Tuesday 8/11/26: Line 5 lawsuit, flooding and schools, affordable dental care

Support for WUWM podcast comes from Hop, Harvest, and Vine, and Good Harvest Market in Pewaukee, part of one destination, combining farm-to-table dining, local craft beers, and organic groceries under one roof. More at goodharvestmarket.com. From 89.7, WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR, this is Lake Effect. I'm Audrey Noakowski. Today, we'll share an update on the ongoing legal battle over the Line 5 pipeline here in Wisconsin. Then we'll look back at how schools in our area handled last year's historic flooding and how they can be prepared for severe weather in the future. These buildings are going to be with us for decades or even over 100 years, and we need to make sure that we're building for not only flood safety of today, but flood safety of tomorrow. Plus, we'll learn about a local nonprofit that provides dental care for underserved children who are on Medicaid. Because dental becomes a little bit more of an afterthought, the providers that can take that insurance are less than what would otherwise be available with general health care. All that's coming up on Lake Effect.

This is Lake Effect from 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. Thanks for joining us on this primary election day. The polls are open until 8 o'clock tonight. If you're looking for information on the races and the candidates, you can find everything that you need in WUWM's voter guide. Just go to wUWM.com slash voter guide. Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision on the ongoing battle over the Line 5 pipeline in northern Wisconsin. The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has been fighting to get a portion of the pipeline off tribal lands for over a decade. The court confirmed that Enbridge, which operates the pipeline, has been trespassing on those lands. Enbridge is in the process of rerouting the line outside of tribal lands, but the court wasn't clear about the next steps for removal. Stephanie Sosey is a senior attorney with Earth Justice and represents the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She talks with WUWM Environmental Reporter Susan Bence about the latest online five. At the end of July, the Seventh Circuit ruled on a case that it's been sitting on for two and a half years. And that case is an action by the Bad River Band to remove the part of Line 5 that Enbridge has that goes through the reservation. So there's about 12 miles that goes through the reservation through land that's owned either by the band or band members. And several of those parcels need tribal consent before an easement can be renewed. But all of those expired in 2013. And since that time, Enbridge has been trespassing. So they've been operating on the reservation without a valid easement. And at the end of July, the Seventh Circuit affirmed that, yes, Enbridge is trespassing on that land. And they do need to stop. But the Seventh Circuit kind of stopped short of saying when or how or who is going to enforce that remedy. But, you know, they do need to stop. The Seventh Circuit also found the amount of money that was awarded to the ban for trespassing wasn't quite right. And so they remanded to the judge to figure out the restitution for trespassing on that land. And then another part is having to do with federal law and state public nuisance law. It gets a little legalese there. But, you know, the court did find that public news systems kind of displaced by this other federal law. So that gets a little complicated. And again, that goes back to the federal district court in Washington, I'm sorry, in Wisconsin. Yeah. So bottom lines, Stephanie, what's the significance of this decision? That victory with the Seventh Circuit, that recognition that Enbridge has been illegally operating on reservation land since 2013 is a great affirmation. It's of the band's rights. Unfortunately, we're all still in disagreement about what happens with that pipeline. So the Seventh Circuit said something, it's got to stop at some time. But I think that what it really does show.

is that we need a way to get Enbridge out. We need a way to stop oil flowing. And I'm really hoping that in the lower court, that, you know, once this goes back, that they see that... there has to be a remedy for trespass, right? There has to, something has to happen if somebody is on your land illegally since 2013. And I'm really hoping the lower court sees that. And I'd like to clarify that earth justice is not representing the ban in this lawsuit and trespass. But I, you know, I think this is something that we would like to see is companies being held accountable for trespassing on tribal lands. So then just to clarify, this July 30th. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision then triggers the matter going back to a lower court? Correct. Okay. Yes, the matter goes back to Judge Conley in the federal district court in Wisconsin. to fashion some remedies consistent with that decision. Okay. So in the meantime, construction of this reroute, which you just touched on, intended to move line five outside of tribal land. That's been in motion since February, right? They started working on that reroute. But on June 27th, there was a spill. So I believe that triggered a pause in construction. Yeah. And just to clarify really quickly, the construction was only paused at four waterway crossings. Right. So Enbridge is still constructing in other parts of the reroute. So it's only these four waterway crossings. And that, you know, we asked in state court for the judge to stay construction on those four waterway crossings because Enbridge doesn't meet the legal requirements. They don't actually own the land that's there. at the time that construction was halted. At the end of June, they got permission from DNR to construct in those four permits or the types of permissions that Enbridge thinks it's needed. We still think that that's not sufficient. It still doesn't meet the Wisconsin law about land ownership requirements for that. But after Enbridge got those permissions, they went back to the court and asked the judge Anderson and state court to lift the stay, meaning that they can start construction. And that's what we opposed in July. And there will be a hearing on that, lifting the stay on those four waterway crossings on August 13th. Part of our challenge is that Wisconsin law says that if you're going to. do this very specific type of construction, you need to be a riparian owner, which means you need to own the land. And Enbridge doesn't, frankly, own the land in some of these crossings where it's required. And so at some point, Enbridge went back, applied to DNR, asking for exemptions under this statute for certain, because they met certain exemption criteria.

