The major complaint is that fish and wildlife programs (that constitute 16% of the entire DNR budget) are lost among the agency’s other priorities, including pollution control, watershed projects, regulatory actions and other programs.

Comments & possible arguments (not necessarily in order):

• If the complaint is under-funded programs, a new agency does not necessarily address that issue!  The reorganization of the DNR in the past several years has gutted many programs that Wisconsin had been accustomed to; the budget and staff cuts across the state have also impacted the sporting groups’ interests.

• Restoring the Office of Public Intervenor will help watchdog DNR expenditures on behalf of hunters and anglers and provide oversight of permits that would damage vital habitat for game and fish.  This is a vastly more cost-effective way of guaranteeing the use of sportsmen’s funds for appropriate programs than creating a new agency!

• Splitting the DNR will be a costly proposition, leading to redundant costs and an inefficiency of scale.  A similar proposal in 1991 estimated the split would cost $4 million.  In 1996, Michigan created a separate Department of Environmental Quality separate from their Department of Natural Resources following an executive order from the governor; this split cost Michigan almost $4 million in additional overhead, thereby reducing on-ground programs by that amount.  Imagine, everything from new letterhead to a new office would be necessary to accommodate the creation of a new agency.

• The creation of a separate agency to handle only sporting interests will result in diminishing returns for the sportsman (and woman) and all citizens of Wisconsin.  As the DNR operates today, water quality specialists, wetland ecologists and other scientists interact on a daily basis with staff who deal with fisheries and game.  Wildlife managers need to work together with scientists and environmental specialists to provide quality habitat management.  Environmental quality and wildlife/fisheries management are inextricably linked; we have made great progress in institutionalizing integrated resource management.  Imagine a program that focuses on fish production, but not the quality and quantity of water in lakes and streams that support the fish!

• Wetlands will suffer an enormous and negative impact were the DNR to be split.  In which agency should wetland regulation be placed?  Fish and game, or environmental quality?  Wetlands are the bridge that link the two together!  In Michigan, the splitting of the DNR has proven to be a disaster for enforcement of wetland regulations.  Whereas most of the enforcement staff (93%) stayed with the DNR, wetland regulations and enforcement are being handled by the DEQ.  From the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) 1998 report, “The Gutting of Michigan’s Wetlands Protection.”

• According to its own employees, since its creation three years ago DEQ has isolated, undercut and controlled its own wetland protection staff.  Excessive emphasis on permitting has come at the expense of enforcement, resulting in a strategy aimed at approving projects that destroy Michigan’s valuable wetland resources.  Employees charge that the state wetland program once regarded as a model for the nation is now just a shadow of its former self and no longer adequately protects the 5.5 million acres of wetland resources remaining in Michigan.

• … the DEQ has systematically undermined the state’s once-solid wetland protection program by gutting wetland compliance efforts, diluting permit standards, intimidating dedicated resource professionals to issue more permits at the expense of enforcement, and appointing anti-environmental administrative law judges.  Currently, the DEQ has de-emphasized wetlands enforcement to the point of non-existence.”

• Splitting the agency will further polarize and politicize the management and protection of the state’s land, water and wildlife resources.  A governor-appointed head of a new agency will be subject to intense political pressure (as we currently see with the DNR).