Environmental Education and Nature Centers in Northeast Wisconsin

Environmental education is essential to developing a healthy, sustainable society. Many of our current environmental problems are due to widespread ignorance of basic ecological facts of life, especially among our elected officials. In addition, special interest groups and lobbyists are deliberately spreading false information which further confuses our political leaders.
To counteract this problem, we need well funded, scientifically accurate and carefully designed educational courses in our grade schools and colleges, to raise the overall awareness of the public and elected officials.
Our young people need to learn basic natural resource and survival information from a young age, to ensure that future generations will understand the value and importance of pollution controls, resource conservation and wildlife habitat protection.

Posted by Afiq Affandi

Environmental Justice

Environmental degradation frequently causes disproportionate harm to low-income people who can’t move away from polluted, crowded neighborhoods. The Environmental Justice movement strives to give voice to people who are currently unable to defend themselves.
Low-income people often can’t afford water filters, air filters or organically grown foods at the store, and, if they are can, rely instead on local homegrown foods, tap water, and fishing and hunting for subsistence. Their children grow up in innercity neighborhoods with constant exposure to local pollutants and little exposure to natural beauty or wildlife.
For example, PCBs are elevated in Green Bay air, Green Bay soil, and can be absorbed through the skin while swimming or playing in the sand or dirt along the Fox River or Green Bay shoreline. (see Fox River Watch)
The demographics of Brown County and the City of Green Bay show that low income people are much more likely to live in the polluted inner city, while the wealthier people (inluding paper mill workers and plant managers) tend to live on the outskirts of town or in the country, away from the toxic exposures. In the summer, wealthier and middle-class residents can afford to take their families and escape the local pollution to fish or swim "up north" at remote cabins or resorts, while low-income residents can only swim or fish locally. It’s common to see low-income people fishing along the Fox River to feed their families, exposing them to dangerous levels of PCBs, furans, dioxins, mercury and other pollutants in the fish.
Disadvantaged people, especially homeless, illiterate or transient people, often lack information and are unaware of the health risks associated with harvesting local foods. For many years, local and state governments, and business leaders, have tended to downplay the toxic contamination of the Fox River and Green Bay, in an effort to boost local business development and the valuable outdoor recreation industry. (The tourism industry is worth more than $8 billion annually in Wisconsin.) As a result, only very few waterfront docks, fishing sites or boat launches have been posted with signs warning anglers to limit or not eat their catch, and the state has chronically underprinted copies of the state fish consumption advisory, which is NOT included with the fishing license guidebook. These frankly immoral practices have served to keep the public, and particularly new residents and visitors, ignorant of local PCB health risks. This deliberate censorship and lack of warning is especially harmful to low-income people.
Other at-risk groups include ethnic minorities who consume local foods, particularly fish and waterfowl, as part of historic cultural traditions, sometimes linked to strong religious beliefs. The inability to consume fish is a major social loss to these ethnic communities.
Low-income and ethnic minorities often lack the political power to demand corrections of these problems; therefore, it is the duty of the governments, and the wealthy and powerful, to intervene to correct this situation. In Northeast Wisconsin, justice demands that the PCBs and related pollutants be cleaned up as much as possible, as soon as possible. In addition, the 7 corporations responsible for the pollution should pay the maximum in compensation funds ($400-600 million) as calculated under the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment.
Furthermore, local, state and federal governments must fund comprehensive public epidemiological health studies which include the most exposed low-income populations, particularly regular local fish consumers. (Such studies have not been done.) If health problems are detected, affected people need medical and legal assistance to help repair the damage and gain personal compensation from the polluters.

Posted by Afiq Affandi

Environmental Legal Services - Air, Land and Water

For companies with environmental concerns, such as obtaining permits, responding to spills and government notices, preparing site assessments, conducting All Appropriate Inquiries in the purchase of real estate, conducting remediation, etc., Mr. Wiemerslage's 19 years of extensive environmental experience can prove invaluable. As part of those 19 years, Mr. Wiemerslage's eight years of experience as an environmental attorney in the areas of oil and gas Exploration and Production, pipeline and gas stations remediation will prove very helpful to both large and small oil and gas companies, especially with the June 2007 changes under Colorado House Bill 1341 altering the composition of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. With Mr. Wiemerslage's experience in site assessments and remediation, he can also help dealing with spills and releases from gasoline storage tanks as well as from pipelines and production facilities. He works well with environmental consultants who are also helping the client. Mr. Wiemerslage's background as an environmental attorney at a state environmental agency as well as for a Fortune 100 oil company allows for a unique perspective and enhances relationships with regulatory agencies his clients may have to deal with.

Environmental Experience.
Mr. Wiemerslage has experience in air pollution control, water and NPDES permitting, RCRA, spill response and remediation, and dealing with state and federal environmental agencies. He has experience under the United States Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund).

From May, 1979 through August, 1990, Mr. Wiemerslage served as an attorney for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in Springfield, Illinois. He served consecutively in the Divisions of Public Water Supplies, Air Pollution Control, Water Pollution Control and Land Pollution Control. While at Illinois EPA, he was directly involved with variance petitions and recommendations, water permit appeals, water enforcement investigations and litigation, Pollution Control Board public hearings, pretreatment ordinance reviews, regulatory promulgations and hearings. He testified before an Illinois House of Representatives committee regarding radium 226 and 228 in drinking water and the enforcement proceedings involving drinking water.

From September, 1990 through December 1997, Mr. Wiemerslage served as an environmental attorney for a Fortune 100 company, Marathon Oil Company, its subsidiary, Marathon Pipeline Company and Marathon owned gasoline stations, as well as a Canadian company, Platte Pipeline Company. He concentrated on land and water issues under RCRA, the Clean Water Act and applicable state laws. His work included investigations and reporting of releases of petroleum products at production sites, pipelines and gasoline stations, as well as response to and remediation of those releases. He oversaw the drafting of remediation reports and plans, and negotiated administrative orders and settlements with U.S. EPA and state agencies. He prepared filings for reimbursement for oil spill costs to the United States Coast Guard as well as for state reimbursement for remediation for leaking underground storage tanks.

Mr. Wiemerslage's geographic areas of responsibilities for oil and gas exploration and production (E & P) included Colorado, Wyoming (especially Powder River Basin), Alaska (Cook Inlet platforms and on-shore production facilities), Louisiana (including off-shore) and Texas. His responsibilities for releases from gasoline stations, including assessments and remediation, included locations in numerous states east of the Mississippi.

Posted by Afiq Affandi