Members of an ad hoc Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources committee are urging wildlife regulators to work with a national expert as they finalize recommendations to guide state beaver management policy for the next decade.

Researchers and conservationists serving on the advisory body — which is largely composed of DNR staff and government and tribal representatives — hope that including additional scientific expertise, and even a potential computer-guided aerial beaver dam mapping survey, could assist regulators at a time when climate change is beginning to significantly alter Wisconsin weather patterns and pose widespread ecological risks.

“We’re taking our species out faster than they can recover, and when we are overexploiting our trout, when we’re overexploiting animals, plants, habitats, that’s going to make us lose these species faster,” said University of Minnesota ecohydrology professor Emily Fairfax, who has helped review and fact-check several beaver management plans and recently spoke to the committee. “I don’t think we have time to wait — full stop.”

A shift would transform long-standing beaver policy that frames the critters as a nuisance species.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wildlife services program has removed beavers and their dams in Wisconsin since 1988 under contract with the state, along with local governments, railroad companies and Indigenous tribes.

At least five states across the Mississippi River basin and Great Lakes region contract with the federal wildlife services program for beaver removal, but Wisconsin stands out among states for the quantity of beavers and dams USDA employees clear, the millions of dollars Wisconsin has invested to do so and the state’s justification.

Current trout policy includes killing beavers 

USDA killed roughly 23,500 beavers across 42 states in 2024, about 2,700 of which were in Wisconsin, ranking the state among the top five in the nation.

In Wisconsin, the agency focuses on abating transportation hazards, such as flooded roadways. But, perhaps most controversially, about a third of sites where USDA traps beavers are coldwater streams.

Wisconsin currently prioritizes maintaining free-flowing conditions on the state’s prized coldwater streams, partly to appeal to its “customers” and their fishing preferences.

But the strategy has faced increasing scrutiny, even among anglers, who are divided over the issue. Some beaver advocates say the state agency charged with protecting and enhancing natural resources shouldn’t let commercial interests unduly guide its decisions. 

In 2025, the agency trapped and cleared dams in more than 1,550 miles of coldwater streams — roughly the driving distance from Milwaukee to Salt Lake City, Utah. The DNR uses proceeds from annual trout fishing stamp sales to finance the annual undertaking.

At least two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, have employed the USDA for trout stream clearing, but at a significantly reduced scale.

The DNR doesn’t know the impacts of these policies on Wisconsin’s beaver population, as it ceased conducting aerial surveys in 2014. Agency staff, instead, estimate beaver numbers and harvest impacts using trapper surveys and voluntary reporting of annual take. Staff believe the population remains stable statewide or is even growing.

Conservationists are calling on the DNR to systematically survey the state’s beaver population. Without obtaining a reliable count, they say, it’s impossible to devise a science-based management plan. Even if beaver removal continued on trout streams, critics say the state could better estimate the population by having trappers register their beaver take, as the DNR requires for turkey, deer, bobcat and bear harvests. 

Meanwhile, an expanding body of research is showcasing beavers’ ecosystem and economic benefits and the drawbacks of removal.

Beaver dams help limit flooding

When beavers remain on the landscape, they create wetlands, which mitigate climate change impacts like drought, wildfires and flooding. Problems thought to be endemic to the American West are now creeping eastward.

Thunderstorms wreaked havoc in southeastern Wisconsin last summer, bringing more than 14 inches of rain to some parts of Milwaukee within 24 hours on Aug. 9-10. Roughly 2,000 homes sustained major damage or were destroyed in the ensuing floods, and the county now faces more than $22 million in public infrastructure repairs after being twice denied federal disaster assistance.

Beaver dams can dissipate torrents of water when the sky opens — even to the city’s benefit.

Using computer models, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers estimated that the Milwaukee River watershed could accommodate enough beaver colonies to reduce flood water volumes by 14% to 48%.

Wisconsin beaver policy understudied

But scientists face decades of institutional consensus in Wisconsin that beavers degrade stream habitat and threaten wild coldwater fisheries.

DNR fish biologists say that beavers warm water temperatures and plug coldwater streams with silt. When unobstructed, the water bodies, which tend to contain few fish species, flow fast and hard.

“Past studies have identified some positive but mostly negative effects of beavers on trout, and my research builds upon this,” DNR fisheries scientist Matthew Mitro told the beaver management committee. “The option for lethal removal (of) beavers is an important tool that should remain available for resource managers.”

Yet critics charge DNR biologists with managing streams for the primary benefit of one species by trapping out another, justifying the practice using research that hasn’t undergone scientific peer review.

A 2011 academic review of beaver-related research conducted in the Great Lakes region, which predated Mitro’s recent research, found that 72% of claims concerning beavers’ negative impacts are speculative and not backed by data, while the same held true for 49% of positive claims. The negative claims included the idea that beaver dams warm stream temperatures and block trout passage.

DNR biologists often note that academic literature largely has been conducted in the western United States and can’t be directly transplanted to Wisconsin’s comparatively flat landscape.  

That is all the more reason to get off our haunches and wade into beaver ponds, Fairfax said.

“We have to follow that up by collecting our own data sets,” she said. “We have to publish them in peer-reviewed journals and get that scientific stamp of approval.”

Beaver trapping and natural predation are distinct from targeted eradication, Fairfax noted. The former can be sustainable, while stream-wide depopulation and dam removal can damage entire ecosystems. 

It’s also possible that stream clearing prevents beavers from moving to parts of Wisconsin where they are wanted or where they could thrive with fewer conflicts.

Federal government assesses Wisconsin’s beaver dealings 

The DNR beaver management plan’s update coincides with a new USDA environmental assessment of the potential impacts of its beaver and dam removal in Wisconsin.

A conservation organization founded by beaver management committee member Bob Boucher announced its intent to sue the federal agency to compel it to update its previous assessment, published more than a decade ago. Then Boucher threatened to sue the DNR after it wouldn’t release a draft of the new one, currently under review.

The 2013 assessment determined that USDA’s involvement in clearing streams and conflict areas did not significantly impact the beaver population. It estimated wildlife managers would only trap about 2,000 beavers annually, but the agency exceeded that figure within a few years.

The USDA recommends staying the course, using lethal and nonlethal methods. When analyzing alternatives, the agency concluded that other wildlife managers would continue trapping with or without federal involvement.

The USDA allocates some funding for the installation of flow control devices that can reduce the footprint of beaver ponds by lowering water levels. But nearly all beaver conflict sites the USDA handles in Wisconsin are managed through trapping. Levelers do have limited effectiveness in settings like high-flow streams or infrastructure-heavy floodplains. 

Wildlife managers say that they need flexibility because no two beaver sites are identical. 

“We’re not against beaver complexes,” DNR fisheries biologist Bradd Sims told committee members. “We’re not against ecosystem diversity, and I don’t know why people try to paint us that way. We’re an open-minded bureau that’s open to different management styles.”

Trout and beaver proponents do agree that climate change poses an existential threat to biodiversity. While the former group might view beavers as harmful to coldwater streams, the latter see their potential as a partner in creating resilient landscapes that accommodate not only fish, but also frogs, turtles, bugs, bats, birds and humans.

The committee’s next meeting is March 18 in Rothschild, Wisconsin. Ultimately, DNR staff will rewrite the current plan, release a draft for public comment and discussion at open houses, and present a revised document to the state’s natural resources board for ratification.

This story was produced in partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network, of which Wisconsin Watch is a member. Sign up for Wisconsin Watch’s newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

Pest or climate ally? DNR weighs new beaver management plan under mounting scrutiny 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.

When Denny Blodgett learned his northwest Wisconsin county intended to burn wood harvested during a road-widening project near his home, he thought it would be unthinkable for that fuel to go to waste.

As Blodgett recalls, he offered some of the harvested wood to an older man from his church, and word spread around his community of Danbury that he had firewood to give.

“And pretty soon, we’re helping 125 families,” said Blodgett, who founded Interfaith Caregivers’ Heat-A-Home program.

That was three decades ago.

Last year, volunteers delivered nearly 200 loads of split wood to local households.

And as the cost of living increases amid federal cuts to social safety net programs, struggling families increasingly face a winter of tough choices as they try to meet their basic needs.

Food, medicine or heat?

Interfaith is one of about 250 known firewood banks across the country that seek to ameliorate the demand for energy assistance.

There isn’t a clear definition for firewood banks, which have been around since at least the 1970s, but have roots in Native traditions since time immemorial. They can take the informal form of Good Samaritans delivering logs to neighbors to large take-what-you-need distribution sites operated by cities or Indigenous tribes.

But the common denominator to these networks of care is their low- or no-cost service to people who lack the means to purchase alternative forms of heat and process their own firewood. Often, both factors stem from the same issue, such as illness or aging.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated as of 2020 that 2.3 million households in the United States rely on firewood as their primary source of heating fuel.

But one of the great paradoxes of what researchers term “fuel poverty” is that those struggling to keep their homes warm in rural, often heavily forested areas lack ready access to wood.

“I’ve got 20 acres of oak and hardwood here and a chainsaw and a log splitter, but I’m pretty much unable to really do much with it,” said Danbury resident Peter Brask, 78, who struggles with neuropathy. “I just still feel embarrassed asking for help because I’ve been so self-sufficient all my life.”

Last year’s wood delivery from Interfaith was a “lifesaver” for getting through the winter, the retired IBM software specialist said.

