An excerpt from the article:

While the state Department of Transportation has been studying the effects of transporting all the sand on the state’s roads and rail lines, the DNR has devoted more staff to permits and enforcement. Two staffers are working just on frac sand air pollution permits, two more jobs have been devoted to enforcement, and since September, staffer Tom Woletz’s entire job has been coordinating frac sand permits.

As of mid-January, the DNR had counted about 60 mines, 32 plants either operating or being built, and 20 more proposed mines — more than double the 41 mines or plants the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism counted in mid-July. The agency conservatively estimated the state’s capacity at more than 12 million tons of sand a year.

Woletz said the agency can’t say exactly how many companies are out there and what their status is. They have no centralized industry organization, and they are “very competitive and very secretive” when buying land, he said.

Overall, Woletz said, the industry is “fairly well funded and they are receptive to doing what they need to do as far as permitting and compliance. But they want their permits at business speed,” — that is, “tomorrow.”

Also related to area frac sand mining, WDRT 91.9FM reporter Lila Marmel recently spoke with two Vernon County conservationists about how it might affect Kickapoo valley residents. Listen to this excellent, informative interview here (MP3 file).

For more information on frac sand mining in southwest Wisconsin, read VSN’s summary.

VSN is moving into its twelfth year as a nonprofit organization. Since the organization’s conception, concerned citizens have monitored water quality to help protect and improve the health of the Kickapoo and adjacent watersheds. VSN’s Water Quality program educates, promotes water advocacy, and performs watershed research based largely on water quality data collected by local citizens and staff.

Now VSN has published a report based on over a decade’s worth of data from VSN staff, volunteers, and WDNR surface water information. This assessment reveals the current state of water bodies located within the entire Kickapoo Watershed.

Read VSN’s Kickapoo River Watershed Assessment online.

A feature article in the January 19, 2012 Crawford County Independent announced VSN’s watershed assessment to the public and heralded the organization’s 12 years of watershed monitoring.

VSN trains its dedicated volunteer water monitors through the statewide Wisconsin Water Action Volunteers (WAV) program. More information about the WAV Program can be found at http://watermonitoring.uwex.edu/wav/. VSN provides the equipment and support while volunteers provide their time and energy. Today, nearly 50 water monitors throughout the upper, middle, and lower Kickapoo Watershed participate in the WAV program through VSN.

Parameters monitored and detailed in the report include temperature, core (dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, stream flow, and conductivity), nutrients (ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, phosphorous), macroinvertebrates (aquatic bugs and critters), bacteria (fecal coliform, E. coli), and chemistry (hardness, magnesium, calcium, triazine, atrazine, and arsenic).

Data was assessed using WDNR and US Environmental Protection Agency water quality limits and recommendations. In most cases the data available was not extensive enough for a conclusive determination. As such the data was used to provide an indication of the watershed health.

The water quality data shows varying watershed health conditions. Some data shows no degradation, while other data showed evidence of human impact. Only a few streams had values that could be considered impaired by WDNR classification system. Nutrients and bacteriological data showed the greatest number of values that met impairment levels. A large number of nutrient data points indicated impacts from human activity.

The indication of human impact reinforces that responsible land use by all land owners in the watershed is essential. It is vitally important that widespread implementation of agricultural and non-agricultural best management practices occur.

Sarah Grainger, former VSN Water Quality Program Manager and author of the assessment, said, “Performing this assessment provided me an in depth understanding of VSN’s critical role in monitoring the watershed. The quantity of data collected by the VSN is comparable to the amount of data that has been collected by the WDNR. Further, in many cases, VSN provided the only monitoring of a waterbody since 2000.”

The money will provide for cooler rental, gleaning harvest and packing supplies and mileage reimbursement for volunteers.  ”We can now harvest a lot more produce and get it to our area food pantries,” says Nicole Penick Food and Farm Manager.

FFI is building partnerships with food pantries, Second Harvest Food Bank and community volunteers to get fresh produce into the mouths of those who need it most. Contact Nicole at vsnnicole@gmail.com to get involved!

“Green Fire” connects legendary conservationist Aldo Leopold with modern environmental projects

On Wednesday, August 17, McIntosh Memorial Library and Valley Stewardship Network will host a free screening of a new film called Green Fire, the first full-length, high definition documentary film ever made about legendary conservationist Aldo Leopold. The screening begins at 7 p.m.

