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Hello and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
Tonight we examine the question, "Could this Wisconsin natural
area be a future home for the nation's nuclear waste?"
It was considered back in the 80s, and some are
talking about it again.
We'll also tell you about Wisconsin's version of Swan
Lake and the annual Avian Dance that takes place there.
But first tonight, we continue a special series
of reports leading up to our state's presidential
primary on February 17th.
We're examining the candidate's policies on issues
of particular importance to people in Wisconsin.
Tonight, reporter Frederica Freiberg focuses on federal
dairy policy and how it hits home for state farmers.
There's a reason that it's on the license plate.
It's almost a $20 billion industry in Wisconsin.
Food and agriculture is $40 billion.
When you take all the extended industries and all
the manufacturers, all the marketers, all the cheese
plants, one in five jobs out of in Wisconsin are
dependent on food and ag.
Every one of these bosses here has worked over $13,000
in local economic impact, $553 in state and local taxes.
So they're very, very important to the state's
economy and to our future.
But according to state statistics, Wisconsin
milk production is flat and its share of US milk
production is slipping.
That's because the number of dairy cows in Wisconsin
is falling at a rate of more than 38,000 a year.
And the number of dairy farms continues to slip.
Ten years ago, there were 29,000.
Today, 16,000.
Currently nearly four dairy farms each day are going out
of business in Wisconsin.
Many because they can't afford to go on.
I always figured I had to have $13 a hundred to pay the bills
on this kind of operation and anything less than that.
I was just marking time.
David Krueg and his wife Juanita couldn't mark time
anymore when milk prices slipped into the $9 range
three years ago and hovered there through the summer.
They sold the farm, his family settled in the late 1800s.
Has it been difficult to make that change?
Oh, yes.
It was kind of hard to leave the house that I
was born and raised in.
But we did keep some of the land and we built a new
house and we really enjoy it.
And it's kind of a relief to get away from the long hours
of the farm life and it's the stress that goes with it.
A lot of memories here.
The Kruegs are welcome to visit the farm.
They sold to new owners.
They say they miss milking their 70 cows in the barn.
David Krueg's grandfather built.
Still, I like this type of barn, the Thai stalls
and the overhead pipeline.
But I guess the trend is and I guess the future
is the modern facilities with the milking parlour.
You can handle more cows per man hour and it's just part
of the economics of it all.
You forgot, it seems like volume is more of
the name of the game.
And so some Wisconsin farmers are going bigger.
State figures show that since 1997 the number of herds
with more than 200 cows increased from 50 to 900 herds.
And the percent of milk coming from herds of 500 or
more cows increased threefold during that same period.
This doorchester family farm was among those to expand.
In 1980 the couple who owns this farm started out
milking 30 cows today.
They own and milk more than 800.
Well I believe we can compete with California.
I do think we got a restructure to Wisconsin
dairy industry into farms similar to this to compete.
At Dick Rouse Farm a milking parlour replaces
an old-style barn.
Rouse dairy farm produces about 75,000 pounds of
milk a day, about a month's worth at a small farm.
Like 90% of Wisconsin milk it's struck to a nearby
plant to be made into cheese.
A milk used for cheese commands lower prices than fluid milk.
And California already leads the nation in
fluid milk production.
Now the golden state is poised to overtake the dairy state as
the number one cheese producer.
There's been more change in the last five years in agriculture
than in my lifetime or yours.
Wisconsin egg secretary Rod Nilsa Stewart describes
what he calls concentration in the food marketplace.
For example a few years ago Walmart didn't
market a loaf of bread.
Today there's a number one food retailer in the country.
And an organization is biggest Walmart tant and
doesn't buy cheese from 2000 small cheese factories.
A handful of major players that can provide them the product
when they want it where they want it, how they want it
and the shape they want it.
At the price they want it.
And that has an impact all the way up the food
chain right to the farm.
To compete Nilsa Stewart says Wisconsin needs to reposition
itself to gain some of what is a growing cheese market.
He says that means bigger farms producing more and smaller
farms producing efficiently.
He says it also means federal farm policies that allow
farmers to produce cheap food without going broke.
We need to be able to compete but we have to
have the tools to do it.
We have to have policies that provide level playing fields.
Nilsa Stewart says those policies need to include
a safety net program.
One such program is currently in place but
set to expire in 2005.
It pays farmers when milk prices fall below a certain price.
The milk income loss program is mostly targeted at small
and medium dairy farms.
