Transcript
Protecting Our Pollinators with Amy Barrilleaux (Hour 2)
The Todd Allbaugh Show · Mon Jun 16, 2025
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Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm Todd Albaul, along with our outstanding producer, engineer, Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board.
It is six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.
Welcome into hour number two of the broadcast here on a Monday, June 16th, 2025.
It is a great day to be Wisconsinite.
Sun trying to pop out here at the World World headquarters in downtown Madison on State Street.
Going to be sultry muggy this week.
Look for some rain.
Tuesday into Wednesday, some storms might be strong.
We'll keep you up to date on that.
And then maybe 90 by the weekend.
Glad to have you along.
Many thanks to states that are Keldor Royce for being here in hour number one.
One of the many things I appreciate about her is the fact you can ask her any.
She's not one of these people that says, well, you know, you gotta, you know, only ask.
No, no, no.
She's like anything you want.
No, no preconditions.
And I love that.
And I appreciated her, her honest answers to some difficult questions.
There you go.
There you go.
Also, we forgot to mention this is our number one, because we had the big, the big text to win trivia contest extraordinaire.
And many people, including mom.
I'd say, well, do people win these things?
Yes, yes, as a matter of fact.
And on Friday, we had the big thing on the Bob Uker tribute game in August.
So we gave away, and it wasn't, I always forget, it's not just the news talk side.
You have the music stations across Wisconsin as a part of civic media.
So I wanted to let you know that Dawn,
Don up in beautiful Park Falls who is listening WCQM our music station up there in Park Falls Don was the winner on Friday of those Bob Euker tickets to the tribute of life Game ceremony back in coming up in August so congratulations Don.
Thanks for listening to civic media and also we had a couple of grand prize winners
as well for those two big trips.
And we're going to be notifying them soon as soon as we have their names, we'll release that as well.
So thanks to everybody who played our text to win Scotty Summer Trivia Contest.
Another one is coming up by here in September.
So be listening to that.
But in the meantime, coming up this Friday, we're going to be going back to our free Friday ticket.
Brewer giveaway.
So stay tuned on Friday.
We'll give you another opportunity to win Brewer's tickets across the Civic Media radio network.
Our next guest here at nine minutes past the hour of three o'clock.
You don't need to win a trivia contest to see his great work.
All you need to do is log on to Wisconsin Watch where you can find Tom Kertcher and all the great reporters there at Wisconsin Watch.
He joins us via StreamYard.
Tom, thanks so very much for being with us.
Tom, you're welcome.
I don't know if you allowed bragging on a Monday, but a quick break.
I spent most of my new career been reporting on politics, state government, that sort of thing.
But for 17 years until recently, I also did some freelance reporting covering sports for the Associated Press, including Milwaukee Brewer's games.
And one claim to fame is that I once made Bob Uker laugh.
Really?
Now that
must be hard to do, baby.
No, you think?
I mean, he's a super, super funny guy.
You see professional comedians talk about how much they admire him, his humor.
So yeah, I had a moment of pride when we were in the media elevator and he made a comment and I made a retort and he laughed and I thought, wow, this.
I'll never happen to me again.
That's I know this is something we can share on the air.
It is not.
It is not.
It is not something.
Which is
probably if you if you talk to people that actually hung around Uker off the air, many of the things that made Uker laugh are not things we can necessarily share on the air.
Well, to be.
Yeah.
He had a he had a great sense of humor.
I thought, well, absolutely.
He's super funny.
Great timing.
And I could tell when I made the comment that he chuckled that he seemed to catch himself for a moment, like, wait a minute, I'm the funny guy.
You're not supposed to make me laugh.
Well, that's a great claim of fame.
You're a Renaissance man, Tom Kirchner.
Not only can you do great
reporting, you can also make the late great Bob Uker laugh and tell a great joke as well.
That's fantastic.
Well, Tom, you were up in Wisconsin Dells this weekend.
and at the Democratic State Convention there in the Dells wrote a great piece on it entitled Wisconsin Democrats search for answers as fear of autocracy galvanizes the grass roots.
So give us the lay of the land.
We had state state Senator Kelder Royce Democrat here last hour, last half hour.