The film explores Aldo Leopold’s life in the early part of the twentieth century and the many ways his land ethic idea continues to be applied all over the world today.

Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time is a production of the Aldo Leopold Foundation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Center for Humans and Nature. The film shares highlights from Leopold’s life and extraordinary career, explaining how he shaped conservation in the twentieth century and still inspires people today. Although probably best known as the author of the conservation classic A Sand County Almanac, Leopold is also renowned for his work as an  educator, philosopher, forester, ecologist, and wilderness advocate.

The film is being shown in community screening venues like this one throughout 2011. It will then be released on public television in early 2012.
“Aldo Leopold’s legacy lives on today in the work of people and organizations across the nation and around the world,” said Aldo Leopold Foundation Executive Director Buddy Huffaker. “What is exciting about Green Fire is that it is more than just a documentary about Aldo Leopold; it also explores the influence his ideas have had in shaping the conservation movement as we know it today by highlighting some really inspiring people and organizations doing great work to  connect people and the natural world in ways that even Leopold might not have imagined.”

Green Fire illustrates Leopold’s continuing influence by exploring current projects that connect people and land at the local level. Viewers will meet urban children in Chicago learning about local foods and ecological restoration. They’ll learn about ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico who  maintain healthy landscapes by working on their own properties and with their neighbors, in cooperative community conservation efforts. They’ll meet wildlife biologists who are bringing back threatened and endangered species, from cranes to Mexican wolves, to the landscapes where they once thrived. The Green Fire film portrays how Leopold’s vision of a community that cares about both people and land—his call for a land ethic—ties all of these modern conservation stories together and offers inspiration and insight for the future.

“The making of Green Fire has been a process of discovery,” says Curt Meine, the film’s on-screen guide. Meine’s doctoral dissertation was a biography of Aldo Leopold, published as Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work (University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). To give the film its modern perspective of Leopold’s influence in the conservation movement today, Meine was charged with conducting hundreds of interviews with people practicing conservation all over the country. “Meeting all those people has really yielded new connections between Leopold and nearly every facet of the  environmental movement, including ocean conservation, urban gardening, and climate change—issues that Leopold never directly considered in his lifetime but  has nonetheless affected as his ideas are carried on by others,” said Meine.

“Aldo Leopold is one of our nation’s most beloved nature writers,” says environmental historian Susan Flader. “His A Sand County Almanac, published  posthumously in 1949, has become a catalyst for our evolving ecological awareness and a classic in American literature.” Leopold is regarded by many as one of  the most influential conservation thinkers of the twentieth century, and the film highlights the ways his legacy continues to encourage us to see the natural world  “as a community to which we belong.”

The Aldo Leopold Foundation is distributing the film to community screeners, and is a not-for-profit organization based in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Learn more about the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the Green Fire movie at www.aldoleopold.org.

If you go:

August 17, 7 p.m.: Viroqua, Wisconsin at Vernon Square Cinema

For more information, contact Valley Stewardship Network, 637-3615, www.kickapoovsn.org or McIntosh Memorial Library, 637-7151.

First Prize: Adult Tsunami 120 Kayak and Youth Arcadia Scout 10 Kayak, is awarded to Zeke Roth-Reynolds from the La Farge area.  The prize’s total retail vaule is $1400.  Zeke didn’t say much but his smile said it all!

Second Prize: Kona Dew 2010 Hybrid Bicycle and Burley Bee with a retail value of $700, is awarded to Adrienne Fox, owner and producer of PowerKraut, a cultured living food company in Viroqua.  She has been an avid supporter of VSN’s Food and Farm Initiative.

Third Prize: Anchor Three Season Tent and four sleeping pads and two $50 gift certificates to Driftless Angler and Rutabaga Paddlesports, is awarded to Dan Badtke.The prize’s total retail value is $700.Badtke is a longtime supporter of VSN and is a local farmer raising shitake mushrooms and producing maple syrup.

A special thank you to Three Rivers Outdoors in La Crosse and Blue Dog Cycles in Viroqua for sponsoring these fabulous prizes.  The Viroqua Farmers Market and Viroqua Food Co-op were also supporters in our efforts to sell tickets.

All proceeds from the raffle benefit the ongoing work of the Valley Stewardship Network.