The Dangers Of The Line 5 Pipeline with Evan Feinauer (Hour 2)

You're listening to Civic Media.

You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.

Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.

From the Civic Media World Headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, it's the Todd Alba Show.

And now, pursuing truth wherever it may lead, here's your host, Todd Alba.

across Wisconsin on the Civic Media radio network and streaming worldwide on the Civic Media app.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Todd Alba along with Mr. Aaron Zommers on the board, our producer and engineer.

It's six minutes past the hour of three o'clock.

Welcome into hour number two of the big program.

It is Monday, August 18th, 2025.

It is a great day to be Wisconsinite for the world headquarters of Civic Media in downtown Madison.

Where you could feel it Thomas the vibe is starting to come with the moving moving in of some of the students the the University of Wisconsin Madison You can see more students around the vibe is coming back the city comes back to life at the end of at the end of August

that it does although showing the Sam Davison street cam you wouldn't know it from this image

It's just unfortunate timing.

Yeah, I think it's a

qual because we're getting some rain downtown Madison here as we take a look out on the same Davis and street cam downtown Madison.

A couple of cars going by at Fairchild and State.

Now there there comes a group of people.

They have bags in hand.

Looks like they may have gotten some some pack.

It looks like a if I were to anticipate here, it looks like a mom and dad looks like maybe their son is a student here.

They're carrying a lot of different packages.

So it's that time you get in the kids settled.

in.

Now my sister and brother and brother-in-law are taking my favorite youngest niece Isabel to the University of Wisconsin, Stout, next weekend to get her all settled in over at Stout.

We're all in families going through that.

It's that time of year when it's time to get the kids settled in.

So salute, salutations, shout out to all the parents getting their kids on their way back to college and salute to the kids too.

It's exciting.

It's an exciting time.

So my friends, Jonathan, Allison Klein last night, their oldest child, Lauren, getting ready to come here to the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Exciting.

Well,

it's a little scary, but also very exciting.

So I I'm sure that I will never forget the first day when I moved in to college and you start meeting people and everyone's a little nervous.

Everyone's a little excited.

It's just

yeah, lots of lots of emotions.

Lots of good times going on.

Weather forecast rain throughout Wisconsin today.

Hopefully not too much, particularly for our friends in Southeast Wisconsin who have gone through way more flooding than anyone deserves.

So keep it weather tuned here.

We'll update you on that coming up at the bottom of the hour.

Talk to one of the staff attorneys at clean, Wisconsin about and this is very interesting about the the pipeline line 5 pipeline that's scheduled to begin up in Ashland, Wisconsin and what the ramifications implications are of that as they continue to take public testimony Your chance to have your voice heard on this will talk to Evan from clean, Wisconsin at the bottom of the hour have a what's worse coming up for you as well first

on many of our stations over the air, not on the stream, but over the air, Milwaukee Brewers Baseball, double header against the Chicago Cubs, up for grabs, the NL Central.

Well, Brewers currently have an eight game lead, but five game series against the Cubs starting today, I can tell you that right now on many of our Brewers stations,

The Cubs are up.

The Brewers.

Good gosh, Todd.

The Brewers are up over the Cubs right now by a score of three to nothing in the bottom of the six.

Three nothing, bottom of the sixth.

Milwaukee on top of the Cubs.

We'll see if that can hold and the Brewers could go to nine games.

The nightcap is set for a little bit later this evening.

You can hear that on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Also want to get to again just repeat kind of the top story of the day earlier in the day president Donald Trump holding a press conference a gaggle as they call it a news gaggle the Oval Office with Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky kind of a nothing burger if you want to be honest on the news on Ukraine the real news Trump tried to make a joke about not having elections in 2028 if the United States were at war like Ukraine is now

And then going on, no joke at all, making it very clear, Trump did, that he is working on and intends to sign an executive order which would ban mail-in voting in the United States of America.

Freely saying that, hey, if we don't have mail-in voting, it makes it hard for Democrats to win.

Trump said that.

Why, of course?

Because Democrats tend to use that form of voting more than Republicans, for whatever reason.

Republican Party Chairman of Wisconsin, Brian Shimming, last year said, Hey, we got to do better on this and made it.

Uh, and I saluted him and said, Hey, good.

I want all everybody who is legally eligible every citizen to vote.

