Know Your Madisonian: UW-Madison professor studies public attitudes about government efforts to improve lakes.
In Wisconsin, clean-water advocates complain that laws offer financial incentives for voluntary anti-pollution efforts — but few meaningful penalties — for farmers whose land is the main source of water quality problems.
But many farmers say they can’t afford to do more in a tough market where each year smaller farms disappear, while so-called mega-farms increase.
Urban and rural residents agreed water needed to be cleaned up, and they strongly supported both the financial incentives for voluntary efforts on farms and the notion of adding meaningful penalties.
People who trust government were more likely to support stricter regulations, while those with individualistic leanings more often favored incentives — leading Rissman to conclude that the best way to clean up lakes may be to strengthen both regulations and incentives, because the combination could win broad support from the public.
Why study people’s attitudes?
The majority supported all seven policies we proposed (with incentives and regulations) for improving water quality.
We found the least support, at least in Dane County, was for (two options) relying only on voluntary actions.
And (in Wisconsin) there is a requirement for farms not to have excessive phosphorus in their soil, although there is debate about whether the standard (is strict enough to be) effective.
It makes it very difficult to understand what sort of changes are happening.