Whenever there's a plane crash in this country, the news media love to use the term
miracle.
Don't think like if a plane crash isn't known, as killed, they see it was a miracle
that no one was killed.
If a plane crash isn't a few people are killed, they see it was a miracle that more people
aren't killed.
If a plane crash there's only one survivor.
They see it was a miracle that that person survived.
If a plane crash is, everybody is killed.
They see it was a miracle that the plane just missed hitting that warehouse on the ground.
If the plane hits the warehouse, they see it was a miracle that didn't hit an hour earlier
when it was crowded with people.
If it hits it, it hits it when it's crowded with people and everybody is killed.
They go and find that guy that missed the flight by five minutes.
They see it was a miracle he got a flat tire in the way to the airport.
Remember that one plane just disappeared a couple of years ago, that Malaysian thing?
I don't have a fear of flying, but I do have a fear of just disappearing something.
Whereas Dennis, nobody knows.
He was sitting in that chair a couple of months ago.
Nobody's seen him since.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you be a good cheer.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
It's the happiest season of all.
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call.
It's the happiest season of all.
There'll be parties for hosting marshmallows for toasting and carrying out in the snow.
There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmas as long long ago.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
There'll be much mistletoeing and hearts will be glowing when loved ones are near.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
I'm Don Rosen at WRJN.
Looking for a sun shining day with a hundred thirty-six right now the sun is out.
Part of the cloudy tonight lows around 24 tomorrow Sunday again with a hundred thirty-eight.
Sunshine.
Thirty-two degrees right now.
I was debate every morning.
Wintercoats have this heavy winter coat that weighs about a quarter of a ton.
My wife got it from you.
It really is heavy.
And I like when I wear my spring jacket because it feels like I'm not wearing anything.
But anyway, I digress.
It's 708 709 at WRJN Radio and Lukus here in the studio.
So former Mayor John Dickert who's now into water and we'll talk about that just a moment,
not physically in water.
But when I was talking to you, first of all, hello.
Good morning.
It's great to be back and it's great to have you back.
I got to prove that you're here.
Before we get into the transition from mayor into water, when I was talking to you the other day,
I saw that movie The Big Short.
Yeah.
And it's the collapse of the housing industry.
It was a Goldman Sachs that went out of business in that.
Well, there are a whole bunch of a little bit of that.
There's a Goldman Sachs.
Yeah, there are a bunch of them.
And that's what it's about.
It's a true story.
It's exactly how it happened.
And there's one guy predicted it would happen.
He did some kind of math and he predicted what happened.
At the end of the film, the last thing he says on the screen, they said, now he's not.
He's out of the, you know, housing and banking.
He's going into the water industry.
And people in the, everybody in the theater term, we're using the waterway.
What about waterway?
What about waterway?
What should we be concerned about?
We're going to talk about that in a moment.
So you came in to be mayor after a really dark time in the office.
It had to do with Gary Becker.
And we've talked about that on the air.
Ed Nauseen.
We even did it recently during our anniversary show.
So they had a special, was it an election or were you appointed?
It was a special election.
And there are 13 of us that ended up running.
Now, you never in politics before, were you?
Oh, sure.
I had gotten elected when I was 22 years old in college.
I was the youngest elected county board supervisor in La Crosse history,
with $75.
I beat an 18 year incumbent by quite a substantial margin,
primarily just doing doors in the winter time and getting sympathy votes,
because I looked like I was cold, which I was.
And talking to people.
And this board of camp.
Yeah, exactly.
So, no, I started out in college and actually wanted to be a film producer director.
But then got the political bug and got started out as an intern
with less Aspen in Washington.
Oh, yes.
It was Aspen, yeah.
Amazing man, just an amazing man.
And then decided to come back to Wisconsin and do state government,
which I worked at the state house for about seven or eight years,
and then started with Peter Barker in Congress.
Yeah.
So that's where my political starting started.
I did realize that.
I really took off, yeah.
I thought one day you woke up, quit the factory job and became a man.
Well, I was in real estate.
And ironically enough, you talked about the big short, my uncle Jim,
believe it or not, who was a broker in real estate and an amazing man.
He actually predicted that as well.
He turned to me and he said, this is all going to come crumbling down soon.
So we need to change what we're doing.
Yeah, they were lending money to people that couldn't pay at that.
Well, and they were, and they were re-lending.
I mean, what they're doing was they were taking, if there's a,
there's a long term to what they're talking about.
But what they really did was they were, they were betting on money that wasn't there.
And the people were literally taking stock shares of funds
that were not there.
