WDNR goal... increase efficiency, integrate environmental programs to better protect natural resources, and be more responsive.
Wisconsin has much to celebrate as we approach the New Year. On July 1, 2008, your Department of Natural Resources turns 40. As the nation's first conservation "superagency," bringing together traditional fish, game, forestry, and parks with environmental protection functions, the DNR has lived up to that distinction. It has been a leader at home and in the nation, building on the foundation of landmark federal laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Acts, Wisconsin's public trust doctrine and citizens' strong conservation ethic.
The DNR's dedicated employees, working together with lawmakers, conservation and environmental groups and individual citizens, have made tremendous progress in cleaning up Wisconsin's skies, its lakes and rivers. For example, the Milwaukee River, once an open sewer for the state's largest city, now boasts 37 species of fish in a stretch formerly impounded by the North Avenue Dam, thanks to extensive pollution clean ups, dam removals, habitat restoration and fish stocking programs.
The strong combination of pairing conservation programs with environmental ones assures healthy habitat to sustain people and wildlife. Bald eagles have rebounded beyond our expectations, the wild turkeys DNR reintroduced in the 1970s now cover our landscape, and our unique, internationally noted population of the prehistoric lake sturgeon remains robust. Citizens enjoy access to waters and outdoor recreational opportunities that are second to none, including for hunting, fishing, and bicycling on the nation's first rails to trails system.
Wisconsin boasts more forests than at any time since we began systematic forest inventory in the 1930s; we've been a national leader in assuring our state, county and private forests are managed sustainably. We've built a nation-leading program to clean up contaminated properties and return them to productive use.
Here are just a few more milestones the DNR's integrated approach has helped Wisconsin achieve:
- Wisconsin in 1970 became the first state to ban DDT to protect eagles and other birds, helping spur the recovery of our nation's symbol.
- Wisconsin established the nation's first Ice Age National Scientific Reserve, preserving for future generations important features left by glaciers more than 11,000 years ago.
- Wisconsin in 1983 became the first state to meet the nation's Clean Water Act interim goal with all municipal wastewater treatment plants meeting at least secondary treatment with many more doing even better. Many of our most polluted rivers in the 1960s now support thriving fish populations.
- Wisconsin became the first state to receive authority from the federal government to carry out its own drinking water program and has since assured its citizens some of the cleanest drinking water in the world; year-in and year-out, fully 97 percent of all public water systems have met all health-based standards.
- Wisconsin in 1984 established the most comprehensive program in the U.S. for managing and protecting groundwater. In that same year, Wisconsin became the first state to pass a law to control acid rain to protect sensitive lakes in northern Wisconsin.
- Wisconsin was the first state to restore protection of its wetlands when federal law stopped in 2001.