Give us first of all just the serious side of this because this terrible tragedy.
This assassination of a city legislator and the attempted assassination of another and his wife happened over the weekend in next door, Minnesota.
It was reported that because of this, and because there were Wisconsin legislators on the manifesto of this assassin, that security was upgraded at the Democratic Convention, the Dells.
Did you notice that?
Was that felt?
What was the feel of the land up there?
Yeah, just a moment before I get into that, just to set the stage a little bit.
I covered the Republican State Convention last month in the Wausau area and took the approach of trying to interview rank and file party members about what was on their mind as opposed to interviewing the elected folks.
I took the same approach at the Democratic Convention.
You're right, there was a little bit of a surreal feel in the sense that
Here we are at a resort in Lake Dalton, you know, a few miles from the water park capital of the world, right?
You know, just fun and frolic.
And when I arrived about three o'clock Saturday, you know, the first thing I noticed was outside of the convention center next to the resort area.
There were several police officers in the front door and a car nearby and then inside Periodically throughout the afternoon and evening.
I would see an officer walk through and that was you know clearly an indication of what had happened in Minnesota
Yeah, so brain time is for sure again You're a reporter's reporter Tom and out of all this tragedy
One of the things that I really admired was the local reporting, particularly Minnesota Star Tribune and some of the WCCO staff.
And I think just another example, why we need great independent or like Wisconsin Watchers, great local reporters, when times are tough, when tragedies strike, there's really no better way than for people who are on these beats who can get to the facts right away.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the more the better, right?
The more reporters you have to cover the field, so to speak.
The more that have experience with the local scene makes a huge difference.
And I think particularly in an event like that where the facts roll out in a messy way.
It takes time to sort out what exactly happened.
Was someone killed?
Was someone injured?
Was it a gun?
Where did it happen?
Who was this person?
you know, having reporters on the ground who have experience and can get as quickly as possible to the salient facts and not just crucial.
All right, let's get to the the more political interesting thing of the of the convention and I'm talking about the Democrats elected a new chair, of course, Ben Wichler, longtime chair announced he would not run again, said he wasn't going to endorse anybody.
And then two or three weeks ago, he said, actually, no, check that.
I'm actually going to endorse my my number two guy or number one of my vice chair, Devin Remacher, Joseph Pecky.
long-time communication strategist for Democrats had already kind of announced and gotten a lot of endorsements.
And then you had this guy, I believe his last name is Garcia from the third congressional district, which was confusing to me because third district Democrats have not done particularly well, but that guy threw his head into the ring and then all the chaos and fun
ensued.
Yeah, it's certainly Ben Wickler has got several warm receptions, several standing ovations.
He spoke at different points on Saturday and, you know, a lot of adulation for him.
So you have to imagine that his endorsement of Devin Rembacher, who used to be the executive director of the state party, had to carry a lot with a lot of weight with the delegates who are the ones who voted and chose the current chair.
So, uh, Devin Remerker comes through and it helped me understand this, uh, Tom, because, you know, I'm a former Republican.
Uh, maybe I'll be, I'll be, I guess Democrats do things different in a lot of regards, but.
I don't understand why they do this whole ranked choice voting.
I like ranked choice voting when it comes like electing people to elective office.
But to me, it was Democrats trying too hard.
Oh, let's make less than an example.
Ranked choice voting to elected chair, you know, it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Was this confusing to you or attendees or I don't know.
You know, it's that's something I get into very much.
I know that they approve that change, I believe.
in 2020, and this is the first time that there has been a challenge or chair.
So it's the first time they've used that.
I think it would be interesting to see what people felt about it, whether they would want to keep it going forward.
But I have to say that the focus of my work on the weekend was speaking to the rank and file delegates, and I don't get the sense that was high.
on their priority list, the chair election or who won, they had other thoughts.
Really?
So I was going to say the right choice was the higher priority.
I get that because I'm a political nerd and a goofball.
But so you're telling me that who became chair wasn't as big a deal as other issues?
Well, you know, what I did is I would just buttonhole delegates and other guests.
Not everyone there was an official delegate.
There were guests as well.