So there's a series of permits that are required in this kind of a project, right? One or a series comes from the U.S. Army Corps, and it approved the reroute, I think back in October of 2025. The Bad River is challenging that decision. Yes. In October of 2025, the Army Corps published the final decision document, which had all of its environmental analyses in that document. And they issued a preliminary permit that wasn't signed. It wasn't until February of this year that the Army court issued the final signed permit. And the ban, the Bad River Band is challenging that decision in federal court. We're in the district of D.C. in front of Judge McFadden. So we're in the process of responding to that. And, you know, we'll return those briefs. September, I think September 14th is our next deadline. So that's a back and forth briefing schedule that's going right now. What's the significance of this case in your mind? Why is it important? I think this case in particular. A lot will have a ripple effect within Indian country or it can, especially because Enbridge is blatantly trespassing, willingly, knowingly, all of the words through Bad River Bands reservation. And they have been for over a decade. And, you know, what we need and what we've been fighting for... is a recognition of that. And also that the reroute isn't a solution to that. So Enbridge's solution, the false solution to reroute that part of the pipeline around the reservation doesn't solve the band's concerns. You know, the band sits between the reroute and Lake Superior. The reroute is entirely upstream of the band's reservation, and so things that go in the water. flow downstream through the Bands Reservation and into Lake Superior, into the Bat River Slews, which, you know, are the heart of the wild rice beds in that region. And I don't know if you've been out there or if your listeners have been out there, but the places, it's... magical the slues are magical and the wetlands in that region you know i we were very fortunate to have um staff from Bad River Bands Natural Resource Department lead us. And by us, I mean attorneys from Earth Justice as well as attorneys from the environmental groups lead us in that area. And, you know, there are parts of those wetlands that are just pristine that look how wetlands should look, how they used to look in northern Wisconsin before there was a ton of development.

And so I think it is really a case about homeland. It's a case about protecting water resources, about protecting Lake Superior for everybody, not just the band, but also everybody who lives in that region and these resources that have been there for quite some time that you might not notice or you might not see. But if you're out there, you definitely know when you're walking around in a special place. Anything you want to add. I think, you know, it's important to remember there's a lot of moving parts here. So when we're talking about line five, line five is a very long pipeline. It goes through Wisconsin. It goes through Michigan. And there's a lot of opposition not just in the Bad River Bands area. Right. So I focus on this because this is where my work is. But the Bay Mills Indian community up in Michigan has been fighting against line five as well. They had a great victory in their state Supreme Court, where their state Supreme Court basically revoked one of the... authorizations that Enbridge needs for failure to comply with the state's environmental laws. And so the opposition is not just localized to line five. It's all along line five. And like I said, there's a lot of moving parts. We have a state case in Wisconsin. There's the federal case that we filed in D.C. There's the case about the trespass, which is in the Western District of Wisconsin. So there's a lot going on. It's very easy to get that mixed up. So keeping those straight can be a little difficult, which I recognize because there's just a lot going on. So that's the first thing that I would say. I also think that the Seventh Circuit decision is a great reminder that tribal land... is sovereign, that tribal land has the ability to kick out companies, people, whomever that they don't want on their land. But what we need to see is a vindication of that right. What we need to see is something happening there. And there was a part of the Seventh Circuit ruling. They talk about how much of a... quote unquote good line five is with the with the energy that it provides. I just want to remind everyone that the a lot of the product that goes through line five ends up back in Canada. Enbridge is a Canadian company pumps oil and gas mostly from Canada and then back into Canada. And so the benefit to the US is not as clear. I think, as it might seem. And the Seventh Circuit also did not rubber stamp the reroute either. You know, it acknowledged that the reroute is in process, that there's legal challenges. But regardless of what the Seventh Circuit says,