And now Shimming's own president had the Republican party saying he thinks that mail and voting is quote unquote corrupt.

Also making headlines according to the Associated Press today the conservative network maxi pad maxi newsmax Newsmax will pay 67 million dollars to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about president Donald Trump's 2020 election loss According to documents filed today the settlement comes after Fox News channel

paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023, and Newsmax paid what the court papers described as $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, who is also the target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories on the network.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax did indeed defame

i.e.

lied about Denver based dominion voting systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment.

Again, when places like Fox and Newsmax are put under oath in a court of law with the penalty being jail time, people tend to tell the truth.

Turns out.

Let's go to the full lines eight five five seven five two four eight four two Mark and perto sack has been enormously patient mark always appreciate your listeners ship Thanks for holding on what do you want

to say?

Yeah, what does Trump plan on invading Canada or Mexico or Greenland?

So he has a little war so you can say well, we don't need any elections and it just is It's pretty disgusting the man is coming on say this.

Does he think he's he's bloody sulla or or Caesar?

that both of whom the founders would know what I'm referring to because both of them were Roman dictators and the founders were concerned about a dictator.

I mean, how the Supreme Court came up with this idea of immunity for the president is just beyond me because even I could point out to them how full of

Ratman or that they are on that particular issue because and I'm not a constant as I've said in the past I am not a constitutional scholar But when you actually read the Federalist papers the president would be amable to punishment and disgrace and actually you could actually impeach a president for high crimes and misdemeanors in the Constitution itself It means the man is not immune.

Yeah, so how they came up with this stuff other than that they want they think there should be a dictator and I wonder how long With this kind of nonsense going on how long do we don't?

Declined to the fact to a fake taste where the president has to have a taste or taste in all his food And uh, some of these people need to worry about getting poisoned at me because that's what he just he just hung out with

Putin right hung out with Putin that stuff happens over there all the time

If

it feels stuffy in a meeting with Putin don't open a window that's the only advice I can give you they Thank you mark appreciate you only appreciate the call.

We're gonna continue to follow this

Because if there's any good that came out of this White House meeting today, it's that Trump said the quiet part out loud on the record.

That he feels if you have mail-in voting, Democrats are going to more likely win.

Gee, I wonder why that is.

Because Trump himself spent all kinds of time

In the first administration, saying that, you know, don't do mail-in voting, it was rigged, and then somebody got in the air and said, wait a minute, if you want to win, we actually need to do mail-in voting.

And so Brian Shimming, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and others said, hey, we got to get our folks out there too.

And you know what they did.

Not as much maybe as Democrats, but if you look at the results,

A lot more Republicans voted early and voted in mail and ballot.

And that was part, not all, but part of the reason that Donald Trump got a second term.

And now he wants to do away with it.

For the midterm elections, coming up next year.

It's 15 past the hour of three o'clock.

Time once again for what's worse, let's go.

Time once again for what's worse.

Nothing to give away.

No prize money involved.

It's just your chance to have your voice heard across all 10 ish.

News talk and sports.

I say 10 ish because some of the stations are airing Milwaukee Brewers baseball over the terrestrial radio

signal.

Right.

So normally you'll be on 10 stations

today.

A

couple less.

A couple three or four.

I don't know.

And across everywhere on the stream.

All right.

Here we go.

Timely, timely indeed, as Mike Lucas is fond of saying at the Capitol Times, a lot of people, no joke at all, of course.

A lot of our listeners, particularly in Southwest, pardon me, Southeast Wisconsin, well, some in Southwest quite frankly as well, cleaning up for that terrible flooding and boy, that's no foot at all.

But aside from that, aside from tragedy and emergency cleaning, it's kind of the time of year.

Or if you're like, well, it's starting to cool off a little bit.

I got to clean out the garage before winter.

So today's category.

What's worse, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

What's worse, cleaning the fridge.

or cleaning the garage.

And we have a very evocative image here of a fridge containing, I mean, it doesn't look like the worst fridge I've ever seen.

It at least looks like there's not food spilled everywhere, but there are a lot of products that are, I'm sure, expired.

Meanwhile, the garage, it looks like you're sorting for a rummage sale.

Well, which we've all been there, I think.

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

What's worse, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage.

855-752-4842.

Or you could text us on the Civic Media app.

You can download it, your Apple or Android device today.