And start off with simple questions.
Why are you here?
And what do you want to see the party do?
And I was struck by, and, you know, clearly this has been a scientific sample, but, you know, in interviewing eight or 10 of them, three of them, middle-aged people said they were attending their state convention for the first time.
One
of
them even said, this is
the
first time I've ever been politically active at all.
And all three of them said that the reason that they took that step to come to the convention was their fear of President Trump threatening democracy.
And that was echoed by another more veteran delegate from the Stevens Point area.
A lot of conventions, unlike those first three people, and he had the same take that his primary purpose of wanting to come was to see what could be done to counter some of what's happening in Washington.
About a minute and a half left, again, from the outsider, but as someone who ran internal party elections and worked elected on the Republican side, to me, Joseph Pecky, who's been on this show,
is a great communicator and can do narrative well.
I don't know Remaker.
I've never talked to the guy.
He does not seem to be the communicator that Joseph Pecky is, but clearly the delegates voting wanted him there.
It seems odd to me, Tom, and this has been one of my frustrations with Democrats, is there more concerned about the policy or very concerned about Donald Trump?
Aren't we all, or at least a lot of us are, including myself.
But in order to defeat that, you have to have someone who has a good message
And it just seems weird to me that they weren't, they didn't, they weren't that concerned about who became chair.
Like, well, it doesn't really matter.
I think it does.
Yeah, I don't want to get the wrong impression.
I wouldn't say that the people I spoke to, the people I interviewed say it didn't matter.
It was just that they were there for a different reason.
They were telling me, hey, we're very concerned about the state of democracy in the country, a shift toward our accuracy, as some of them put it.
and we want to get together and talk about how do we resist that?
Certainly part of that is who's going to run the state party.
But I think what was driving people to come to the convention, the ones I spoke to, was more the bigger picture.
Come back to talk more with Tom Kertcher from Wisconsin Watch after this and answer the age old question, boxers or briefs?
No, no, no, it's fact briefs.
That's what it is, fact briefs with Tom on the other side.
Don't go anywhere, it's the Todd Hall Pulse Show on the Civic Media.
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Pursuing truth wherever it may lead and having fun doing it.
Welcome back to the top of all show on the Civic Media already that we're coming up after the bottom of the hour update going to talk about pollinator month.
pollinator month.
That should be interesting.
Looking forward to that.
But right now, our guest from Wisconsin Watch is the great Tom Kircher, who is at the Democratic State Convention over the weekend.
Tom had a couple of callers called in here.
Says Trisha in Appleton called in.
She was at the convention.
And when she asked why they were using ranked choice voting, they told her it was a mandate from the DNC and that they were required to use it.
That's that's I did not know that I'm not sure that's one person anyway Yeah, all right, that's that's interesting call there from from that individual any other before I get into the the fact briefs anything else from the the convention you want to wrap up on
I think just one thought was that while there was agreement among the people I interviewed that They're worried about the future of democracy was was strong that there wasn't a clear
agreement on what to do.
One of the people I interviewed said he wanted to see more resistance like the senator from California who was arrested last week interrupting a news conference from Trump's Homeland Security Director.
He felt like that sort of action needs to happen more, but I'm not sure there's a consensus on that.
Interesting.
All right, Tom, I love this part of the
of the segment, the fact briefs, tell us what this is and give us a couple, please.
Yeah, so Wisconsin Watch has a feature called fact briefs.
We look at a claim that's made by a politician.
We structure it in the form of a question that we answer yes or no, and they're done in 150 words.
Love
this.
Yeah, the most recent one I did asked whether the typical
public housing tenant in the United States stays in public housing for 12 years.
Is that true or false?
All right.
And that
statement was.
Yeah.
So Congressman Glenn Grokman from the Eastern Wisconsin said that the average stay in a public housing project is 12 years.
So this is one of the cases where he's correct.
If you look at an average, it actually is 12 years.
But
misleading in the sense that that's not, that doesn't represent the typical resident.
The average considers people who stay very, very long, like the disabled and the elderly, they may stay many, many years, that's gonna raise the average, of course.
The median, if you think about the more typical, it's four years.