Blodgett, a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, purchases and accepts donated wood, delivered to a yard adjacent to his home. A processor cuts “cattywampus” piles of timber into smaller pieces, and volunteers split them into burnable portions.

The wood dries until it’s “seasoned.” The less moisture in a log, the cleaner and more efficiently it burns.

Interfaith purchased two trailers a few years ago with money the group obtained from the Alliance for Green Heat, a nonprofit that advocates for the use of modern wood-burning heating systems.

Buoyed with money from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it has issued more than $2 million in grants to firewood banks that help them purchase safety equipment, chainsaws and wood splitters, as well as smoke detectors for wood recipients.

Overlooking a renewable resource like wood at the potential cost to human health is unthinkable, said the organization’s founder John Ackerly, especially when so much potential firewood ends up in landfills — the “scraggly stuff” that lumber mills can’t offload. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated 12.2 million tons of wood ended up as municipal solid waste in 2018.

“Usually, firewood is not a very profitable thing to sell, very labor-intensive and very heavy,” Ackerly said.

Another opportunity presented by firewood banks is providing a local outlet that avoids spreading wood infested with invasive species. Banks also avert the dumping of wood sourced from storm-damaged trees, exacerbated by climate-change-magnified severe weather — winds and snow.

“We’re losing our power, our electricity in these storms all the time,” said Jessica Leahy, a University of Maine professor, who co-authored a guide to starting community wood banks. “It would be great to have everybody in the most carbon-neutral heating source for their house. That sounds great, but there are people burning their kitchen cabinets in order to stay warm.”

Now in its fourth year issuing grants with federal dollars, the Alliance for Green Heat had to rebrand after the Trump administration pushed for increased timber harvests on federal lands in the name of national economic security.

This year, firewood banks seeking grants must source wood from actively managed federal forests, a potential problem for the handful of states that lack them.

“Before, we really touted the program as serving ‘low-income populations’ with a ‘renewable, low-carbon fuel,’” Ackerly said. “We had to remove that language, but we were able to keep doing what we had been doing the same way.”

Researchers who mapped wood banks across the U.S. identified a second in Wisconsin — the Bear Ridge Firewood Bank, sponsored by the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians — and a handful in other Midwestern states, including Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota. 

Clarisse Hart — director of outreach and education at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, and one of the researchers — said firewood banks often go by different names depending on the region: firewood assistance program, firewood for elders, firewood ministry, wood pantry and charity cut, to name a few.

Other exchanges happen behind the scenes, she said, often on private, community social media pages — making banks harder to identify.

Often, the operations depend on the commitment of volunteers. 

“A lot of people want to give back, but they don’t know what to do,” said Ed Hultgren, who started an Ozark, Missouri, wood bank in 2009. “It doesn’t have to be wood ministry. You find a gap in your area and see if there’s something you can do to fill it.”

Wayne Kinning — a retired surgeon who volunteers with his Fenton , Michigan, Knights of Columbus council — is one of a dozen or so men from St. John the Evangelist parish who cut, split and sell low-cost firewood. The proceeds support local charities.

“We donate all our time and even our chainsaws,” he said. “That, of course, then gives a person a sense of meaning in their day and a sense of worth in their giving.”

Among Blodgett’s helpers are a snowmobile club, several churches and a Jewish summer camp. Another dedicated volunteer — Wendy Truhler, 74, of Danbury — has assisted Blodgett for nearly two decades, since her spouse died.

“Listen, I helped my husband split for 30 years. I know how to lift and work a splitter and this and that,” she told Blodgett when she started. “I would rather be outside than glued to a little 12-inch computer screen.”

Blodgett delivers wood throughout the year, which takes the pressure off the winter rush.

He fills the extra time working on other Interfaith projects: constructing wheelchair ramps for families and running the Christmas for Kids program.

Last year, 335 children received toys and clothes from their wish lists. Families also get a $50 food card. And he makes sure they get another resource wood provides.

A decorated tree for Christmas.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Firewood banks offer heat, and hope, to rural homes in need 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.

In 2018, a mobile home park owner in Stevens Point lost his operator’s license after submitting falsified drinking water samples to the state, purportedly leaving longtime residents of the park at risk of consuming excess iron and manganese. He appealed.

In 2022, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources authorized the spreading of human waste on farmland in Vilas County. A nearby Indigenous tribe contested the permit when it became apparent the state hadn’t included sufficient setbacks from tribal land.

And in 2021, a wildlife rehabilitator in Frederic, Wisconsin, who also served as a local police chief, lost her rehabilitation license after a raccoon in her care — Gimpy — bit an employee. The rehabilitator appealed.

These cases, all of which went to administrative hearings, pit state regulatory authority against individual residents. That’s why I was interested in reading them in my role as an investigative reporter. But I learned vital information in these and other cases, nearly always the parties’ names and places of work, is missing. 

Wisconsin’s Division of Hearings and Appeals, the agency that oversees administrative hearings for several state departments, has taken to posting only heavily redacted records on its website. That means readers will often see black bars drawn through the names of people and businesses, state employees who evaluate permits and licenses, attorneys who represent parties and even newspapers that publish notices related to the cases.

Division Administrator Brian Hayes told me that last year’s passage of a state law prompted the DHA to evaluate how it posts personally identifying information on its website. That law enables judges to request that their personal information, including addresses and telephone numbers, be removed from public view. 

The DHA, Hayes said, extended this protection to witnesses and petitioners, saying disclosing this information “needlessly opens up litigants to scams and stalkers.”

Hayes noted, however, that personally identifying information likely would have to be released to someone who submitted a records request for unaltered documents.

So I submitted one.

It took two months and the assistance of an attorney to wrestle the name of Gimpy’s owner from the agency. (Gimpy, however, was named.) The employees I encountered in this process offered a moving target of justifications.

First, DHA’s records custodian said she can provide unredacted documents only to parties to a case and suggested that I request the redacted version. I pointed out that the law requires her to either release the requested record or offer a legal justification for withholding it.

Another employee cited Wisconsin’s 1980 victims’ rights law, which provides a bill of rights for witnesses and victims of crime. The problem with this excuse is that the protections are situated in Wisconsin criminal code, not licensing.

In the end, I received unredacted records in the raccoon case and an apology from DHA for the difficulties I encountered in obtaining this information. But I still am moved to question the will to secrecy at the heart of this matter.

In fact, many of these cases involve public hearings. Anyone who attended could presumably observe witnesses and evidence — or see the names of parties on public notices state agencies post to announce hearing schedules.

When protective laws are zealously applied to contexts for which they were not intended, it can cause its own form of harm. The public is circuitously deprived of information related to potentially unscrupulous activity on the part of both individuals and government.

It shouldn’t take an attorney to pry open the gates for administrative decisions, even if the state means well.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bennet Goldstein is an investigative reporter with Wisconsin Watch.

Your Right to Know: The problem with the will to secrecy 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.

When a major infrastructure project comes to town, it can become a herculean effort to locate information about the development and its potential environmental impacts.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources hosts an online permitting database. The website serves as a public repository of documents related to projects like large livestock farms, mines and even mock beaver dams.

But queue it up and face an onslaught of records.

If it takes a grown professional to decipher the documents, what would it take for a teenager to care?

A student club in Stillwater Area Public Schools, located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, is exploring methods to bring such esoteric data to life.

At a recent environmental forum in Hudson, Wisconsin, the youth showcased their work, including constructing a submersible robot that will assess water quality in area lakes.

Another project examined water quality in the St. Croix River watershed — spanning both Minnesota and Wisconsin — including the potential impacts of a proposed Burnett County hog farm. 

That animal operation was the subject of a three-part Wisconsin Watch investigation, which found that the developers improperly designated some farmland for manure spreading without the property owners’ consent. 

Wisconsin regulations require the owners of large farms to own or rent a sufficient land base on which to apply livestock manure, but Wisconsin Watch verified that at least 11 of 39 landowners listed in the farm’s plan were not contacted. Some hadn’t decided if they wanted manure on their land, while many objected outright.

Even after the developers proposed hauling excess manure to Minnesota, the Wisconsin DNR rejected their application.

The hog farm would have been constructed in the headwaters of the St. Croix River in the town of Trade Lake. Field runoff ultimately would have flowed downstream to Stillwater.

Livestock farming in the St. Croix River watershed introduces fecal waste equivalent to 3.25 million people, according to estimates produced by retired University of Iowa faculty member Chris Jones, who specializes in water quality monitoring. 

Area drinking wells already exceed nitrate standards, and residents feared that manure from an additional 20,000-pig farm would be a toxic addition.

Michael Manore, founder and project lead of the “This is Stillwater” initiative, which partners with the student club, created the digital model of the watershed showcased at the forum. He said the visuals sharpened the scope of the hog farm’s possible impacts: widespread manure hauling, roadside spills and odor.

The school district’s Synergy Club, led by Julie Balfanz, encourages students to visualize data in novel ways, using tools like the computer game Minecraft.

“So many of these ideas came from the kids because this is what they’re into,” Balfanz said. “But they just don’t have adults that listen to their ideas and let them experiment.”

Manore and Balfanz hope their efforts inspire youth to respond to community challenges, including environmental sustainability and water quality.

In a digitized world, human attention is an increasingly valuable commodity, and Manore realized that more than a dozen state and federal agencies govern surface water and underground aquifers, producing an “insurmountable” puddle of data.

