(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to InWisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
Each week we bring you stories about the people and issues
in our state.
This week, find out why local officials across the state
believe a recent vote at the Capitol
could lead to more urban sprawl.
Explore this popular grotto and discover how artifacts
from around the world found their way into the design.
And follow these two logging company owners
as they go through the process of becoming masterloggers.
We'll bring you all that plus so walk through
a national wildlife refuge in Wisconsin.
- Major funding for InWisconsin is provided
by the people of Alliance Energy,
who bring safe, reliable, and environmentally friendly energy
to keep homes, neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin
running smoothly.
Alliance Energy, offering energy-saving ideas on the web.
Urban sprawl, traffic congestion, limited green space,
all byproducts of a poorly planned community.
These are the types of problems the state's smart growth law
was designed to prevent.
Smart growth requires local governments to map out plans
to regulate land by 2010, and it offers $2 million
in state grants to help pay the cost
of developing those plans.
As of last week, the money and the planning requirement
are gone.
They were eliminated from the state budget
by the legislature's Joint Finance Committee.
Reporter Art Hackett says that move has brought together
an unusual coalition of groups trying to restore smart growth.
- This is what smart growth looks like.
In the mid-1990s, Sun Paray had to figure out
what would fill 3,400 acres of farmland
here at Sporter with Madison.
The comprehensive plan done before smart growth
was known by that name, lays out many developments in advance
so they're designed to work with each other
and with the parts of the city that are already there.
Former Sun Paray City Planner Rick Roll says it's called
"smart because..."
- Because it makes better use of existing facilities,
easier to serve with transit, and provides more
variety of housing types and neighborhoods than
you typically get in typical suburban growth.
People call that smart growth.
Rick Roll has since moved on.
He's helping to create the city of Madison's smart growth plan,
paid for with a state grant worth about $300,000.
The legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted last week
to eliminate those smart growth grants,
which totaled $2 million per year.
The move to end smart growth was made by
Republican representatives Dan Meyer of Eagle River and
David Ward of Fort Atkinson.
Neither was available for an on-camera interview.
Ward explained his vote to Wisconsin Public Radio.
- Now I think everybody agrees that planning is a good thing,
but I believe that the best plans come up
when the community makes the decision they have to plan
and then develop a plan for their community,
not when the state tells them they have to plan.
And they go into the planning process.
Some people go into the planning process
where they chip on their shoulders because, you know,
we have to do this because the state tells us to do that.
- What we found in 1999 when we wrote the law
was the communities were not planning
and those communities that were planning
were planning in widely different ways.
- Madison Mayor Dave Chess Leavitch helped write
the smart growth law when he headed the environmental group,
1,000 friends of Wisconsin.
- Well, I think it'll have a long term, very bad effect
for the state.
It means that we'll have more border wars
between communities.
It means we'll have less efficiency
in providing basic services.
It means that communities will tend to grow
in a more sprawling fashion.
And all of the good trends that we started on
about five or six years ago in smart growth was passed
will either be reversed or won't be advanced.
- Some paraded their smart growth plan
on their own, even before the law required it.
Madison would pretty much have to do it
in order to keep up with development.
But smart growth is a tougher sell in rural areas,
like the town of Lagrange in Monroe County.
- Town of Lagrange Chairman Ron Kinesney
is somewhat conflicted about smart growth.
- As I said, we have our own plan.
We know what we're gonna do with roads and maintaining roads
and we know subdivisions are gonna be coming in.
- I just don't feel that we need to
have a state mandated plan explaining it.
- Nonetheless, he says that three years ago,
Lagrange, along with several neighboring townships,
applied for a $30,000 smart growth planning grant.
- Otherwise, we've got subdivisions
splattered all throughout the town on Lagrange.
- The state's pot of money ran out
before Lagrange's number came up.
In the meantime, new houses have continued to sprout,
like these surrounding a golf course
just east of nearby Toma.
- In this whole surrounding area,
specifically the town of Lagrange,
there's a lot of growth.
We have a lot of people move it in,
that work in the city and work at Fort McCoy.
- The town has tried to deal with growth
on a case-by-case basis.
So far, it has worked.
- It gets tougher, as land gets less and less,
they don't make more land.
It gets tougher, but we're still working it out.
But Kinesney, who was elected chairman in April,
wants to try again to prepare a comprehensive plan.
- Although it was mandated being as it costed so much,
we really didn't want to jump in and do it right away.
We kind of dragged our feet as a lot of other towns
and villages cities did, counties.
Now as chairman, I feel that it's something
that we have to address, and we have to focus our time on.
- Kinesney worries that if Lagrange doesn't have
its own plan, it may get stuck with one drawn up
by Monroe County.
- Although we mirror the county on their ordinances,
their zoning, we still would like the right to say
what we want to say instead of somebody else telling us,
this is the way you have to do it.