People who live in public housing projects, half of them stay for about four years, half of them stay for less.
This is fantastic reporting.
Every time I chuckle what he mentioned, Congressman Grossman's name is because I know Glenn from my years working in the state Senate when he was a state senator.
He's an intriguing, eclectic guy, but yes, Congressman Grossman is wanting to kind of select certain things.
And I think this is just unfortunate, his statement.
I'm so glad you've corrected this because...
You look at the disabled or people who might not have the ability to get out of public housing versus, as you said, the median, where people, if you give them some help, they move on and get out of it in, what do you say, a median age of four years?
Yeah, again, what he said was accurate.
It's just maybe needing a little more context so they don't get the wrong impression that the typical
Public housing tenant is staying 12 years one.
In fact, it's the typical tenant is quite a bit less.
Although some people would say four years are not full on 10 too.
Right.
Tom Kircher, next, a fact brief,
please.
So another one we looked at is the has to do with the big, beautiful bill as the president calls it.
That's being debated still in Congress.
And there are.
A couple claims from our Wisconsin lawmakers, Gwen Moore, the Congresswoman from Milwaukee, and the Democratic said Ron Johnson, the Republican Senator, both talked about how that bill is projected to add at least $2 trillion to the federal debt.
And that's true.
We looked at the nonpartisan analysis from a number of different organizations.
They all came up in the range of two to three trillion dollars in debt over 10 years, if that big, beautiful bill becomes law.
Very interesting.
And so there's a case.
And it's a fascinating Gwen Moore and Ron Johnson, very two diametrically different people on the political spectrum and for completely different reasons wanted to point this out, I would say.
Yeah, and I think we just wanted to weigh in this because there was a number of statements made that people who are supporting that bill believe it'll generate economic growth that, in fact, there won't be additions to the debt.
But that's an argument to be made, but that's not shown in the nonpartisan analyses that we looked at.
Always great to talk with you, Tom.
Do you want to tease anything forward stories that you're working on, either you or the great folks at Wisconsin Watch?
Yeah, thanks for asking.
So as we as we did with the Republican State Convention, we did produce several fact checks, fact briefs out of that.
And that's our plan for the Democratic Convention as well.
The one I've started to work on, I don't know the answer to is.
Is there a rural county in Wisconsin where more than half of the residents receive SNAP food stamps?
Is there a county in Wisconsin where more than half the residents receive food stamps?
That's very interesting.
I would think we're talking about total population.
So, yeah, the percentage, and I would just add that we're asking whether there's a rural county.
A person might think that it's, you know, an urban county would be more likely, but, you know, we're taking a look at whether there's actually a rural county in Wisconsin or more than half of the residents.
Can we say who made the claim yet?
Yeah, that was actually from the keynote speaker at the Democratic Convention, Rafael Warnock, the US Senator from Georgia.
And so it was interesting to me whether it's accurate or not.
So we're going to take a
look.
Did he name the county or he just said there was a county in Wisconsin?
He did name the county.
Really?
Can we say who it is?
Sure.
He said it was Menominee County.
Wow.
He's accurate about that.
That is, I can't now see that's a tease.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll find out from Tom Kirchner next week.
Yeah.
Very good.
And look at Wisconsin.
Watch.
Thank you very much.
Tom, I always appreciate you.
Come on back.
Welcome
to talk about pollinator month on the other side.
Stay tuned for news, whether it's sports, it's civic media is ready to welcome back to the title ball show across the state of Wisconsin and the civic media ready to work 35 minutes now past the hour of three o'clock on this Monday, June 16th.
Glad to have you along the summers on the board.
Joining us here live in studio always love when that happened We have Amy Berrio who is the communications director of clean, Wisconsin to talk to us a little bit about pollinator month Amy first of all.
Thanks for stopping by.
How are you?
I'm fine.
How are you doing?
All things considered, doing well.
It's almost summer, I was going to say springtime.
As a guy who is affected by allergies, I'm not a fan of pollen.
It's very, very important to the ecology and environment around here.
We're going to get into that in a minute.
But first of all, tell us, Amy, a little bit about yourself.
Well, I am a communications director, as you mentioned, for Clean Wisconsin.
