Several cranberry growers who share water with the tribe are concerned Flambeau’s higher water quality standards could put the growers out of business. But Tom Maulson, speaking as a Lac du Flambeau tribal member, tells the growers not to worry.

 

“We don’t want to control these guys back here.  We want to make sure what they put on their cranberries is going to be safe to eat.”

 

An attorney representing the Madison based Midwest Environmental Advocates, Andrew Hanson says the federal Clean Water Act doesn’t even allow regulation of cranberry growers. For not making this clear Hanson chastises the state assembly  natural resources committee.

 

“Not sham hearings that are set up to foment people’s worst fears, and get them riled up against the band, and that’s what this hearing is about.”

 

The meeting ended with Hazelhurst businessman Tom Tiffany claiming Flambeau’s water quality application is a conspiracy by radical downstate environmentalists to turn the northwoods into a federal wilderness.  Tiffany worries Packaging Corporation of America’s Tomahawk mill could be shut down.

 

“Let’s say they went by the wayside.  I did a little exercise a couple years ago to see how much business I would lose.  I’m a tourism related business. I’d lose about ten-fifteen percent of my business.  And that’s what happens with initiatives like this.”

 

I’m Nick Vander Puy for the Superior Broadcast Network