, facility upkeep and land acquisition in award grants and more clearly laying out how the legislative approval process for major land acquisitions will work. 

As currently written, the bill would require the DNR to prioritize property development over land acquisition projects. 

Brian Vigue, freshwater policy director for Audubon Great Lakes, said those types of grants are so different that they should be considered separately. 

“Because habitat management projects are so different from land acquisition projects, it really will make it difficult for the DNR to determine which of the two types of grant applications would have priority over the other,” he said. “It’s kind of an apples to oranges comparison to make so I think a practical solution to this challenge is to create a separate appropriation for wildlife habitat grants.” 

A number of organizations testifying called for more direct language outlining how the legislative oversight process will work, such as binding timelines for when the Legislature must consider the projects on the DNR list, clear guidelines for how projects will be evaluated and quickly held votes on project approval. 

Representatives of organizations that work to purchase private land and conserve it through conservation easements or deals with the state said that the opportunities to purchase a piece of land and save it for future enjoyment by the broader public come rarely and that those real estate transactions can often be complicated and take a long time. If a deal is largely in place except for the required legislative approval — which could potentially take years or never even come up for a vote — landowners might be unwilling to participate in the process. 

“Opportunities to provide such access sometimes only come once in a generation,” said Tony Abate, conservation director at Groundswell Conservancy, a non-profit aimed at conserving land in south central Wisconsin. “We are concerned with the funding threshold and the logistics of the proposed major land acquisition program. Real estate near population centers is expensive, and we often compete with non-conservation buyers to secure farmland or recreational lands.”

Abate said that of the conservancy’s 16 current projects, four would surpass the $1 million threshold and require legislative approval. He suggested raising the threshold to $5 million.

Carlin, with Gathering Waters, said the provision as currently written could indefinitely delay projects. 

“We appreciate legislators’ concerns with oversight, and we welcome discussion about how to provide effective and efficient oversight,” he said. “Unfortunately, the current proposal lacks defined timelines, transparent evaluation processes or mechanisms to require timely votes. Without these elements, worthy conservation projects could languish indefinitely. So we would ask that any review process include binding timelines, transparent project evaluation and timely votes to ensure strong oversight while maintaining predictability for applicants.”

At the hearing, members of the committee asked few questions of the testifying groups and members of the public. Democrats on the committee pushed more than once to make sure they see the partner bill providing the money for the program before voting on the policy changes. 

All of the testimony at the hearing Wednesday was either to provide information only to the legislators or in favor of the bill. The committee received one written comment against the bill’s passage, from the Wisconsin Bear Hunters’ Association.

Republicans on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee rejected a funding request from the City of Ashland to build a new boat launch at Kreher Park. (City of Ashland)

A pair of Republican lawmakers has introduced legislation that would re-authorize the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, a popular program that allows the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to fund the purchase of public land and the upkeep of recreational areas. 

The decades-old program is set to expire next year and despite its bipartisan support among the state’s voters, a subset of Republicans in the Legislature — largely from the northern part of the state — have become increasingly opposed to the program due to concerns that it stops land from being developed for commercial activities. 

Until a 6-1 decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court last summer, members of the Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee had the ability to place anonymous holds on proposed grants through the program, which resulted in many projects being delayed or prevented altogether. Without that ability, Republicans who were already wary of the program became more opposed because of what they characterize as a lack of legislative oversight. Proponents of the program say the Legislature exercises oversight through the budget writing process when it allocates funding for the program. 

In recent years, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program has received $33 million annually in the state budget. In his budget request this year, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed re-authorizing the program with a $100 million annual budget. Republicans stripped that provision out of the budget along with most of Evers’ other proposals. 

Last week, Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) introduced a bill that would keep the program alive with $28 million in annual funding. The bill would also create a major land acquisitions program for stewardship grant awards which would require the DNR to annually submit a list of all its proposed land acquisitions costing more than $1 million for that year. 

Those acquisitions would need to be approved by votes of the full Legislature. 

Additionally, the bill would create a sub-program to use stewardship grant funds for habitat restoration projects, require the DNR to prioritize projects that develop already existing public lands over new land acquisition, require local governments to match 20% of the state funding, get rid of the current 10-acre minimum size requirement and limit the state’s contribution to 40% of the total cost if the sale of a piece of land is already closed when stewardship funds are applied for. 

In a co-sponsorship memo, Kurtz and Testin, who did not respond to requests for an interview about the bill, said the initial proposal is meant to be the start of negotiations, not the final version of the bill. 

“It’s important to note what we’re proposing is not an agreed upon deal,” the memo states. “It’s a first offer to provide a starting place for negotiations on this important program. It’s very likely the bill will continue to change during the legislative process, but it’s important to put something forward to allow feedback, have open-minded conversations and ultimately find a good place to ensure the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program’s legacy continues.” 

At a meeting with the Wisconsin chapter of the Audubon Society in April, Kurtz said the program was on “life support” and he was trying to save it from dying but any bill would need to put some oversight on the DNR in order to receive enough Republican support. 

The opposition to the stewardship program from a subset of the Republican caucus in both chambers means the bill might require Democratic votes to pass the Legislature and reach Evers’ desk. 

Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) has spent months pushing for the program’s reauthorization – often pointing to a stewardship grant project in her district that was subjected to an anonymous hold, the Cedar Gorge Clay Bluffs on Lake Michigan. She said the hold on that project angered a lot of her constituents of both parties. 

“That really got people upset,” she told the Wisconsin Examiner. “People would not at all want to see a reenactment in any fashion of that anonymous objection process.” 

Habush Sinykin said that she’s closely watching the bill to make sure it protects a program that enjoys wide support outside of the Capitol building and will stir up significant opposition if it’s allowed to die. 

“Once people understand that this program is at risk, they are coming forward to express their opposition to any permanent damage to the program,” she said. “And so what we are engaged in right now is this process to keep it going forward, and there is going to be ongoing negotiation, because the devil is in the details. We need to make sure that what is one step forward will not ultimately be two steps backward.” 

Charles Carlin, director of strategic initiatives for Gathering Waters, a non-profit aimed at land conservation across Wisconsin, said that Kurtz and Testin should be credited for working to get the conversation started and provisions in the bill like the habitat restoration program. But he added that there are still a lot of questions about how provisions such as the requirement for legislative approval will work. 

“I think part of what they are trying to balance here is a recognition that this is an incredibly popular program with voters, while trying to balance that against the fact that there are a handful of legislators who are deeply skeptical of the DNR and deeply skeptical of additional investments in conservation,” he said. “So I see that major land acquisitions component as a way for them to try and balance those competing interests. The way that that major land acquisitions program is currently described in the bill just leaves a lot of question marks.”  

The bill is set to receive a public hearing in the Assembly Committee on Forestry, Parks and Outdoor Recreation Wednesday at 11 a.m.