I'm originally from Louisiana, hence the very long Cajun last name that I have.
And I bring that kind of perspective up here when I communicate about the natural issues of our state, our clean water, clean air, healthy landscapes.
Louisiana is a big outdoor state and so is Wisconsin.
So they have that in common.
And I just have to like, you know, make it through the winters and then this time of year, like this humidity outside, I'm totally fine with.
You feel right at home.
How long have you been up in Wisconsin?
I've been here for, I think 14 years.
I should be acclimated.
Now it's very intriguing to me because Jacqueline, our human resource director here at Civic Media, she's also a native Louisiana.
OK, now we have to meet.
Yeah, we'll
introduce you.
But both neither one of you have that what I would call a traditional Louisiana accent.
Is that
something that that you lose when you come north?
She says when she goes back down home, it
comes out.
Right.
Yeah, like I'm fixing to go home in a couple of days and sorry, kind of starting to I'm ready.
Ready to slide back into that Louisiana, eat some crawfish and some crabs that my dad has.
You know, he's picking up tomorrow.
So.
Yeah, it comes out.
It comes out.
But when you're up here, you know, you kind of like rain it in a little
bit.
LSU fan?
Oh, I went to LSU.
Did you really feel that?
I
did.
Very good.
We, Jacqueline's a big, as I am, a college football fan, so she loves her Tigers.
Well, I'm going to have to meet this Jacqueline.
Maybe I know her.
I don't know.
You might.
You might.
As they say, that's not why you're called.
But it's fascinating nonetheless.
So tell us a little bit about, for folks that don't know, what
Clean Wisconsin is, what is the organization and what is their primary focus?
So Clean Wisconsin is the oldest environmental group in Wisconsin.
We've been working since 1970 to protect Wisconsin's clean air, safe water, our land and our climate.
So that's a lot of things.
That's our environment.
It's all those things that we rely on to be safe and healthy and happy in Wisconsin.
Back then, we were called Wisconsin's Environmental Decade because I think the thought was,
In this decade of 1970s, we're going to figure out all of our environmental problems.
But that didn't turn out that way.
So we made the name change, I think maybe 15 years ago or a little longer to clean Wisconsin.
But the way we work on environmental issues is to kind of attack it from all sides.
So we do policy work.
We take legal action against polluters.
And then we also do a lot of advocacy, generally public advocacy, like what I'm doing right now.
We've had Tia Nelson, the daughter of former Wisconsin governor and U.S.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was the founder of Earth Day, and of course here in Dane County, just across the lake here, we have Governor Nelson State Park.
And Tia Nelson is very proud of the fact that her father worked in a bipartisan manner to create Earth Day, and she has continued that tradition.
And I just think again, these issues of the environment of conservation of the outdoors, they really shouldn't be a partisan issue because we all enjoys, as it turns out, clean air, clean water, et cetera.
And if you look at, I think one of our kind of biggest victories that we've worked on in the 1990s was protecting the Lower Wisconsin River, right?
This place where we all, many of us have canoeed down it, not just the Wisconsin River, but like hundreds of acres around the Wisconsin River.
And that was an enormous bipartisan effort to enact legislation to protect the Lower Wisconsin River.
And now it's the longest.
wild or natural riverway in the Midwest.
And so it's something that we can all be proud of and we can all use.
And you're right, it's not about what side of the aisle you're on, it's about appreciating what we
have.
I mean, we didn't plan this, but I appreciate you bringing up the Lower Wisconsin Riverway.
I was just on it yesterday.
I was kayaking with my younger godson and his parents.
And I told him the story and the quick version my former boss Dale Schultz was of, considered a conservative Republican at the time.
Spencer Black was considered a liberal Democrat.
And they worked together to help co-author that legislation.
Republican Governor Tommy Thompson signed it into law.
And now this year, celebrating 35 years of authority in Wisconsin Riverway, so that my godson and his family and I could kayak down it yesterday.
And it looks pretty close.
to what it was 100 years ago.
Yeah, and it's remarkable.
And that kind of progress doesn't happen on one side of the aisle or the other.
It has to be everybody coming together.
