Businesses and wastewater treatment plants would be given more leeway to reduce the amount of phosphorus they discharge into Wisconsin lakes and streams under a plan that cleared the state Senate Tuesday.
Wisconsin’s existing phosphorus rules were drawn up during the closing days of the Doyle administration. Their aim was to reduce discharge that’s responsible for algae blooms that can choke out aquatic life in a lake. This rewrite aims to appease business owners and wastewater treatment plant operators who say meeting those regulations was going to be costly and only minimally beneficial to the public.
State Sen. Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay) stressed that the Environmental Protection Agency would still be involved.
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“Whatever we do here — take this legislation, if it makes it through the process, signed into law by the governor — our DNR would hand the legislation to the EPA, say EPA, do you agree with this or not? If they don’t agree with it, that’s it, it’s dead. But I think that they will go along with this,” Cowles said.
Cowles’ plan would give businesses and treatment plants other options for reducing phosphorus, including paying for more cost-effective phosphorus projects elsewhere in the state.
State Sen. Mark Miller (D-Madison) says he liked pieces of the bill but he was concerned that it was rewarding the most serious contributors to the phosphorus problem.
“This tends to reward those entities who have been the most recalcitrant about reducing phosphorus pollution,” Miller said.
Despite those concerns, the plan passed the Senate on a voice vote. The state Assembly is scheduled to vote on it Thursday.
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