One of the biggest items impacting the DNR in the state budget approved by the legislature's joint conferees is the proposal to break forestry issues off from the DNR and create a separate Division of Forestry.

The new agency would manage six state forests:  Northern Highland-American Legion, Black River, Flambeau River, Brule River, Governor Knowles and the Coulee Experimental Forest.  The head of the agency would be appointed by the Governor and would lack a citizen advisory board.

The proposal to split the DNR has received virtually no public support, and was blasted by conservation and environmental leaders at two quickly scheduled hearings held by the Assembly in May.

DNR Secretary Darrell Bazzell, in a memo to DNR staff, had this to say:

"I have not and do not support splitting natural resources management.  No one has shown that this is needed or has indicated how it can benefit the resources.  Splitting weakens all our inter-related programs. Most importantly, it does not benefit the resources and environment.
How can we define natural resources in Wisconsin without having forests as an integral part of that picture?  To assert that forestry is an appendage of DNR easily separated from the whole shows a lack of understanding of  how the forest ecosystem works.  Our vast forests not only supply fiber, timber and recreation, they provide habitat, are the nursery for some of our most endangered plants and animals, protect our water quality, replenish our oxygen and purify our air, and more.  Virtually every DNR discipline has projects in partnership with forestry."

The proposed DNR budget contains money for other important conservation and environmental activities.  The state's recycling program will be funded, in part, by an increase in the tipping fee charged at the state's landfills.  The tipping fee would increase from 30 cents to $3 per ton of waste disposed of in a landfill.

Supporters of the plan had sought an increase to a level of $10 per ton as Wisconsin has become a garbage magnet for out-of-state waste.  Landfills in the Milwaukee and the Eau Claire areas are being flooded by garbage from Illinois and Minnesota.

Garbage disposal in Wisconsin is more attractive because the state's disposal costs are significantly lower than its neighbors.  In the Eau Claire area alone, more than 100 truckloads of Minnesota garbage pile in every day to the privately operated landfill.

The state's bonding authority for the Wisconsin Stewardship Fund is also increased in the budget, going from $46 million per year to $60 million through the year 2010.  The program is the state's key tool for funding the land acquisition.

Since the program's creation, the Stewardship Fund has purchased more than 130,000 of land for public protection and use.  Among the major purchases are the 23,600 acre Turtle Flambeau Flowage in Iron County, the 8720 acre Willow Flowage in Oneida County (which also includes - with matching appropriations - the purchase of 106 islands and 64 miles of shoreline), 1485 acres of land in Lincoln County for the Bill Cross Rapids State Recreation Area, and 1040 acres in the Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area.

Other highlights in the DNR's budget include:

• Establishment of a non-lapsable Wisconsin Outdoor Wildlife Heritage Trust Fund for activities including regulation of fish, game, hunting and commercial fishing; hunting and trapping education; wildlife refuges; fish stocking and wildlife damage programs;
• Elimination of hunter safety education course fees;
• Creation of a dam rehabilitation grant program using municipal flood control and riparian restoration cost share-grant funds;
• A ban on drilling beneath the Great Lakes for oil or gas production.