Wisconsin farmers have received nearly $400 million
since it went into effect as part of the 2002 Farm Bill.
That's more than any other state.
Wisconsin's Ag Secretary says it's critical Wisconsin
sees that program or one like it continue or many
more farms will go under.
Also needed he says policies that don't favor one region
over another and closing trade loopholes that allow
cheap imports and included in the Wisconsin Ag wish list,
affordable health care for farm families and funding
for conservation programs.
And so here's a look at where candidates for president
stand on some of these issues.
The Bush administration believes economic safety
nets for farmers should be market driven so they don't
promote long term dependence on government programs.
That there should be no trade distorting subsidies so that
domestic support programs don't inadvertently reduce
competitiveness in exports.
And that there should be incentives for farmers to
implement conservation programs.
The administration's agriculture policy does not specify
rural health care, but president Bush's initiatives
include tax credits for low and middle income families
to buy basic coverage.
As for the Democrats, Dean favors safety net support
programs similar to the one greatly benefiting Wisconsin
small and medium sized farmers, but Dean calls the current
program stop gap demanding a longer term solution.
Carry and Edwards believe farmed subsidies should be focused on
small farmers.
These candidates say they wouldn't force fair
trade and fair competition laws.
The same Democrats say they support conservation programs.
Likewise, according to their platforms, these candidates
all say they would improve access to health care.
That would include rural and farm communities.
A grand probably built that barn in the nation for the
country. Wisconsin dairy farmers say they'd like to
see more consistency.
They say they feel like they're on a
farm policy roller coaster.
They hold on as best they can and remain proud.
I think there's still, you know, there's definitely
a future for dairy farmers even in Wisconsin.
And I think Wisconsin will still be the dairy state,
maybe not the biggest, but it will still be the best.
Next week, Frederica Freiberg reports on how the high cost
of prescription drugs is affecting people in Wisconsin
and explains some of the differences in the candidate's
health care policies.
You can find out more about the presidential candidate's
positions by logging on to our one stop source for election
information, Wisconsin vote.
The address is www.wisconsinvote.org.
If you don't have a home computer, most public libraries
do offer free internet access.
Another serious challenge Wisconsin faces is the stability
of our power supply.
Some say the way to ensure a steady
power supply is to lift the 20 year old moratorium on building
new nuclear power plants.
One of the requirements for lifting the moratorium is that
a nuclear waste repository had to be established.
President George W.
Bush cleared the way in 2002
for our repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
But just last month, Nevada began a lawsuit to keep
Yucca Mountain from opening.
And even if Yucca Mountain opens as scheduled in 2010,
some say it will soon be filled to capacity and other
repository sites will be needed.
In part one of a special in Wisconsin series on nuclear
energy, reporter Andy Soth examines the possibility
of Wisconsin being chosen as a future repository for
our nation's nuclear waste.
The Wolf River.
For many years, its rapids and rocky
outcroppings have attracted sportsmen and nature lovers.
But 20 years ago, this rock, or more specifically, an
underground shelf of granite known as the Wolf River
Batholeth, also attracted scientists from the U.S.
Department of Energy.
They came in search of a place to bury the
nation's nuclear waste.
I have here 4,000 signatures from citizens of the state of
Wisconsin that I'd like to give to the Department of Energy.
The owner of the Wild Wolf Inn, Herb Bettner, has been
active in environmental issues on the Wolf for decades.
We've been working on many issues to protect the wolf
River, the environment, and all that.
And I'll here comes this one back again.
To understand if the issue is really on its way back again,
if this part of northeastern Wisconsin may again be
considered as a site for a nuclear waste repository,
you need to go back to what happened in the early 80s.
The state of Wisconsin is voting overwhelmingly tonight
in favor of no nuclear waste repository in the state.
Wisconsin responded by creating a completely new institutional
structure to make policy for the state and represent
the state so that the state would speak with one voice
on high-level nuclear waste matters.
That one voice was the bipartisan radioactive
waste review board.
I would say the opposition is more in terms of the statewide.
The first important impact of Wisconsin's approach
was to have a very strong influence on the way that the
federal legislation evolved.
How it evolved was that in 1987 the federal government selected
Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only site to study in depth.
The original plan had been to also build a second repository
at one of 12 sites in the eastern half of the country.
But because of heavy opposition, any decision on that was
put off until at least 2007.
