Defender
Spring 2015
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SHUT DOWN
GTAC ENDS OPERATIONS IN WISCONSIN Gogebic Taconite’s announcement in late February that it was shuttering its Hurley office, as well as its announcement a few weeks later that it was dropping all efforts to build an open-pit iron mine in Northern Wisconsin, should come as no surprise. From the first rumor of this mining company coming into Wisconsin’s Northwoods about five years ago, there was no debating the significant risk this mine posed to our natural resources and the overly aggressive tactics of the company to write its own regulations for iron mining in Wisconsin.
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Microbead bill gets unanimous, bipartisan support in Senate
Wisconsin’s waters, especially our Great Lakes, are one step closer to being protected against the growing problem of microplastic pollution! In March, the state Senate unanimously — yes, unanimously — approved legislation that would phase out the manufacture and sale of personal care products containing microbeads. The bipartisan bill, introduced by Sen. Rob Cowles and Rep. Mary Czaja, is based on Illinois’s 2014 law to ban microbeads and is supported by the personal care products industry. Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic added to products like body scrubs and toothpastes. Due to their small size, they can work through water treatment systems and into our waterways, aquatic life and our own bodies. Once there, the microbeads just keep adding up since they don’t easily break down in the environment. In addition to polluting our water, this plastic gets in the fish we catch, where it can harm their digestive systems. Chemicals in the plastic that are soaked up by microbeads can also cause other problems, like kickstarting the process of biomagnification, which causes much greater concen-
Also in this issue
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Groundwater Update | Biennial Budget | Waukesha Next Steps