Just go to your app store, type it in Civic CIVIC.

Media it'll pop up takes less than a minute to download it is free.

It's what CBS is Gale King calls a deal The way things are going to CBS maybe we can get Gale King is some point maybe that'd be great I'd love to have her as a co-host of this show 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 go to the phone line CJ in beautiful Stoughton, Wisconsin CJ cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage What's worse?

Well, I like cleaning by eating the leftovers.

Do you

really?

Oh, I love leftovers.

What

they're doing?

Geno's lasagna.

Geno's lasagna.

Three days later, it gets better and better.

I would agree with that.

That is chilly.

I go in all the time.

I love working in the garage, so.

Really?

Do you have like a workshop?

Well, yeah.

Yeah, it's a...

I have it on four wheels, too.

Loaded with two.

All right, well, very good.

Thank you for taking my call, Todd.

And yeah, I mean, that's a, that's that question.

But, you know, as you speak of the world peacemaker, Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, as he tries to end Joe Biden's war, I think the mail-in balloting, yeah, we need to go to a single day balloting.

And if you're going to not be able to vote, that should

be held

to the

bill.

Thanks for the opinion, CJ, up against the clock.

Come on back.

What's worse, clean the fridge or clean the garage on the Civic Media.

Ready Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Welcome back to the show of the civic media radio network twenty three past the hour of three o'clock Zombers.

Where'd you find that?

That's a weird Al living in the fridge parody of an Aerosmith song.

I had never heard that one before.

I can't say I've heard

that.

Additionally, not a huge weird Al fan,

but that was pretty good.

He's got some good

one.

Yeah, I like that.

I like that.

Welcome back to the show on the civic media radio network right right in the middle of what's worse.

Today's category, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage.

What's worse, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage.

855-752-4842.

855-752-4842.

Henry, listening on WMDX and beautiful Madison, Wisconsin says cleaning the garage is worse, worse, because you never know when you're done.

That's kind of true, right?

Like you have, it's like, well, I can, I had to moving things around.

I don't have my own garage proper anymore.

But what I did, it was like move things to one side, the move to the other.

So like, I really need, I want to keep this, right?

So eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

Cam and Appleton listening on WISS and Oshkoshes had rather the garage be cleaned.

I get to sing and dance there.

Well, that's true, right?

You can you can move around more I suppose when you when you clean the the garage Jim and beautiful Brookfield says cleaning the garage is worse because it's hot and dusty I also have a wife who cleans the fridge and has creative ways to use left leftovers.

Okay That's fantastic off the off the online streaming services We have PJ watching on YouTube PJ.

Thank you so much says the fridge

because I go in there more times per day.

So that's worse to clean the fridge, because he's going in there more often.

Jerry Perry, our friend, Jeff Perry, friend and ongoing contributor on Facebook says, for me, the worst is cleaning the fridge in the garage.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, very good.

But there's a lot, I don't know, maybe it's an original and standard thing, but the lot of people I know still do.

You have the garage of garage refrigerator and it's where it's humbers is looking at me like I'm crazy No, it's oh, that's not what the inside.

Oh because because you have some people keep their beer out there or their soda

It's great for holidays when you got like a bunch of desserts in refrigerated or leftovers and you put them in the garage fridge.

And usually it's an older refrigerator that doesn't work great.

Right.

But it's good enough for a garage fridge.

Exactly.

That I feel like that's the most common garage fridge, you know, it's got the beer, it's got the soda.

It's got your extra meats, your extra meats.

Well, that's the freezer.

That's

the old chest freezer.

You're from the local meat locker,

right?

No, some pizzas.

I, uh, I gotta go down to Monroe next week and most of grass.

And I'm going to have a garage refrigerator beer after I'm done.

That's the best

kind.

I'll report back eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

Heather watching on Facebook up there.

A beautiful Eau Claire WCFW the tap.

Heather says, Oh boy.

Tough one.

At the moment, the garage equals half of a classroom, a leftover graduation party, boxes, staging area for college dorm room, camper transfer.

As you know, Todd, there's a lot going on here.

It's my sisters.

They have a lot going on.

We literally don't have time to get into their garage situation.

It's a lot.

As Miguel Vega once said, that's a lot.

eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two, eight, five, five, seven, five, two, four, eight, four, two.