They were creating money.
And eventually that does collapse.
And a lot of people saw it.
And my uncle was one of them.
And he said, you know, we've got to change.
I've seen this before and it's coming crashing down soon.
He was about six months out before it happened.
And it came crashing.
And we were right in the middle of it.
And they depicted in the movie and all these people at Goldman Sachs,
one day you're out of the, get out of the building.
It's closed.
It happened like overnight.
Now, there were a lot, a lot of people.
We went from about, I think it was maybe six or seven,
four closures a year and we're seeing two over 400.
So we were just one of those many, many communities that literally
they're, their entire market collapsed.
And when that happens, you've not only got people that are out of work,
they're not buying products.
So of course the economy then sank.
And that's, so that's when they came in.
Do we have to tell you the tenor of yourself on this time you do?
This is like a movie theater.
Please silence your phone.
This is like the first time I think ever.
But yeah, so it was a tough time in two or nine.
And we, you know, we were blessed to be able to serve.
But there were a lot of challenges.
We faced a lot of challenges.
And in the movie, if you see it, and I suggest you see it,
it's very confusing.
So they stopped the action and they have a big celebrity movie star
explain like Marco Robbie would come on there and explain exactly
what the terminology is.
You're hearing them.
What's happening?
Yeah.
But they would stop the action about five or six times in the room just to explain.
So you don't get lost in it.
It's very scary.
And it's a frightening movie when you think about what went on in this country.
What was the year of that?
You remember?
Well, that was 208 that it really blew up.
Yeah, a lot of people lost their jobs.
And I remember Brad Pitt was in the movie.
And he said to these two people that were so happy because they bet against it.
And he said, don't be happy.
A lot of people lost their jobs and they have families that they now can't support.
Don't jump for joy in front of me again.
Yeah, they made a lot of money, but a lot of people's expense.
And the difficulty with all of that is that you start seeing how that impacts people
and how we really recognized right then and there that the economy was really on a thread.
The worst part about all of that in that whole movie, those products that they
utilized to sell money upon money upon money.
They all hedged their bets on loan portfolios that were being reprocessed.
Those are back in play.
And those are being used again.
The debentures and all those are just been renamed.
So nobody learns from history.
Nobody learned the American public.
And this is the key.
The American public lost $5 trillion on that deal.
And the American public paid for it and that one single person went to jail.
That's the biggest atrocity that really happened during that whole situation.
But we saw it.
We saw it firsthand.
I was literally in a meeting with a couple that he was making $40,000 a year.
She wasn't even working.
They're buying a $250,000 home.
And I said, you can't do this.
You can't afford it.
The lender said, yes, they can because if he gets a salary increase every year and she goes to work,
I said, that's all that's all hearsay.
That's not the situation that we're dealing with here.
This man does not make enough money to buy this house.
And he really wanted the house.
Of course he did.
He was going to buy a castle on a $40,000 salary.
And I said, I can't do this deal.
Because the person that was doing the loan had started doing loans about six months ago.
They didn't have any history.
They weren't like our bankers or our credit union people or anybody else who actually had history
and would look at the deal like that and say this is not good.
They just wanted to get that sale because that portfolio, that capital portfolio on the loan
was being resold and resold and resold and resold.
So when we saw that, I said to him, I can't do this deal.
And the lender actually said to me, and he's, of course on a business and long gone,
he said, well, you know, what's somebody well?
And sure enough, they ended up buying a house.
And I saw it within six months.
That house was in foreclosure already because they could afford it.
I sold real estate for a time.
And as a matter of fact, this past weekend, I came across an anti-SHA case in the basement.
I had a pride open because there's another combination on it.
And then there was all my old real estate papers.
When I sold real estate for a short time.
And all these properties were in there.
And I'm looking, it was like stepping back in time to the 1990s.
And I looked back, I had a real estate calculator.
And when anybody said to me, they wanted to buy a home.
I went on that calculator.
It was a special calculator.
And I said, that's what you can afford.
Yeah.
Not a penny more.
Right.
I didn't go to a lender to see what you can afford.
This calculator is going to tell you what you can afford.
Yeah.
And it doesn't lie.
No, they don't.
And that's the sad part about it is people were selling dreams.
And that's too bad because a lot of the American public bought those dreams.
And it cost them.
And it cost all of us.
You know, the city was in a huge financial crunch at that time.
And one of the first things that happened to me, ironically enough,
Tom Friedle got me a bed.
Ben sworn in.
So the next day was my first day of work.
