Weekly Science Seminar: Protecting & Promoting Wisconsin Water

A map of Wisconsin's water use. Image courtesy of USGS
A map of Wisconsin’s water use. Image courtesy of USGS

Happy World Water Day! While we’ve got it pretty good in this country when it comes to clean and available water, getting to that point took a lot of political action, public pressure and well-crafted laws. In honor of that, we offer the video below on the history (and future) of Wisconsin’s water.
UW Law School professor, Melissa Scanlan, recently spoke to Center for Limnology faculty, staff and students about Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine and the role both the government and the Wisconsin DNR play in protecting and promoting our state’s waters for public use. The talk was an interesting look at changes through history and future challenges. As Wisconsin moves to streamline mine permitting and ease restrictions on wetland development, conflicts between private development and public use of our aquatic resources will continue to keep the law relevant. Here’s a good primer on what that protection entails.