- The towns are going to be rolled, and that's unfortunate.
- The negative effect on towns is why Assemblywoman
Cheryl Albers disagrees with the Republican colleagues
on Smart Growth.
Albers represents some of the townships
with which Lagrange hoped to partner.
- Well, you know I grew up on a farm,
and I learned early on that if you want to go to the bank
and you want to borrow money, you have to have a plan.
The bank expects to know when you're going
to get your crops in, they want to know what
are you going to plant, they want to know
what your return is, and they want to know when
you're going to pay them back.
And a comprehensive plan is sort of like that.
It's how are you going to spend your money,
how are you going to use your resources,
how are you going to use them wisely,
and what are you going to tell your citizens?
- Representative Dave Ward argues Smart Growth
just isn't that popular outside of Southern Wisconsin.
Madison Marichess Leavitch counters that Smart
Growth has many fans among groups that normally
support Republicans, like the Realtors Association.
- The business community represented by the Realtors
and the builders and the environmental community
actually came together in support of one
piece of legislation.
- The Realtors and many other groups
are now looting hard on Republican legislators
to reverse the joint finance committee's action
when the budget moves to the assembly floor.
But as for now, there's no money to plan
and no mandate to do so.
What we asked Townsherman Kenesdi,
would he do if the requirement to have a
plan by 2010 went away?
He says he might do it anyway.
- It would be worth it, yes.
You'd be pushing for it, but it would be a hard sell.
It would be a very hard sell.
20 to $30,000 of taxpayers' money is a hard sell.
- We'll bring you updates as they happen
on the status of the Smart Growth Program.
In the meantime, you can find out more
about the work of the Legislative Joint
Finance Committee by logging onto our website
at www.otrg/inwisconsin.
Once there, you'll also find more information
about all of our reports this week.
Again, the address is www.otrg/inwisconsin.
Our next story takes us to our state's Northern Forests.
That's where two sisters run a logging company
called Butler Forest Products.
It's a relatively rare thing for two women
to run a logging company.
And now, Jackie Kinsley and Jenny Pasinan
are further setting their business apart.
The sisters are applying for certification
in a new program designed to spotlight
responsible logging practices.
- There wasn't blowdown right here.
- I don't believe there was any blowdown right in this section
in here, it was that way.
- Jenny Pasinan and Jackie Kinsley are loggers,
and they're spending the day with a pair of inspectors
who'd be scrutinizing their work.
Pasinan and Kinsley are going through Wisconsin's
master logger certification process.
The two women who are also sisters
on Butler Forest Products, a small logging company
based out of the town of Winter in Sawyer County.
The sisters got into the traditionally male
dominated business through their dad.
- He had no boys in the family, so it was up to us
to help him out, grease equipment, move equipment
on weekends for the crew.
- As far as we know, we're the only two women
actually running a logging business.
- Sometimes they look at us and they're like,
"Oh, two women, they don't know what they're doing."
But then when we show them, we can go and order parts
or move the equipment or do any of that stuff
and they see that we can handle it, then they back off.
- Pasinan and Kinsley are going through
the master logger certification process
in the hopes of gaining respect.
- We've always done everything the way we're supposed to do.
We've always followed all the rules,
and now we're gonna actually be recognized
as one of those that are following the rules
and doing everything right.
- Getting recognized is doing everything right.
That's a sentiment master logger field inspector,
Don Peterson, here's echoed a lot from Wisconsin Loggers.
- Out of the 26 that went through last year,
one of the questions I asked in the interview is,
what are you most frustrated about with the logging industry?
And 21 of them answered lack of respect.
- Respect was one of the main reasons
the Wisconsin Professional Loggers Association
began the state's master logger program in 2003.
- This program will give us an opportunity
to prove through independent third party certification
that they're doing a good job on the land.
- Master logger applicants have three
of their logging sites inspected.
Then the inspection report goes to a certifying
panel for review.
To receive master logger certification,
applicants must meet strict performance standards
in seven categories.
They must protect water and soil quality,
comply with government logging regulations,
practice acceptable silver culture
and utilization standards, participate in ongoing training,
employ aesthetic techniques, follow a management
plan for the site, and use sound business
management techniques.
- I was saying I wonder why they're stumped with so high,
but it looks a lot older than when you guys--
- Oh yeah, and that's definitely older.
Jenny Pasanen and Jackie Kinsley say they've seen first hand
the work of loggers with poor work practices.
- They let their equipment leak oil all over the place
if they have a spill they don't pick it up.
We've seen basically all of it.
I've seen crews go on with beer and they're lunch for
the lunch, you know?
And that's, we just don't allow that.
Hopefully by keeping those that are gonna pass
the master logger certification will have a good crop
of loggers out here and hopefully they'll get rid
of all the nasty ones that aren't doing the job right.