“So much of sustainability is checkmarks or checkboxes on a brochure,” he said. “I go out and stand in my environment and I sniff the air or I dig my feet into the ground or I swim in the water. I don’t have a clue what that checkmark box translates into the true raw health metrics of my community.”

Now Manore is pondering ways to dispense with screens altogether — or at least plant them in nature.

Could tech use DNR records to augment reality like an interactive game of Pokémon GO?

Manore sure hopes so.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Here’s how games and graphics are helping get teenagers excited about protecting the environment 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.

On a recent Wednesday about 11 a.m., Dustin Ladd turned the ignition on the county’s Ford pickup. He left the office with a humming, refrigerated trailer in tow and wound along country roads through central Wisconsin, stopping at farms to pack the vehicle with food.

Dustin handled nearly all the retrievals and deliveries last year, too. He isn’t one to say “no.”

“It takes me to all sorts of places — good or bad,” said Dustin, 36, who has worked as Juneau County’s land and water conservation administrator for six years.

The county partnered with more than a dozen local producers to host countywide pop-up distributions of healthy foodstuffs in the Central Sands — one of Wisconsin’s most food-insecure regions.

About one in seven county residents, often older and living on fixed incomes, struggles to make ends meet.

There are few grocery stores. Even so, many folks can’t afford to shop at the county’s only supermarket. A loaf of off-brand bread costs $2.79, a gallon of milk $3.39 and a dozen eggs $3.49.

Residents often turn to local gas stations or dollar stores, without the luxury of variety.

County employees saw a need. And an opportunity.

They obtained a grant in 2024 to run a food distribution initiative — known as the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA — and anticipated continuing it this year. 

The federal funding underlying the state program enabled the county to purchase food from more than a dozen area farmers, supporting the economy and residents in need.

But the newly elected Trump administration abruptly canceled the awards in March. Wisconsin would have received $5.5 million.

Additional cuts to the nation’s social safety net coincided with rising inflation that has pinched people’s pocketbooks and stretched food banks.

This year, Juneau County and local businesses backfilled the costs of running a significantly smaller program with just a fraction of the cash: six pop-up distributions. Not the previous 30-plus. Fewer nutritious meals fill stomachs, and the program’s future is unclear. 

Still, a dedicated team of county staff, donors and volunteers is working to ensure residents obtain something.

They find joy in that.

***

Three felines roam the grounds at Orange Cat Community Farm south of the Juneau County border.

The youngsters are the unrelated successors of the farm’s namesake cat, Little Ann. Before she died, the cat kept her human, Laura Mortimore, company as Laura grew three acres of organic vegetables.

Feeding the community through Juneau County’s LFPA program in 2024 felt awesome, said Laura, 43. Nothing went to waste.

“I feel like I made a bunch of new friends,” she said. “I just wanted to keep going.”

Dustin pulled into the farm’s driveway around 1:30 p.m. He and Laura started loading small watermelons and vegetables into the trailer, stacking plastic totes to its ceiling.

The vegetables are growing ravenously this year. Tomatoes are in. Butternut squash and pumpkins on the way.

The two strolled through Laura’s fields.

“I’m scared that I’m gonna have a lot of five-pound sweet potatoes,” she told him, burying her arms into a carpet of vines.

The monster tubers caused the soil to bulge out of the ground.

The farm overproduced in anticipation of a full year of pop-ups. Laura solicited additional customers and is adding extra produce to her subscribers’ food shares. She also threw away seedlings that she grew for the LFPA program.

“But this is really great to keep, you know…” Laura said, pausing. “Moving forward in some way.”

Maybe the local farmers and county staff could have another LFPA committee meeting, she told Dustin. How about applying for some grants?

But as they seek donations, they have to compete with other good causes.

Dustin recently put in an application for $10,000 from the local electric utility. He pondered the unlikely possibility of starting a nonprofit to maximize the Juneau County program’s eligibility.

Will staff be able to run the program next year?

They’re going to keep trying.

***

To Dustin’s knowledge, Juneau County is the only local government in Wisconsin to oversee an LFPA program.

Staff and local producers ironed out the details the first year: crafting business plans, purchasing equipment, charting trucking routes, arranging shifts and building community trust.

Volunteers and employees from the county’s Aging and Disability Resource Center and Land and Water Department passed out food at village halls, parks and fairgrounds.

It’s not easy starting a new service.

“A lot of weeks of late Wednesday nights,” Dustin said.

Deer also preyed upon vegetables growing in farmers’ fields. Wild storms dropped hailstones across rows of sweet corn and apple orchards. One farmer lost about 200 pounds of ground beef when someone left a freezer door ajar.

But the trailer continued to visit all the major communities from May through January.

Sometimes, just 80 families came. Or as many as 200. Everyone left with something. Other than marking their township, age group and household size on a paper slip, no questions asked.

The county ultimately gave away about 4,500 food shares.

The only thing that’s still missing is the promised money to fuel the well-oiled machine.

Amid the polarized politics in Washington, there’s one glimmer of bipartisanship: the Strengthening Local Food Security Act, introduced in July by Sens. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, and Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island.

The bill would allocate $200 million each year for states to pay farmers and fishers to sell goods to food providers and schools.

Reed called the new proposal a “win-win-win” for local producers, domestic supply chains and hunger relief agencies. He hopes to see the provisions included in the federal farm bill, which sets the nation’s agricultural policies and spending plan.

In Wisconsin, state lawmakers also set aside $10 million in the current two-year state budget for assistance groups to purchase Wisconsin-made foodstuffs.

***

At  3:15 p.m. Dustin rolled into Lyndon Station, a village of 500 residents. He headed to Travis Fitzgerald Memorial Park. Volunteers emptied the trailer and arranged the veggie totes atop impromptu serving tables under a picnic shelter.

Gina Laack, director of the Juneau County Aging and Disability Resource Center, dished out pumpkin bars and brownies as she welcomed arrivals.

The trickle of pedestrians turned into a stream, then a chattering crowd. Volunteers handed out registration forms and carried groceries to people’s cars, which now lined the street. More than 120 arrived that afternoon. 

Some pushed walkers, others leaned on canes. A woman crinkled her face as she limped to the front of the line. Her sciatic nerves were acting up. 

For many, the program expands the foods they can access. Produce straight from the field, better than a food pantry. Each pop-up brings blessings instead of tears.

“You have to remember this is a healthy food distribution,” Gina said, as she carved up the brownie trays.

Dave Dearth, 77, has been coming to nearly every pop-up since LFPA started in Juneau County. He heard about it through the ADRC, which also runs the Men’s Shed social club and dementia classes he attends with his wife, Anna.

“It’s nice to get some fresh vegetables,” he said through tinted eyeglasses. “Just something to look forward to. See people that you know.” 

A retired counselor, Dave moved to the nearby city of Mauston to live close to his son. Dave picks up vegetables at the pop-ups he wouldn’t ordinarily buy. Growing up poor, he said, he learned to like eating everything.

Dave glanced at the bags of apples sitting atop the bar. Those don’t come cheap, he said.

Dave joined the line, and a volunteer handed him a sack loaded with a head of lettuce, a white onion, a red tomato, a green zucchini and a yellow squash. Another passed him a packet of ground beef.

Behind Dave, Anna adjusted her short blond hair and smiled.

By 4:30, the shelter hollowed out, but extra food remained. 

Gina looped through the village — home to Mac’s Stumble Out Pub and the Swagger Inn — peeking into the local bars and grills. She beckoned people to the park.

“I will not have a beer at each of the bars!” she insisted as she left the shelter.

Seven minutes later, Gina returned with a train of locals — one dressed in denim overalls and a conductor’s hat.

He approached the serving line.

“Well, I’m hungry,” he said.

The LFPA crew swung into motion.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Wisconsin county keeps healthy food program alive despite federal cuts 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.

About this video

The Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA, was a federal program that awarded states two-year grants to help small farmers invest in their local food systems while growing their businesses. 

The Trump administration gutted the program in March, just as farmers started placing seed orders. The timing particularly affected livestock farmers who often need to commit to the size of their herd and harvest over a year in advance. 

Wisconsin Watch staff writer Bennet Goldstein spent weeks talking with producers affected by the loss of LFPA, including Jess D’Souza, a pork farmer in Dane County. During one of several visits to her farm, he and photojournalist Patricio Crooker watched meat processors harvest her pigs to fully appreciate how food travels from farm to plate.

On a separate visit to the farm, Joe Timmerman photographed Jess and her herd of Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs, documenting many beautiful moments on the piece of agricultural land that she purchased nearly a decade ago and eventually named Wonderfarm. 

Collectively, the images tell a story of life, death and resilience on a small farm – but  some viewers may find some of the images in the video uncomfortable or even emotionally upsetting. Our decision to include them was the result of many discussions that touch on long-standing debates in newsrooms about when it is justified to publish or showcase disquieting images related to death, injury or violence. 

Some of the questions raised in these discussions don’t have simple answers. For instance, Bennet wonders whether our desire to outsource meat production to others —  and hide the bloody parts of that business — contributes to the characterization of these photos as being in poor taste or emotionally disturbing.

We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of the issues and questions raised in this reporting.

As for the LFPA program’s future, Wisconsin producers hope to see funding restored in the yet-to-be-debated federal Farm Bill. 

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Video: life, death and resilience at Wonderfarm 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.