Enbridge still has to comply with state law. We saw in Michigan that it didn't comply with Michigan state law, and they kicked back that permit. Wisconsin has the opportunity to do that here. There are some robust wetland laws and waterweight laws in Wisconsin to protect those resources. And the heart of our challenge is that Enbridge didn't comply with those laws. So regardless of what the Seventh Circuit says, you still got to follow the law. Stephanie Sosey is a senior attorney with Earth Justice, and she represents the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She spoke with WUWM Environmental Reporter, Susan Vents. Enbridge Energy Partners is a financial supporter of WUWM. There are some schools in Milwaukee that are over 100 years old and weren't built to handle unexpected severe weather. When Milwaukee faced a 1,000-year flood last August, dozens of school buildings were damaged. Riverside University High School had seven feet of water on its first floor. Six classrooms were flooded at Wilson Elementary in Wauwatosa. Now, districts are thinking about how to prepare for more frequent and intense floods. WUWM Education Reporter, Katherine Kochel, is joined by Chad Berginnis, of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. He shares how schools can be prepared for the next storm. We are looking back at a year ago in Milwaukee, and in many parts of southeastern Wisconsin, we had just unbelievable flooding. I mean, it happened over the course of just a day or two. And I want to know what is the best case scenario? What is the best way for a school or a school district to prepare its buildings for flooding? I would say that we're at a bit of an inflection point when it comes to flood risk and knowledge of flood risk and how our codes and standards are changing. One of the trends that we've observed over the last couple decades is that we are seeing an increase of very heavy rainfall events. And of course, very heavy rainfall events are the things that most commonly cause flooding, especially in urban areas. And we also know that most of our codes and standards out there are grossly outdated. Most of those are based on a 50-year-old approach under the National Flood Insurance Program and those minimum standards that communities have to adopt. The reason I say we're at an inflection point is because in early 2025, a new standard for safely building in flood hazard areas came out, and it's a game changer. In fact, that standard is now going to be incorporated into the yet to be published 2027 International Building Code. So what that means, practically speaking, is that communities and states that adopt the 2027 International Building Code are going to have significantly higher flood safety standards.

But those higher flood safety standards really represent the nature of the risk today. And the point is, I see headlines all the time that say we've had floods of biblical proportions. We've had extreme floods. But at what point do those extreme floods happen so frequently? that they don't become extreme anymore. And that's what we've got to deal with. These buildings are going to be with us for decades or even over 100 years. And we need to make sure that we're building for not only flood safety of today, but flood safety of tomorrow. That's an excellent point. Can you give some specific examples of how to build for this flood safety for tomorrow? Are there specific things that schools can be equipped with in order to handle this? Yes. So, you know, if you're a school district and, you know, let's say you're looking even at citing a new school building, a first place to start are FEMA flood maps, but that is not the end point. And I need to be very clear for the listeners here, is that we know there are many kinds of flood risks in this country, and FEMA flood maps only show two kinds of flood risk, really. what's called the statistical 100-year flood and the 500-year flood. But we have urban stormwater flood zones. We have flooding that could be due to failures of levees and those kinds of things. And so it's super important. that any potential site be examined to make sure that all of these kinds of flood risks are not present or at least as minimized as possible. And then secondly, is standards. Most standards, as I mentioned before, that are in current codes right now are simply inadequate. The 2027 International Building Code, for example, is going to require that school buildings be built to what are called design class three or really what's equivalent to the 750 year flood standard. That is a massive upgrade to what most codes have today. Yeah, I just think about the severity of the storm that you're preparing for when you upgrade from a 500-year flood to a 750-year flood. By the way, the flooding that we had here in Milwaukee last summer was referred to as a thousand-year flood. So that sounds really intense, and it represents kind of an upgrade of, okay, we're going to see more of this more often, despite it being called a thousand-year flood. Yes, that's correct. Are there any schools or districts or even like states, entire states, that are doing this type of work particularly well? Is there any state or district that Wisconsin can look to for guidance on how to harden these buildings? You know, unfortunately, none, none really come to mind. What we typically see.

