Green Peace

Industry, environmentalists
discover common goals

By Sean Ryan

Nobody was convincing anybody.

The Oak Creek Police Department courtroom was divided. Most of We Energies' faction sat on the western side of the aisle. The utility's representatives held court in the foyer outside, debriefing frustrated speakers as they walked out of the courtroom and into the falling snow outside. The environmental groups massed on the east end and set up their operation in a small office in the back of the room.

The hearing on a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' permit for We Energies' Elm Road power plant project mustered two forces. Both knew they were right.

John Rockefeller, business representative and organizer for the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters, got up to say the plant would be good for fish. Milwaukee teacher and former ironworker Fintan Dooley immediately followed with three middle-school students who said the coal-fired plant would hurt their asthmatic siblings and contaminate fish with mercury.

RESET supporters rally against the power plant that We Energies wants to build in Oak Creek. The organization has packed hearings on the project for two years to denounce the impact it would have on the area's environment. Photo courtesy of Clean Wisconsin

Lyle Balistreri, Milwaukee Building Trades Council president, argued the plant would create jobs for people like Dooley's inner-city minority students. Sierra Club representative Eric Uram said the power plant would pollute Oak Creek so badly it would scare away businesses.

The DNR permit is one of two fronts in the battle over the plant. The other is in the state Supreme Court. We Energies has appealed the nullification of its project's Public Service Commission approval. The appeal stems from a case brought by Clean Wisconsin and S.C. Johnson & Son Inc.

We Energies, after two years of this struggle, hasn't given any ground. It's become an all-or-nothing case depending on the DNR and Supreme Court decisions. Either the environmental groups that make up Responsible Energy for Southeastern Wisconsin's Tomorrow will shut down the project, or We Energies will proceed as if the opposition didn't exist.

With a We Energies coal-fired plant in the background, Susan Greenfield, town chair of Caledonia, denounces the utility's coal-fired power plant proposal in 2002. Photo courtesy of Clean Wisconsin

The battle over the power plant represents advocacy from the win-lose era, using oppositional politics and a confrontational approach. It's a method environmental groups have long employed when dealing with contractors and owners.

But it's a waning philosophy because many green advocates are sick of the war. The groups have always been short on money, and that's forced them to choose their battles wisely. So many environmental leaders have turned to diplomacy with the hope of having more impact on builders.

"If you just want to fight, that's not always going to get you the results you are looking for, and it's very frustrating, and you end up spinning your wheels," said Nathan Engstrom, program director at the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative. "What happens in that

situation is one side gets everything, and one side gets nothing. That lack of balance is not good."

Many builders, realizing that there is profit as well as principle in environmental friendliness, are also hanging up their guns. Jerry Deschane, Wisconsin Builders Association deputy executive vice president, argues that builders were ready to cooperate before the environmentalists.

"There's plenty of oppositional politics in this world, and that's not the way to get things done," he said. "We realize that we're saying similar things and that we have comparable goals.

"Once we realize that — and both sides had to realize it and didn't realize it at the same time — it opens the door for collaboration."

The newfound teamwork works for environmentalists because they hope to accomplish more working from the inside than from the outside. Builders, on the other hand, hope to find better ways to be environmentally friendly with the help of environmental groups.

"If we as construction professionals and the environmental groups look at each other as resources to achieve environmental goals, I think it'll benefit everybody," said Monique Charlier, division vice president of The Jansen Group Inc., Milwaukee. "What is the downside of trying to improve the environment and lessen the impact of our industry on it? While there are technical and logistical issues, those are things that you just work out."

The first offspring of this young marriage is a growing acceptance of green building. The concepts that are creating a new market niche for contractors were nothing more than a hippie pipe dream 30 years ago.

Groth Design Group Inc., Cedarburg, is enjoying an influx of customers following its green design of the Milwaukee Environmental Consortium's offices. Photo courtesy of Groth Design Group Inc.

"I wanted to do this stuff going to school in the 1970s, and it was hard going through the marketplace in the '80s," said Jim Wasley, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
associate architecture professor and president of the Wisconsin Green Building Association board of directors. "There have always been people who wanted to do it, but they couldn't find the marketplace.

