Here & Now

Here & Now for August 16, 2019

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” we focus the program on the topic of infrastructure in our state. And the beating our roads, highways and private property have taken due to years of record flooding and storms. Zac Schultz takes us to Sawyer County to meet property owners and public officials who seek more than a quick fix in the aftermath of storm damage. State Transportation Secretary-designee Craig Thompson is here. And the Bayfield County highway commissioner talks about a U.S. Senate Infrastructure Bill that he’s worked on with Senator Tammy Baldwin. It’s “Here & Now” for August 16.

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Funding for “Here & Now” is provided in part by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

Frederica Freyberg:

A first look tonight at the costs of climate change. If you’ve traveled, visited or lived in northwest Wisconsin over the past several years, you’ve seen destroyed roads and highways, ruined harbors, damaged homes and even fatalities. This is the result of repeated torrential rain and flooding events, and locals in that part of the state continue to struggle to rebuild infrastructure. Tonight, we take a deep dive into the issue starting with reporting from our partners at WisContext. Journalist Will Cushman traveled the region to understand what happened and why. What’s happening now and in the future to help. Will joins us now. Thanks a lot for being here.

Will Cushman:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So these were events from 2012, 2016 and 2018. What counties suffered?

Will Cushman:

Right. It’s seven counties in northwest Wisconsin that would be Douglas County which includes Superior as well as Bayfield and Ashland and Iron Counties, and then a little bit farther to the south, Sawyer, Washburn and Burnett counties.

Frederica Freyberg:

So was northwest Wisconsin hit harder than other regions?

Will Cushman:

That’s a really good question and I think people all over the state who have dealt with flash floods would also ask that question. The thing that’s different in northwestern Wisconsin is that these floods have been repeated, as you said. There’s one big one that hit Superior pretty badly in 2012, and then 2016 and 2018.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, these events are different than what this part of the state or any part of the state has seen in the past, is that right?

Will Cushman:

Yeah, unprecedented rainfall in some locations from all of the floods. The 2016 flood was particularly bad in some regions. The Bad River which drains a large part of northern Wisconsin into Lake Superior reached record levels that were 50% beyond the previous record, just a huge 1,000-year flood there.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what were the costs of this?

Will Cushman:

In the tens of millions, just to public infrastructure alone. So in 2016, that estimate was at about $38 million to public infrastructure. The 2018 storm caused an estimated about $13 million and then millions of dollars more in 2012.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interestingly, your reporting shows that highway infrastructure in that part of the state has been historically underbuilt. What is that about?

Will Cushman:

Yeah, I thought that was pretty fascinating part of this reporting. So highway engineers use like a 100-year storm standard often to size culverts, which are the pipes that run streams underneath roads at stream crossings. Not all highway engineers do that but that’s kind of the common standard. So they were using, up in the region and everywhere else in the country, standards that were developed in the mid-20th century from precipitation data from the mid-20th century. There was an update just about the time of this first flood in 2012. And that update made officials realize that they were really underestimating the size of storms and so, therefore, the infrastructure in particular, the culverts were woefully inadequate for some of these really major storms that we’re now seeing.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, one official said in your report that there is simply no money for this. Why is that?

Will Cushman:

Yeah, I talked to township and county officials all over the region and they all said they don’t have enough money. Some townships saw damage that cost, from a single storm, more than their entire annual budget, and then I talked to officials in Douglas County who also blamed state-imposed levy freezes that have been ongoing for years now, as well as the opioid crisis. In recent years, Douglas County has had to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars out of its highway budget to cover the cost of the crisis.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow. Great reporting. Will Cushman, thanks very much.

Will Cushman:

Thanks so much.

Frederica Freyberg:

You can read Will’s full report titled “Washed Away: Northwest Wisconsin Copes With The Costs Of A Changing Climate,” by going to WisContext.org.

So a closer look now at how repeated flooding and storms have pounded Bayfield County roads in particular, and how a new bill before the U.S. Senate may pave the way for more than temporary fixes. The “Rebuilding Stronger Infrastructure Act” is co-sponsored by Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin and Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana. The bill would change the way federal emergency funds are dispersed. Currently, the Federal Highway Emergency Relief Program provides money to cities and counties to rebuild damaged infrastructure. However, the funds are restricted to rebuilding to original specifications. Baldwin and Braun argue that especially with the higher frequency of storms because of climate change patterns, this restriction simply sets up structures to get washed out again. The legislation would fund improving structures to withstand storm damage instead of just replacing them as is. Last month in a bipartisan vote, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works passed larger infrastructure legislation that includes the Baldwin/Braun bill. It now heads to the full Senate. Northern Wisconsin officials gathered with Senator Baldwin for a recent public roundtable on the new bill. Bayfield County Highway Commissioner Paul Johanik was among them. He joins us now out of Ashland. Thank you very much for being here.