is that a significant flood happens and buildings get damaged. And then kind of the aha moment happens where, you know, community officials, district officials, parents and otherwise say, you know what, maybe that wasn't such a good place. I'm kind of reminded it wasn't so much a school, but a hospital during Hurricane Helene. You know, I think it made the news where there were a lot of helicopter rescues because it was a significant flood. the middle of the day. And you build a hospital, hopefully the thought that went into that is, geez, this is going to be a fairly safe place. After all, we have patients that you can't move or anything else. And yet, that hospital was fairly new. You know, it was only built within the last 10 years. So we have got to do a better job of siding these school buildings. But then you also have places, let's say, like Louisiana, where maybe most of the community is flood prone. At that point, then, you've got to really look to retrofitting existing at-risk buildings and making sure that they're protected to the highest level possible. I think just to provide a little bit of context for listeners, there are two hospitals that come to mind in the Hurricane Helene. There was the Tampa General Hospital that was protected by that aqua fence mechanism. And then I think the hospital you're talking about was in eastern Tennessee, where they were helicopter evacuating people off the roof. And so two very different approaches to keeping that space safe and differing outcomes, certainly. You know, Katie, that's actually, I'm glad you brought up both hospitals because, yes, the one I was thinking about was that Eastern Tennessee, the Unicoy Hospital. But the Tampa Hospital also, I think, is a really good example. And that is... We have improving technologies on how to protect against flooding. And one would think, geez, flood has been around forever. You know, how could technologies possibly improve? But some of those temporary barrier systems, if you have an existing at-risk building, those may be a viable option, you know, to take a look at to prevent future flooding that way. You know, we even have innovations that we kind of call glass flood walls where it's a window glazing system but integrated into a mason rebuilding and can basically render the building floodproofed that way. So there's a lot of good innovation out there. And so I would say that if you have one of those existing at-risk buildings, there's a lot of different options now than we had, let's say, 20 years ago, where you could have these what are called perimeter barriers like the Tampa Hospital had, or could do the heavy work of actually elevating whole buildings or parts of buildings.

If you're just joining us, today we're hearing from Chad Bergenus of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. It's a national nonprofit organization, but it's actually based here in Madison. We're talking about what schools and universities can do to harden against flooding. Something that I've heard in reporting this story is that this is not a decision that an individual school principal can make or even an individual teacher can make. These are, you know, huge infrastructure improvements and investments that need to be handled at the district level school districts across this country are struggling financially. And so how much money does it cost to invest in some of these new technologies? I mean, that aqua fence you're talking about at Tampa General had to be so expensive, right? It is, some of these technologies can be quite expensive, but that others can be less so. But that's why I keep coming back and emphasizing that as we are replacing our buildings, it is far cheaper, typically, in construction, to build it right the first time, to build it safe. You know, we say that, you know, in building elevation, for example, where you're elevating the entire building, the most expensive cost is the first foot of elevation. The reason is because all the site prep, getting the jacking system in place. and all of the work you do disconnecting the building from its foundation so that you can elevate the first foot. From there on, it's very, it's very cheap and incremental to go higher that way. But it's cheaper yet to simply build it elevated the first time so that we don't have future flooding. I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention that the reason that these storms are more frequent and more devastating and more expensive is human-caused climate change. I wonder what types of risks and threats you see either to the state floodplain or from the state floodplain in the next couple of years, given that it seems like we are at a point where we cannot turn the clock back on these types of climate-related issues. The very best thing I think that we can do at this point, and this is where the association of state floodplain managers and through my career have been focused on, is I need the very best data for today and that's forward-looking so that we can make the very best design and land use decisions. Something that is also coming that I think is going to be very helpful, you know, not only in Wisconsin but nationally, is that NOAA is working on a product called Atlas 15. And Atlas 15 is basically establishes the relationship between frequency of rainfall and the amount. And it's going to bring all of our data nationwide up to date in its first volume. And that's actually going to be released, we think, next month. And then volume two is forward-looking where it's going to look at a point in the future, I think, about 30 years into the future.