Two piglets jostled in the barnyard as Jess D’Souza stepped outside. Neither youngster seemed to be winning their morning game of tug-of-war over an empty feed bag.

Jess approached the chicken coop. She swung open the weathered door. The flood of fowl scampered up a hill to a cluster of empty food bowls.

Groans resembling bassoons and didgeridoos leaked from the hog house as groggy pigs stirred. Jess often greets them in a singsong as she completes chores.

Hi Mama! Hi babies! 

She asks if she can get them some hay. Or perhaps something to drink? The swine respond with raspy snorts and spine-rattling squeals.

Jess unfurled the hose from the water pump as pigs trudged outdoors into their muddy pen.

“Is everybody thirsty? Are you all thirsty? Is that what’s going on?”

That morning, Jess slipped a Wisconsin Farmers Union beanie over her dark brown hair and stepped into comfy gray Dovetail overalls — “Workwear for Women by Women.” The spring wind was still crisp. Bare tree branches swayed across the 80-acre farm.

She filled a plastic bucket, then heaved the water over a board fence into a trough.

Growing up, the Chicago native never imagined a career rearing dozens of Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs in Klevenville, Wisconsin — an agricultural enclave surrounded by creeping neighborhoods of the state’s capital and surrounding communities.

She can watch the precociously curious creatures from her bedroom window much of the year. Their skin is pale, dotted with splotchy ink stains. Floppy ears shade their eyes from the sun like an old-time bank teller’s visor.

Jess spends her days tending to the swine, hoisting 40-pound organic feed bags across her shoulder and under an arm. Some pigs lumber after her, seeking scratches, belly rubs and lunch. Juveniles dart through gaps in the electric netting she uses to cordon off the barnyard, woods and pastures up a nearby hill.

She knows she shouldn’t view her pigs like pet dogs, but she coos at them when she works. Right until the last minute.

Jess hadn’t anticipated politics would so dramatically affect her farm.

Last year, Jess doubled the size of her pig herd, believing the government’s agriculture department, the USDA, would honor a $5.5 million grant it awarded to Wisconsin. 

Under the Biden administration, the agency gave states money for two years to run the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA, which helped underserved farmers invest in local food systems and grow their businesses.

In Wisconsin, the state, Indigenous tribes and several farming groups developed a host of projects that enabled producers to deliver goods like plump tomatoes and crisp emerald spinach to food pantries, schools and community organizations across all 72 counties.

The Trump administration gutted the program in March, just as farmers started placing seed orders. For her part, Jess must anticipate the size of her pork harvests 18 months in advance. She banked on program funding as guaranteed income.

This was supposed to be the year Jess, 40, broke a profit after a decade of toiling. She has never paid herself.

Jess chuckles as she admits she worries too much. She’s an optimist at heart but mulls over questions that lack ready-made answers: How will she support herself following her recent divorce? How are her son and daughter faring during their tumultuous teens? How will she keep the piglets from being squished by the adults?

Now, if she can’t find buyers for the four tons of pork she expects to produce, will she even be able to keep farming?

The world, she thinks, feels like it’s on fire. 

***

In childhood, Jess, the elder sibling, strove to meet her parents’ expectations. School was her top priority. Academic achievement would lead to a good job, material comfort and happiness. She realized only as an adult that her rejection of this progression reflected a difference in values, not a personal deficiency.

She almost taught high school mathematics after college, but didn’t like forcing lukewarm students to learn.

Jess moved in 2005 to Verona, Wisconsin, where she planted fruit trees and vegetable gardens in her suburban yards. But a yard can only produce so much. She wanted chickens and ducks and perennial produce.

Jess can’t pinpoint a precise moment when she decided to farm pigs.

She attended workshops where farmers raved about Gloucestershires. The mamas attentively care for their offspring. Jess wouldn’t have to fret that the docile creatures would eat her own kids. Pigs also are the source of her favorite meats, and the breed tastes delicious. Her housemate wanted to harvest one.

It took almost 3 ½ years to name the farm after Jess and her then-husband located and purchased the property in 2016. 

She hiked it during a showing and discovered a creek and giant pile of sand in the woods that for her children could become the best sandbox ever.

What did the place encapsulate, she mused.

She chronicled life on “Yet to be Named Community Farm” across social media: Photographs of piglets wrestling in straw piles next to lip-smacking pork entrees.

Also, lessons learned.

“I like to tell people I’m a recovering perfectionist, and farming is playing a large part in that recovery,” Jess posted to Facebook. She can’t develop the perfect plan in the face of unpredictability. Farmers must embrace risk. Maybe predators will infiltrate the hen house, the ends of a fence don’t quite align or a mama will crush her litter. 

On the farm, life and death meet.

Some days, Jess can only keep the dust out of her eyes and her wounds bandaged.

Years later, the creatures living on the land still insist she take a moment to pause.

Jess once encountered a transparent monarch chrysalis. She inspected the incubating butterfly’s wings, noticing each tiny gold dot.

The farm instills a sense of wonderment.

When the idea for a name emerged, she knew.

Wonderfarm.

***

In March, a thunderstorm crashed overhead, and Jess couldn’t sleep. Clicking through her inbox at 5 a.m., she had more than five times her usual emails to sift through.

The daily stream of news from Washington grew unbearable. Murmurings that LFPA might be cancelled had been building.

President Donald Trump’s administration wasted no time throttling the civil service since he took office in January. Billionaire Elon Musk headed a newly created Department of Government Efficiency that scoured offices and grants purportedly seeking to unearth waste and fraud.

The executive branch froze payments, dissolved contracts and shuttered programs. Supporters cheered a Republican president who promised to finally drain the swamp. Detractors saw democracy and the rule of law cracking under hammer blows.

But agriculture generally gleans support from both sides of the aisle, Jess thought. Although lawmakers disagree over who may claim to be a “real” farmer versus a mere hobbyist, surely the feds wouldn’t can the program.

Like the lightning overhead, the news shocked.

LFPA “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” government officials declared in terse letters sent to states and tribes.

Its termination left Jess and hundreds of producers and recipients in a lurch. The cut coincided with ballooning demand at food banks and pantries while congressional Republicans pushed legislation to shrink food assistance programs.

LFPA is a relic of a bygone era, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in May.

She smiled as she touted the administration’s achievements and defended agency reductions before congressional appropriations subcommittees.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., pressed the secretary, asking if the department will reinstate “critical” food assistance programs. One in five Wisconsin children and one in 10 adults — often elderly, disabled or employed but struggling — are unable to or uncertain how they will obtain enough nutritious food.

“Those were COVID-era programs,” Rollins said, shaking her head. “They were never meant to go forever and ever.”

But LFPA also strengthened local food infrastructure, which withered on the vine as a few giant companies — reaching from fields to grocery aisles — came to dominate America’s agricultural sector.

The pandemic illustrated what happens when the country’s food system grinds to a halt. Who knows when the next wave will strike?

***

Nearly 300 Wisconsin producers participated in LFPA over two years. A buyer told Jess their organization could purchase up to $12,000 of pork each month — almost as much as Jess previously earned in a year.

Wisconsin’s $8 million award was among the tiniest of drops in the USDA’s billion-dollar budget. The agency’s decision seemed illogically punitive.

Only a few months earlier, Biden’s agriculture department encouraged marginalized farmers and fishers to participate so underserved communities could obtain healthy and “culturally relevant” foods like okra, bok choy and Thai chilis.

Then the Trump administration cast diversity, equity and inclusion programs as “woke” poison.

Cutting LFPA also clashes with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again initiative and his calls to ban ultra-processed foods. Farmers and distributors wondered what goods pantries would use to stock shelves instead of fresh produce. Boxed macaroni?

The aftershocks of the canceled award spread through Wisconsin’s local food distribution networks. Trucks had been rented, staff hired and hub-and-spoke routes mapped in preparation for three more years of government-backed deliveries.

For a president who touts the art of the deal, pulling the plug on an investment that neared self-sufficiency is just bad business, said Tara Turner-Roberts, manager of the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers accused the Trump administration of abandoning farmers, and Attorney General Josh Kaul recently joined 20 others suing to block grant rescissions.

Meanwhile, participants asked the agriculture department and Congress to reinstate the program. Should that fail, they implored Wisconsin legislators to fill the gap and continue to seek local solutions.

Jess is too.

***

Jess alternately texted on her cellphone and scanned a swarm of protesters who gathered across the Wisconsin State Capitol’s lawn.

She had agreed to speak before hundreds, potentially thousands, of people and was searching for an organizer.

Madison’s “Hands off!” rally reflected national unrest that ignited during the first 75 days of Trump’s term. In early April, a coalition of advocates and civil rights groups organized more than 1,300 events across every state.

Jess pulled out a USDA-branded reusable sandwich bag, which she had loaded with boiled potatoes to snack on. She and her new girlfriend joined the masses and advanced down State Street to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

A hoarse woman wearing a T-shirt covered in peace patches and a tie-dye bandana directed the marchers. She led them in a menagerie of greatest protest hits during the 30-minute walk past shops, restaurants and mixed-use high-rises.

“Money for jobs and education, not for war and corporations!” her metallic voice crackled through a megaphone. 

Trump’s administration had maligned so many communities, creating a coherent rallying cry seemed impossible. The chant leader hurriedly checked her cellphone for the next jingle in a dizzying display of outrage.

“The people, united, will never be defeated!”