And Tom Friedle came to my party that we're having at Salutez.
And he said, hey, listen, you need to stop drinking.
And I said, what are you talking about?
I just got sworn in.
And tomorrow's my first day in we're celebrating.
He said, no, the governor called.
And we have to be in Madison at 8 a.m.
Wow.
And I said, what's going on?
He said, I don't know, but I don't think it's good.
So Tom picked me up at 6 a.m.
And Tom was coming on as the city administrator.
He was the interim mayor and a great one at both those jobs, by the way.
And so we went up there and Jim Doyle came out and came through the room,
gave me a big hug because we had known each other for a while.
And so congratulations, John, and then cut our shared revenue by about $3 million.
So my first day was not even at the office.
And on the drive back, Tom and I were trying to figure out how we were going to save $3 million in our budget.
That was my first day.
Do you remember Mayor John Lindsay in New York?
Remember the name?
No, no, no.
Mayor John Lindsay.
He was a very handsome guy.
And I think he was a very smart guy.
But he's one of these handsome mayors, like yourself.
Do you have your glasses?
Check lately.
Deep Rosenberg can do that for you.
And the first day he took office at January 1st,
December 31st at midnight.
The guy, I forget his name.
He ran the unions for the subways and everything else.
Only transportation in Manhattan.
And at midnight, just as he sworn in, they went on strike.
And the guy got up on television.
He said, this mayor can go to hell.
The guy's office one minute.
Already can go to hell.
John Lindsay.
I'm going to think of that guy's name just a moment here.
He had 718 at WRJ and former mayor John Dickard is here.
We're going to talk about water in just a moment here.
Even at WRJ and civic media, hometown radio repressed.
Sunshine the day with a high day of 36 degrees right now.
Sunshine in 32 at 719.
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock.
Jingle bell swing and jingle bells ring.
Snowing and blowing up bushels at five.
Now the jingle hop has begun.
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock.
Jingle bell's time and jingle bell's time.
Dancer and prancer and jingle bell swear.
In the frosty air, water bright time.
It's the right time to rock the night away.
Jingle bell time is a swell time.
To go blinding in the one horse lane.
Getting up, jingle horse pick up your feet.
Jingle around the car.
Mixed and a mingle in the jingle and feet.
That's the jingle bell ride.
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock.
Jingle bell time and jingle bell's time.
It's 721 at WRJ and radio, former mayor John Dickard.
Former mayor, it sounds like you get dumped.
Former WRJ and announcer Don Rosen.
Want to do the concert to the zoo.
Everybody comes up, oh, you used to work at WRJ and...
Well, you know, I do have other jobs that I work at,
other radio stations.
Oh, yeah.
I remember when you were at WRJ and, you know,
thank you very much.
We all do.
Yeah, everything's...
Everybody's a former.
Yeah, yeah.
Former there's a former that.
Former mayor John Dickard.
So you became mayor.
And the first thing they did was cut your money.
So now you got to get to work.
Yep.
It wasn't a weekend, wasn't it?
No, that was a Monday.
Okay, good.
You got all week to figure out how to get the money back.
Yeah.
I mean, that's something.
When you just start your job and all of a sudden,
you got a major problem on your hand.
Yeah.
When did the cut take effect immediately?
Pretty much.
Yeah.
One times at three o'clock.
Yeah, I mean, we're...
At 330, you're out of money.
Yeah, me, we were starting our budgeting cycle.
So in June, you're pretty...
For the most part, you're starting your budgeting cycle.
So in the municipal aids that you get from the state of Wisconsin,
determine your budget because those are the aids
that you rely on as part of the revenue formula
that you have of the money coming in.
So to cut a big chunk that they did out,
it was because of the 208 housing crash.
I mean, the state had lost a ton of money.
The governor was cutting money everywhere.
He was trying to keep the state afloat.
And we were part of that...
Part of the damage control that was being done at that time.
So it's just, you know, there's no playbook for being mayor.
And you just got to come in and do the job.
And that's why you get gray hair and sleepless nights and all that.
But, you know, that's what the people hired me to do.
So we did our best.
And, you know, we were very, very proud of one thing and one thing.
I know what it is.
What?
The garbage recycling collectors.
No.
No, that was one of the toughest decisions ever.
They actually told me I was going to lose my job on that one.
But it was the right thing to do at the time.
And we should have done it.
But we never fired a single person.
In a year and a half of all the budget cuts that we had to make,
we never fired a single person.
Well, that is a good account.
That's a nice account.
That's where the only city in the region that did not let people go.