and try to predict based on the best modeling we can what that future rainfall condition. So think about it. If you have a school building that is designed to last at least 50 years, you'll be able to use that forward-looking rainfall data to help design the infrastructure and things like that just to make sure it doesn't get overwhelmed. So, you know, one of the best things that we can do at this point is have accurate data. And then we also need to have good code and standards to handle that future flooding condition. That product sounds really interesting and also a little scary to have that much data. Noah, by the way, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I should point out, Noah lost between 15 and 20 percent of its staff last year in those federal workforce cuts. So this is an organization that is continuing to work on this data, but it is limited in its capacity, at least in some measures, in order to do that. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I am just... eternally thankful right now that at least this Atlas 15 project is one of those projects that is still going to be delivered to the American people because it is so important. One of the things I think that we need to be alarmed about as well is the continuing cuts at our federal science agencies. You know, NOAA being one, the U.S. Geological Survey being the other, those are the two agencies that we work with as an organization that provide our foundational science in dealing with flood risk management. Lots to think about, lots to prepare for. Thank you so much for chatting with me about this really important topic and I look forward to talking more with you about it in the future. Great. Thank you for the opportunity, Katie.

Chad Bergenis is the executive director of the Madison-based Association of State Floodplain Managers. He spoke with WUWM Education Reporter, Catherine Kokel. Need some flexibility for when you listen? You can hear Lake Effect on demand. Find it as a podcast wherever you like to listen, to download, and enjoy on the go. Later in the show, we'll tell you about an opportunity for a Victorian-era escape in Lake Geneva. But first, we'll learn about a local nonprofit that provides dental care to people on Medicaid. That's coming up next on Lake Effect on 89.7, WUWM. You're listening to Lake Effect on WUWM. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. Medicaid patients in Milwaukee continue to face health care inequities, made even more challenging by continued federal budget cuts and other barriers. Children are especially impacted by shortages in care, particularly in dental care. There are currently over 80,000 kids in the Milwaukee area that struggle to find care because so few dental clinics accept Medicaid. One local nonprofit is working to fill this need. Community Smiles Dental serves children, pregnant women, and people with special needs in the community who are on Medicaid. To learn more about Community Smiles Dental, I'm joined by its CEO, Scott Marshall, who begins by explaining how the nonprofit was first founded in 2007. The founding of Community Smiles Dental was a few nurses in a Waukesha School system who were seeing more and more kids come into the nurse's office and they had tooth pain. And as it turns out, their parents had not been taking them to dentists because they could not find a dentist who would take state insurance. And so working together with some local dentists and Waukesha Memorial Hospital. Community Smiles Dental was born to be a location that just served kids whose parents relied on Medicaid and was set up as a nonprofit because those low reimbursement rates from Medicaid could be mitigated by fundraising. And so that's how it is able to work and be able to thrive, honestly, as an option for those parents. You mentioned state insurance. Is that the primary obstacle preventing people from... being able to get regular quality care? It really is because for-profit providers, whether it is corporate dental or whether it's your family dentist, they operate on a razor-thin margin. And the reimbursement from the state in Medicaid is $0.25 cents in a dollar, $0.30 in a dollar. They lose money every time one of those kids is in their chair. And so us being a nonprofit, we're able to make up that difference with fundraising. And so the result, though, is these parents are calling around and they're being told no over and... over again for reasons that are understandable, but that doesn't matter to a parent who has a kid that they want to make sure they're doing the right thing and bring them in to see the dentist. Now with shortages, right, we could pick a plethora of where there are shortages, but just like, you know, there's rural health care shortages and dental health care shortages are a fact across the U.S. How does Wisconsin and southeastern Wisconsin fare in this?