“Say it loud! Say it clear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

Jess leaned into her girlfriend, linking arms as they walked. 

They ran into a friend with violet hair. Jess grinned sheepishly, trying not to think about the speech.

“You’ll be fine,” her friend said.

The chant captain bellowed. 

“Hands off everything!”

A black police cruiser flashed its emergency lights as the walk continued under overcast skies.

An hour later, Jess stood atop a cement terrace, awed by the sea of chatter, laughter and shouts that swamped the plaza.

A friend took her photo. Jess swayed to the chant of “Defund ICE!” A protester walked past, carrying a sign bearing the silhouette of Trump locking lips with Russian President Vladmir Putin.

Someone passed Jess a microphone. The crowd shouted to the heavens that “trans lives matter!” A cowbell clanged.

She grinned.

“I don’t want to slow us down,” Jess began.

She described her dilemma as the crowd listened politely. The government broke its commitments. She struggles to pay bills between unpredictable sales. Some farm chores require four working hands. 

Jess only has two.

“LFPA kind of gave me hope that I’d be able to keep doing the thing that I love,” she said.

Bystanders booed as she recounted the night of the fateful email. Jess chuckled and rocked on her foot, glad to see friends in the audience.

“The structures around us are crumbling,” she said, shrugging. “So let’s stop leaning on them. Let’s stop feeding them. Let’s grow a resilient community.”

The crowd whooped.

 ***

It’s hard for Jess to stomach meat on harvest days.

Naming an animal and later slaughtering it necessitates learning how to grieve. Jess had years to practice.

The meat processor’s truck rumbled up the farm driveway at 7 a.m. in late April.

Jess spent the previous week sorting her herd, selecting the six largest non-breeding swine. She ushered them to either side of a fence that bisected the barnyard.

It took roughly 30 minutes for the two butchers to transform a pig into pork on Jess’ farm. The transfiguration occurred somewhere between the barnyard, the metal cutting table and the cooler where the halved carcasses dangle from hooks inside the mobile slaughter unit.

The butchers unpacked their gear in the gentle morning glow. Jess carried a plastic tray of eggs, squash shavings and mango peels to the pen.

The snack helps lure anxious pigs during the harvest. It’s also a final gift for the one they are about to give.

The butchers employed an electrical stunner that resembles a pair of barbecue tongs. A coiled cord connects the contraption to a battery that releases an electric current.

When pressed to a pig’s head, the animal seizes and passes out. The butchers cut its chest before it awakens.

An hour into the harvest, Jess guided more swine from a trailer, where a cluster slept the previous night, along with a seventh little pig that wasn’t headed to the block.

A male began to urinate atop a dead female — possibly mating behavior. Jess smacked his butt to shoo him away. She regretted it. 

He bolted across the yard, grunting and sidestepping whenever Jess approached.

“Just leave him for the next round,” one of the butchers said.

Jess remembers her first on-farm slaughter years ago when a female spooked and tore through the woods. Jess kept her as a breeder.

The agitated male disappeared behind the red barn. He sniffed the air as he peeked around the corner.

The standoff lasted another hour. One of the butchers returned with a 20-gauge shotgun. He unslung it from his shoulder, then walked behind the building.

Jess turned away. She covered her ears. A rooster crowed.

The crack split the air.

The other worker hauled the pig across the barnyard, leaving a glossy wake in the dirt.

Jess crossed the pen, shoulders deflated, and stepped over the dividing fence to feed the others.

A 6-month-old trotted over to her. Jess squatted on her haunches and extended a gloved hand. 

“Are you playing?” she asked. “Is that what is happening?”

***

The May harvest never happened.

Nearly all the females were pregnant, even though they aren’t designated breeders. Jess will postpone the slaughter day for now.

She needs to decide whether to raise her spring piglets or sell them. It all depends on how quickly she can move product, but she’s leaning toward keeping them.

The pork from April’s butchering is on ice as she works her way down a list of potential buyers. She still serves people in need by selling a portion to a Madison nonprofit that distributes Farms to Families “resilience boxes.”

Jess marks the days she collects her meat from the processor. She defrosts, say, a pack of brats and heats them up for dinner. 

She celebrates her pigs.

Jess and her farming peers are planning for a world with less federal assistance.

One idea: They would staff shifts at the still-under-construction Madison Public Market, where fresh food would remain on site 40 hours a week. No more schlepping meat from cold storage to a pop-up vendor stand.

She dreams of a wholesale market where buyers place large orders. One day maybe. No government whims or purse strings.

Like seeds that sprout after a prairie burn, some institutions will survive the flames, she thinks. Perhaps it doesn’t have to be the ones in Washington. 

Those that remain will grow anew.

This story is part of a partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report for America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation.

Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

Wisconsin pig farmer holds on at Wonderfarm as Washington breaks a promise 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 build-out of new data centers — the often-gargantuan warehouses of power-gobbling microchips that power cloud computing, artificial intelligence and social media — is capturing the attention of utilities and states, which, anticipating potential profits, are compelled to satisfy the energy needs of tech companies.

Giants like Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are contracting nationally with utilities, which face a resulting boom in power demand. In 2023, data centers accounted for nearly 4.5% of U.S. electricity consumption, a figure that is expected to balloon up to 12% by 2028. 

Wisconsin has seen a handful of new data center proposals, including projects in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Rapids, Port Washington and Kenosha. Microsoft broke ground in 2023 on a 450-megawatt, $3.3 billion campus in Mount Pleasant at the former Foxconn site, although work on the data center has since paused twice.

Utilities generally operate under state-granted monopolies that enable the companies to cover service costs and earn a return on their infrastructure investments. The public is a “captive ratepayer,” meaning they lack other options.  

Normally, this ensures utilities grow in line with societal energy demands, but when a few choice customers add significant load to the grid, priorities can change.

To attract investment, states compete to woo Big Tech with competitive incentives, including discounted power rates. More than 30 states, including Wisconsin, exempt data centers from the sales tax on information technology equipment.

But the courtship can become a race to the bottom.

Companies often promise billion-dollar investments, high-tech jobs and property tax revenue, marketed as zero-cost to states — arguing communities would be passed over if not for the incentives. 

Less discussed, however, are the impacts of the new electric loads and the ways utilities can spread energy costs to the public.

At worst, construction of new power facilities could prove unneeded if a data center project fails to come to fruition or its power needs change, potentially leaving the public to foot the bill.

Those are some of the issues discussed in a recent white paper produced by Harvard University researchers, who express skepticism that consumers won’t absorb data center energy costs. 

Ari Peskoe, who directs Harvard’s Electricity Law Initiative, and legal fellow Eliza Martin reviewed almost 50 utility proceedings, documenting how utilities can subsidize the electricity demands of trillion-dollar corporations and simultaneously capture a profit by passing on costs to ratepayers.

Wisconsin Watch environmental reporter Bennet Goldstein recently spoke to Peskoe. Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Where is the United States headed with respect to electricity use?

Our electricity use had been basically flat for the past 15 years, and now suddenly that’s projected to change pretty dramatically and pretty quickly. And it’s data center growth that’s really leading that charge.

These data centers are just massive, massive energy users. A single facility can use as much energy as a large city. There’s a facility in Louisiana that’s being built now that may be as much as two gigawatts. The city of New Orleans is one gigawatt. The rate-setting process just isn’t designed for these massive new facilities.

Can you describe the ways in which data center companies receive subsidies to site a project?

The simplest way that this can happen is just that the utility builds a piece of infrastructure — a new power line, a new power plant — and it’s designed primarily to meet the needs of one of these large data centers, and the utility would spread the costs across to all consumers. 

But we think that doesn’t really make sense when, in some cases, there are billions of dollars of infrastructure being built for a single wealthy consumer. Utilities benefit from it a lot.

Your paper noted that utility contracts with data centers are treated as confidential agreements, not subject to public evaluation. Why does this matter and what other trends did you notice in the proceedings you reviewed?

A rate case is how the utility sets rates for everyone, and that’s a very public process.

Most of the proceedings we looked at were about these, sort of, “side deals” between a data center and a utility. Very few parties participate in these proceedings, so that’s a problem for regulators because regulators have to make decisions based on the evidence that’s before them. Here, there’s often only one party. It’s the utility, and it makes it very hard for regulators to rule against the utility when there’s not any competing evidence.

In some states, regulators are supposed to evaluate, for example, whether there are economic development benefits of the contract that make it in the public interest even if it is shifting some costs to other ratepayers. In some states, regulators do have to find that their contract does not burden other ratepayers. 

These sorts of issues about cost allocation are generally heavily disputed when there are other parties participating, so we don’t put a lot of stock in the claims that these secret contracts are not burdening other ratepayers.

Are new data centers and accompanying infrastructure to power them good investments for the public?

When you hear one of these facilities being announced, sometimes they are being announced with great fanfare. Elected officials like to announce big projects. Some of these facilities get big press releases and press conferences, and the governor is up there smiling about it. 

But, there ought to be some mechanism to ensure that the potentially very expensive infrastructure being built for these facilities is not being paid for by the public, but by the data center. We can’t make a specific claim about a confidential deal, but we’re skeptical that these deals are not shifting costs.

They’re a bad deal for ratepayers, looking at electricity costs — not considering the wider societal effects of these facilities and the construction jobs.

What are alternatives that would spare customers these costs?