Yeah, correct.
So tell us a little bit about what a pollinator month is and why we should be concerned with it.
Well, pollinator month is just a moment to pause and to talk about what's going on with our pollinators and how to protect them.
probably when you and I were kids we didn't think much about pollinators like there were bees around and you ran away from them or whatever um but around the
late 90s, early 2000s, we started to see a huge decline in pollinator populations in some areas, a 90% decline.
And that is concerning when you think about one out of every three bites of food we take in the US is because of pollinators.
They made it happen.
Our cranberries, our apples, our fruits and vegetables, all kinds of things are nuts.
And beyond just the human sort of self-centered look at pollinators,
they are part of an important ecosystem.
And they are telling us there's something wrong.
And so we need to think about why they're disappearing and what we can do to make that situation better.
And that's what the month is about.
We're speaking with Amy Berrio, who is the communication director of Clean Wisconsin here on Pollinator Month.
I think you bring up that point oftentimes, well, it's just bees.
or it's just honey.
And it's so much more than that when, as you said, it goes to our fruits and vegetables that if we don't care about our pollinators, a lot of things we enjoy can be gone.
So talk to us.
Talk to us, I guess, a little bit about what's the biggest endangerment right now?
Is it the chemicals?
What is it?
Well, it's a combination, like everything.
It's always a combination of things.
But the big thing,
is habitat loss.
So you have in Wisconsin, you know, a lot of conventional agriculture, corn and soybeans kind of moving in on habitat for pollinators, getting rid of some of those native pollinator flower species.
And you have climate change, which is of course on small living creatures, they experience those changes a lot harder.
And then you have the pesticides.
So the rapid decline in pollinator
pollinator numbers coincides with the rapid increase in a type of pesticide called neonicotinoids.
It's a class of pesticides that are neurotoxins, and so they attack the nervous systems of insects.
And as those pesticides kind of rolled out starting in the late 90s to the early 2000s, within 10 years you started to see, you know, hive collapse.
You started to see bees that were
didn't know where they were supposed to be going, you know, it couldn't communicate well.
And in fact, there's been research here at UW Madison showing that really, really low doses of these kinds of chemicals can mess up a bee's ability to find its food, to be social in the nest, you know, all these kinds of things.
So it's a lot of factors.
This certain type of pesticide is one of those factors, but certainly...
every time you take away a flowering plant that they feed on, that's another factor.
Is this pesticide one that's particular to a certain agricultural product?
Well, it is in the sense that, so let's say your conventional corn grower in Wisconsin, you cannot choose to buy a seed that is not coated with neonicotinoid.
So if you just, you're like, I don't want to use this, you can't, you can't find that supply.
So it is in that particular crop,
incredibly widespread.
And then when the crop has it, you know, every part of the plant contains the nicotinoid because it's been coated on the seeds.
But it's also like household plants and pet collars and things, you know, all kinds of household products that are supposed to be kind of insecticides, you'll find that in.
And it also is on plants like fruits, nuts, berries, things like that.
That's not a seed treatment, but sprayed on afterwards.
So it's...
heavily used, I would say, all across the country, but especially here in Wisconsin.
Are there any proposals or legislation that you're aware of to cut back or eliminate this pesticide?
Well, some states have introduced legislation that's specifically about neonictenoids.
I think New York is one of them.
I can't remember the other.
But here in Wisconsin, there's been a bill introduced relatively recently, a pollinator package.
And in that bill, it's really just a package of bills.
One of them is about the DNR and not using neonicotinoids or neonics for short on their kind of plantings that they may do.
So there's a lot of work going on.
Clean Wisconsin is part of a neonic working group where we're bringing in farmers and
experts from UW Madison and elsewhere and and all kinds of folks from that cap all all kinds of people who are trying to solve this issue because It's it's about as we were talking about earlier, you know, it's not just Environmental groups say don't use this.
It's we need everybody to kind of come together and be like, okay This pesticide number one has been bad for pollinators and number two It doesn't appear to be totally effective in terms of increasing crop yields.
So it may not be
great to use from a financial standpoint for farmers.
So how do we come together and address this problem?