Paul Johanik:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Before we get to this proposed legislation, first tell us what your county has dealt with in terms of infrastructure and road damage over the past several years.

Paul Johanik:

Well, in the last three years, we’ve had two major flood events. The first one did not affect the whole county, basically the southeast corner. The one last year affected two thirds of the county. We had over a million dollars in damage to county roads.

Frederica Freyberg:

And describe —

Paul Johanik:

It all falls —

Frederica Freyberg:

Describe some of that damage.

Paul Johanik:

We have 14 county roads, nine of them were damaged, seven of them were closed off completely because they were washed out, and a couple of those roads, we dealt with two years prior to that with the same type of flooding.

Frederica Freyberg:

Have you ever seen anything like that in your job and you’ve been there for many years?

Paul Johanik:

No, you know, the 100 year, 500 year floods seem to be happening more often. To plan for future, which more than likely it’s going to happen again, that’s where this bill would pave the way and save taxpayers money.

Frederica Freyberg:

Absolutely, because have you ever repaired culverts or roadway cleavages only to have them washed out again?

Paul Johanik:

Yes, absolutely. To fix a road, and that’s our main concern after an event, is to get the road open as soon as possible. Knowing we have a problem in that area to replace, say, a culvert that’s a 30-inch culvert to handle the water with a 36 or a 48-inch culvert when the road is washed out, would save money instead of putting the 30-inch or 24-inch back in place and a month later, after mitigation, being able to replace with a 48-inch culvert. We’re doing the same job twice.

Frederica Freyberg:

Right. So how strapped is your county for money to repair and replace such damage repeatedly?

Paul Johanik:

Well, you know, we can’t afford — we’re fortunate we were able to fund the repairs, but that’s not always going to be the case. If we can solve the problem the first time, that money could be used elsewhere.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because there are clearly competing costs in counties. Everything from health and human services, again, to, you know, your highway department. So how does that kind of push and pull work?

Paul Johanik:

Everybody’s grasping for the same pot of money. And you know, my concern being roads, but other departments are saying, okay, we need the money here too, and I understand that. So we’re looking for the taxpayers, we have to look out for their well-being too.

Frederica Freyberg:

So describe again how the bill from Senator Baldwin that would, again, direct the federal highway administration to factor in resiliency, as they call it, in disaster recovery grants to local governments, how would that help Bayfield County and other counties?

Paul Johanik:

If we knew of an area in the county on a county road that continually washes out water over the road because the structure is too small, we could maybe address that situation ahead of time, before a major rain event, and then be able to handle that water and keep our road in place.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now you were at that roundtable as we discussed that Senator Baldwin attended to hear about this. Was that well attended and what were other officials saying?

Paul Johanik:

It was — you know, basically everybody had the same consensus. Ashland County and Bayfield County were represented there. And everybody said the same thing. It really doesn’t make sense to do the same job twice. If we do it right the first time, maybe we will not have this problem again.

Frederica Freyberg:

After being hit multiple times by what people are calling 100-year or 500-year rain events and flooding events, what is it like for you when storms are in the forecast?

Paul Johanik:

It’s a little bothering. It doesn’t seem like we get a nice gentle rain anymore. Everything are the hard downpours. So you don’t get any — the ground taking in, vegetation taking in any of the moisture, it’s just runoff. Our storms seem to be more — harder storms with downpours.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yeah, tough stuff. All right. Well, Paul Johanik, Bayfield County highway commissioner, thank you very much for joining us and good luck up there.

Paul Johanik:

Thank you. We hope for sunshine.

Frederica Freyberg:

Absolutely. While people wait for officials at the state and federal level to act on climate change, it’s the people at the local level who are left to deal with the reality on the ground and the water in their basements. “Here & Now” reporter Zac Schultz traveled to Sawyer County and the city of Hayward for this report.

Zac Schultz:

The vacation town of Hayward in Sawyer County is built on water, both figuratively and literally.

Pat Sanchez:

So Hayward is built on a swamp, a catacomb of underground rivers.