These confidential contracts: Let’s get rid of them. Let’s do a more public, transparent process that encourages and allows for more participation. Let’s include these data centers in rate cases and figure out what terms and conditions make sense for them.

Allow the data centers to contract for infrastructure with developers who are not the utility. You have companies that are not utilities competing in markets to build power plants to sell that power. If you can have a contract just between a data center and a power plant developer, the utility is not part of it, and therefore, there’s no danger that those costs might somehow trickle through to other consumers’ bills.

How can ratepayers advocate for themselves?

Public utility commissions do have some public processes, particularly for the construction of new projects. Even if that contract is secret, if they’re going to build a new power plant, there’s typically a public process around that. Those processes can often attract attention and have public hearings and opportunities for the public to weigh in.

How about creating special rates for very large customers like a recent southeast Wisconsin proposal from We Energies for “very large customers”?

It makes a lot of sense to establish separate terms and conditions for utility service for these very, very large energy consumers. It’s billions of dollars of costs, and it makes sense to put some contractual system or a tariff system in place that makes sure those entities are responsible for those costs. 

There’s a risk that the utility starts to build this infrastructure and potentially invest hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars. The market changes — as maybe we’re seeing right now — and suddenly that data center developer doesn’t want to complete their facility for any number of reasons. Now who’s going to be left bearing the billion-dollar cost that the utility just spent? You want to make sure it’s on the data center.

What does the construction of more data centers mean for curbing greenhouse gas emissions?

A lot of the new growth is going to be met by natural gas power plants. We’re seeing that in Louisiana, for example. A lot of states have strong clean energy goals. About 20 or so states have committed to 100% clean power by some future date. (Wisconsin’s goal: that all electricity consumed within the state be 100% carbon-free by 2050.) Those goals are premised on how much energy is going to be sold in that state. If there’s more energy sold, that means we have to build more clean energy to meet those goals. It’s already a challenge to meet the goals as it is.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Data center construction is booming, and it could affect utility rates 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.

Wisconsin is no exception to national trends when it comes to courting Big Tech. 

The state has seen a handful of new data center proposals, including projects in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Rapids, Port Washington and Kenosha. Microsoft broke ground in 2023 on a 450-megawatt, $3.3 billion campus in Mount Pleasant at the former Foxconn site, although work on the data center has since paused twice.

Wisconsin lawmakers on the state’s finance committee included a sales tax exemption in the 2023-25 state budget based on a standalone bill that received bipartisan support.

The tax exemption, subject to approval by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., includes land, site improvements, IT and cooling equipment and electricity. The agency has approved three data centers to date.

Other states have enacted the model legislation at the urging of utilities and industry groups like NetChoice and the Data Center Coalition. NetChoice’s president noted at a legislative hearing that Wisconsin has long provided exemptions on agricultural and manufacturing equipment and asked lawmakers why they couldn’t do the same for America’s capital investment leaders.

Madison-headquartered Alliant Energy helped pay for a study that determined Wisconsin was at a competitive disadvantage to neighboring states. 

The paper estimated that a hyperscale data center developed in the Milwaukee-Waukesha metro region could create 300 jobs, generate $3 million in annual state and local tax revenue and provide more than $87 million in annual economic output.

In a June 2023 hearing, the sales tax exemption bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Shannon Zimmerman, R-River Falls, said attracting data centers would actually have a “positive effect” on ratepayers’ electric bills from the “consumption and contribution of companies that will build these.”

To qualify for the exemption, a developer must invest at least $50 million to $150 million within five years, depending on the county population.

The state estimated that a typical data center would decrease tax collections by $8.5 million during the initial construction phase, followed by an annual reduction of $735,000. Additionally, if equipment is replaced on a five-year schedule, the sales tax would decrease by an additional $1.6 million on an annualized basis.

Microsoft’s data center campus has inherited additional perks initially designated for Foxconn: discounted electricity rates for Microsoft buildings located within a designated information technology zone. In future phases of Microsoft’s project, the company may purchase Lake Michigan water via the city of Racine, a rare arrangement in light of the Great Lakes Compact, which regulates the use and withdrawal of lake water.

We Energies intends to construct more than $2 billion in natural gas infrastructure, including two new plants and a pipeline, to meet the power demands of Microsoft’s data center, which is its largest anticipated electric load. This prompted concerns that ratepayers will be saddled with the new, fossil-fuel plants if the data center project is scaled back or canceled.

The utility has objected to such concerns, noting that the infrastructure is necessary to increase “reliability, resiliency, and dispatchability” of natural gas for its current customers.

Additionally, it has proposed a new rate structure, known as a tariff, for “very large customers,” which the company developed to meet the Microsoft and Port Washington data centers’ electric needs. 

The rate would assign costs that result from new or expanded power plants and transmission lines along with electricity proportional to data center use, thereby protecting We Energies’ “customers and shareholders from harm.”

Wisconsin’s utility regulator, the Public Service Commission, is reviewing the proposal. We Energies has requested approval by the year’s end.

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Tax breaks and electricity discounts: How Wisconsin woos Big Tech 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.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers continue to dig in their heels during a yearslong tug-of-war over how regulators should hold property owners liable for contamination caused by “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.

They are pushing competing proposals to protect so-called innocent landowners — those who didn’t knowingly cause their PFAS pollution — from liability under Wisconsin’s decades-old environmental cleanup law.

Evers’ two-year budget proposal, introduced last week, exempts some owners of residential and agricultural land. The proposal would also fund testing and cleanups of affected properties.

His budget takes a narrower tack than the approach spearheaded by a Republican who has long sought to protect innocent landowners.

During the previous legislative session, Sen. Eric Wimberger of Oconto co-authored an innocent landowner bill that lawmakers passed along party lines before an Evers veto.

The governor accused Republicans of using farmers as “scapegoats” to constrain state authority. His staff warned that if Republicans present the same proposal this session, Evers might veto it again.

Wimberger says Evers’ staff has failed to respond to his requests for an outline of innocent landowner exemptions Evers would support. Wimberger is now circulating two draft bills co-authored with state Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, that contain provisions virtually identical to the vetoed legislation. Those include grants for municipalities and owners of PFAS-contaminated properties.

The proposals also would limit the Department of Natural Resources’ power to require property owners to pay for cleanups and extend liability exemptions to certain businesses and municipalities.

“The governor needlessly vetoed the plan over protections for innocent landowners,” Wimberger said in a statement. “Now, after delaying this relief for a year, he says he wants to protect innocent landowners. While it’s encouraging to see him change his mind, he is no champion for pollution victims.”

How does the state handle PFAS-contaminated farmland?

Wisconsin’s spills law requires reporting and cleanup by parties that pollute air, soil or water or if they discover contamination from a past owner. That is because, in part, allowing pollution to remain on the landscape could be more dangerous to human health than the initial spill.

The DNR has held parties liable for PFAS contamination they didn’t cause but also has exercised discretion by seeking remediation from past spillers instead of current property owners. 

PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a family of more than 12,000 compounds commonly found in consumer products like food wrappers, nonstick pans and raincoats along with firefighting foam used to smother hot blazes. Some are toxic.

The chemicals pass through the waste stream and into sewage treatment plants, which commonly contract with farmers to accept processed sludge as fertilizer.

Testing is now unearthing PFAS on cropland from Maine to Texas. Several hot spots are located in Wisconsin too, among the more than 100 PFAS-contaminated case files the DNR currently monitors.

The agency maintains it has never, and has no plans to, enforce the spills law against a property owner who unknowingly received PFAS-contaminated fertilizer. But Republican lawmakers don’t trust those promises.

How do the budget and draft bill proposals compare?

Evers’ bill would exempt only residential and agricultural properties polluted with PFAS-contaminated sludge. Affected landowners would have to provide the DNR access to their property for cleanup and not worsen the contamination.

Evers’ innocent landowner exemption would sunset by 2036. 

Meanwhile, the Republican draft bills would prevent the DNR from enforcing the spills law when the responsible party qualifies as an innocent landowner and allow the department to clean up its property at its own expense.

The first bill focuses on innocent landowner provisions, while the second, larger proposal adds grant programs without specifying appropriations. Wimberger explained introducing two bills would “ensure the victims of PFAS pollution get the debate they deserve” and prevent Democrats from “playing politics” with PFAS funding and policy.

Unlike Evers’ budget proposal, the draft bills don’t release $125 million in aid to PFAS-affected communities that has sat in a trust fund for 18 months.

The Legislature allocated the funds in the previous two-year budget, but its GOP-controlled finance committee hasn’t transferred the cash to the DNR.

Lawmakers in both parties have bristled over the languishing money, with Democrats contending the committee could transfer it without passing a new law. The nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Council says lawmakers would be on “relatively firm legal footing” if they did so.

Republicans, meanwhile, say transferring the dollars without limiting DNR enforcement powers would not effectively help impacted landowners. They say the DNR could treat a landowner’s request for state assistance as an invitation for punishment.

The previous, vetoed bill garnered support from all three Wisconsin local government associations, but environmental groups, the DNR and Evers said it shifted PFAS cleanup costs to taxpayers.

Environmental groups also feared Republicans on the finance committee would continue withholding the $125 million even if the legislation had advanced — protracting the stalemate while weakening the DNR.

Nor would risking “unintended consequences” of weakening the spills law be worth $125 million, which would scratch the surface of remediation costs, environmental critics said.

Expenses in Marinette County alone, which is coping with PFAS contamination linked to a firefighter training site owned by Johnson Controls International, already exceed that amount.