"My students come with a built-in interest in this stuff. It's something that sets them apart in the marketplace. They see building these skills as something that will help them get a job."

In the past five years, green building has become good business, with contractors and architects striving to establish a reputation of environmentalism. Charlier, who is not alone in her opinion, credits environmental groups for a 20-year education initiative that made owners and developers comfortable with sustainable design.

These days, that education involves studying and sharing hard data on the costs and benefits of green techniques, such as those used by Jansen for the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee.

"The impact on us is we are also learning and seeing the benefits of this, and we can educate owners," Charlier said. "Now we've seen churches want to do it and developers. It's growing beyond the group of people where you are preaching to the choir."

Steve Bulik of Citizens for Responsible Power speaks to a crowd of supporters during a 2002 meeting. That was near the start of what became a multiyear battle against We Energies' coal-fired power plant in Oak Creek. Photo courtesy of Clean Wisconsin

There have been architects interested in green building since the 1970s, but the traditionally tight circle is expanding to new builders and, more importantly, to clients. Environmental groups are raising interest in green buildings and acting as marketers for builders and architects.

Just as Jansen draws references for its work on the Urban Ecology Center, Groth Design Group Inc., Cedarburg, is drumming up business from its design work on the Milwaukee Environmental Consor-tium, which is using its new offices as a showcase for green design, said Project Manager Mika Frank.

"I think it's great what they did because they have so many people coming in and out of their offices," Frank said. "I think it's a very quickly changing field, and I'm glad to see it's not just architects that want to implement it. It's coming from the clients as well."

Environmental groups have played a long-term role in expanding green building in Wisconsin, but they're having a more recent impact by teaming with builders in the state Capitol. Environmental lobbyists, working with builders, have enacted a number of long-awaited DNR regulatory changes.

Former DNR Secretary Darrell Bazzell, now vice chancellor of administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the first time builders and environmentalists came hand-in-hand to his department was in 2001. He said the collaboration between groups such as the Sierra Club and WBA helped bring about legislation giving the DNR authority to regulate isolated wetlands in the state.

"That's the first time I've seen in recent years them come together to support a piece of legislation to create regulations that weren't already in place," said Bazzell, who is a member of the board of the Gathering Waters Conservancy. "Obviously, the key to that is it's a risky proposition for all involved. … Once you begin to build trust, it creates lots of opportunities."

The risks and opportunities of collaboration both came into play in 2003 when the state began an overhaul of its Chapter 30 permitting process, which set standards for construction projects on wetlands. Groups such as the Sierra Club lined up against the WBA to denounce the reforms.

But the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative, which was created to forge environmental partnerships with businesses, took the WBA's side in support of the legislation.

John Imes, WEI executive director, said the program was good for green building because it granted shorter permitting delays in return for good design.

"We think that builders that are using those design principles should get real strategic advantage, not just a plaque," he said. "The environmental community initially was concerned about that — 'These guys are too cozy with business.'

"Judge these initiatives by the better environmental outcome and smaller footprints."

The 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, which also opposed the 2003 Chapter 30 rule changes, has now initiated an effort to shorten the permitting process for contractors. Steven Hiniker, 1000 Friends executive director, teamed with the WBA's Deschane to get a new permitting system running by the end of the year.

Hiniker said the program would let builders perform some of the DNR's permit review functions, leading to quicker processing times.

"When we sit down together and discuss our differences of opinion, it leads to progress," he said. "We're going to give it a chance that they have the wherewithal to do the right thing. We think they do. It's just a matter of trust."

Just because there's trust doesn't mean there won't be battles. Mark Redsten, Clean Wisconsin's executive director, said his group prefers peaceful collaboration but is still ready to muster its forces for battle, as in the case of the Elm Road power plant, when the other side isn't budging.

"The things we're dealing with today are a lot more complicated, and it's not just environmental group X vs. polluter Y," he said. "We're always open to deal with the construction trades. We're open. Let's talk."

The same goes for Deschane, who said there will always be friction along with the trust.

"There will always be antagonism," he said. "There will always be groups out there that believe that any kind of collaboration is wrong. There will be situations where we disagree."

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