Categories: News

Wisconsin environmental regulators can consider pollution before issuing water permits, state supreme court rules

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled last week that the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has the authority to consider pollution and other harms to wildlife when issuing environmental permits to farms, reports The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The decision was a win for environmentalists, but a setback for Republican lawmakers: In 2011, the GOP-led legislature passed a law specifically intended to curtail the power of environmental regulators. Nonetheless, a majority of the state’s Supreme Court judges agreed that DNR is empowered by state law to review ecological impacts when processing permits for the development of wells, as well as wastewater discharge. Guess it’s not called the “Department of Natural Resources” for no reason!

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

2 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

2 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

2 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

2 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

2 years ago

How some big grocery chains help ensure that food deserts stay barren

Last fall, first-year law student Karissa Kang arrived at Yale University and quickly set out…

2 years ago