Unfortunately, not very well. Dental clinics are expensive to be able to put together. The equipment is expensive. The amount of schooling that a dentist, a dental hygienist, a dental assistant goes through, results in that they deserve to be well compensated. And for a dental practice, like that is a nonprofit, to be able to function, it is really got to be a force of will to be able to create that, that organization. And it was a force of will that started Community Smiles Dental. But unfortunately, there are very few nonprofit dental clinics that operate like us in the state of Wisconsin. In fact, southeast Wisconsin, we're the only ones that really focus on pediatric dentistry. And as of right now, you have two clinics, right? Yeah, we have one clinic with six operatories or chairs in Waukesha. And we have the same thing in Menominee Falls on Appleton Avenue. Great. And often if... Dental issues go too far. Parents will often have to take their kids to the emergency room, right, just to have some type of mitigation. But ERs aren't really equipped to handle these issues effectively, right? What's kind of the common narrative that unfolds? Well, ERs don't staff dentists. It doesn't make sense that they would. And so they're not equipped to be able to really truly solve the root issue of the pain for a child. They'll do their best to be able to mitigate the pain. They'll give them Tylenol and hopefully relax them. But then they say, you know, go see a dentist so that we can get that resolved. And so they're stuck in this catch 22, these parents where they're in the situation that already existed and why their child has. Hopefully it's just a toothache. Hopefully it's not an infection or even less, which is something that can happen without tooth and dental care. But then they're sent right back to start and they're calling around trying to find a place that will see their child to be able to make that pain go away. With this organization, Community Smiles Dental, it's been growing for just over 20 years here. And part of your mission is advocating for systemic health care change, which is no small thing, right? But I want to talk about the infrastructure of dental care and how we all got to navigate it, starting with dental insurance. Why has dental insurance always been considered a separate add-on? I think there's a lot about dental care that can't slip to the back of your mind. Insurance is no different. You think about, does everyone need vision insurance? I suppose not everyone does. And so it almost seems optional, but it very much isn't. Dental care is health care. And so because dental becomes a little bit more of an afterthought, the providers that can take that insurance are less than what would otherwise be available with general health care. As you've mentioned, this big limitation is that so few dental clinics except Medicaid, leaving a wide population with unmet needs. So let's talk about the impact. What kind of qualitative measures have you seen in providing dental care to the people in southeastern Wisconsin? How many people are you seeing on average? Well, last year we saw the most patients that we had in our history. We saw 4,861 unique patients in 13,500 appointments. And that is whether it is preventative where it's the cleaning and the checkup or restorative where we're taking care of a cavity. And so we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg of the amount of kids that really do need the amount of care that we have, but we are working to be able to increase that.

And just one clarifying thing for me, I know we're focusing a lot about on kids, but you treat adults as well, right? We treat adults with special needs and expectant mothers, both of whom are covered by Medicaid as Medicaid clinic. That's very important for us, for us to be able to function and be consistent. It is a small percentage, but a very important percentage of folks that otherwise also struggle to be able to find health care, especially with Medicaid. With such a growing need, I imagine the wait list is long, right? Yes. Right now, it's in the hundreds. It could potentially be in the thousands. We do our best to be very thoughtful about accepting referrals just simply because you don't want to invite somebody to a party they can't come to. I will say that we have a very small no-show rate. It's less than 4%, which is significant compared to other dental clinics. But if there is a cancellation or an opening, Our front desk folks, our patient care coordinators are dogged about making sure that we can fill that space. They will call down that list until they find someone. And so at this point, it's a little over a month. wait for someone who's on the wait list to be able to get in, which really says a lot about how much our folks care about the mission, that they will do everything they can to make sure that these patients can be seen. But the need is in the tens of thousands. And so we're able to do as much as we absolutely can, but there is a ceiling. And so the 84,000 kids just in the city of Milwaukee who currently rely on Medicaid and are not seeing dentists. That's something that we're focused on, but like we're doing absolutely what we can to be able to get more and more kids and to see the dentist. Definitely. And you mentioned referrals are common. What's the infrastructure for people knowing about you and sending people your way that can get coverage from you? Well, if anyone listening to this, they currently are in this situation that we're describing or if they know someone, you can simply go to community smiles.org. And you can look it up and you can request an appointment. Otherwise, we get referrals from everything from the CELA Smile program that goes into the MPS schools. If they identify that one of the children needs to see a dentist, they will send them our way. to free clinics that don't provide dental, to all of the hospital systems. We have great partnerships with pro-health care, with Aurora, with Ascension, with Freightert, and they know that they can send folks here, as well as dental clinics that do have to say no, but they can say, but wait, we can't see you, but community smiles dental will take great care of you. And so there are a lot of different ways for folks to be able to send patients to us so that we can take care of them. Since its founding in 2007, there was the first clinic in Waukshaw and soon after one in Monominee Falls. And I understand there's plans to also open a clinic in Milwaukee to help address the need for people traveling to these other clinics, right? Well, one of the things that we learned as originally a Waukesha-centric organization just based on our capacity, when we opened a Monominee Falls Clinic, more and more people were signing up and they were coming to us. They were traveling from Milwaukee, which...