So this Neo-NIC working group is just getting off the ground in Wisconsin to try to solve this issue.
Gennie, are you aware of any research or science that shows these Neo-NIC?
I guess we call them for short.
passing on to humans that may eat these foods or whatever.
I mean, you know, years ago, people laughed at former Democratic US Senator Russ Feingold when he was going after RGB, GH hormones and things in dairy.
And, you know, back in 2007, on a whim, I started drinking organic Valley milk that doesn't have that crap in it.
And by golly, it turns out, no, Todd isn't lactose intolerant.
If you just drink the organic milk, that solves a lot.
Yeah, a lot of the problem.
So I'm a big believer.
that a lot of these chemicals or pesticides in our foods are having an effect on us as humans, do you find that, is there any research that shows it with this?
Yeah, well, in fact, we just posted a research brief on our website at Clean Wisconsin that talks about that.
So, you know, when you put something on food, you're gonna get some of it, you're gonna ingest some of it.
Also, most of the neonicotinoid that is, you know, coating that seed, only about 10% of it actually.
in real life gets taken up by the plant.
And the rest of it ends up in the soil and in drinking water.
So what we've got is we've got the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection studies how much of these pesticides are getting into water wells in Wisconsin.
And they're finding that, yep, some of it is showing up in water wells, particularly in the central sands region of the state where there's a lot of agriculture and there's like
a pretty shallow aquifer system, so their more agrochemicals tend to show up in those drinking water wells.
And there haven't been a lot of human studies because it was always like, well, we have this new, we have this new pesticide and it's great.
And it goes after bugs and don't worry about it was
kind of
kind of the thing.
So there haven't been a lot of human health studies, but they're starting to become evidence that fish are being impacted.
birds in areas where these pesticides have been used for being impacted.
And then on animal studies that are meant to kind of replicate what high-level exposure to humans would be, there's been some evidence of sort of a wide variety of health harm that could come from being exposed to high levels of these chemicals.
Or up against the clock, can you come back after two minutes here?
We'll wrap up.
Yeah, sure.
All right, great.
Amy Berrio is with us.
She is the communication director of Clean Wisconsin.
Talk about perhaps what we could do as Wisconsinites to help our pollinators.
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Welcome back to the title ball show on the civic media radio network glad to have you along where it's eight minutes before the hour of four o'clock at the top of the hour ABC or CBS News depending upon which of our great stations you're listening to weather update to that a great Tom Tom geez Mike Clemens.
Yes, I know my colleagues are great sports reporter Mike Clemens will be in with a sports report following the Brewers got a nice win
On Father's Day, our Luke Mathers was there with his dad watching the Brewers beat the Cardinals and the Brewers get ready for a very important series against the Cubs.
This week at Ampham Field, Clemens is all over that and will bring it to us.
And then Maggie Dawn and the Maggie Dawn show from four until six.
Pete Schwabba and Nightlight six until eight.
Native Roots radio with Robert Pilot and then it is Rick Smith across America.
Another great lineup here at Civic Media.
Right now we're talking to Amy Berrio here at the.
the communications director for Clean Wisconsin during pollinator month.
Amy, thanks for coming back for the second segment here.
Appreciate that.
Again, you sit over the break.
We don't want to make this all about the neonics, but I just find this fascinating that this one chemical has been so devastating to our pollinators.
Before we move on from that, is it, you know, I at least think of pollinators as bees.
Are there other insects or species that pollinate beyond the honeybee?
Oh, sure.
And the honeybee is not a native pollinator, so it's from Africa.
We have about 400 species of native pollinators in Wisconsin, and that includes bumblebees.
It includes the rusty patched bumblebee, which was the first pollinator or the first insect ever listed as a federally endangered species.
So when we were kids, they were everywhere, and now they're almost nowhere.
So there are all kinds of pollinators and butterflies and many other types of insects.
out there that we're trying to protect.
All right.
Let's go to move on to some of the solutions here.
Things that we, we're not all scientists.
We don't all belong to groups like Clean Wisconsin.
What
can us as just Wisconsinites all across the state do in our own little world to help pollinators?
