Uppity Wisconsin

Two environmental organizations - - Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers and Midwest Environmental Advocates (a public interest law firm) - - are trying to use the US Clean Water Act to stop something pretty unbelievable:

A Milwaukee business is routinely dumping toxins, including cancer-causing chemicals, into the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District system - - but the MMSD's treatment methods cannot get the poisons out.

Which means they flow into Lake Michigan, where any number of cities get their drinking water, and from which people eat fish.

 Details here.

Milwaukee's sewerage district, MMSD , has gotten a bad rap for years about its deep tunnel, which has done a remarkably good job of keeping hundreds of millions, if not billions of gallons, of sewage out of Lake Michigan since the system was built.

I am a former MMSD commissioner and onetime journalist, and have seldom if ever seen a concerted campaign of undeserved negative news coverage of such long duration.

Now, there is a remarkable turnaround -- although it is probably too late to change people's opinions, shaped by years of relentless radio and newspaper coverage that trashed MMSD and the deep tunnel.