Zombers cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage?

What's

worse?

I think it depends whose fridge and whose garage.

I know that it depends is always the worst answer for these.

But if it is my parents house, cleaning the garage is worse because there's a lot of stuff in there.

Like a lot.

Meanwhile, if it's my place.

I'm in a townhouse.

So I do have a proper garage.

However, we don't have a lot of stuff in it.

So cleaning the fridge is definitely worse because, you know, there might be something spilled that you actually have to clean.

That's that's the part that gets

me.

If something spilled in the back and you got to scrub that up and you got to take things out, go ahead.

If something spilled in the garage, you just like mop it or something.

Like whereas if something spilled in the fridge, it's a whole process.

Yeah, I'll go along with that.

What's worse, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage, Tom on the text line out of New Berlin.

Listening on WAU case.

Oh, uh, that's something else on a caller, uh, Judy.

Listening in a load.

I on WMDX cleaning the fridge is worse.

You don't know what you're going to find in there.

There's a lot of truth to that.

Have you ever done that?

Have you ever, have you ever opened the fridge and you smell something and you can't find it?

Yeah, that's the worst.

I know.

And it ends up being like.

I don't know like a small bottle of of milk or something or like you bought a cool whip or whipping cream and a little pint container and somehow it got behind like the beer and something else that you normally keep in there and it got stuffed in the back of you and then oh

I feel like that's a common culprit yeah the whipping cream because you don't use that much at a time and you don't always use it like every week or whatever or cheese you put in a baggie and then it gets covered up I don't

know

855-752-4842, 855-752-4842.

What's worse, cleaning the fridge or cleaning the garage?

So are you officially agreeing with me and saying that cleaning the fridge is worse?

Quickly, Brett Brown Deer says, I have OCD.

I love cleaning the both.

Fair enough.

I don't know.

It's such a tough one.

I'm going to say, I'm going to say cleaning.

I don't know why I'm going to say cleaning the fridge is worse.

I want to say cleaning the garage because it's such a bigger space and you have to set more time aside for it.

But I don't know.

I feel like once I'm cleaning the garage, it can be kind of fun because I forgot about that.

We're cleaning the fridge is the only part that's good about it is when you're done, you're like, oh, that looks and smells so much better.

Nothing like my fridge gets really stinky that often, but it's just.

I don't know.

And then I always end up throwing things away that I should have used.

It's like, I

paid $8 for that.

Yeah, you feel worse about

yourself.

Yes, that's it.

I feel worse about myself.

You'll feel better after our sport-

Farm update from Pam Yankee and then come back and talk about line five pipeline to the other side it's the all-ball show for a Monday pursuing truth wherever it may lead and Having fun doing it welcome back the title ball show on the civic media ready network 35 now past the hour of three o'clock on this Monday August 18th 2025 glad to have you along Xamers on the board could give you an update over the air of many of our stations Across the civic media ready network on the Brewers ready network

Brewers kicking off an important critical five game series against the Cubs in Chicago this afternoon can tell you the top of the eighth inning Brewers three Cubs nothing How about that?

Hopefully the Brewers can hang on would go up to nine games Lead on the Brewers in the NL central they could do that to listen over the air on many of these stations Richland Center Oshkosh a Hayward

also down receiving Kenosha on the Brewers Ready Network.

Second game, they had a right out earlier in the season, so it's a double header today.

Second game later on this evening on many of these fine stations as well.

Brewers three, Cubs nothing in the top of the eighth.

Right now I want to turn our attention to another environmental issue.

There's a theme here on the show today, Conservation, Environmental Issues.

We have at our desk once again here in studio at the World Headquarters in Madison.

Evan Finehauer, who is the staff attorney of Clean

in Wisconsin.

Evan, welcome to the program.

How are you doing?

Great.

It's great to be here.

And I'm glad to get Brewer's updates mixed in.

This is great.

Are

you a Brewer's fan?

I am.

I am.

I was watching the score before I came here.

So it was crazy.

It was good.

I mean, this is one they've had.

Unfortunately, they, you know, all good things have to come to an end, but an exciting weekend series.

Of course.

Yeah.

Well, we're not here just to talk to sports.

There are

other things that were interested in here on the show as well.

Conservation.

And this is one of the things I love talking about because.