Zac Schultz:

Pat Sanchez is the emergency manager for Sawyer County. She says the county is also pretty flat, so torrential rain events like they had in 2014 and ’16 will lead to heavy flooding.

Pat Sanchez:

We have a lot of rivers, a lot of streams, a lot of lakes, and when we get heavy downpour like we’ve had in the past years, there’s not anywhere for that water to go.

Sandy Okamoto:

I did have carpeting down here, but that all rotted.

Zac Schultz:

Sandy Okamoto feels like most of the water in Sawyer County comes through her basement.

Sandy Okamoto:

‘Cause this whole area floods, and it comes in everywhere.

Zac Schultz:

She says after heavy rains, the groundwater sprays into the basement in her house and her rental property next door.

Sandy Okamoto:

It’s like someone’s standing with a squirt gun behind the walls and just — it comes through everywhere.

Zac Schultz:

When the forecast calls for heavy rains, Sandy can’t sleep.

Sandy Okamoto:

Very overwhelming. And all I do is run back and forth between the two houses and move pumps and move hoses.

Zac Schultz:

But Sandy says it wasn’t like this when she bought these houses. This creek and neighboring Shue’s Pond would occasionally dry up.

Sandy Okamoto:

Like I say, there wasn’t even water in this creek. I mowed. It was bone dry. I mowed across it.

Zac Schultz:

The water level in places around Sawyer County is just higher than it’s ever been.

Don Hamblin:

It’s kind of at the bottom of the drainage system so it has nowhere to go from here.

Zac Schultz:

Don Hamblin is both the fire chief and public works director for the town of Hayward so he’s been monitoring this road.

Don Hamblin:

Now that it’s underwater, there’s definitely going to be some structural issues that will have to be addressed.

Zac Schultz:

When the water recedes, he can fix the road but the bigger question is, how soon will he have to do it again?

Don Hamblin:

Are we going to be addressing these problems continually for the next 20, 50 years?

Zac Schultz:

The 2014 and ’16 floods in Sawyer County were both close to being labeled as 100-year floods. Counties in northwest Wisconsin have dealt with repeated 100, 500 and even 1,000-year flood events in just the past few years. Washing away roads, flooding homes, and making everyone consider whether this is the new normal.

Jason Laumann:

We’re not looking at the problem in the big picture. We’re just saying how can we get it back to functioning status.

Zac Schultz:

Jason Laumann is the deputy director of the Northwest Regional Planning Commission. He’s meeting with local officials from around Sawyer County to talk about applying for federal grants to prepare for emergencies.

Jason Laumann:

Preparedness levels vary widely across the region. I think some communities are certainly more prepared than others.

Zac Schultz:

He doesn’t hesitate when asked about the next time this area sees a 500-year flood event.

Jason Laumann:

Next year, yep. We’re experiencing these event so often, at such a great magnitude, that we’ll have no choice at some point but to allocate resources to try and address it.

Zac Schultz:

To help communities prepare, they created the Northwest Wisconsin Flood Impact Study, which shows which roads and houses would be underwater during 100 or 500-year flood events. A 500-year flood in Sawyer County would cause nearly $12 million in damages to buildings and see 50 miles of roads closed. We overlaid the study’s interactive map viewer on downtown Hayward to show just how much would be under water.

Pat Sanchez:

When I saw that study, I just said I hope I retire before the 100-year and the 500-year flood hits.

Zac Schultz:

Pat Sanchez would be in charge of managing a flooding emergency, and when she read the study, she made a phone call.

Pat Sanchez:

I ordered 10,000 sandbags and had them delivered and then I pre-staged them north and south.

Zac Schultz:

So far, she hasn’t needed them.

Pat Sanchez:

Luckily it didn’t happen. I’m still knocking on wood because we’re not over the season yet.

Zac Schultz:

But sandbags are a stop-gap solution, not a long term plan.

Pat Sanchez:

We can start looking at, you know, do we need bigger culverts? Do we need less pavement?

Don Hamblin:

Every time we redo a road project, we try to improve drainage.

Zac Schultz:

Don Hamblin says after the last two floods, the town of Hayward started re-thinking their approach to road building.

Don Hamblin:

We’ve kind of prioritized some of our projects based on water flow.

Zac Schultz:

Hamblin says instead of just repaving this road, they decided to raise it up so water could drain off.