Well, if you have a house and you have a yard, set aside a spot of that yard for pollinator friendly habitat.
So that means you're not mowing, you're not disturbing, you have some
native Wisconsin flowers that pollinators like that you plant there.
And that is giving those bees and butterflies and other insects a home.
But one thing I didn't realize until I started working with Clean Wisconsin and talking to folks was that these bumblebees, their homes are usually
underground little tunnels.
And so they're under the leaves and they're there in the springtime and they just need that cover to make their nests and rebuild.
And when we start pulling all those leaves out and putting our mulch in and all that kind of thing, we disturb that natural process.
So keeping a part of your yard that's intentional is great.
And then when you go to buy plants, ask.
were these plants treated with pesticides?
Because the one heartbreaking thing I think about is, well, I bought these plants at, you know, the big box store, and I see these bees feeding on them.
And am I hurting the bees with these plants?
or not.
And so it's important to try to figure out, and that's kind of a hard ask in a big box store.
So if you can buy your plants locally at the farmer's market or other places that are selling native pollinator plants, that's the best way to go.
Yeah, and a great shout out to one of our great sponsors here at Civic Media, Kopke's Greenhouse down in the town of Dunn, outside of Oregon, comes up to the farmer's market here in Madison.
Other great local greenhouse and sells native pollinator.
species and plants there, so you're absolutely right.
Let's talk a little bit about your, I don't have a list here
of
things that, what we're trying to say, Todd, that we intake as humans, we talked about milk before, but age old, age old, but question is, should I spend the extra money to buy organic?
Does it matter in cases like this?
Yes, so if you're worried about nicotine oids being on your food, so again, I mentioned berries, nuts,
corn.
These are some of the foods that have been tested to show that on occasion they exceed the health limit for neonicotinoid substances on them by organic because they're not going to have those.
I mentioned that conventional corn seed is coated with neonics.
Organic corn seed is not.
So typically organic produce does not use this particular type of pesticides.
So if you're worried about pesticides and chemicals,
then that's a good way to go.
Still though, we've got the goal of helping conventional farmers to use less of these harmful products as well.
About a minute and a half left.
Other things that we could do across Wisconsin, besides setting a portion of our yard or garden aside?
Well, I think, you know... Let me ask a
question.
Well, no, I guess I didn't ask it very well.
It's my fault.
A lot of people we treat our lawns because
don't
like
the dandelions we spray.
Is that harming the pollinators to have beautiful lawns?
Let me give you an example.
So I talked to my dad in Louisiana and he's saying, man, I cannot.
He likes to garden vegetable garden.
He's like, I cannot get my.
squash to grow where there are no bees to pollinate the squash.
And I thought about it.
I'm like, oh, you really spray your tomatoes a lot with insecticides.
And so when you use insecticides in your yard, especially these neonics, they stay, they stay in every part of the plant.
And then as the pollinators feed from plant to plant, you know, you're, you just have a, this sort of harm spreading around your garden.
So you need to be careful.
If you do need to use
some kind of insecticide or other pesticide.
Follow the package directions.
Don't think more is better.
We tend to think that.
It's not better.
It's not better.
Very quickly, working folks find you at Clean Wisconsin website or socials.
CleanWisconsin.org.
We're also on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and those sorts of places.
I encourage people to check it out.
I've learned something today.
Amy Berriel, Commons Director at Clean Wisconsin.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Yeah, really a
pleasure.
I'll have you back soon.
It is Pollinator Month, so all of us should do what we can to help out our pollinators across the great state of Wisconsin.
Many thanks to State Senator Kelder Royce for being here today, talking a little bit about the Joint Finance Committee.
Tom Kircher from Wisconsin Watch, and here's a great reporting.
And as we said, Amy Berrio here, the Communications Director at Clean Wisconsin on Pollinator Month.
Mr. Zalmers doing a great job on the board.
Stay tuned.
Maggie Dawn is next.
Tomorrow, join us.
about rural emergency medical services all across the state of Wisconsin, the little on fusion voting as well.
Thank you all for being here.
Todd, I'll say whatever you're fighting for, whatever you believe in, do not give up.
Keep banging your drum.
We'll see you tomorrow.
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