- The first stop in Pasanen and Kinsley's inspection
is an active work site in the Flambo River State Forest.
Field Inspector Don Peterson begins by checking out
the logger's safety practices.
- Everything's in here.
Our safety policy isn't here.
- Okay.
- Field Inspector Collierriksen inquires
about oil spills at the work site.
- We haven't had anything big out here.
Normally on the hose goes, they shut down right away
and shut everything on.
We've got main switches on there so they can shut the tank off
so it doesn't leak any more than what's in the hose.
- The inspection team also interviews
some of the logging companies heavy equipment operators.
- Fire extinguisher, you have set.
Can I just see that?
- Sure thing.
- See that it's...
- We're within, yep.
- Okay.
- Is there a sprinkler system?
- Okay.
- Next, the inspection team moves to a
privately owned forest in Rusk County.
The owner also raises wild mustangs
and places a lot of importance on trails and aesthetics.
Peterson says the master logger program
gives private forest owners a known quality they can trust.
It gives them something to look at on paper.
And in the past, a lot of land owners have had qualms
about having timber sales just because of horror stories.
They've heard from neighbors or relatives
or even their own experiences in the past.
And this just gives them a level of comfort.
- Yes, something like that.
- I'm coming back.
- Jenny Pasanet and Jackie Kenzley were
hired a few months back to log this 50 acre site.
The job required salvaging blow and down timber
from a wind storm, something that can pose a challenge.
- We got a question for you.
We're running into a few high stumps
and Ollie said a lot of what he's seeing looks like
they cut it when it was laying down
and then it probably flopped back up.
- Yep, okay.
- Now there was a lot of that.
As soon as he cut it off, they popped back up.
- Okay.
And most of those were cut with the chainsaw
or if you could, you got it in the reconnaissance.
- Back in here, some was chainsaw
and most of it out here was all processing.
- Okay.
- As storm clouds move in, the inspection team finishes
the second site and moves on to the third,
a rust county on site.
Right away, Peterson has concerns about a culvert,
something that could affect the safety of the road.
- So what's okay over there, Ollie?
It's kind of odd, it's washed out right here.
And I can't really figure out why.
Is it doesn't come off of the road?
- Field Inspector Cully Ericsson takes pictures
of a drainage culvert.
The photos will become part of the team's final report.
- This time goes along.
We're gonna have to have some more going here.
- The team works the area quickly,
but rain overtakes them as they sum up their findings
with Pasinon and Kenzley.
- And there was one area where there was a drainage
coming into the creek.
I couldn't tell if they crossed it or not.
That's a good thing.
If they didn't cross it, then that was good.
If they did cross it, they did it so well I couldn't tell.
So. - You hear it get the house.
From here, the inspectors write up their final field reports
and forward them onto the Master Logger Certifying Panel.
- It was all slashed over the line.
- No slashed over the line.
- All Pasinon and Kenzley can do now is wait.
- Let's keep it a crossing.
I like that.
- Three months later, the Master Logger Certification Board
meets in Wassa.
The panel is made up from a wide spectrum
of groups interested in logging practices.
From forsters and experts in the logging industry
to private forest owners and environmentalists.
Panel member and state representative Don Frisky
says including environmentalists in the process is crucial.
- I think having individuals who are
belonging to environmentally sensitive groups
or groups that that's their focus,
makes sure that that is a consideration at the table.
And I think that's a voice that needs to be at the table.
It certainly needs to be at this table.
- A Certifying Panel begins by assigning a number
to the 18 applicants in order to preserve anonymity.
The application for Butler Forest Products,
the company owned by Jenny Pasinon and Jackie Kenzley,
is assigned number 582.
- My initial impression is that this applicant
has a lot of above average or excellent rates.
- I have one or two that were on the negative side.
- The panel debates the pros and cons
of the application for almost an hour.
- Finally, the Certifying Panel is ready to call for a decision.
- A lot of the group feel about this,
about 582.
- We have a Master Logger.
- Two weeks later, Bob Hess contacts all
of the Master Logger applicants to give
them the news, a thumbs up or a thumbs
down on their application.
Meanwhile, Jackie Kenzley and Jenny Pasinon
have been told to expect a call today
with a decision on their application.
- How are you?
- Good morning, Butler Forest Products.
- Good morning.
This is Bob Hess from the Master Logger Program.
- Hi, Bob.
How are you?
- Oh, I'm doing pretty good.
Who is this?
Jenny or Jackie?
- This is Jackie.
- Jackie?
Hi. Nice to talk to you this morning.
Is Jenny there too?
- Yes, he is.
- Well, okay.
Well, this is what we've been waiting for,
I guess, for about the last six months.
- Yeah, I'll be nice to know.
- Okay, and I really pleased to tell you
that you passed with flying colors.