Halsted worked for the radioactive waste review board
and now consults for the state in Nevada in its legal
case against Yucca Mountain.
He says Yucca Mountain's capacity is not enough to
meet the projected need.
So even if Yucca Mountain goes forward, it's quite likely
that Wisconsin is going to have to face this challenge
again in just a few years.
Could it be in Wisconsin?
It could, but it could be any of the 50 states.
Michael Cora-Dini is a nuclear engineer at the
University of Wisconsin.
We were one of the 12 sites, so that would narrow it down a bit.
But I still think they would have to start basically from
scratch. They would not start with what they did at the time.
Cora-Dini does not think a waste site is likely for Wisconsin,
but he also doesn't fear the idea of geological waste burial.
The burial, the geological burial of nuclear waste is not
something that should be feared.
If anything, it's the logical thing to do with the material
that we cannot use economically.
There's a lot of this material that we could if we chose to
recycle it and use economically.
But assuming we choose not to, the most logical thing is to
bury it and actually quite safe.
That does not mean he would be unconcerned with a repository
in the Wolf River batholith.
Now I'm going to turn into a very careful Wisconsinite.
I would be very careful to demand exactly the same level of
protection if it were anywhere near me than we're demanding
of the first repository.
But the level of protection at the first repository,
Yucca Mountain, has not met the demands of many in Nevada.
And Cora-Dini knows first hand how contentious the debate is.
He resigned from the nuclear waste technical
review board that advises the Department of Energy
after accusations of bias for statements like this
in a Wisconsin newspaper.
But you recognize there's also maybe a credibility issue.
Maybe people not trusting science, maybe not
trusting the government.
Not trusting me.
Yeah. That you may never
be able to do that.
Oh, but I think that's...
So you could take that view, but then we wouldn't move
forward as a society, right?
We're letting out God knows how much of stuff in production
of electricity right now.
We don't seem to be concerned about it at all.
Claire Schmidt of Clean Wisconsin agrees that
pollution from co-burning power plants is a problem.
But she doesn't see nuclear power as a solution.
Building new nuclear power plants and creating more
nuclear waste is like using a toilet with no plumbing.
It's going to come back to haunt you sooner or later.
Clean Wisconsin does not see Yucca Mountain's potential
opening as a good thing, even though it could mean
nuclear waste leaving the state.
They fear it will encourage the government to approve
more nuclear power plants.
If a second repository is needed, and it
seems very likely, especially considering the
suggested plan to build 15 new nuclear power plants
between 2010 and 2020, which would definitely make a
second waste repository needed.
People are going to come back and look at Wisconsin.
And if the Department of Energy does take a second
look at Wisconsin as a site for a nuclear repository,
Schmidt is concerned about how the state will respond.
But there's more acceptance.
In the early 1980s, the radioactive waste review board
did an excellent job of making the arena for discussion open.
And we're not willing to accept totally experimental technology.
I'm concerned that the current political climate in Wisconsin
will be dismissive towards the concerns of people.
I'm call-stat, however, feels that the reception the federal
government received in the 80s won't soon be forgotten.
I'm pretty certain that someone in the Department of
Energy is worrying about the need for a second repository.
And I would guess that that person knows enough about the
past experience in Wisconsin, that they aren't especially
looking forward to coming back to Wisconsin.
We'll continue our series on nuclear energy next week
with a look back at the last effort to build a nuclear
power plant here in Wisconsin.
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We're switching gears entirely now and heading to the
Mississippi River Town of Alma.
But it's bird traffic, not riverboat traffic, that makes
Alma such a popular place.
[Music]
You can find them just off Highway 35 north of Alma in
a place called Rick's Lake.
Just listen.
These rather loud visitors like to hang out in front
of this observation deck.
It's not a very big deck, but it's at a big impact on the
small town of Alma, which is very fond of these visitors.
[Music]
The visitors are tundra swans migrating through
from the Arctic on their way to Chesapeake Bay.
[Music]
Harry Buck is a retired school teacher and formal resident
of Alma who seems to sum up the town's delight and
fascination with tundra swans.
Oh my gosh, how can you not like them?
They're just such marvelous creatures.
Start with the fact that the swans can find the city of Alma.
Their global positioning system is wonderful.
They don't have any radio in the
tells them that they're at Alma when they're above the
clouds, you better circle down.
They circle down for this crucial R&R in Alma.
They'll stay from mid-October to freeze up.
It's a chance to rest and feed on a
4,000 mile long migration.