So that's terrific.
Yeah.
Because the fact was, I looked at it and said,
okay, if everybody else is struggling already,
losing their homes and everything else,
how are you going to tell people that at City Hall now that you're fired
when we need those services?
We still need the services.
So we did our best to do what we could to make sure that we were not going to let anybody go
and add to the misery of what was happening during that time.
Now, you were also brought in those nice cans we see outside.
The recycling and garbage collecting,
which automated the garbage trucks.
And it looks relatively easy because when I was a kid,
you had to lift those heavy garbage cans.
My father had a galvanized garbage bail he got.
Oh, yeah.
And it was very heavy.
And I remember the garbage collectors complained about it.
And he said, well, it's my garbage can.
Yeah.
And they took it and they put it in the truck and crushed it and left it on our front lawn.
No.
No, that's a message.
Yeah.
I'm going to argue with the teamsters outside.
It's like, no.
Get over here.
You're crushed.
Get back over here.
My father was a strong guy too.
Anyway, he used to have my brother and I take out the garbage at night.
And that required two people to do it.
Wow.
And I remember one time we didn't do it.
He gets up at 430 in the morning to go to work.
And he throws water on our faces.
Get the garbage out there.
Now, get him out.
Get him out.
We run out in our underwear at 4 o'clock in the morning, 430 in the morning.
And we're taking this garbage bail out in our sleep because he threw water in our face
to get it out there.
And he's right.
We should have taken it out the night before.
And when he looked out the window and then see it out there, there's a couple of water
right there.
Get the garbage bail out now.
And we're both out there in our underwear taking the garbage bail out.
So he had to buy cheap garbage bales.
But they had to lift those things.
Yeah.
Chippy.
And that had to be hard.
Yeah.
So we spend about $250,000 a year in accidents and in backs being thrown out and what they call
finger sticks, which is the garbage men and women have, when they were picking up the garbage
and bags and so forth and so on, they had special gloves because if people had needles
or anything sharp in the plastic bag and they grabbed it, they'd get a finger stick.
And those things are very dangerous for them depending on what they're getting cut by.
So we, a couple of things, we wanted to make sure that we weren't having there
or folks hurting themselves and throwing out their backs.
But also the fact that we had an accident where we lost one of our great pastors and friends
with a car that came up behind one of our trucks while he was loading and killed him.
Yeah, that was one of the worst days of my life.
But so we decided to go to automatic and they automated for those two reasons.
Number one, we didn't want anybody getting hurt.
And the number two, we wanted to make sure that we were trying to relieve that $250,000 a year
that we were losing because our employees were throwing out their backs or hurting themselves.
We wanted to protect them from that. So those two things happen.
Why did you stand? Why didn't you want to be mayor again?
Well, we did the three terms. No, it really was a, it's always been a family decision.
And you know, the first time I ran and the other two times I ran.
And the third time everybody kind of was like, enough.
What people don't understand is how difficult it is on the family.
And it was tough on my kids.
And you know, it's a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time.
So we did as much as we could to make sure we were there for our family constantly.
But you know, after a while it gets a little bit much.
And my wife and I had a conversation and you know, she said,
as part of this conversation about running again, she said,
she said, what haven't you done that you promised you would do?
So I went back through the 10 year plan that we had put together to start this whole thing.
And 98% of it was done.
The only thing that we hadn't accomplished was a senior center,
a separate senior center for everybody in the scene.
And then the Latino outreach area that we were putting into Caesar Chavez
and had been started, that was the only other thing that wasn't completed.
And she said, you know what's going to happen now is you're going to get bored.
And I said, well, there's a little truth to that because I like to fix things and then move on.
But I always told everybody that, you know, I'm coming here to fix things.
And you know, once you get done, I think rather than just overstaying your welcome there,
it's time to move on.
And what I was looking at was I was looking at the global issues in climate and water.
And those issues were growing.
And I wasn't able to do anything about it at that level.
So it was time.
And that's where we're going to pick up in the next half hour water.
And he's already changed my wife's life just by talking to you on the phone for a few minutes.
Her entire life has changed with water.
So I will tell the story coming up in just a moment.
It's 728 at WRJN radio.
It's going to be a sunny day with a hundred thirty six today.
Part of the cloudy tonight.
Loads twenty four tomorrow.
Sunshine again with a hundred thirty eight.
Hard to believe it's going to be winter in a couple of days.
Right now it's sunny and we're dropping to thirty degrees.
But it's nice out there.
Crisp cold morning.
Feels good.
