Shaping A Showcase
	Power Play
	Editorial
	Wisconsin Favorites Doin' the Dells!

Shaping A Showcase
Volunteers, Education at Heart of Farm Technology Days

   To travelers driving past sites selected for the annual Wisconsin Farm Technology Days show, it might appear that the expanse of brightly colored tents and outdoor exhibits springs up, circus-like, overnight. But in preparation and sheer scope, a Ringling Brothers extravaganza couldn’t match the organizational effort and volunteer commitment it takes to stage the state’s largest agricultural exhibition.

   Detailed planning for each show begins nearly four years prior to the erection of “Tent City,” the striking, 60-acre expanse of displays that is the hub of a rural showplace that covers a total of more than 400 acres of prime farmland.

   As the name implies, Farm Technology Days showcases cutting-edge improvements in production agriculture, including practical applications of recent research and technological innovations. The latest farming methods and equipment, as well as a host of products and services related to rural living, are also on display, as is information concerning farm business structure. Open to all who are interested, the show offers a lot of education for the $3 admission charge.

   “Exhibitors this year will come from 24 different states and Canada,” said Glenn Thompson, general manager of Farm Technology Days, Inc., which helps develop the organizational framework for each show.

What’s In A Name?

   Heading for its 52nd run, the event during its first 50 years was known as Wisconsin Farm Progress Days. In 2003 it donned a new title, partly because the focus on advancing agricultural technology had intensified.

   However, Thompson admitted that a major stimulus for the change was the increasing difficulty the organization had with an Illinois firm called the Farm Progress Company, which pushed for exclusive rights to the “Farm Progress” name. Thompson related that when the first Wisconsin show was staged in 1954, the Farm Progress Company was running similar expositions in Illinois and Iowa.

   “The company agreed we could use ‘Farm Progress’ as long as the word ‘Wisconsin’ was in front of it,” Thompson explained. But over the years, there was an increasing tendency to use the name without the state prefix, and that irked the Illinois company, particularly after a recent ownership change.

   “Organizers believe the name change will help dispel the appearance that they are tied…to the Farm Progress Company,” stated a 2003 press release announcing the new title of Wisconsin Farm Technology Days.

Clark County Hosts

   For 2005, the exposition will call Clark County home on July 12–14. Clark Electric Co-op members Bob, Sally, Mitch, and Michelle Malm will offer their home, dairy operation, and land near Loyal to host nearly 650 commercial and educational exhibitors and about 100,000 visitors.

   “It’s huge, like a little city,” observed Bob Moseley, director of operations at Clark Electric Co-op, who took charge of extending electric and telephone service to the Tent City grounds. “I suppose you’re looking at an area the equivalent of four city blocks. We sank 38 poles, hung 37 transformers, and strung more than two miles of line,” he continued, noting the four-man crew from Clark Electric began its initial two-week construction job in February on one of the coldest days of winter.

   Moseley explained that since the Tent City site and some of the demonstrations planned for the 2005 show would be on Malms’ alfalfa fields, co-op lineworkers needed to erect the electric system before spring to protect the plantings. Shows are planned so that forage crops such as alfalfa are featured in field demonstrations during two consecutive years; fall harvesting of corn and soybeans is highlighted at a fall show every third year.

   Moseley’s experience heading the utility committee and organizing just one aspect of show preparation illustrates the scale of activity that engages more than a dozen standing committees and as many special committees that put together each Farm Technology Days show.

Inspiration, Organization

   The sparkplug for the very first Wisconsin show, according to Thompson, was University of Wisconsin Director of Cooperative Extension (later Chancellor) Henry Ahlgren, who got the idea for an agricultural showcase while attending the National Plowing Contest in Augusta, Wisconsin, in 1953. “Henry thought it would provide an opportunity to take the research base of the university to the local level,” said Thompson

   Ahlgren assembled a panel of representatives of state and federal agriculture agencies, the UW College of Agriculture, and UW Extension to serve on a governing board for what would be called Wisconsin Farm Progress Days. The event was held for the first time in Waupaca County the year after the Plowing Contest. Later, according to Thompson, representatives of other state agencies, the technical colleges, and agribusinesses were added to the governing board.

   The original, strong connection to the university is why the UW Extension office in a potential host county continues to be the routine first stop for Thompson in exploring venues for future shows. It’s also no coincidence that Thompson himself worked for decades with Extension, starting at the county level and eventually retiring as an associate dean on the Madison campus. He went right from retirement in 1991 to be assistant general manager of Farm Progress Days. Thompson became general manager in 1993.

Local Endorsement

   “If the county Extension people are interested, the next step is to get the county board to approve a resolution agreeing to take this on,” he said of a process that begins 3-1/2 to 4 years before each show. Thompson said the resolution must include up-front funding of $20,000 (which is refunded following the show) and money to pay the salary of Farm Technology Days’ marketing coordinator, who handles contracts with all exhibitors.

