Granholm makes appointments to DEQ

Granholm makes appointments to DEQ

LANSING -- Governor-elect Jennifer Granholm has appointed an environmental lawyer to head the state Department of Environmental Quality.  Steven Chester,

 who was the deputy director of criminal enforcement for the USEPA under Clinton, was nominated to head the department.

Madison lawyer - an avid hunter and fisher - to lead WI DNR

   A Madison lawyer who loves to fish for musky and hunt deer will be the next secretary of the WI DNR, Gov.-elect Jim Doyle announced December 23. Scott Hassett, 52, a partner and attorney for 22 years at Lawton & Cates in Madison, was described by Doyle as a "truly passionate champion of natural resources."  In his 22 years of legal practice in Madison, Hassett has handled civil, criminal and employment litigation. He has also taken on environmental cases, including suits involving pollution and toxic waste.

   Hassett is also a former chairman and current member of the board of directors of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. The foundation awards grants for environmental and educational projects and has been a major contributor to the effort to restore the endangered whooping crane to the state.

   Hassett is a member of several outdoor sporting organizations and served as the political adviser and lawyer for Muskies Inc.

New Ruffe Expansion

Keweenaw and Lake Michigan

   The Keweenaw Waterway and Lake Michigan have been invaded by the Eurasian ruffe. This exotic fish was initially found in the Duluth/Superior harbor in 1986, where the U.S.G.S Lake Superior Biological Station tracked its population explosion through the 1990s.

   This past September, during a routine surveillance survey in waters off Escanaba, Michigan, FWS biologists from the Ashland Fishery Resources office (FRO) captured one adult Eurasian ruffe.  This is the first confirmed finding of a ruffe in Lake Michigan.

   Just two weeks later, another survey made a significant ruffe discovery in Lake Superior.  In cooperation with the Michigan DNR, FWS captured two additional ruffe in Little Bay de Noc. One adult ruffe was captured in a bottom trawl from Escanaba harbor near the site of the original ruffe discovery. A juvenile ruffe was also captured in a bottom trawl north of Gladstone, Michigan, six miles north of the capture site in Escanaba harbor. The capture of both adult and juvenile ruffe suggests that ruffe reproduction may be occurring in Lake Michigan.  Also this fall, a male ruffe was captured in the River Sloughs, of the Keweenaw Waterway.  This discovery represents a range expansion of 63 miles from the Ontonagon River, MI.

Is the WI DNR really short of money?

They may have been able to contain the ruffe years ago

By Louie Kowieski

   The finding of one five inch female Eurasian ruffe in the pilings at Escanaba does not bode well for Green Bay, Lake Michigan and the waters of the entire state.

   Until now the cold water of Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior has acted as a barrier to the expansion of this detrimental exotic species by moving through the shore system of the lake.  Without barriers it�s only a matter of time until they travel and proliferate our lakes, streams, and rivers.

   If only Congressman Obey, Jim Addis and Bill Horns would have allowed for the experimental treatment of ruffe using a Baylucide-TFM mixture a few years back. Chances are we would have been able to create a dosage mixture that could have been used as a model for future applications. THE USFWS had set aside $60,000+ to fund

the project and the aforementioned people were

responsible for killing the entire project. There probably would have been residual kill of other species in the target water, but now we have no data and no money. I admit to using hindsight, however the people responsible used no foresight to the future of an uncontrolled ruffe expansion.

   I have said it before and I will say it again, 'When responsible government entities do not take reasonable measure to provide for the public good the result is malfeasance.'

   Wisconsin has the distinct record of having the first discovered population of Eurasian ruffe in the United States and having done no meaningful abatement measures other than bait-bucket expansion ban rules. Wisconsin�s failure with ruffe is documented in the Ruffe Control Committee minutes since day one. Now it�s truly too late and generations to come will look back with hindsight and mutter, "What the hell were they thinking?"

Deputy Director Marshall Jones selected by Bush for Presidential Rank award

   Marshall Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has been selected by President Bush as a recipient of a Presidential Rank Award, a prize awarded annually to a select number of career senior executives to recognize exceptional long-term accomplishments.

   When Administrations changed in January 2001, Jones led the 8,000 employee Fish and Wildlife Service for more than a year while Steve Williams of Kansas was awaiting confirmation as the agency's new director.

   As Acting Director, Jones moved quickly to promote a new relationship between the states and the Service, instituting biweekly meetings throughout the year with State leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern and challenging all the agency's senior executives to do likewise in their own regions and program areas.  The push to build bridges to the states was not new for Jones, he had done the same thing when he managed the Service's

International Affairs program.

   Jones also worked tirelessly to improve the Service's relationship with its employees. In one of his most ambitious efforts, he managed to meet personally with nearly 15 percent of the agency's total workforce to gather information and answer questions during the transition period.

   At the same time, Jones pushed to actively recruit and mentor minority employees and helped the Service become a leader within the Department of the Interior in that area, selecting the Service's first female African-American for a Senior Executive Service (SES) slot.  Jones has also pushed hard for management reform, implementing changes that link senior managers' performance evaluations to accomplishment of strategic goals.  He also moved vigorously to revitalize the agency's struggling fisheries program, asking the Sport Fishing and  Boating Partnership Council to help develop a new fisheries strategic vision.

   "Marshall Jones set the standard for civil servants who are thrust into the political arena as acting directors, knowing that the job is temporary and that they would return to their old jobs in a matter of time," said Service Director Williams.  "His diligence, foresight and extremely

conscientious management went a long way to making my transition relatively easy.  He is an enormous credit to this agency."

   In 1998, Jones initiated a long term, Service-wide effort to streamline wildlife permit programs.  He pioneered the use of risk assessments to adjust the information required from applicants, balancing the need for protection of endangered species with the benefits of commercial trade in species that are not at risk.

   As Assistant Director for International Affairs prior to moving to the director's immediate staff, Jones administered the Service's involvement in bilateral and multilateral conservation efforts, including the U.S. Management and Scientific Authorities for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Ramsar Wetlands Convention and the listing of foreign species and administration of international wildlife permits under U.S. conservation laws.  He also administered programs that assist conservation efforts for elephants, tigers, rhinos, migratory birds and other species around the world.

   Jones has also served in Washington as chief of the CITES Management Authority from 1999_1994; as Acting Chief of the division of Ecological Services in 1987; in the Service's Southeast Region as Chief of the Regional Endangered Species Division from 1984_1987 and before that, as a comprehensive planning specialist in the Regional Division of Federal Aid; and as Acting Chief of the Endangered Species Division in the Service's Regional Office in Denver in 1978.  He began his career as a biologist and technical writer in the Office of Endangered Species in Washington, D.C., in 1975.

   Jones' 29 years of federal service includes stints with the U.S. Army and with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

   Jones majored in zoology and English at the University of Michigan, received an MS degree in vertebrate ecology from Murray State University in Kentucky and did additional graduate work at Cornell University.  He served with the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1971.  He lives in Washington, Virginia, with his wife, Cornelia Clay Fulghum, a writer from Augusta, Georgia, and has a daughter, Erin Jones, of Nashville.