I'm Don Rose in its civic media hometown radio refreshed WRJN at 1400 AM.
99.9 FM in Racine 98.1 FM in Kenosha.
My guess is former Mayor John Dickard more coming up right after news headlines.
Burger King if I get an order of onion rings there's always a couple of French fries mixed in there with them.
Always but if I get the French fries there's never any onion rings mixed in there.
Are they in the same pile or aren't they?
You know sometimes you go to McDonald's and Burger King sometimes the people that work there they're sharp and run the ball.
Other times you just got to wonder you know you got to wonder what that hiring interview was like.
Please come in sit down can you mumble?
Can you mumble without making eye contact?
Would you be willing to go around with your coworkers while the customer grows impatient?
Great I think you'd be good candidate for management training program.
We're going to have you watch an eight minute training video then we'll put you on the front counter.
People get their own drinks and I just got a hand on my cup.
Oh when you hand them a cup make sure your fingers are sticking down inside the cup.
That's our policy.
And just give them a bag of food and you're done there's no need to say thank you because we wrote that on the trash box.
But baby it's cold outside.
But baby it's cold outside.
Been hoping that you drop in.
I'll hold your hands that just like ice.
Beautiful what's your bottom?
Listen to the fireplace roll.
Beautiful please don't worry.
Put some records on what I pour.
Baby it's bad out there.
No caps to be had out there.
Your eyes are like starlight now.
I'll take your hat your hair look swell.
Mine is if I'm moving.
What's the sense of her?
My pride.
Baby don't hold out.
Baby it's cold outside.
Baby it's cold outside.
The answer is no.
Actually it's 30 degrees it's not that bad sunny and 30 degrees from a mayor John Dickard is with me.
And now we're going to talk about the topic that I was waiting for.
We're going to talk about water because after you left the job as mayor of Racine.
You got involved in water.
I know when you say get involved in water.
What was your involvement?
I was sat on the board of directors for the Great Lakes St. Lawrence City's initiative which is the mayor's and the United States and Canada on the Great Lakes in St. Lawrence.
The job was to take over that group after our executive director had retired and our mission was to protect the water of the Great Lakes in St. Lawrence.
And it takes a lot of work to do that because there's a lot going on in the Great Lakes and in the river system.
So I did that for two years and we had to do a lot of kind of 21st century that whole system that we were there working with.
But then the governor tapped me and said hey we'd like you to come and run state and look for finance for the state of Wisconsin.
So talk to them for quite a bit and we came to an agreement and I went back to work with my good friend Peter Berka.
So he was a secretary of revenue and still is a secretary of revenue.
So I went to help him out and start working in that area.
So we went to work with state and local finance.
We do about 1.4 billion municipal aides.
So the shared revenue aides that we were talking about earlier.
Now I'm that top guy on the shared revenue side.
So of course we're trying to increase the shared revenue at that point.
Yeah so it was you know I was blessed with an amazing team and we brought a bunch of new people on board.
But you know that has been I think one of the one of the truly great things that I've been really blessed with is that
you know at City Hall we had some just absolutely amazing people we brought on some really incredible people.
Chief of Staff Greg Bach was with me and you know we just had this incredible group of people that we surround in ourselves with and smarter than myself.
I mean and that's the key right is you have to make sure you surround yourself with smarter people.
And they challenged me every day and they would you know we would go back and forth on issues and items but
but same thing at the Department of Revenue just unbelievably smart people and you know we just kept hiring people that were
better and smarter than me and you lead them into doing the right thing.
And you know if that's how you focus your life and doing what's right for people.
There's no looking in the mirror every morning and not being happy with your life.
So get me into the point of water because I talked to you on the phone last week.
We're talking about water and I said I drink this stuff.
Ice mountain water and you just looked at the label and it's a natural spring so you can just drink it.
That's not to be purified enough to be filtered down to be anything.
And I took a look at it after I spoke to you on the phone and I said hmm start holding up to the line.
Anything floating there I should know about and they fill that up from a natural aquifer or spring.
Okay and there's one there's there's a couple around here there's one in Milwaukee pops up on somebody's street
and people just load up their buckets next to that it's an aquifer just.
And there's one at petrified petrified springs.
And that's where my wife loads up this giant water bottle and she put it in a
bretifilter and you said don't do that you said just drink it it's you looked it up it's
from a natural aquifer about what 20 40 feet down whatever.
And it's safe to drink.