To me, as somebody who grew up in Southwest Wisconsin and traveled all over the state, it's one of these things that should bind us together across party lines, ideally, because it doesn't matter whether you're a hunter or a birdwatcher or a hiker or a kayaker.

If we don't have a good environment in which to do all these things, we're not going to be able to do it.

Yeah, it's the quintessential thing that you don't miss until it's gone.

Yeah, 100%.

Before we get into this, we always like to have people tell us a little bit about themselves, Evan, you are no exception.

So where'd you grow up and how did you get into conservation and the law?

Well, I am from Wisconsin, and it's being a Brewer's fan.

I grew up in Amarillo, Wisconsin.

Oh, nice.

So East Central, just a little bit west of Oshkosh for those not familiar.

Grew up in the countryside where, unbeknownst to me, I was...

uh, being raised to care a lot about the environment, but my dad and my grandpa and other people that cared about birding and trees and natural prairie and all these things, wildflowers, native plants, all this stuff.

So, um, I come by it naturally.

And then as I got older, I went to college here in Madison, went to UW and then, uh, went on to law school in Chicago, was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

I knew I never wanted to work at a law firm.

Uh, I want to do some kind of public interest law.

And I started working in the environmental clinic at the University of Chicago law school.

fell in love with that and just loved the work, loved the people that are in this fight and I've been doing it ever since.

Really cool.

So what led you to clean Wisconsin then?

Yeah, so right out of law school, I had a fellowship.

I worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago doing work related to the Flint.

led in water crisis.

After that, when my fellowship ended, a job opened up, very lucky for me here in Madison at Clean Wisconsin.

In the staff attorney position I applied.

I've been working there since January 2017.

So it's a little bit over eight years now, I guess.

For folks that might not be familiar across the state, we're a statewide program, tell us a little bit about Clean Wisconsin, the organization, what your key work is.

Yeah, so Clean Wisconsin has been around since 1970.

It was

perhaps ambitiously entitled Wisconsin's Environmental Decade originally.

I

remember that.

Yeah.

I'm old enough to remember that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think that there was an idea that 10 years was all it would take, which was not the case.

And then it was renamed, rebranded, whatever you want to call it, clean Wisconsin.

At some point, I think in the early aughts.

And we are a statewide organization.

We have members across the state.

We have scientists on staff, we have lawyers on staff like myself, we have lobbyists, subject matter experts, and water, air pollution, everything.

So we try to be effective by being in the courts like I do sometimes, but also up at the Capitol, working with state agencies to pass good rules.

do outreach to local communities.

We really try to be kind of full spectrum, do all the things, touch all the people across the state on environmental issues.

We're speaking with Evan Feinhauer, who is the staff attorney at Clean Wisconsin.

Evan, talk to us about this issue called line five pipeline.

I think it's kind of ambiguous and people are like, what the heck is that?

Talk to us a little bit about what line five pipeline is and why Wisconsinite should be concerned about it.

Yeah, so the Line 5 pipeline has been around since the 1950s.

It goes through northern Wisconsin.

It starts west of that in Minnesota, cuts across northern Wisconsin, goes through the UP, down into Michigan, lower Michigan, and then into Canada.

And this is a pipeline section that is primarily intended and does carry oils from Canada.

through the United States and back into Canada.

Some of it gets let off at facilities in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, some in Michigan, and then most of it ends up in Canada.

The line is currently owned by Enbridge, which is a Canadian transnational corporation.

They aren't the ones who originally built it, but they own it and operate it now.

What's happened is the number of years ago, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa did not want to renew easements to have the existing line go across the reservation.

for environmental reasons and concerns that they had that the line might fail, causing a rupture and other ecological impacts.

So they said, we're not going to renew the easements.

That resulted in a bunch of federal litigation and federal court, actually very close to where we're sitting right now in the Western District, ordered the Enbridge to get off their land by sometime next year in 2026.

So Enbridge then initiated a plan to build what's called the reroute.

So now

you can imagine it's sort of like a U shape that goes down and underneath the reservation and connects with the rest of the existing line five.

So this was seen as, I think by Enbridge as a solution to the problem of going around the band's property.

But from their perspective, it's not because it's still in the watershed.

If there's an oil spill, it'll still completely wipe out the ecosystem where they live.

