For those of you who haven't heard, a meeting is being held in Chicago tonight to discuss Waukesha's proposal to divert water from Lake Michigan. This is the first request to divert water outside the Great Lakes Basin since the Great Lakes Compact Council formed in 2008. Making a final decision involves quite a bit of research and the involvement of several states. On top of the many people directly involved in the process, many citizens and groups like The Alliance for the Great Lakes are also weighing in and expressing their concerns. Almost everyone involved shares similar concerns:

What negative effects could each option have on the environment?
Are there any better alternatives available that would provide radium free water?
How will the results of this proposal influence future requests for Great Lakes Water?

If you'd like a little more history on this ongoing issue, check out a report done by Art Hackett back in November called Waukesha Water.

"Now that I've had a taste of it I don't wonder why you love boating." Rosie Sayer to Charlie Allnut

Rosie, is of course, Katherine Hepburn's character and the great Humphrey Bogart played Charlie Allnut. The movie is "The African Queen", one of the best "boating" adventures ever. We know a bit about boating here, living as we do in such a watery state: two Great Lakes, one Mississippi River, and 15,000 + lakes (Take that Minnesota! You of the 10,000 lake brag. We leave you in the dust.) One of the most wonderful of our watery statistics is that Wisconsin has some 30,000 miles of rivers and streams. And many are "boatable". Here's the thing, last year videographer Frank Boll, sound recordist Brad Wray and yours truly had two wonderful boating adventures, on these stories about the Brunsweiler River and the Totagatic River.

I'm scouting around for some other river stories, I may have one lined up for the Mink River. What's happening river-wise where you live? Is there a story that could be found through a "boating adventure"?? Let me know!

As In Wisconsin first reported back in August 2009. The PBS series American Masters will air a documentary about Wisconsin's own John Muir. (Father of the National Park System)

A freelance producer and crew where shooting on the former Muir property in Marquette County (Fountain Lake Farm) last fall for the upcoming documentary called, "John Muir in the New World." The documentary is in editing right now and will be ready to air on Earth Day in mid-April 2011 right here on Wisconsin Public Television.

For more information about the documentary and to hear from the series producer you can watch our web extras. Also, only on the web you can learn about Muir's strict religious upbringing, the biggest threats to the Muir property today and find out what the current landowner would say if he ever met John Muir.

For more on John Muir's legacy and the Wisconsin man who's walking in his footsteps you can watch our In Wisconsin report about the former Muir property. Click here to watch!

This photo is a production still from a recent trip to what we call "The Southern Front". We've been following the problems faced by our state's migratory songbirds in a series of reports for In Wisconsin. For example, check out the first and second installments in the bird strike series that details the problem of window collisions which kills millions of migrating songbirds every year.

Early this February, we travelled to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica to document critical efforts to conserve these birds on their wintering grounds. If these birds aren't protected in Central and South America, all of our efforts are for naught. This shoot was funded through the generous help of a Wisconsin non-profit, the Stry Foundation. Next week I'll describe what we shot and what it means to our upcoming hour-long documentary, "Our Birds". The crew, parked in that big ole rainforest tree, consists of sound recordist Kerman Eckes, producer Jo Garrett, and videographer Frank Boll.

More next week!

I've got a story on In Wisconsin this week on February 25, at 7pm, about bats and a deadly epidemic called "White Nose Syndrome". This newly emerging disease is devastating bat populations in the Northeastern U.S. and it's predicted to be heading our way.

I've done a variety of stories on bats for the program, as has my fellow reporter, Liz Koerner. Every story can open a reporter's eyes to new perspectives, new understandings. The big takeaway for me from these bat shoots is a new appreciation of the researchers' hard work and dedication. These people give a new meaning to the term "the midnight shift". Of course, their midnight shift is a second shift since they work long into the night on-site with the bats and daytime hours are spent catching up with the myriad of work that must take place during the day.

There is a shot in this week's story on "White Nose Syndrome" that sums it up for me: two researchers arrive at a truck that serves as a makeshift research station, their arms are full of paper bags and each bag holds a live bat to be weighed and processed as part of the research. Other researchers are standing by to help in this process. It is tough, physical work: data collection late at night and these folks have nose-dived into it in an effort to save Wisconsin's bat populations.

Check it out!

That's MartEns, not Martins

They're little and tough. The animal in question is the pine marten, a member of the weasel family, and an animal that is barely hanging on here in Wisconsin. Why this animal fails to thrive has researchers puzzled since this predator is doing well in neighboring states. What gives? Why has the pine marten population fared so poorly?

We produced our first story on pine martens many seasons ago. This Thursday, February 18, at 7 pm we give you an update on an mission to boost the animal's numbers through a new re-introduction effort. It's been fascinating for me to see this new three year re-into/research project grow from idea to actuality. It's a huge team effort and as one of our interview subjects said, "there's no manual out there that tells you how to re-introduce martens to Wisconsin".

Science seldom runs in a straight line and the twists and turns of this project are compelling.

AND I promise you a really cool photo of a mom marten.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tune in!

I'm working on a segment for Here and Now for Friday, 12/18, on what Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources should do about deer management. This year's hunt saw a 29 percent drop in the number of deer killed. Many hunters believe this is the result of the DNR going too far in controlling deer populations in the past.

The committees covering this in the Assembly and Senate have scheduled a hearing about this on Thursday, 12/17. We'll be there.

Because of those concerns, the Natural Resources Board dropped the controversial 'Earn A Buck' rules this year (requiring a hunter to shoot an antler-less deer first) in all deer management units outside the zones where Chronic Wasting Disease is considered endemic.

Here's a question for which I want to track down an answer: Do they do things differently in Minnesota or Michigan? If you have thoughts on this, please feel free to e-mail me at art.hackett@wpt.org.

This is my first attempt at crowd sourcing on this blog. We'll see what happens.

Many of you have been following the progress (if you want to call it that) of Asian carp up the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The big fish are fugitives from southern catfish farms and fishermen and environmental agencies are concerned about what will happen if they make it into the Great Lakes. The canal draws water from Lake Michigan so there's a direct connection.

The Corps of Engineers had installed an electrified barrier near Lockport, Illinois to try and keep the fish out of the Great Lakes, but DNA tests released two weeks ago, show the invasive species has made it past the "fence."

This week the Illinois DNR will be treating a six mile stretch of the canal with Rotenone to poison all the fish in that section. The goal is to catch any that might have slipped past. Researchers would like to come up with some actual specimens to back up the DNA tests, but they admit finding them among hundreds of thousands of other floating fish will be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

We'll be there to document the activity for this week's Here and Now program and hopefully for an expanded report later on.

I'd also like to mention that I've entered the brave new world of Twitter. I'll keep you posted on what's going on around the news and public affairs unit.

One of the limitations of storytelling on television is that there just isn't enough time to say everything you'd like to say about the interesting people we feature. My story in this week's edition of In Wisconsin is a good example. It's a humorous look at the autumn adventures of a father-son duo in Platteville. We focused only on their nut picking which is a weekend and after hours way to make a little extra money. The rest of the story about Roger Lange a.k.a. "the Dad" is that, in order to make ends meet, he works a full time job with the County AND serves as a local EMT. So, when he's nut picking, he's usually wearing his pager, ready to zoom off to an emergency. Now, if we were doing a documentary about Roger, who knows what else we might find out about this busy, busy man.