(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Kathy Beeson, filling in for Patty Low,
who's enjoying some vacation time.
Each week in Wisconsin brings you stories
about the people and issues in our state.
This week, money that you pay to the state
each month in your energy bill might not be going to pay
for anything energy related.
Learn how this Antigo woman controls wild raptors
through simple touch.
And take a walk back in history and discover why
Wisconsin's landscape might have looked
like this today, if not for the work of
a few pioneering folks.
We'll have all that plus a trip through a lush,
tropical forest right here in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided
by the people of a lion's energy who bring safe, reliable,
and environmentally friendly energy to keep
homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly.
A lion's energy, offering energy-saving ideas on the web.
- In our continuing coverage of the state budget,
we've asked you to send us suggestions of budget items
you'd like us to look into.
This week, we tackle a subject suggested by Mike Clark.
Mr. Clark wanted us to look into how Governor Jim Doyle's
proposed budget would impact the state's energy conservation
fund. From high-tech windmills to
long-lasting light bulbs, these are the kinds of
things that special pot of state money helps pay for.
A pot of money most of us pay into every month.
But as part of his new budget, Governor Doyle proposes
using more than $50 million from the Energy Conservation Fund
to help balance the books.
Frederica Freiberg reports.
- Wind is one of the fastest growing alternative sources
of power, and Wisconsin's landscape is
starting to show signs of change towards
such renewable energy.
But there's worry, development of wind power and other
initiatives could be slowed because of a provision
in the Governor's budget.
- It's robbery.
It's a hand in the cookie jar that shouldn't be used
for general funds.
- Mike Clark is a viewer who wrote us about
the proposed state budget, alarmed about
one piece of it.
- I want to ask the Governor what's it going to take
to leave that money where it is.
- The money that Clark is talking about is in something
called the Public Benefits Fund, a fund
that pays for energy conservation, renewable energy
development, and low income services.
The largest part of it goes into the Focus on Energy Program.
But some wonder whether the focus on energy
is going fuzzy at the Capitol.
- I think it's dishonest budgeting to take monies
that are designated for one thing and use it
into the general fund, but the legislature and the Governor
would be able to continue to get away with these things
as long as the people let them get away with it.
- We all pay into the fund every month.
It's right here on your electric bill.
Listed as something called the non-taxable fixed charge,
roughly $2.
All told, the fund takes in more than $100 million each year.
But this year, as part of his state budget,
the Governor proposes taking $53 million of it
to help pay for other things.
- It does bother me to tell a constituent
that a piece of their utility bill is being taken
for schools or for corrections or for DNR or what have you.
- Republican Robert Cole is chair of the
Senate Energy Committee.
- It's going to take some grit to save this
because there will be an impulse to take more or all of it.
- In fact, in the last budget, Governor Doyle proposed taking
$27 million from the Energy Fund.
The legislature ended up taking $47 million.
- Despite that, the administration says a
lot of money has gone toward energy conservation
and will continue to.
- $250 million will have been spent since the beginning
of the fund in 2000.
You know, that's, less than was originally collected
and less than some people would want,
but it's certainly no small potatoes.
- The money has been spent on all kinds of energy
efficiencies, like this water-saving nozzle,
installed in every Madison school kitchen.
The nozzle saved nearly $10,000 a year.
Or these solar panels, every Madison High School
now heats its swimming pool with the sun.
- You'll save about 75% on your energy cause.
Each light bulb will save you about $30
over the life of the bulb.
- Focus on energy money also pays for rebates
at the hardware store for energy efficient light bulbs.
Wisconsinites bought more than a million of them last year.
And focus funds pay incentives to builders
to construct super energy efficient houses.
And then there's wind, free and renewable energy
for the harnessing.
- Why shouldn't you use the wind that doesn't cost you
anything for it to blow by?
- That's what Dan Woven figured.
(waves crashing)
- He owns a wood trim business in Hazel Green
and was looking for a cheaper way to power the saws.
- This one machine has made 24,375 kilowatts so far.
- Last June, Woven installed three wind turbines
on his property at a cost of $85,000 a piece.
He got some help from focus on energy money,
but less than originally promised.
He says a letter from the state explained
it was because there were fewer funds to go around.
- You feel like the state ought to be doing more and not less?
- If they want renewable sources out there, yeah, they better.
- There is concern that people like Dan Woven
who are inclined to invest in renewables
might decide against it for lack of incentive money.
- From a strictly dollars and cents point of view,
the taking of money out of the focus funds
could be a deal breaker.