And it's also going to mean a 41 mile stretch of new pipeline through major sections of northern Wisconsin, which are untouched, undeveloped and relatively pristine from an environmental perspective.

One of the things that I was very fortunate at my time working at the Capitol, performer Senator Dale Schultz was he was the.

a co-chair for a while of the Tribal State Relations Board and had a lot of chances to have meetings on tribes' lands and get to listen and understand their concerns.

One of the things, talk to us a little bit about this in terms of line five, one of the things I learned, particularly when on mining issues back at that time, that many of these lands that you're talking about, you mentioned the watershed.

I think some people are gonna say, okay, fine, the pipes go around that, what's the big deal?

These tribal lands, these waters,

are essentially their churches, their temples.

These are religious purposes, these rice fields that have very sacred meaning to them.

And so, to me, I would encourage Wisconsinis to say, hey, if a company said, we want to build a pipeline through your church, how would you feel?

Is that overreaction to

that?

I don't think so.

You know, I am like you, somebody who has had to do a lot of self-education on this.

I was just up in the reservation last week, meeting with attorneys representing the Bad River Band.

And I got a chance to go to, they have a cultural museum there on the reservation.

And it was really interesting.

I learned a lot, but it's also very moving to see these portraits of their life ways and their customs that go back decades and generations and generations.

And those include things like harvesting wild rice from these wild rice beds that are really the most.

Precious and some pretty rare in the Great Lakes.

They're the biggest.

They're very proud of them.

I think with good reason and I think that that's something that We should all be sensitive to for cultural reasons as you mentioned and it also just points to the tie-in between how we live our lives and the quality of the environment The pipeline that they want to build the new section would be sort of upriver if you will of

the reservation.

So if there were a spill or if there was a release of sediment or anything from construction or any kind of water quality impact, it would proceed downgradient.

And there are wetlands of national and international significance.

There are what's called Ramsar wetlands, the Kokugin sloughs.

These are really precious resources that would be directly at risk if anything went wrong.

I think it's a great way to explain it.

And again, I would encourage Wisconsinis to put it.

You'll think of your favorite fishing spot or your favorite hunting spot.

And if that were put in danger,

how would you feel about this?

Let alone the cultural and religious aspects for it.

Again, we're talking with Evan Finehauer, the staff attorney at Clean Wisconsin on this Line 5 pipeline that's being proposed, a reroute in Northern Wisconsin.

What do you say to folks that are like, well, this is the old Nimbio, not my backyard.

We have to have energy.

Even if you're a pro alternative energy person, we're not there yet.

We need oil.

Where do you put it if not here?

What's your response to that type of reaction?

You have a couple different responses.

So first is the way our law is written is intended to protect our resources from development, kind of no matter what the development is.

So if you're in the state of Wisconsin and you want to fill in or impact a wetlands or cross a stream or a river, you got to get certain permits from the Department of Natural Resources.

And the way our law is written, thankfully, doesn't say, well, you can only get a permit of X, Y, and Z.

unless you want to build an oil pipeline, in which case you have an exemption, it doesn't say that.

And so to some extent, the first thing I want to say is, you know, great, if Enbridge wants to do this, they can, but they have to meet the same standards as everybody else.

And those standards want to make sure that when you're done with your project, the water resources are in no worse condition.

And there's some verbiage around this that the lawyers will use, you know, wetland functional values and these things, but we just don't think they've met that standard.

We think DNR made a mistake by issuing the permits.

I think it's important because I don't think we want a standard that slides up and down based on how socially important or economically important we think the development is.

And if we want them, then the legislature has to pass a law that says that, and they haven't done that.

So to me, it's kind of just like that's not what the law is.

The other piece of it, though, I think what you're getting at is, with this point about we're not there yet, we still use oil and gas, I think that

One of Enbridge's things that they're very clearly keen on is they want to make it seem like we have to build this pipeline reroute.

Otherwise, everything will grind to a halt.

And I think many of their statements in that regard are overstated.

And you know, I'm not an oil man, as I mentioned, I grew up in East Central Wisconsin, which is low on oil.

But just reading the record and the other experts, there's sort of been a bunch of competing experts who have weighed in on this over the years.

And there seems to be legitimate question about.

What would be the economic impacts?

Would there be other ways of getting the oil to market?

To me, that's a little bit besides the point for the purpose of the question is, should Wisconsin bear the risk and the ecological damage that this company can stick a pipeline through our state?