The Milwaukee Business Journal reported the company upped its reserves by $255 million to finance the cleanup. With the increase, the company has recorded charges of about $400 million since 2019.

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Who pays for PFAS? Governor, GOP lawmakers wrestle over cleanup liability 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 year and a half after Wisconsin lawmakers earmarked $125 million to clean up toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, the funds have yet to flow to contaminated communities.

That’s due to a legal and philosophical debate over the limits of government power and the potentially harsh consequences of a decades-old environmental law.

Lawmakers continue to hash out the rules to guide who would receive the money and, more importantly, the legal risks for entities that request it.

The Legislature’s GOP-controlled finance committee won’t transfer the cash designated to address Wisconsin’s PFAS problem to the state Department of Natural Resources, so it continues to accumulate interest in a trust fund.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is now trying again — this time, embracing an idea penned by the Republican legislators with whom he sparred.

Evers’ plans, to be included in his upcoming budget proposal, include a cash infusion that expands the trust fund balance to $145 million, along with a provision contained in a GOP-authored PFAS bill that Evers vetoed last year.

That measure, introduced in 2023 by Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, created grants for municipalities and owners of PFAS-contaminated properties — so-called “innocent landowners” — who didn’t cause their pollution.

It also truncated the DNR’s power to mandate cleanups.

But in his new budget proposal, Evers hopes to carve what appears to be a narrow liability exemption.

It would only apply to cropland that was polluted with PFAS when the owner unknowingly received contaminated fertilizer derived from sewage sludge. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources already has said it doesn’t enforce its cleanup policy under those circumstances.

What are PFAS?

PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a family of more than 12,000 compounds commonly found in consumer products like food wrappers, nonstick pans and raincoats along with special firefighting foam that can extinguish the hottest of blazes.

The intractable chemicals are turning up in drinking water around the country. In 2022, the EPA released health advisories, suggesting virtually no amount of several PFAS is safe for consumption.

The DNR is currently monitoring PFAS contamination at more than 100 sites.

What are state cleanup requirements?

State rules require reporting and environmental restoration by parties that pollute air, soil or water or discover past contamination on their property even if they aren’t directly responsible.

The DNR holds parties liable for PFAS contamination they didn’t cause but also exercises discretion to force past spillers to clean up instead of current property owners. The law also under certain circumstances exempts neighbors of contaminated properties from liability when a spill crosses property lines.

The department’s authority comes from Wisconsin’s spills law, passed in 1978. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed that legislators intended to see pollution cleaned up regardless of who caused it. Failing to do so, it said, is just as, if not more, dangerous to human health than the initial spill.

The power of Wisconsin’s spills law has come under scrutiny in recent years as the scale of PFAS cleanup costs comes to light.

What do the Senate bill’s backers dislike about current policy?

Last session’s Senate bill would have prevented the DNR from enforcing provisions of the spills law when the responsible party qualifies as an innocent landowner and allows the department to clean up its property at the agency’s expense.

Wimberger said the measure would prevent the financial ruin of landowners who seek help from the department to address PFAS pollution or obtain clean water, without which their “application for a grant is a self-incriminating statement they have a polluted property and are an emitter.”

The threat of enforcement against the owner of a contaminated property might cause banks to think twice about refinancing a loan or even require a borrower to pay up in full, he said. Looming enforcement could increase the difficulty of selling a property.

At its most pernicious, the law might drive property owners to avoid testing for pollutants, risking their health for fear of the financial consequences.

Is this actually happening to landowners?

Wimberger has often portrayed innocent landowners as homeowners or farmers who unknowingly had PFAS-containing inputs spread atop their fields.

But last year, Midwest Environmental Advocates, which opposed the bill, reviewed each of the 130 PFAS spill cases the department reported online.

The firm determined only seven cases applied to individuals and none concerned farmers whose contamination originated from PFAS-contaminated fertilizer. Most concerned businesses like chemical and energy companies, defense contractors and salvage yards.

What impacts would the Republican proposal have?

Wimberger said department promises to exempt farmers don’t suffice, and throwing money at the problem is ineffective unless lawmakers enact enforcement guardrails.

Although the GOP bill would have protected individuals, liability exemptions also could extend to businesses like private landfills or paper mills that spread pulp and industrial sludge onto farm fields.

A list of more than 20 potential innocents compiled by one of the bill’s co-authors includes an electric transmission company whose transformer exploded in 2019 and the city of La Crosse, which the state currently holds responsible for PFAS contamination caused by the city’s fire department at its municipal airport. The bill’s backers say the property owners lacked a choice when firefighters sprayed the PFAS-containing foam.

Attorneys from the nonpartisan Legislative Council told lawmakers PFAS manufacturers and companies that test those chemicals likely wouldn’t qualify as innocent landowners. 

However, the proposal would have prevented the DNR from enforcing cleanup laws against companies based on PFAS samples taken from company properties unless the department could show the contamination exceeded a government standard.

But Wisconsin lacks PFAS standards for groundwater, and GOP-backed bureaucratic hurdles, including a 30-month time limit on the rulemaking process, have encumbered efforts to create them.

The state’s second attempt will expire in March. 

Evers recently jump-started a new effort to create PFAS groundwater rules and proposed an exemption from the usual holdups.

“Safe drinking water should not be a partisan issue, and yet it has been,” said Marinette City Council member and clean water advocate Doug Oitzinger, whose county is coping with PFAS contamination linked to a firefighter training site owned by Johnson Controls International. “We have failed utterly as a state to have environmental laws that protect us when it comes to PFAS.”

What does Evers say he’ll include in his upcoming budget?

Evers’ proposal would transfer money to the DNR for PFAS testing and removal at public drinking water systems, testing of private wells, grants to stem the release of PFAS into the environment, research into PFAS destruction methods and statewide PFAS testing. Evers also would allocate $7 million to innocent landowners for testing and cleanup.

He continues to call for the release of the PFAS trust fund money, the balance of which now stands at $127.1 million, including unspent funds from a state firefighting foam cleanup program.

“We cannot afford more years of inaction and obstruction,” Evers said in a statement. “I urge Republicans and Democrats to work together to do what’s best for our kids and Wisconsin’s families by investing in critical efforts to improve water quality.”

But potential spills law impacts remain unknown until the governor’s budget clarifies the scope of liability protections Evers hopes to create.

“I’ve been waiting for months for the governor to clarify his definition of an ‘innocent landowner,’ and he has refused to respond to my requests,” Wimberger said in a statement.

Evers’ staff have said the governor remains opposed to limiting department authority, and if Republicans present a proposal identical to last session’s bill, he might veto it again.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Wisconsin is still sitting on $125 million for PFAS cleanup 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.

Katie McCullough loved Arizona winters, but hot summers could be a drag. After purchasing a recreational vehicle, she spent time trekking cross-country to deliver shelter dogs to a no-kill rescue. 

McCullough, 56, visited friends and family, too, with her own canine pack — then, Rosy, Eddie Spaghetti, Ky, Pally, Duke, Nudge and Nutter Butter — a tossed salad of breeds.

During the pandemic summer of 2020, she once again loaded her RV and found respite in Dane County public parks. Why not make Wisconsin a half-year thing, she thought, with space for her and the pups?

McCullough, who works in cybersecurity, heard about 36 acres near the village of Rio. She purchased the property, sight unseen, and its spring-fed pond the following year.

“I don’t regret it at all,” McCullough said with a laugh.

She soon met the neighbors — about 10 furry lodge dwellers.

McCullough realized she had a beaver problem.

They live atop a small muddy island and constructed a dam roughly a decade ago. Fuzzy cattails grow across its 20-foot breadth. The dam left a once-lovely creek bone dry. 

Backed-up water enlarged the surrounding marsh and pond, where sandhill cranes, geese and ducks meander through a boggy stew of algae, lily pads and submerged logs.

Rooted in sodden ground, tall oaks — some more than 100 years old — withered and toppled. McCullough couldn’t access several acres of her property. 

Friends, family and locals recommended trapping the rodents and blowing the dam sky-high with Tannerite. 

The solution seemed dramatic and destructive.

“We’re all here for a purpose, right? To think that beavers are just born a nuisance,” McCullough said. “It’s tough because some populations do have to be controlled if there aren’t natural predators. But I’m not good at being a natural predator.”

Surely, other options besides trapping or bystanding existed.

Damming behavior

Beavers once numbered between 60 million and 400 million across the North American landscape, but development and unregulated hunting nearly decimated them. Twentieth-century conservation efforts helped beavers recover somewhat — to an estimated 1.5% to 20% of their historical population.

Conflicts with humans ensued as beavers returned to their former ranges: chewing trees, plugging culverts, flooding roads and farm fields.

Few studies quantify the costs of beaver damage, and the limited data are decades old. One pinned annual timber losses in Mississippi at $621 million, adjusted for inflation, while another determined that every dollar spent on beaver control saved that state $40 to $90.

Traditional responses involve trapping and dam breaching, but generally, these interventions require regular enforcement because new beavers move in.

Surveys show trapping support increases when people experience beaver-related damage, but an expanding body of research showcasing beavers’ ecosystem and economic benefits is drawing attention to the drawbacks of removal.

When beavers remain on the landscape, they create wetlands, which mitigate climate change impacts like drought, wildfires and flooding — problems increasingly seen in the Midwest. Other wildlife also depends on the habitat.