So when you look at the water that we have and you know basically for the most part Wisconsin
is floating on water I mean we are we are part of a huge water system
in that aquifer depending on you know how deep it is and where it's sitting in
so if it's sitting in limestone we might get radium from it but
the reality is that those aquifers that's natural mineralized water
so if you pull it up and put it through a bretifilter you're taking the minerals out
that are actually really good for you.
And a lot of times we over filter our water and the minerals that are so important to us
we're taking those out.
The crazy part about bottled water and most people don't know this is
it's not regulated.
And most bottled water that's tested actually has PFAS in it
which is the forever chemical that we're trying to get out of our system in the country.
So one of the things that we always tell people is you know the best thing
you can do is just take the water out of the tap because you know what's coming out of your tap
and we're seeing you don't know what's coming out of the bottle water
especially if it's purified water because all that means is it's gone through a filter.
We don't know what kind of filter but it's gone through a filter.
So you know we always check our water.
You know we're checking our wells around the state of Wisconsin right now to determine what's
there in the PFAS realm but for the most part you know water from an aquifer
and mineralized water like you get from a spring like that
it's probably better than any bottled water you'll get for the most part
especially if it's purified and you know I would suggest you can test the water to find out.
How much is that to test it? I don't know.
I mean Julie Kinsleman used to do that with the health department.
You can check with the health department at Dotty K.
Another amazing woman that we had at City Hall and
and you know just get a test on it and find out she can do one test because if it's
coming from the same aquifer that that test should show if there's anything in there it's bad
but for the most part it's not.
Radium is that bad for you?
It's in the water.
Well if the water is in limestone.
If it's sitting in limestone it's in limestone.
Well we can check the aquifer.
I have it tested.
You just have it tested.
Maybe that's why I've been feeling kind of dizzy.
Oh okay.
Now I'm just not imagining all the things I've been feeling.
No no it's still water is great for you.
And sure they wouldn't put radium in here.
Well it's not that they put it in there.
It's the rock that the limestone is.
Or the little rock that the radium does.
What can I say?
It's just not necessarily great for you.
But you know in little quantities I'm sure you'll be alright.
And look at your hair is turning green already.
So look at this tick I have in my left eye.
That's different.
Well that's scary.
You know this reminded me of that Aaron Brockovich movie.
Yeah.
With these people or at
They're next to a chemical plant and the water was killing them.
Yeah.
And stillborns and all horrible things until Aaron Brockovich went on the scene.
Well what they did was they tested the water and found that there were chemicals in it
that were leachating from the chemical plant.
And for the most part the chemical plant was kind of throwing it all in the backyard right.
Not thinking that it's going to eventually get done on aquifer which it does.
So yeah that's the problem that you know we always have to deal with.
And that's why we always have to be very cautious.
Water's life.
You know that's one of the things that our native tribes remind us every day is water is life.
So but we really over purify our water often times.
And then we lose those minerals that are really really beneficial for us.
But you can't take the radium out of the water by purifying it.
Yeah.
Actually you can.
A lot of times you can either do that or depending on if it's gaseous or not you just let it you know let it sit.
You know you can take if people are worried about chlorine in the water from the scene.
You can just let it sit overnight in that chlorine just evaporate.
Let me put that on my anxiety list for 2024 radium in the water.
No, no, no, it all depends on what aquifer it's from.
How deep it may be from this aquifer here.
Yeah.
What about, see that's not tested.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no bottle water is tested for the most part.
They'll test it like maybe once a year.
It says from Stony Creek Springs, Urbana, Ohio or it says and or Walnut Grove Springs in Brookfield, Indiana.
So the crazy part about it is a bottle of water can size mountain.
Yeah, it's probably about a pint of water.
If you were to take that out of your tap it would cost you about one tenth of a thirteenth percent of a penny.
So you know the water that we provide in Racine also you know was nominated and won best tasting water in America.
But our water department folks they do an amazing job and they make darn sure your water is pure.
Dennis Miller the comedian did a funny bit.
He held it a bottle of water and he said the most abundant source on the plant of his water.
And we're charging people three bucks a bottle for this stuff.
It's crazy. It's all free in the planet.
And we're charging people for this money.
Let's say just take a take a container fill it up with water at night and just you know we use containers.
We don't drink bottle water at our house.
We just use containers. We fill them up.
We just drink them because that's what do you fill them up?
Tap water?
Oh yeah. Thanks.
Our tap water is fantastic.
Is that a rating minute?
No.
You had it tested?
Every day, three times a day.
You don't test it.
The city does.
Sure.
Maybe I should switch.
It tastes funny because I'm used to this.