Couple of quick follow-up questions here before the break.

We'll come back and finish it up after that.

But A, am I correct in saying that the oil, the product that flows through this pipeline

None of that stops in Wisconsin.

At least there's no direct, people aren't, that stuff isn't going from there into gas stations and economy walk or Oshkosh.

No, what most of, most of the way that these products would end up in Wisconsin markets is in the form of propane, but it's a relatively modest mix of the state's propane sources.

So

it's kind of asking, is it, again, is it overstated to say that Wisconsin is being asked to take the risk?

in our resources for very little return directly to people that might consume things.

I think that's fair, and I would say I think that's generally true of all of these things that are fossil fuel pains that we feel to get no benefit, because we don't have coal in Wisconsin, we don't have oil, we don't have gas.

And so whenever there's things that we're suffering because of fossil fuels, we're not just suffering health and environmental impacts, we're also sending money outside of our state's borders.

You mentioned that the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources already approved some of these things.

My question was, was this under a DNR secretary and administration of Governor Evers or Governor Walker?

Well, this does happen.

This happened in December of last year.

So this was when Evers was the governor.

And, uh, yes, they issued the permits late last year after a pretty long process of looking at it because they did something called an environmental impact statement.

They issued the permits and then my group and others filed the lawsuit.

I

find that very, very interesting because I think the, the stereotype out there is, oh, Democrats would never approve something like this and let it go through.

We hear you have a democratic administration, Tony Evers.

And, you know, I have, as people at clean Wisconsin, have you guys, is there, is there a money looking at who's making it?

Well, the music's coming up.

We'll wait.

We'll get the answer.

That's what they call a tease, ladies and gentlemen.

We'll find out from our guests here at the table.

Evan Fine, Howard Stafford, 20 for Clean Wisconsin.

Always follow the money.

That's what I learned when I worked up the street at the building.

Come on back.

We'll find out the answer to that and more.

It's the Todd Allball Show across Wisconsin.

Brewers up seven to nothing in the eighth in Chicago.

Come on back.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Welcome back to the title of all show on the Civic Media Ready Network where it is now eight minutes before the hour of four o'clock at the top of the hour.

ABC or CBS News depending on which of our great stations you're listening to, a check of weather.

Rain continues for parts of Wisconsin into the evening and then our great sports reporter Mike Clemens and with a sports report will do one of our own right now.

Zomers can tell you it's the top of the ninth and the Brewers are up seven to nothing.

over the Chicago Cubs in game one of a double header.

You can hear the second game a little bit later this evening starts with a 630 pregame show.

Seven o'clock or thereafter, the first pitch as the Brewers take on the Cubs in the second of a double header.

You can hear it on RCE and Richland Center, ISS and Oshkosh.

RJN racing Kenosha CQM in beautiful Park Falls, our newest Brewers affiliate.

The Buzz of the North, WBZH in Hayward, Wisconsin.

We'll continue to monitor that.

Sitting here at the table, the World Headquarters in downtown Madison with a fellow Brewer fan is Evan Feinhauer, the staff attorney at Clean Wisconsin.

Good news, Evan, for

the Brewers.

Of course.

I'm

excited.

That's good news.

Not so good news if we're concerned about Wisconsin's environment.

We're talking about this Line 5 pipeline.

Really interesting work at Clean Wisconsin.

I appreciate you coming on the show.

I wanted to follow up on this question.

I started beforehand, and I think it's important for listeners and viewers to understand this was approved by the DNR recently under the Tony Evers administration.

I think a lot of people think, well, how could that happen?

And as someone who spent a lot of time in politics, I learned to follow the money.

Have you at Clean Wisconsin done this?

Has there been a lot of money from these interests in the industry to the Evers campaign or Evers

administration?

The thing that's interesting is I think people think that somebody in my job as an environmental lawyer would be focused on those kind of issues.

But the answer I think is a lot more boring in terms of what my work looks like, which is I focus on what the statute say and all the information the agency is given.

And it's way nerdier than that.

And I think it would be in some ways fun if we had some fun theory about.

money changing hands.

But I think really what this is about is they apply for these permits and it puts the department in a tough spot.

I don't think they want to say no.

I think that's true no matter who's in charge.

And so I think what they do is they they try to be really diligent and do their best under tough circumstances and with limited resources.

