Action Alert: February Water Legislation Update

Thank you to everyone who contacted legislators about the Water Quality Task Force (WQTF) bills. All 13 bills have made it through the committee process. The next step is for the full Assembly and Senate to vote and then the Governor needs to sign the bills into law. The Assembly will be voting on the WQTF and a few other water related bills on Tuesday, February 18th.

Action You Can Take

Take action today; your voice is needed. Please use our easy form to contact your Representative to ask them to support the positive bills below and oppose the negative ones. We’ve broken the list down into “support” and “oppose.” Our action alert provides sample language that you should personalize.

The following bills provide the most positive steps forward for improving water quality:

Please support:

• AB 790 – Funding for County Conservation Staff
• AB 791 – Wisconsin Fund for Septic Systems
• AB 795 – Assistance to Farmers for Conservation
• AB 796 – Pilot Program to Address Nitrate Contamination
• AB 797 – Prohibition on Sale or Use of Coal Tar-Based and PAH Sealant Products
• SB 91 – Creating a Water Pollution Trading Clearinghouse
• SB 252 – Flood Risk Reduction Pilot Projects

The following bills are steps backward and are not priorities for addressing Wisconsin’s urgent water quality problems.

Please oppose:

• AB 793 – Changing the municipal flood control grant programs’ priorities.
• AB 794 – Influencing the Groundwater Standards Process.
• AB 798 – Funding biomanipulation of lakes.

You can learn more about each bill in our recent blog posts:

• Overview of the 13 Water Quality Task Force bills
• Brief summaries of AB 791, 793, 794, 797, 798 and links to 792, 799, 800 & 801
• Brief summaries of AB 790, 795, 796

(Note: the action alerts is these blog posts were to the legislative committees that already voted the WQTF bills out of their committees. Please use the new action alert to contact your Representative.)