Don Hamblin:

We’ve added anywhere between 4 and 10 inches of gravel in some places to get better drainage and improve some of the structure under the road.

Zac Schultz:

These projects can get expensive. It will cost $345,000 to replace the undersized culvert that carries Smith Creek under Highway 63 in Hayward. The city of Hayward is telling residents like Sandy Okamoto they’re waiting for the state to pay.

Sandy Okamoto:

I know they’re waiting for the DOT to give them a big chunk of money to do something underneath Highway 63 and they say there’s no point in fixing anything this side of Highway 63 because then the homes downstream would flood.

Zac Schultz:

The Department of Transportation isn’t scheduled to start work until 2023. She can’t imagine waiting until then.

Sandy Okamoto:

It’s just no way to live.

Pat Sanchez:

I’ve just been told there’s no money, there’s no money, there’s no money. We’ve talked to our political entities and they keep saying write grants. Well, we know how competitive grants are now days.

Jason Laumann:

And I suspect because of the things that we’ve experienced in the last five years, namely the flooding issue.

Zac Schultz:

Five years ago, flooding wasn’t even listed as a concern on Sawyer County’s Hazard Mitigation Plan grant application. Now it’s number one.

Jason Laumann:

I’m not guaranteeing you’ll get funding for these things because you’re going to be competing against not just the other counties that have been affected in Wisconsin, but every county across the country.

Zac Schultz:

Jason Laumann says local governments need to plan for these costs.

Jason Laumann:

Communities, counties have begun to realize that they’re going to have to bear some of the burden for this, especially with the infrastructure costs.

Zac Schultz:

Otherwise, they’ll be in the odd position of hoping when the flood comes, it’s really bad, so they qualify for FEMA grants to rebuild.

Don Hamblin:

This is the largest culvert structure that we have in the town of Hayward.

Zac Schultz:

That’s what happened after the 2016 flood washed out this gravel road.

Don Hamblin:

It ended up being a FEMA project. The total cost of the project was over $80,000 to put this box culvert in. And you know, for the town to do that on their own never would have happened.

Zac Schultz:

Even with the FEMA money, the township still had to pay 25% of the cost. Hamblin says it would cost $5,000 to $10,000 to fill in the washout. They could have done that for next eight floods and still saved money.

Don Hamblin:

Hopefully this culvert will outlive all of us.

Zac Schultz:

But the next eight floods may not be that far off.

Don Hamblin:

Do we plan 50 years or 100 years down the road or do we plan for tomorrow and hope for the best?

Frederica Freyberg:

That was Zac Schultz reporting. Highway funding, transportation costs and the DOT’s need for state money to fix, maintain and build new roadways always rises to the top of state budget priorities. The recently passed two-year state budget was no different. Though there were different ideas for funding sources, split along party lines. In the end, state funding for local transportation projects got a boost: a 10% increase or $66 million over the biennium, plus a $75 million grant program for one-time funding. Tonight we check in with the Department of Transportation Secretary-designee Craig Thompson on the issue of local transportation needs. Thanks very much for being here.

Craig Thompson:

Hi, Frederica, thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Sure. So how far will the 10% boost and the $75 million grant program go toward helping these strapped counties and locals meet their highway needs?

Craig Thompson:

I think the way you just described it is very fair and very important. The 10% increase in general transportation aids is ongoing with ongoing revenue and I think that’s important for counties and cities and villages and towns to build a plan how they’re going to use that, where they’re going to start making repairs. The $75 million grant program is going to be helpful as well but with one-time money, this is more just for a specific improvement project. So it’s one of the reasons the governor vetoed it the way he did rather than putting the $75 million upper into a local improvement program that could not be sustained. We’re setting up a separate grant program where we can have discreet specific projects come in, demonstrate economic development and then we can make awards based on that for those specific programs.

Frederica Freyberg:

Getting back to the tie-in with Zac’s reporting, in his report, the town of Hayward says it is re-thinking the approach to road building because of rain and flood events and the damage that those cause. Is the DOT also re-thinking its approach and helping locals to do so?

Craig Thompson:

You know, this is something I was just at a convention of Midwest states, other secretaries from other DOTs, and resiliency across the entire country for DOTs is becoming a very, very important issue. And again, it’s a balancing test because we have to look at this and what’s going on with climate change and with weather events in areas like northwest, but we still have to continue to prioritize, whether it’s along critical commerce corridors, because we can’t just start engineering every area up to 100-year floods or things like that. It’s just not practical. So we have to rely on the best data, the best science and begin, but re-looking at some of these areas that have persistent issues how we deal with that.