You had an idea that there was that need, but to know that these parents would go that extra mile to make sure that their kids see a dentist, it really told us it was pretty obvious that the next place we needed to look to add to the community smiles dental family was to open a clinic in Milwaukee. And so we are in the process. We're identifying a location and we are hoping to be able to open by mid-20207, our third clinic right in the heart of Milwaukee. That's great news. And hopefully as we get closer to that, we can have you back, talk more about some of the needs you're filling. But for today, Scott, thank you so much for joining us on Lake Effect. Thanks so much for having me and helping us get the word out about Community Smiles Dental. Scott Marshall is the CEO of Community Smiles Dental. For more information and dental care resources, head on over to wwm.com. We'll take one more break, then learn about Black Point Estate, a historic house and museum in Lake Geneva. That's next on Lake Effect on Milwaukee's NPR.

This is Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. Black Point Estate is a historic house and museum in Lake Geneva. The 1888 Queen Anne-style home belonged to Conrad's Sipe, an influential brewer during the Gilded Age. Dave D. Simone is the director of the historic site, and WUWM's Eddie Morales met him at the estate to explore its history and artifacts. Imagine it's 1888 and this is a 8,000 square foot cottage. It's technically a three seasons house where there's a furnace now but they never intended to be here all year long. To put things in comparison, this is 8,000 square feet. The average American home at that point was about 1,100 square feet and would often include multi-generational. So maybe grandma and grandpa live with their kids and their grandkids. So this is a second home. This just sort of really speaks to the gilded age. We're sort of living in another gilded age, if you will, where we have, like we talk now about the 1%. Well, in the 1880s, it's Vanderbilt, Rockefeller. Carnegie, DuPont, you know, the names that we still have, Chase, Morgan, you know, these are still names that are, every household kind of knows them. The Sipes aren't in that level, but they're close. And the same thing with Chris Pappas, they all have these vacation homes. So 8,000 square foot home, it's going to have what you would expect for entertaining. First floor, living room, music room, billiard room, and dining room. Second floor. six bedrooms and in the third floor seven bedrooms. So in a lot of ways imagine a big B&B or historic hotel for your own family. The house, when it was donated to the state of Wisconsin in 2005, so it was Sipe, Schmidt-Petersen, it's all the same family. It just gets passed down through the female side. Fourth generation donates it. Everything that you're seeing here, the furniture, the artwork, the rugs, was left here in 2005. And it's sort of mind-boggling to think about what your house looked like, what my house looked like. Most of us didn't have... 125-year-old beds that we were still using. They never updated anything here. They just kept it frozen in time. And there were some personal touches. We have a bedroom that would have had a 1970s green shag rug. Most of the books in the bookcases are from the 1880s through the 1920s, but every so often you'll find a DVD tucked in somewhere. It's just little hints of, you know, over multiple generations. You forget something, it gets put away, and then it's just here. forever and that's that's sort of the story a historic house that also is layered over time so yeah but we'll head on up to the tower we're going to go into the tower from a spiral staircase de simone leads us to the estate's biggest feature a tower with an impressive view of the lake he uses a skeleton key to unlock the door