- Renewable energy advocates don't want anything
to slow the momentum.
Wisconsin has gained since the start
of the focus on energy program.
(waves crashing)
Because all the efforts reduce the amount of coal
and other fuels we burn in Wisconsin to keep the lights on.
Since 2001, the focus on energy program
has saved nearly 650,000 megawatt hours
enough to power 68,000 households for a year.
That's about the population of Appleton.
At the same time, demand for electricity is rising.
To the point that there are several new power plants
being built across the state and at a huge cost.
Two new ones planned for Oak Creek
have a price tag of just over $2 billion.
And that cost gets passed on to ratepayers.
Rob Cole says conserving energy is the way
to slow the power plant building boom.
- If you could stop one out of the next five that are planned,
one of the next four or five, wouldn't that be
something worthwhile?
I say yes.
- Despite his budget moves, Governor Doyle would agree.
- She's been a strong proponent of renewable and efficiency.
It's just been that the cards have been dealt
as it is a tough budget.
- The governor did appoint his own task force
to address energy needs and plans to take
its recommendations.
- By the year 2010, at least 20% of the energy
that state government uses will come from renewable sources.
And by 2015, we'll set a standard for homes
and businesses of 10%.
[APPLAUSE]
- But the question is, while coping with hard budget choices,
can Wisconsin also meet its renewable and
efficiency energy goals?
- The state division of energy says funding
for the conservation program will not be depleted.
It will remain flat at last year's levels.
Governor Doyle says it's a choice he made
so he wouldn't have to reduce funding for other programs
like Badger Care.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Our next story takes us to the northern part of the state
and back in time, about 100 years.
What we know of today as the north woods
looked very different a century ago.
But as reporter Art Hackett discovered,
that was about to change due to a few folks
in the Star Lake area who were pioneering new concepts,
new concepts that would one day evolve
into forestry practices that are still used today.
- The view from Paul Brenner's kitchen window
outside Boulder Junction is of the Northern Highland American
Legion state forest.
But Brenner has a different word for it.
It's a garden.
It takes 60 years or more to get anything out of.
- Brenner is an unofficial historian of Wisconsin's state
forests and its timber industry.
His living room shelves are filled with hundreds
of metal stamps logging companies used to
brand their timber.
Brenner started work with the state conservation commission
shortly after World War II.
At a time when forestry workers lived in what was called
the state house near Trout Lake.
And so I lived down there for 10 years in the bunkhouse
and eaten there and stuff like that.
And then, but the nice thing was that even though I wasn't
that interested in history at that time,
a lot of them old-timers, they before the meal,
they had a big room just off of the mess hall.
And they'd be talking about old times and stuff.
- Scattered pieces of Northern Timberland
were deeded to the state by logging companies
and other units of government beginning in 1907.
But it was hard to think of it as a forest.
- That's why a lot of the country looked like
after the logging was over and stuff.
And especially it almost looks like it was after a fire went
through there because there isn't much rush on the ground.
There's treetops, but the branches are all gone.
- The state hoped to promote the area for farming.
That didn't pan out.
- But it just didn't work out up here with the light soils
and the short growing season.
It wasn't worth anything.
There wasn't no timber left.
Why not put it into forestry?
- Around 1910, the state made a deal to obtain
this property on trout lake from the Yaukebistle lumber company.
Today it's home to a DNR local forestry office
and some equipment to monitor air quality.
- They arranged with the Yaukebistle
to not cut the timber between the railroad grade and
the lake on the lower trout.
The state paid for the timber, but it,
but it, and got the land, but they didn't do the cutting.
- On clear cut land near the trees, the state spared,
EM Griffith, the state's first forestry,
created a nursery to grow seedlings.
- They raised Norway pine and Jack Pine and White Pine
and some spruces.
And in this case, you can see them
where they're actually spreading the seed
in each one of these fine rows.
And then later on, it would smooth the dirt over
so the seeds were covered with dirt.
- Brenner says it takes four years for seedlings
to grow to six inches in height and be ready to harvest.
- But you had to shake off a lot of the dirt
when you picked them and what the crew was doing.
Generally, they just put them, they get bunches,
but they wouldn't bunch them up entire or nothing.
They just put bunches in these big wooden boxes
and then they were taken down to the packing shed.
- Some of the young trees were sold
to private individuals to promote reforestation.
The state planted others on its own land.
And Griffith and his associates began an experiment
on a peninsula jutting into star lake.