And they don't always get there.

And then I think they really want to get to yes, even if maybe they feel like they should say no.

And this was one of the times when they should have said no.

And I think they said yes.

And what they often do is they'll say, here's your permit.

And we've loaded it up with conditions that make it clear that you can't harm the environment from our point of view.

And then you look at the conditions and you're like, this looks more like it's DNR feeling good about the product it put out than necessarily always protecting the environment.

Sometimes the conditions are great and there's no problem.

But this was a situation where I think what happened is they were trying to get to yes, they're going to load it up with these conditions.

and then hope that kind of cross their fingers and hope nothing goes wrong.

And then that way they can say, we let the development proceed and we protected the environment, we have our cake, we eat it too.

The problem as an environmentalist is there's just things that sometimes should be no's.

They

should be denials.

Everything can't be a yes, but sometimes the answer just needs to be no.

And so I think the simpler, less interesting answer is that I think these agencies have a lot of inertia to get to yes, because they don't want to be in the way of.

infrastructure that's deemed important by the person who wants to make a bunch of money by building the infrastructure.

Let's get to the lawsuit itself that you're a part of here.

And let's talk a little bit about the value of water resources, which I think during the break you said is really the crux of this, of what you're finding out.

Yeah, so it's important to emphasize that this challenge is a challenge to permits to impact water resources, wetlands and waterways in particular.

And one of the things that's awesome about Wisconsin is that we

require you to get a permit anytime you're going to impact a wetland with some exceptions.

But here you have to meet strong standards because we've come to understand how valuable wetlands are in terms of reducing the severity of floods, providing habitat, keeping our water clean, making sure the surface to ground water flow is normal in the way it's supposed to be.

And it sets a pretty high bar.

And here that's super relevant because we're not talking about

you know, a puddle in a degraded farm field somewhere that's been super developed.

We're talking about Northern Wisconsin.

I mean, we're talking about places where you go out there and you look and there's not a single invasive species.

And it looks like, I mean, it's hard to even get to some of these places on foot.

You know, you got to trudge through a bunch of wilderness with waders on and you got to wear mosquito nets because the bugs.

I mean, it's these are places that haven't been touched by man.

And so it's important to emphasize we got not that many of these places left.

And we should be really, really protective of the ones we have and hold everybody to a super high bar if they're going to come in and dredge and blast and tunnel through these places.

I agree.

It's such an important point that once these places like this are gone, you're never going to go back.

It's just it's or at least very, very difficult in a generation.

Yeah.

And that's one of the things that the parties are disagreeing about.

You know, that's one of that's our position is you're going to impact these places and you're not going to be able to put them back together again.

And Enbridge says, no, we have a plan.

We'll come in here, we'll tear it up, but then Humpty Dumpty will go back together again and we'll be okay.

And we're skeptical that that's the case.

That's a big dispute in the

case.

Really important, people can still have time to put public testimony in right now, continuing through October, I see, and people can email in, or they have to show up, or how do they get involved?

Well, unfortunately, if you wanted to testify, the deadline for that actually would have been last week.

Oh, it doesn't continue in October?

No, we still have a live testimony component in October, but the judge set a requirement that folks had to show up on through the link last week.

That's been closed, unfortunately.

We

gave you bad information.

No, no, I

wouldn't say that.

I just can't read very well.

But people can, if they wanted to, go to cleanwisconsin.org and make a donation to the cause.

Well, I would never say no to

that.

And stay informed because I think people explaining things in real terms like you've done today, I really appreciate that.

The more we understand what's going on, the more we can build coalitions to preserve Wisconsin's resources, in my opinion.

Absolutely.

So thank you very much.

Evan Feinhauer, the staff attorney at Clean Wisconsin.

Thanks for coming in today.

Thanks for all the great work you're doing and go crew.

Yeah, it was great to be here.

Thanks.

Our pleasure.

Stay tuned.

Maggie Dawn is next.

We'll be back with you tomorrow again.

Seven nothing right now in the top.

Pardon me, the bottom of the ninth crew trying to get one double header later on.

Tell all balls say we'll see you tomorrow, whatever you're fighting for, whatever you believe in, do not give up.

Keep banging your drum.

We'll see you tomorrow.

Bye bye.

The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.

Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.

With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.

Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.