These birds are truly top-flight flyers.
They go from here to the east coast in one flight.
And how far is it?
1,300 miles?
They can fly up to 100.
They've been clocked up to 100 miles
an hour, but with a tailwind.
They have a seven-foot wind span and are described by
our nethologists as the most aerodynamic of birds.
Tundras can be found all along the Mississippi, from Alma
down to Iowa.
But they tend to congregate here.
This confluence where the Buffalo
River hits the big muddy.
The important part of it is because it's close to hunting.
There are no boats going back and forth in here.
Water depth was right, the food was there.
So I think they've formed a habit of coming here.
It's just a nice place.
It is a nice place, especially if you're a swan.
Rick's Lake is a swan smorgasbord.
Chak Ful, one of their favorite
foods, arrowhead, which grows a tasty tuber down in the mud.
They love it.
This place is perfect for swans.
They first started soaring in here in
the late 60s.
There are also sparked another migration of
tourists and bird watchers.
Which in turn sparked an Alma swan watch.
It's a group of volunteers.
People like Buck and Grand Sites, who working for
the watch, have turned the observation deck into
a place where people can not only look, but also
learn about tundras ones.
That's probably a family down here.
There's two white ones.
There's two gray ones.
A place where they can look and
learn about all the wildlife that calls this place home.
In the 15th of October until Thanksgiving or the 1st
part of December, we have people on the platform every
day from 10 o'clock and they stay there until dusk.
The beauty of it is that you don't have a railroad
track in front of you.
You don't have a highway in front
of you and you're close.
And you look through the scope and you can look right
into a little black eye.
The swan watch began 11 years ago when Buck, a
retired teacher, saw an opportunity for education.
When we first were building the platform, there was a person
on the platform and there were about 2000 swans in front of him
and they were making the noise that you hear the swan noise.
He was talking to his tape as he recorded me, said that
sound you hear is coming from all those snow geese
that are out in front of me.
He was a man's misidentification, sparked
a mission.
But guess that there might be some
interest in tundra swans.
He didn't guess how much.
The retired teacher and his wife offered to be on
deck on a Sunday to answer questions about the birds.
So what are the merchants merely grabbed 100 pages of this
information and we took it out there on a Sunday afternoon
and 700 people showed up.
We find that people absolutely are fascinated by this
bird. They have hundreds and hundreds of questions about,
well how does it do this?
How does it find its way?
Is there any Fox or anything like that for natural enemies?
Information, questions, they pack the place, 10 to 20,000
people a year seeking swans, which in turn, flutters through
Alma, in tourism and trade.
What this does for the area, for the communities up and down the
river, is extends their tourist season by about six weeks.
All was going swimmingly, but as anyone who lives
along the river will tell you there is an ebb and flow
here, things come and go.
And what is gone from Rick's Lake is water.
We have maybe a foot of water and average six inches to a
foot of water in the open areas.
It's a long time story of rivers.
It's the story of silt.
And silt creates complications.
You're looking at one, the burried, a brown clumpy plant
that infests shallow waterways.
It limits the number of swans it can come in because they need
open water because they have to take off into the wind and
they have to have a run move.
They need their runway.
The birds are bailing and the
numbers are down from the peaks of just a few years ago.
There were 6,000 swans one day counted by the Fish and
Wildlife Service.
And if you were standing on the deck
it looked like the water was covered with popcorn.
You could hardly see the water.
Now if we have three, four hundred there that's a big day.
But this story has a happy ending in the form of a national
scenic byways grant.
Fedor money for Rick's Lake.
Think if you dredge it they will come.
Either next summer or the summer after they will take silt and
the burried out of there to a depth of about three feet which
is the depths that the swans can reach with their long beak.
And so hopefully that area in front of the platform
will be weed free again.
And therefore you should see many, many more swans.
It's probably be counting swans in the thousands
rather than the hundreds.
It's remarkable now.
It should be even better.
Look forward.
When next year's migration wings in passing
through the Mississippi River.
It's our good fortune to be their rest time
before they make their way east and they're gone.
Just one of the wildlife sites you can experience in Wisconsin.
That's our program for tonight.
Tune in next week when we look at how people in Wisconsin
are coping with the cost of prescription drugs and what
they're looking for from the presidential candidates.
We'll also tell you how residents of one small town
responded when plans were announced to build a nuclear
power plant in their community.
Until then, thanks for joining us for in Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lowe.
Good night.
[Music]