They wanted to see if you could produce timber
on a continuous basis instead of cutting all of the trees
at one time.
- This was mostly Fred Wilson because he had gone to
school, I believe, in Germany.
And saw that it had worked over there.
And so it has worked.
I mean, as you can see, I mean, it's a beautiful country now.
- This is what Fred Wilson's experiment at star lake
looks like today.
Wilson wanted to demonstrate the benefits
of so-called sustainable yield forestry.
It's the technique used for timber management
in Wisconsin's state forests today.
Diny Leith is supervisor of the Northern Highland
American Legion, state forest.
- This is, at least to me, this is like walking into church
because this is where forestry started
in the state of Wisconsin.
I'm told that some of the old loggers, et cetera,
used to talk about how you could stand on a high hill here
and you could see all the way from star lake to Woodrow
because so many of the big pine trees,
et cetera, were taken down at that time.
When you walk through the forest at star lake,
you realize the trees have numbers.
- We have an acre of thin trees here versus an acre
of unpin trees and we kept the records
and showed the value of pruning trees.
- Over time, the records have shown that by cutting
certain trees to increase the amount of sunlight
reaching the forest floor, you can spur the growth
of new trees.
Some of the trees planted in 1913 by Griffith and Wilson
were cut in 1943, more have been cut periodically since then.
In October, a forester had just marked some of the trees
for another thinning.
- He would walk around in here and determine if you take out
like this one with the sunlight and get to these other ones
better and are these other ones a little bit straighter
would they have more room to put on some good growth,
et cetera.
- The old trees which remain grow bigger and taller.
Over time, the volume of wood produced is the same
as if you clear cut the area and some trees are always standing.
- The volume of lumber that they may get in unpin plot here
is probably about the same as the thin plot,
but the trees over here are a lot more healthy and vigorous
I'll put on a lot more diameter aesthetically I think
look nicer to them.
- Ethetics are important because Leet says many value
the forests for camping and recreation more than they do
is a source of two by fours.
Paul Brenner says that's the way it always was.
Camping and recreation existed even before the timber
companies cut down all the trees.
- Even before they had built a lot of campgrounds,
people were coming up here camping.
It was the best place in the state to get away from crowds
and good fishing and still is good fishing.
In fact, it's getting better even yet.
(upbeat music)
- Our next story takes us to Antigo in Langlaid County.
That's where Marge Gibson, one of the world's top
wildlife rehabilitators has set up shop.
Gibson mainly cares for sick and injured raptors
and as producer Joanne Garrett found
these frightened and sometimes angry birds
really respond to Gibson's gentle touch.
- The bird whisperer.
That's what some call her.
Marge Gibson has been healing birds for over 40 years.
(upbeat music)
Her first patient today, a trumpeter's wand,
shot through the neck and in critical condition.
- He's only just come up here, but you can actually
see the hole, but it went right through,
right through his head.
- This Antigo native is one of the world's top
wildlife rehabilitators.
She's a past president of the International Wildlife
Rehabilitation Association and she started here in Wisconsin.
- You a happy guy?
- When people would find birds, you know, I was the kid
that took care of them.
That strange kid down the road.
So I would get, you know, all these baby birds
that, you know, fell out of nest and things.
And I remember one summer, we did 115 birds
and this was when I was just a kid.
I was about 11 or 12.
- The child who loved birds trained as a
medical technologist.
Took off for California and merged herself in Wapters
and started a wildlife center.
Her skills were soon so respected.
She was called upon to lead the assessment of eagles,
caught up in the oil spill of the Exxon Valdez.
- The trick is to make them comfortable and cooperative
so they don't have to defend themselves
or don't feel like they're having to defend themselves.
- The years have gone by and Gibson's life
is still wrapped around birds.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
She and her husband Don, a medical doctor, had retired
and moved back to Antigo.
- We were going to refocus our life
and not do as much rehabilitation.
And I was going to be doing some writing
which I love to do and that was going to be our life.
- But Gibson kept her hand in caring for injured birds.
What happened was it was sort of like a field of dreams.
You know, if you build it, they will come.
And boy did they come.
- There was a huge need to care for sick and injured birds
to bring them to that wonderful place, release.
(crowd cheering)
And that's how Reggie took wing.
The Raptor Education Group incorporated a nonprofit
started by the Gibson's that now cares for hundreds of birds
in a year, anywhere from 600 to 1000.
Birds with sometimes heartbreaking histories.
- Hey, how you doing mama?
- Patients with histories that often involve humans.