You're closer to the plant which means you've got a little bit of chlorine in it because chlorine has to be infused into the water to make sure it's good for you.
Is that good for you?
Not necessarily but as it's going through the pipes it's got to keep cleaning.
It's only something.
But here's the thing.
You simply fill up a gallon of water.
You leave it out overnight.
That chlorine dissipates.
Oh, this is getting very complicated.
Oh no, it's simple.
Just take a gallon of water.
It's what we do.
Put it out at night.
Let it dissipate.
Morning, we're good.
Easy, easy, easy.
Remember crypto-spiridium?
That's a great bug on a great late.
We learned a lot of lessons from that one.
Let me tell you.
What was that crypto-spiridium?
Well, what it was happening was they were having outflows during heavy rain events and the
bad side of the water because they had so much water coming through.
They had to actually do a direct, in essence, a direct dump into the lake.
Normally they just shocked that with chlorine before they put it out.
But I don't think they did this time.
It was too close to the intake.
So what happened was that went out.
Intake took it in.
Even though it's purified, you're drinking fecal content.
That's where the crypto-spiridium came from.
I think at that time I was using bottled water anyway.
We had a water cooler in our house.
I thought I saw something floating in there.
This is on my anxiety list now.
My mother used to say to me, if you don't have anxiety, you tend to look for it.
It's for things to bother you.
You got to be positive.
I mean, listen, our folks don't have the clean water department.
I know they do.
They do a great job.
They really do.
And the system that we have cleans out water to a purity level of 99.9 to the fourth power.
So trust me, you're getting good clean water.
But it tastes different.
I'm used to this stuff.
You know, I'm going to fill up a bottle when I go home.
Fill it up.
Leave it out.
Leave it out.
You're going to love it.
Sounds like a lot of work.
It's not.
It may not be.
It sounds like a lot of work.
I want to talk about what happened in walkershaw.
They ran out of water.
It's ironic what to break you in the middle because they break them up.
But go ahead, start it.
It's ironic considering the fact if you look at walkershaws history,
they had spring water.
And the spring water was so high in mineral content that people used to come to the walkershaws springs.
People from Chicago would take the train up to come to the walkershaws springs.
Because they had that much mineral contract content in it that they found it as an elixir.
That it fixed all their ails.
So when they've gone from that to the fact that their aquifers were running short,
they were growing and they needed more water.
So that's where the compact challenge came in.
So they ran, their aquifer ran dry.
Is what did it happen?
It was running dry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they had to get water there from the great lakes.
And we're going to talk about how they did it because I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who drives a bus.
And he said they had to run the pipe all the way down from walkershaw to Milwaukee.
Do you know about that?
Not that far, no.
No, it wasn't that far.
Well, he said his bus had to make a lot of it when they were doing it.
Constructing the pipeline.
He said he had to make a lot of turns to get around that thing because they had a route and the pipe interrupted the route.
I think it was about a mile.
Well, that's it?
Yeah.
It wasn't that far.
Yeah.
Okay, let's talk about that in the end of the year.
It's at the record straight.
All right.
What were Mayor John Dicker to see you're scaring us this morning talking about water?
You know what I want for Christmas?
I want clean water.
It's walking on the lake, grabbing right out of the lake.
It's drinkable.
Forget the fish.
You may go off with it.
Pay no attention to that thing swimming around in your glass of water.
I'm Don Rosen.
Thanks for joining us here at Civic Media.
hometown radio refreshed.
It's 749.
We're carrying through the night.
And the Christmas will be very special Christmas for me.
This Christmas, and as I look around your eyes, I'll shine the town with you.
This Christmas, my eyes blazing bright.
752 at WRJN, former Mayor John Dicker, is here.
We're talking about water right now.
And we mentioned that walk a shower.
Their aquifer was running dry.
And so they had to get water from somewhere.
And of course, you got the great lakes sitting right out here.
So how did they do that?
What they were going to pipe to the lake?
How did that work?
What they ended up doing, it was a bit of a challenge.
They'd come to us originally and asked us to provide them water.
And I said, that's kind of an insane thought given a thing.
I don't know, maybe 80 miles to get a pipe all the way up to them.
They talked to Oak Creek, same thing.
Oak Creek kind of thought, wait a minute, this is a little bit much.
And so they threw a lot of conversations and negotiations over the compact.
Because it's a great lakes compact that was signed by Congress with all the premieres
and the governors from the US and Canada.
That said that we've got to create basically the water can't leave the base
and where the water comes in from, which is actually within the states that are bordered.