   “The real decision makers of each show are the members of a county executive committee, named once the county board passes its resolution,” said Thompson, whose job is to regularly meet with and help guide that committee. In addition to that executive committee, typically headed by a county Extension agent, there will normally be two-dozen committees selected to cover such operations as media relations, grounds and security, parking, admissions, food, first aid, safety, field demonstrations, education, youth, utilities, and other areas. Chairs and co-chairs of these groups marshal local volunteers (organizers say as many as 1,000) into action as the event approaches. And, of course, a major, early decision is deciding on a suitable farm or farms to host the show.

   Local executive committees abide by policies and procedures set by the Farm Technology Days corporate body, Thompson said, explaining there are specific sets of responsibilities that ultimately get assigned to working committees.

   For example, immediately after the close of one show, the host county for the following year must take charge of street signs, trams (tractor-pulled wagons that hold 40 people each), and electrical gear belonging to the corporation, placing it in secure storage until needed the next year.

   The corporate board also specifies the division of income from the show—70 percent going to the host county and 30 percent to Farm Technology Days, Inc.

Growth

   In his early job as a county Extension agent, Glenn Thompson headed the local executive committee in Sheboygan County for the 1975 Farm Progress Days. When asked about how the exhibition has grown, he readily contrasts today’s statistics with those of 30 years ago.

   “In 1975 there were 310 lots in Tent City and no agribusiness tents,” he recalled. “This year we have 828 outdoor lots and 214 agribusiness booths in the tents. I’m told they are all sold.” He also said 50 acres has been added to the space host farmers must have for field demonstrations.

   For attendance figures, Thompson says he doesn’t like to speculate publicly about numbers of visitors to upcoming three-day shows, though most press releases project attendance will approach 100,000.

   “When I took the job I decided not to guess about attendance. You get in kind of a trap that each show has to be bigger and better than the year before or it’s somehow not as successful.

   “I figure, as long as the exhibitors are happy…”

   Good exposure for products, services, and educational offerings is what makes for contented exhibitors and vendors. Their continued—and growing—presence at Wisconsin’s well-organized, premier agricultural exposition demonstrates the show’s effectiveness and tells a tale of success spanning more than a half-century.—Perry Baird

Power Play
Who will decide Wisconsin’s energy priorities?

   Gaining access to a few hundred million dollars may be the first requirement in building a power plant of significant size, but it’s not necessarily the toughest. After the financing is locked in and the plan passes muster with perhaps a dozen government entities, anybody with the wherewithal to pay an attorney or act convincingly like one can take his best shot at overturning what the regulators decide. These days, fewer and fewer such shots go untaken.

   The idea of denying John Q. Citizen the opportunity to go up against Behemoth Power & Gas in defense of his property or an environmental concern is simply foreign to the American concept of governance. But so is the idea that such controversies should go unresolved as long as one party is willing to wait the other out.

   Even as the state increases incentives for local municipalities to host infrastructure projects, examples arise of local officials growing more contentious over siting decisions. It also grows increasingly clear that planning for any major infrastructure project must take into account the years required for it to be fully litigated in every available venue.

   In Northern Wisconsin, a transmission project announced a decade ago, submitted for regulatory review in 1999 and approved—twice—by the Public Service Commission, remained stalled by one county denying use of existing transmission right-of-way across publicly owned land. In Southeast Wisconsin, the biggest generation project in state history, also proposed in the last decade, sited adjacent to an existing power plant and cleared through state and federal regulatory review, sat on hold because of a Dane County court decision.

   At this writing, the state Supreme Court was preparing to rule on an appeal of the Dane County case, and pending legislation sought to address both that matter and the stalled transmission project. Though all those things may have been acted upon as you read this, the debate won’t have ended.

Past No Precedent?

   Facing a roomful of industry professionals, WE Energies Vice President Larry Salustro didn’t equivocate. Lacking the output from two proposed new generating units at its Oak Creek power plant site, he said, his Milwaukee-based utility would fall 1,800 megawatts short of required reserve capacity by 2013.

   Thinking that far ahead is essential in the electric power industry, because under the best of circumstances, regulatory review, permitting, and actual construction of a major project are sure to take at least a few years.

   That reality is further complicated when opponents of a project exercise their right to repeated review of permitting issues in multiple regulatory and judicial forums, adding more years to the process.

    The day after Salustro’s briefing, March 30, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in the WE Energies appeal of a November 2004 decision by Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan. With WE Energies two permits away from construction after an application process that began nearly three years before, Flanagan ordered the utility to all but start over. He ruled that Public Service Commission approval to build could not legally be sought without every needed permit in hand, and that different sites and fuel options had been insufficiently considered.