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of resiliency, how does Wisconsin fare compared to other states in terms of building for that?

Craig Thompson:

Well, I think we’re all largely in the same boat there. There’s some other states that have had very critical commerce corridors taken out with hurricanes and things like that. Luckily we haven’t had that to date, but I think it’s got all the states looking at this in earnest, and I do think while at the state level, we’re going to have to do good planning. Some of this is going to have to come at the federal level as well.

Frederica Freyberg:

Absolutely. In the city of Hayward, going back kind of — residents are experiencing severe flooding in part because the city is waiting until 2023 for state money to help fix a culvert. What do you say as the secretary-designee to those people who can’t not imagine waiting four years to address that one problem?

Craig Thompson:

Well, this is part of the reason that we’ve been having this conversation about transportation resources and funding in such earnest. To be honest with you, there’s other localities you could go and talk to that aren’t on any schedule right now to have some of these sorts of things replaced. I know four years seems like a long time especially if you’re in one of these areas but we’re trying to move these things up. Our state highway rehabilitation money that went into this budget has allowed us to move a lot of local projects up but there’s a lot of needs out there.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to that, what has been the statewide impact of changing climate on road building, maintenance and repair overall?

Craig Thompson:

I don’t know that any of us can give a definitive answer to that, but in your reporting and you look at what’s happened with that flooding up there, as a matter of fact. Just with the high winds recently in northwest Wisconsin, again, we just lifted — we just lifted some weight restrictions on some highways to allow them to get some of these fallen trees and timber out of there more quickly. So it is having impacts on us in a lot of different ways, and it’s something that we need to keep relying on science and updating how we’re dealing with this.

Frederica Freyberg:

What has been the impact of FEMA’s requirement that when its emergency funds are used to rebuild storm-damaged infrastructure, that it be built to prior specs?

Craig Thompson:

That is something that we talked about when I mentioned I was at this meeting with other Midwest states and at the federal level, we want to have those conversations. Is that really the best use of taxpayer dollars? If you’re dealing with an area that there’s a likelihood that this event could happen again, to spend all that money just to build it to prior specifications when that very well might — we might be rebuilding it again. I think that, again, those FEMA regulations and at the federal level, we need to be having those conversations.

Frederica Freyberg:

So can the state do anything about that, though?

Craig Thompson:

Well, I think we can weigh in. That has to do with when FEMA dollars are involved so we can affect a lot of other areas when FEMA dollars are not involved. As a matter of fact, with our structures, with our bridges and others, when they do get to end of their life and we’re rebuilding them, we used to have a 25 and 50 year for that, now we’re looking at more of a 100 year. So our proactive specs, we are trying to build some of that in in these areas and in specific areas, we can look at if there’s persistent flooding, for example, we can go back and look at that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Shifting gears with less than a minute left here, the Republican-controlled Senate has not approved a single member of Governor Evers’ cabinet. Has that affected your ability to do your job?

Craig Thompson:

It really hasn’t. To me, I look to the people at the department and just to make sure that we’re running the program effectively to just go about and do our job, and that’s what we’ve been doing. There’s no restrictions on the ability of us to be able to do that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think keeping you as secretary-designee gives the Senate leverage over you or any of your decisions?

Craig Thompson:

I haven’t really felt that, and I think eventually they’ll get around to doing it but in the meantime, I think we just need to do our job.

Frederica Freyberg:

Craig Thompson, thanks very much.

Craig Thompson:

Thanks, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

Saying climate change poses a serious threat to Wisconsin, Governor Tony Evers today signed an executive order creating the Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy. The governor tied changing weather patterns to the future of Wisconsin’s natural resources, public health, tourism and overall economy. His order charges the new office with achieving a goal of ensuring all electricity consumed within Wisconsin is 100% carbon-free by 2050.

Tony Evers:

For far too long, clean energy has not been a priority in our state, and we’re going to change that. And we’re going to adopt policies that will reduce greenhouse gases, gas emissions and reduce the impact of fossil fuel that is affecting our state.

Frederica Freyberg:

Evers says a transition to a clean energy economy will generate thousands of jobs.

Next week, we continue our series of interviews with members of Governor Tony Evers’ cabinet. Corrections Secretary-designee Kevin Carr will be here. That is all for our program tonight. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here & Now” is provided in part by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.