So a lot of people had asked me when I was mayor if we could ship water out to Arizona
and had literally had these conversations about, can you send me water?
And I told them, I said, you'd be cheaper to free you to just buy champagne and use that.
Because it's not pushing the water out or moving the water out there
that is first of all illegal and crazy, but it's pumping it that far.
It would make it the most expensive water in the history of the world.
So they don't understand that dynamic, right?
And I told them, I said, listen, you built a city in the middle of the desert.
And it's not my job to provide you water.
You can't provide me sunshine and 80 degree days in the middle of December
and I can't provide you water.
So what we did was we worked in my job as the chair at that time of the Great Lake St. Lawrence City's initiative
was to debate and argue our side, the mayor's side, for not pushing the water outside the compact.
Governor Walker was on the side of Walker Shot that point.
He was running for reelection. He didn't want to upset the Walker Shot people and said,
we're doing this whether you like it or not, in essence.
And I don't fault the mayor.
The mayor of Walker Shot is a great person.
He's also a great man and does a great job.
He was fighting for his city.
I never fault him for doing that.
And we have a great mutual respect for each other.
But for the compact, my job was to fight to make sure that we were going to keep water within the basin.
So they got an extension as a, what they'd call a neighboring community.
And so eventually through all the debates and negotiations and conversations was about a year,
what they did was they just decided to tap into the Milwaukee system.
What we wanted them to do was to tap into the Milwaukee sewer system as well.
But instead, they built a treatment plant and then they dumped it down the river.
And that was the other thing that I opposed.
I didn't want the water coming down the river because there's certain things that were not coming out in the treatment process.
So we want to keep our river as clean as possible.
So that was kind of the argument back and forth.
And we went at it pretty good.
We were on a lot of live shows and a lot of debates and things like that.
But always going to fight for water.
And I always suggest to people, if you don't have water, come on over.
We're here.
You can move into our area.
We got plenty of water for you.
And it all goes back into the lake.
So we're happy to have you.
Every living creature, including all plant life, needs water.
Absolutely.
You can't do without it.
And when we run out of it, bye-bye.
There's no getting around it.
And luckily we have rain.
But I've seen some of these basins out in Nevada or the Grand Canyon area out there.
They're finding, like mead.
They're finding dead body.
The lake is so low.
They're finding dead bodies from the mob where they dump the bodies in the lake.
That's how low the water level is.
Yeah.
It's dangerously low.
And yet Las Vegas keeps growing.
And they saw us into climate change as well.
Well, yeah.
I mean, listen.
One of the things that people forget about with climate change is people will deny and everything else.
And I always say to them, you can deny all you want.
But the reality is this.
Things are happening on the planet that are not normal.
Right now, on an annual basis, we're paying $520 billion a year for all the disasters that are going on in the United States alone.
Every time a natural disaster like that hits, you get about 20 million people that fall in the poverty.
Because you wipe away your home.
What have you got?
We'll insurance pay for the whole thing.
Once it gets wiped away again two years later.
So, you know, there's a lot of these things that impact us.
They have an impact on us.
So, where does $520 billion go?
Well, if a hurricane comes through Florida, we're paying for that.
Florida doesn't pay for that.
The country pays for that.
So, it hurts them, but it hurts us.
So, I say, whether you like climate change or not, the fact is it's hurting us.
You can't stop it.
No, you can in a way.
You can help you slow it down.
I was aware that I'm looking for with doing certain things with this planet.
You can slow it down.
But inevitably, it's going to happen.
This is just the way things are.
But you can't slow it down a little bit.
And it's eerie to see some of these snow-capped mountains that no longer have snow on them.
Tell them in jaros.
One of them out in Kilimanjaro.
No more snow.
It used to be a place where people, you know, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in the snow.
Now they can wear their spring jackets and walking shoes to go climb that mountain now.
It's so great talking to you again.
Yeah, it was.
It was.
It was very good to have you.
And we'll have you back again.
And of course, if you missed any of this, you can hear the podcast at civicmedia.us
or go to www.wrjn.com to pull down menu.
It shows.
Go look for Don Rosen.
Click on it.
And this morning, this will be up there again.
So you can listen to it again.
Thank you.
It's such a pleasure having you back.
Thank you very much.
Good to see you.
So when you're running from Mary again.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas to your family.
He always speaks this morning.
He drives by my house.
Yes, I do.
I won't tell you what I told him.
I'm Don Rosen.
Thanks for joining us here at WRJN Radio.
Back again tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
Right nearly at civic media, WRJN.
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Thank you very much.