News 05.22.18
22 May 2018 News
One person is seriously injured following a van versus tractor accident in Fond du Lac County. The accident happened Sunday afternoon around 12:50pm on State Highway 23, west of County Road G, in the Town of Forest. Investigation shows an east bound van driven by, 25 year-old Jeremiah Kramasz of Sheboygan Falls, rear ended a tractor pulling a manure spreader, driven by 38-year-old James Schneider of St. Cloud. The collision jackknifed the tractor and manure spreader, causing the tractor to overturn. Schneider was pinned underneath the tractor and had to be extricated. He was flown to Theda Clark Medical Center by Flight for Life with serious injuries. Kramasz was the lone occupant in the van and was not injured. The cause of the accident remains under investigation.
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A shortage of correctional officers to work in Wisconsin’s prisons cost taxpayers more than $42 million in overtime last year. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau says there are currently 920 unfilled corrections jobs, or a vacancy rate of about 12½ percent. The worker shortage has been a long standing problem in the Department of Corrections. Overtime pay grew 1.3 percent in 2017 from 2016, a smaller increase than previous years. Despite efforts by corrections officials to recruit and retain more workers, the shortage isn’t showing any signs of improvement. The problem was most severe at Waupun Correctional Institution and Redgranite Correctional Institution, where more than 20 percent of the jobs were open. More than 17 percent of the jobs are open at four other prisons.
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Milwaukee County wants to collect spare pocket change from airport travelers to help the homeless. James Mathy is the Milwaukee County housing administrator. He says containers near security checkpoints at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee will accept change donations to support rental assistance and employment aid for people struggling with homelessness. Mathy was inspired by a similar program at Denver International Airport, which raised more than $280,000 in three years. He says he’s excited to see how much the program will be able to raise, though the Milwaukee airport doesn’t see the same amount of traffic as Denver. He says the proceeds will go toward the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Housing First Endowment. Mathy expects the containers to be available by July 4.
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A recent study of 35 national parks found the waters off an island in northwestern Wisconsin had the highest concentration of plastic pollution. The National Park Service, South Carolina’s Clemson University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program began working on the two-year study in 2015. Samples collected from the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore had an average of 170 to 225 pieces of microplastic per kilogram of sand. Microplastic fibers are typically from sources like clothing, deteriorating nets or broken fishing lines. Stefanie Whitmire is the study’s lead author and a research scientist at Clemson. She says local conditions seem to have a larger influence on microplastic concentrations than proximity to highly populated areas. Researchers plan to continue studying the waters this summer.
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