- We did it, good.
- We're being Master Loggers.
- Good, I'm glad to hear that.
- We're really glad to have you in the program.
Welcome aboard.
- Well, thank you.
- Cool, we're in.
- Good news for Kenzley and Pasinon,
but no time to celebrate as it's business is usual
and there's work to do for the newly named Master Loggers.
- We've always been very conscious of the environment
and do things the right way, and it's nice now to
get the recognition.
(soft music)
- Butler Forest Products, Kenzley and Pasinon's business
was one of 16 logging companies certified
by the Master Logger Program this year.
According to a source from the Wisconsin
Professional Loggers Association,
there are an estimated 1200 loggers
who currently operate in our state.
(upbeat music)
- We travel now to Southwestern Wisconsin.
That's where an eclectic collection of artifacts
from around the world has been pieced together
into what's known as the Dickeyville Grotto.
Tents of thousands of people traveled to the small town
of Dickeyville every year to walk through the grotto.
The site features several shrines that were handcrafted
by the parish priest back in the early 1900s.
Producer Kermeneckas gives us a tour.
(soft music)
- The Dickeyville Grotto was built
by Father Matthias Wynarius in 1925
and was completed upon his death in 1931.
A good friend that had done a favor for
gave him a statue of Jesus and Mary
and he was wondering how to display it for the public
to see and being from Germany.
He decided to build a grotto to house the statue.
The word grotto itself means a small cave-like structure.
Grotto's were very common in Europe
and it comes out of the natural experience
of some of the local geography of the German people
and they used to build little shrines
who would put a statue with a saint
where they would put a crucifix of Christ.
It was a way of invoking God's blessing on their work,
their labor, their fields and their homes.
It was a time after World War I, a real time of fear
and worry about people who were German, who
were Catholic as well.
One of the concerns that people had was that it was a time
for them to say that we can truly be good Catholics
and we can be as well, good patriots of this country.
And so Father Wynarius built that into
what the grotto was all about.
They really tried to stress their connection
with liberty and with unity and working together
with all people to build up this nation.
- He had a dream to build this.
It was his life's work.
And it sort of snowballed and he kept building and building.
- Father Wynarius seemed to have this master plan
and that he held in his mind and in his heart.
And there would never seem to be any blueprints.
There didn't seem to be any drafts
or drawings of this particular grotto available anywhere.
He had this in mind and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Probably like many of the great artists.
- It was a community project.
People were anxious to helping.
They were there to help.
- We were in school and he would need help to wash rocks
or clean something.
Kids could come from school over in the basement
and help clean up all that stuff,
which was a big deal for us kids to get out of school, you know.
They were all winter in the basement of his house
or whatever, but his living room was, he had no living room.
It was just rocks and rocks and smelt and some more.
And he put that all together and in the spring he'd come out
and put it up and it all set.
- And sometimes he'd work till late at night,
but he'd go right at the next day again.
And sometimes on a grotto and he put stuff up there
and if he didn't like it, he'd put somebody with a cold
chisel on him, chisel it off.
So he'd put up what he wanted.
- A father and air he used everything and anything
that anyone gave him, donated, brought to him.
He used even broken dishes and jewelry
and things of a personal nature.
The balls are around your shift knob.
Apparently they didn't work for Henry Ford,
so he sent them to father when he was there.
There were rocks from all 48 states that there were then
glass from the kilns and Indiana.
There are things from all over the world,
not only the United States, plus things from Europe
and the catacombs.
He had plans to do more because when he was working
on a patriotic shine, he told the boys,
"Wait till you see the next one, it will be even better."
- A father, Winerius, was out on a sick call
and it was cold weather and raining and sleeting.
And he got very wet, developed pneumonia.
He died quite suddenly, but the parish and the community
were just all very, very saddened by his death
and felt they lost a good friend.
- Every year we have about 60,000 plus visitors
and they come with families.
They are senior citizens, people from all over
the United States, people from Europe,
religious people, people who have no beliefs,
probably people looking for something a little
more in their life.
They are odd with the grotto, no matter where they come
from or what the reason is.
- I think one of the real miracles of the places
that people do find a sense of peace and contentment
and in many ways a real sense of meditation here.
It seems to be a real place that the God is present
and that nature and people seem to unite
in a real sense of harmony.
- I love the grotto and I think I know a little of what
by the Winerius felt because the pride is there
once you've worked for it, you're very, very proud of it.
You just have a sense of pride of where you from,
Dickeyville, oh, I'm in the crowd of them.
- In addition to its many intricately crafted shrines,
the Dickeyville grotto also features beautiful gardens.
And that's our program for this week.
Thanks for joining us.
We leave you now in Juno County with a walk
through the Nacita National Wildlife Refuge.
For In Wisconsin, I'm Patty Lo.
See you next time.
(gentle music)
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