   This would overturn decades of commission practice, as the PSC has routinely spurred the glacial pace of regulatory review by granting approvals conditioned on utilities obtaining needed permits.

   Staff attorney Mike Stewart of Wisconsin Public Power, Inc., an organization of municipal electric utilities, said Flanagan’s decision contradicts the way the PSC has administered state law “throughout my professional life, which is to say at least 25 years. It will be more time-consuming, more difficult if not impossible to get major projects certified if the Dane County Circuit Court decision stands.”

Clashing Agendas

Stewart’s remarks came in a hearing of the Assembly Committee on Energy and Utilities. Taking no chances on how the Supreme Court might rule, Committee Chair Phil Montgomery (R–Ashwaubenon) introduced a bill clarifying that the PSC could, in fact, grant conditional approvals and that its customary procedures were otherwise in order.

   The bill appeared destined for passage in both houses by late June, but in two late May hearings, Montgomery locked horns with opponents of the Oak Creek project. Prominent among them was Chip Brewer, director of worldwide government relations for Racine’s S.C. Johnson Corp.

   Johnson was the lead plaintiff in the Dane County lawsuit, and Brewer told the committee his company sees “a jobs crisis in southeastern Wisconsin” because of the region’s non-attainment of federal air quality standards. “It’s difficult for industry to grow,” he said.

   “I don’t think policy makers understand the huge impact” of future emissions from the Oak Creek units, Brewer said, drawing a challenge from Montgomery, who asked if he understood the utility’s plan promises a 60-percent net emissions reduction. Brewer rejected the system-wide figure, saying he was concerned only with the new plants.

   And yet, Brewer’s understanding of the non-attainment issue can’t be denied. At the time of his testimony, S.C. Johnson had a request pending with the Department of Natural Resources for permission to increase emissions of volatile organic compounds—VOCs, the ingredients of smog—by a net 96 tons annually at its own plant in Sturtevant, also in the non-attainment area and not quite 10 miles upwind of Oak Creek.

   That permit request remains pending and must pass Environmental Protection Agency review and a public comment period before Johnson can increase its VOC emissions.

   In an earlier hearing, Wisconsin Electric Cooperative Association Manager David Jenkins testified that WE Energies had been poorly rewarded for its efforts, noting that some organizations now opposing Oak Creek previously extracted environmental concessions from the company to buy their cooperation in the project’s approval.

   In addition to the dramatically cleaner new plants proposed for Oak Creek, Jenkins said, the utility’s overall generation plan calls for “the biggest expansion of wind energy in state history. What did WE Energies get for that? Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.”

Too Quiet Out There

   It’s been about two decades since Wisconsin utilities last built a major base-load power plant and three since a major transmission line was added. Now, with rising electrical demand and a new building cycle in progress, a collision of interests wanting to set policy and enforce their priorities was probably inevitable.

   If opponents of specific projects are quick to admonish the Legislature against hemming in judicial prerogatives, lawmakers might be just as skeptical of being told a long parade of regulatory commissioners of every political description, stretching back more than a quarter-century, had it all wrong.

   A legal and regulatory framework promoting discussion of varied fuel options and generation technologies is indisputably desirable. It goes off the rails if the legal system is used to push any chance of finality beyond the horizon of sensible planning in anticipation of changing societal needs. Whether that’s happened is precisely the question now being settled.

    Most of this state has not experienced a seriously hot summer since 1995, when Madison had 15 days above 90 degrees and, significantly, utilities were not always able to meet demand. Service to some customers was interrupted repeatedly that year and in 1997, when two major power plants were beset by maintenance problems. More recent summers have seen a relative handful of 90-degree days, with none at all last year.

   As Scott Neitzel, a former PSC commissioner and now a Madison Gas and Electric vice president told the Assembly Energy committee back in May, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is just about Oak Creek. It’s not. It’s about every major project moving forward.”

   Neitzel added, “We have to plan for 13 to 15 hot days, not zero like in 2004.”—Dave Hoopman

 

Editorial
by Perry Baird

Then and now—At the 1953 National Plowing Contest, Wisconsin’s electric co-ops introduced their mascot, Willie Wiredhand. The co-ops floated a new symbol, Touchstone Energy, at the 2001 Farm Progress Days in Rock County. The 1963 Vernon County show featured Miss Wisconsin Rural Electrification, while visitors settled for Adams-Columbia Electric’s Keith Wohlfert at the 1995 Washington County event.

The Show Goes On

   Bob Moseley’s final project before he retires has shaped up to be a big one. The director of operations at Clark Electric Cooperative heads the Farm Technology Days (FTD) committee responsible for electrifying the show’s sprawling Tent City complex, a 60-acre tract near Loyal that includes more than 1,000 lots and booths needing power.