A growing chorus of advocates and ecological consultants are popularizing flow control devices, a solution to beaver flooding problems. They limit beavers’ damming behavior and reduce impacts on human infrastructure.

Hand-constructed with flexible plastic pipes and wire fencing, several types exist: pond levelers, culvert fences and decoy dams. Some bear trademarks like Beaver Deceiver and Castor Master.

They aim to reduce the desirability of potential dam sites, redirect beavers’ attention or “sneak” pond water away without attracting their notice. And they aren’t terribly common in Wisconsin. 

McCullough opted for coexistence.

State wildlife agencies generally regulate a trapping season to manage beaver populations and minimize property damage. Wisconsin’s forestry and fisheries divisions, dozens of municipalities, railroad companies and some tribal governments also contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove beavers and dams from designated lands and waters.

The state imposes few restrictions for handling nuisance beavers on private property.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources doesn’t remove them at landowner request or offer damage compensation, but people may hunt or trap beavers and remove their dams on their property without obtaining a license.

If a beaver dam causes damage to a neighboring property, the injured party may enter the property where the dam lies and remove it without being charged with trespassing.

There also are risks to ignoring one’s beavers. 

People who own or lease beaver-occupied land and don’t allow their neighbors to remove them are liable for damages.

Ditching dynamite

But Wisconsin wildlife managers recommend people consider alternatives before killing the animals, including flow devices like pond levelers.

They date to at least the 1920s when USDA Chief Field Naturalist Vernon Bailey proposed using an “entirely successful” drainage pipe constructed with logs and threaded through the dam.

“It is useless to tear out or dynamite beaver dams, as the beavers, if active, will replace them almost as fast as destroyed,” he remarked.

Subsequent testing indicated that early levelers sometimes failed, but the concept has evolved.

Modern devices control water height using a flexible plastic tube resting on a pond’s bottom. A cage surrounds the intake and prevents beavers from swimming close enough to detect flowing water, which researchers believe triggers their building itch. The other end of the tube passes through the dam, forming a permanent leak.

Installers say levelers, which cost $2,000 to $4,000, function for about 10 years, and annual maintenance takes less than an hour. They can modify setups to accommodate fish passage, narrow and shallow streams, large ponds and downstream beaver dams.

“No two beaver situations are the same,” said Massachusetts-based Beaver Solutions owner Mike Callahan, who has installed more than 2,000 flow devices and trains consultants. “The best solutions obviously are going to be ones that work for the beavers and that work for us.”

States throughout the Mississippi River basin, including Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota and Missouri, recommend flow devices, but with varying awareness of best practices. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and University Extension even advertised Bailey’s design from 1922.

Pond levelers relatively uncommon in Wisconsin

Wisconsin residents have constructed beaver pond levelers, as have the Department of Natural Resources and USDA. But state natural resources staff say they rarely receive inquiries.

Despite their simple design, obtaining state authorization to install a flow device often takes longer than other activities like small-scale dredging and riprap installation because Wisconsin lacks a standard pond leveler permit.

Projects can vary across designs, siting and placement, with potentially significant impacts to where and how pond water flows, said Crystal vonHoldt, department waterways policy coordinator.

That makes it hard to develop a catch-all permit, but time-pressed agency staff certainly welcome any opportunity to streamline their review process, she said.

The law requires employees to evaluate impacts to water quality, navigation, wildlife, scenic beauty and public access to boating and fishing.

A department staff member told McCullough’s contractor and restoration ecologist Clay Frazer — who has overseen multiple beaver-related projects in Wisconsin like mock beaver dams — that many landowners opt not to install them after learning of the challenges.

Hiring a consultant to navigate the process can be cost-prohibitive. McCullough’s bill exceeded $10,000, but a grant offset it.

Proponents say the meaty requirements usher landowners toward a lethal resolution, which Wisconsin’s beaver trapping rules seemingly favor.

Community levels with beavers

Billerica, Massachusetts, had a flooding problem.

The town’s troubles followed a 1996 statewide voter referendum that banned foothold traps. Conflicts increased as the beavers expanded into the community, home to more than 42,000 residents along with wetlands, streams and two rivers. Prime habitat.

Things came to a head in 2000, and the town contracted with Callahan to address the problem non-lethally. At 43 locations where the town traditionally utilized trapping, he installed flow devices.

“They’re kind of instrumental in preventing certain culverts and major roads here in town from getting flooded,” said Isabel Tourkantonis, the town’s director of environmental affairs.

Trapping continued at another 12 sites because the devices either failed or the landscape made their use untenable.

Non-lethal management saved Billerica taxpayers $7,740 annually in avoided trapping and dam removal costs, according to a town analysis. The number of beavers killed dropped more than fivefold.

Maintaining 380 acres of beaver-created wetlands provided an estimated $2 million of free services each year, including water filtration, flood reduction and plant and wildlife habitat.

“It’s not just a matter of, ‘Let’s trap them and get rid of them,’” Tourkantonis said. “They also create important habitat that needs to be protected.”

Since the study concluded five years ago, the number of conflict sites has increased to 60, and Billerica annually budgets $15,000 for trapping and device maintenance.

Compared to fixing beaver-damaged roads and culverts, it’s a bargain, Tourkantonis said.

“If there’s a way to co-exist with an important animal population, that’s, I would think, the goal.”

Massachusetts landowners navigate a different permitting process.

To install a flow device, trap beavers out of season or remove a dam, they only need to obtain approval from a local health board or conservation commission — generally at little cost. It takes a few days.

Staff at the federal, Vermont and Massachusetts fish and wildlife agencies characterized the events that led to Massachusetts’ current system — beginning with the 1996 referendum — as a “calamity by design.”

The changes effectively ended state-regulated wildlife management, they reported, leading to increased confrontations with and negative views of beavers along with illegal trapping.

However, Tourkantonis said the new procedures cut “through the red tape and make it a little bit easier for folks to address an immediate public safety hazard.”

Flow devices have limits

Scientists have conducted virtually no peer-reviewed research evaluating the effectiveness of flow devices.

But studies supporting their use documented financial savings, high customer satisfaction and trapping reduction.

Callahan analyzed 482 sites where he added flow devices or trapped and found only 13% of pond levelers failed within two years compared to 72% of trapping sites to which beavers returned.

Yet flow devices aren’t silver bullets.

A study conducted by the USDA’s wildlife control agency in Mississippi indicated that half of levelers failed to meet landowners’ goals — although the participants didn’t always maintain them.

Callahan, like many coexistence proponents, attributes device ineffectiveness to the faulty installation of outdated models. They say this can confirm preexisting beliefs that flow devices are ineffective, or at best, temporary solutions.

“If they’re designed properly with the right sturdy materials and installed properly, these things work great,” he said. “If you have a crappy design, yeah, it’s not going to work.”

But Callahan estimates one in four beaver showdowns in Massachusetts require trapping.

Levelers aren’t effective in high-flow streams or developed floodplains, he said, where even a foot of water could swamp a home or neighborhood.

Drainage and irrigation ditches also aren’t ideal sites nor locations where water must be lowered to a depth in which beavers can’t live. Otherwise, they’re liable to build a new dam.

Jimmy Taylor, assistant director of the USDA’s National Wildlife Research Center, said flow devices have their uses but aren’t a beaver control substitute.

“If you’re looking at a large scale, simply putting in flow devices may not solve all of your problems, and it might not even be an applicable tool,” he said.

Damage control can alternatively involve removing dams, lodges and the plants beavers eat; installing fences or scary props and noisemakers; applying spicy or bitter repellants to food sources; and shooting.

“To try to just focus on one tool only, whether it’s lethal or non-lethal, is just not pragmatic,” Taylor said.

People tolerate beavers until conflict reaches a threshold.

One study found attitudes toward them soured in urban and rural areas, and people grew more accepting of lethal control as damage severity increased. Meanwhile, acceptance of flow devices decreased.

But another survey found that most landowners were open to beavers remaining on their property when they were offered incentives like technical assistance or compensation — a finding that could bolster support for investing in non-lethal techniques.

Previous efforts in Congress to appropriate several million dollars toward those efforts have proven unsuccessful.

Seeking to change ‘hearts and minds’

Frazer and McCullough hope to streamline Wisconsin permitting, making their case “one good flow device at a time.”

“It’s statutes. It’s permitting,” Frazer said. “But it’s also just hearts and minds. It’s people changing the culture of how they think about beaver.”

Their ponds look messy — dead trees and all — but to beaver backers, their value rivals rainforests or coral reefs.

“Let nature participate in what we need to accomplish,” McCullough said.

A smiling, buck-toothed beaver statue inconspicuously sits on the gravel driveway outside her home. Its concrete paws grasp a skinny tree stump, chewed to a sharp point.

McCullough’s sister, who lives in North Carolina, located the cartoonish creature on Facebook and gave it a fresh paint job — a family rib over McCullough’s beaver troubles.

Too heavy to mail, the 50-pound figurine hitched rides to weddings and socials, crawling its way north to Wisconsin like a baton handoff in a relay.

After a year, it finally arrived.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to clarify how many beavers were on Katie McCullough’s property.

This story was produced in partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network, of which Wisconsin Watch is a member. It was also reported with support from the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems. Sign up for Wisconsin Watch’s newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.

Opting for coexistence: Some Wisconsin landowners learn to live with beavers 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.