This mother Crain was in an area over sprayed with pesticides.
She refused to leave her chicks.
They died, she barely survived.
- So we took vet her for about three weeks
and then when the scabs came off, her eyes came with them.
There is no eye in there at all.
- Patients with histories that can be extremely complex.
- What we're seeing now are the viruses,
which of course are something we haven't seen at all
in the past and toxins, which are a real problem.
And it takes much more time to rehabilitate them.
They have many more complex problems.
They have neurologic issues.
- She is still when she reacts to lights and sounds,
she's still hypersensitive to that.
After decades of work in the field, Gibson has a touch.
She's developed techniques for handling the birds
without sedation, without restraints.
Instead, Gibson relies on a firm grasp of the feet
and a great gentleness.
- One of the things that we do here is different
than a lot of centers is we do talk to them.
And while they don't know our language,
they understand the, I guess, sort of a gentleness,
our gentle voice, and they react positively to that.
- It works.
Most wildlife rehab centers have a recovery to release rate
of 35%, Reggie's is 60%.
- When I hold an eagle, it's, you know,
I can be talking and doing, you know,
I can't other things, but it's such a natural thing for me
that it's not, you know, it just feels right.
It's one of those odd things that I can't really explain,
but we have a real connection.
I have a real connection to birds.
- Free.
(birds chirping)
- It's good bird.
- To do wildlife rehabilitation really well,
you really have to be an expert on the natural history
of that species.
- Trumpeter swans, what they tend to do with one another
is to rub the necks.
They've got their beak sort of on the neck all the time.
Right now, it lowers his stress level.
And his stress level is high.
He's lost a lot of blood here.
- He's lost a lot of blood from the bullet wound.
And his wings were mangled when he was held captive
in the wrong kind of cage.
- You see a piece of tissue here out.
This is a legum tissue.
And his bones are exposed on the wing.
You can see the bone.
- To prevent these kinds of injuries,
to properly care for the birds and to give the public
a better understanding of the problems they
face, Gibson believes that education is critical.
And so those birds that can't be released,
like Mori, a fairy hand some turkey vulture,
sometimes serve as education birds.
- This is Mori, and Mori is a turkey vulture.
- Mori and others make the rounds at schools
and events around the state, like this full capacity crowd
at eagle days in sock prairie.
- But all of this, the education,
the rehabilitation, the care costs.
- It's about 200,000 a year.
And we are a nonprofit 501(c)(3)
but it's really hard to make enough,
to support the birds, and we get no help
from the federal government or the state.
I mean, not even a bag of food.
They get by, fairly, un-contributions.
On this day, a warden from the Monomony Reservation
drops off a road queue.
- Basically, we put our life into this program here
and we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars,
but it's been our choice.
You know, I've never been to the Bahamas,
but you know, this is something that is compelling.
Gibson has never been to the Bahamas,
but she's been to thousands of releases.
Birds may spend up to two years in her care, releases,
or special days.
- Nice to meet all the folks.
May I never be held again.
(laughing)
- Hello.
(crowd cheering)
- Woo-hoo!
(crowd cheering)
- You can find out more about Gibson
and her Bird Rehabilitation Center on our website
at wpt.org/inwisconsin.
You'll also find more information
on the rest of this week's reports.
Join us next week when reporter Art Hackett
introduces us to the two candidates
who are running in the spring election
for state superintendent of the Department
of Public Instruction, incumbent Elizabeth Burr Master
and state representative Greg Underheim.
You can also see a debate between the two candidates
right here on Wisconsin Public Television
on Friday, April 1st at 7 p.m.
And here's your chance to be a part of the studio audience
for that debate.
Call our registration number at 1-800-253-1158.
Again, the debate happens on Friday, April 1st at 7 p.m.
And the registration number to be part of the studio audience
is 1-800-253-1158.
We leave you tonight with a tropical treat
and you don't need to travel to the Caribbean
for a taste of the lush life.
Instead, on your next trip to Madison,
check out the bowl's conservatory
at Ulbrich Botanical Gardens.
The rainforest-like habitat includes more than 500
species of plants and the temperature
is kept between 65 and 80 degrees.
Enjoy. And for in Wisconsin,
I'm Kathy Beeson.
Have a great week.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Major funding for in Wisconsin is provided
by the people of a lion's energy who bring safe, reliable,
and environmentally friendly energy to keep
homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly, a lion's energy, offering
energy-saving ideas on the web.
[MUSIC PLAYING]