   Moseley said his work began three years ago after Clark Electric’s then-CEO Dick Adler announced, “I have a job for you.” Adler, a member of the committee fashioning the Clark County show, tapped co-op resources to assist with the huge undertaking.

   Attending Farm Technology Days that were held by other counties during the next two years, Clark Electric personnel eyed the setup to get a feel for what would be required.

Extra Effort

   This past February, Moseley and a crew spent two weeks in the frozen field destined to accommodate Tent City, erecting poles, transformers, and wire—most of it donated by the co-op for the show’s use. A month out from the show’s July 12 opening, co-op staff began assisting an electrical contractor in making final hookups. The Clark Electric board of directors agreed to donate the kilowatt-hours of electricity used at the show.

   Enthusiastic support is typical of electric co-op attitude whenever the exposition locates on farms served by co-op power suppliers, according to Glenn Thompson, FTD general manager: “They’ve been super. I wish we had an electric co-op every year,” he declared.

   In addition to operational contributions, Wisconsin’s electric co-ops are consistent exhibitors themselves at the annual expositions. At the 1953 National Plowing Contest— regarded as the show that inspired the first Wisconsin Farm Progress Days—electric co-ops had an entire tent full of displays.

Showing, Signing Off

   Through the years, electric co-op personnel have had a lot to show off, particularly as advances in electronic technology progressed. Exhibits—often staffed by the co-ops’ Member Services Association—inform show goers about the vital role cooperatively owned electric utilities play in the economies of rural communities.

   And, in keeping with the event’s 2003 name change to spotlight “technology,” Moseley said Clark Electric at this year’s show will display a brand-new offering to rural dwellers by many electric co-ops: high-speed Internet service via satellite, called WildBlue.

   The day after the curtain falls on the 2005 show, Moseley and his crews will be back at the site, dismantling the electric distribution system they created for powering Tent City. When that’s done, his plans for retirement kick in.

   Moseley’s 37-year career with the electric co-op couldn’t go out on a more spectacular—or cooperative—note.

   Wisconsin Dells is famous for many things—resorts, amusement parks, an abundance of restaurants (from rugged to ritzy), fudge, souvenir shops, water parks, and entertainment of all sorts. But you haven’t experienced the real Dells, and the reason for all of today’s tourist trappings, until you’ve done the Dells of the Wisconsin River by water. (The word “Dells” is derived from the French word “dalles,” meaning flat layered rock, and that is exactly what mades the Dells’ scenery so breathtaking.)

  The first entrepreneur to bring Dells sightseers to this spectacle of nature was lumber rafter Leroy Gates, who purchased a pleasure boat in the mid-1800s. His business venture ushered the quiet town of Wisconsin Dells into an era of tourism that continues today.

   In 1873, the first steamboats arrived to replace the usual rowboats, and railroad companies began to organize river excursions. The wave of tourism swelled.

   Today, tourists in Wisconsin Dells have many options for viewing the picturesque Dells by water. Whether you are looking for a leisurely two-hour tour or a brisk ride, the Dells Boat Tours offer options that navigate through nature’s spectacular rocky formations, gulches, and grottos.

   The double-deck steamboats represent the leisurely way to see the scenery. One can opt for the rugged Lower Dells tour or the more serene Upper Dells tour. The latter features shaded, ferny glades and two scenic shore landings: Stand Rock, where passengers can watch a specially trained dog leap the five-foot chasm from the main cliff to the rock ledge, and Witches Gulch, a glen with mysterious passgeways.

   Tourists can save money by purchasing a combined ticket that entitles them to the full tour—both the Lower and Upper Dells. Cap the day off with a special sunset dinner cuise on the Upper Dells, offering food, refreshments, a leisurely stroll on torch-lit paths at the Witches Gulch shore landing, and an enchanting view of the river at dusk.

   If you like a little more speed and excitement with your scenery, opt for a thrilling ride at full throttle on one of the Dells Boat Tours’ jet boats, or try the unique Wisconsin Ducks. The Ducks—amphibious World War II vehices—travel across both land and water for a beautiful view of the Dells and a look into Wisconsin’s history. Riders pass relics of native Indian tribes and ghost towns, such as the one-thriving City of Newport.

   Whatever your style—by sedate steamboat, thrilling jet boat, romantic sunset dinner, or the versatile Duck—you’ll be rewarded by a spectacular overview of the Dells when you take to the water.—Linda Hilton

For more information, visit www.dellsboats.com and www.wisconsinducktours.com or call 608/254-8555. Tours are offered daily from early April through October, weather permitting. In summer, tours depart every 20 to 30 minutes between 8:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. In spring and autumn, call for tour times (9 a.m.–4 p.m.).