And then we'll go up this spiral staircase. And then the view over the lake is really pretty remarkable. Wow. So the house property sits about 120 feet already above the lake because we're built on a pretty steep bluff. Why we have this tower opposed to like a more balanced traditional style turret, the architect who built this house is named Adolf Kudel. He also had just designed a house for the Sipes in Chicago in 1887. And we have some correspondence between the two. I'll paraphrase, it's basically Sipe talking to his architect saying, I love my house in Chicago, but I don't have a view of Lake Michigan. So whatever you do, make sure I'm always going to have a view of Geneva Lake at my lake house. So it's a little bit of conjecture on my behalf, but I think the architect hears that and then decides we're really going to push that tower above, I mean, we're above the roof line. So this was always a woodlot. But even as these trees have matured in front of the house, you don't have a view of the lake from the first floor. You don't have a view of the lake from the second floor. You sort of have a view of the lake from some of the third floor bedrooms. But these trees are not getting any taller. You'll always have a view of the lake from where we're at. So we have the house, the gardens adjacent to the property, a bit of shoreline. So you still get the experience of what it was like to come here and do a little bit of time travel. All of our guests arrive through the Lake Geneva Cruise line. So that's how many of these homes would have had their initial owners arrive. There were roads around the lake, but they were sort of like cart paths. So imagine at one point there are 60 piers on this lake around 1900. Last year there were over 1,100. It's the busiest lake in Wisconsin in terms of boat traffic. I couldn't tell you how many boats are on this, but on a typical weekend, if you're a water skier or a kayak, you'd probably want to be done by about noon. Otherwise, you might, there's going to be a lot of boat wake. So it's pretty spectacular view up here, though. So I want to head back down? Sure, yeah. So it's just always awkward to get back in the staircase. It's like getting into the hall of a boat. So whatever works for you, some people sit down. You're a little bit taller. So whatever is comfortable, just don't hold on to this. Because it'll close. Okay. I take DeSimone's advice as I head downstairs. The stained glass windows to my left help light the path with red, blue, and orange colors. Next, DeSimone explains how Saip entertained his guests and shows me some of the estate's artifacts. So... We're on the first floor of the house, and as I mentioned earlier, it has four main rooms for entertaining. We're in the billiard room right now. Music room. The dining room is directly behind us, and that's where you're hearing that music. It's a digital recording now, but it is of a Stella music box. This is real simple technology. It's...

metal disc that's stamped and you would crank it almost like a Victrola or an early record player and metal tines are plucking it. This is once again in the time period. Like record players don't exist. Edison's initial cylinder, which is that first recording of Mary Had a Little Lambs, a few years off into the horizon. And that wouldn't have been, it would have been a novelty, not something you would play at a nice dinner. So they're very limited on sound because in a city like Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, if you're having a fancy party, you could hire a string quartet. Way out here in the countryside. Unless you have a family member that could play an instrument, chances are you would need something that's pre-recorded. This is about one of your only options, almost like a music box. Billion Room. The table is one of the oldest artifacts in the house. This table is from 1871. Conrad Seip purchased this after the Chicago Fire. for his home in Chicago initially so he could entertain associates that had been displaced, either personally, like their homes were destroyed or maybe their businesses. And then in 1888, when this house is built, it's moved up here. They're, of course, a brewing family. And what we're holding up here, these are a little barrel barrel napkin rings. And there was a full set. I believe there was as many as 34 of these. And over time, they were given to a family member or to a friend. And when Bill Peterson, that fourth generation owner donated to the house, he made sure that these two would stay here. These would have been probably either housewarming gift or maybe a wedding gift to Conrad and Catarina. And so... I think it speaks a little bit to Conrad and his family as well as his friends. You come to this really formal house, or they're home in Chicago. Fancy dinner, there's silver napkin, and you pull it out, and it's a beer barrel. Little tip of the cap, too. Like, he knows how he's made his good fortune. And then also, this is kind of fun. It's a Sipe Beerstein. And this is pre-prohibition. Between 1900 and probably 1910 is what we date this. You're seeing Uncle Sam, and Uncle Sam is saying Seip's beer is A-OK. What's going on in this period, there's been a large push for 60, 70 years to outlaw alcohol through the temperance movement. There's also growing anti-German sentiment, especially in the early 19 teens, as World War I is ratcheting up. American brewers at this time start to adopt American iconography in their advertising to showcase that they're a little bit more American. Sipe picks Uncle Sam. Jacob Rupert, who is a New York brewer, has the Statue of Liberty, and Anheuser Bush adopts the American bald eagle.

You'll still see that on the Anheuser-Bush bottle. There's like an eagle, and he's holding arrows in one talon and quivers in the other. If you ever tore the Anheuser-Busch... plant in St. Louis right on the building in a beautiful sculpture will be the American Bald Eagle. So it's a latched ditch attempt right before Prohibition hits that the brewers are saying, well, you could outlaw whiskey and all the hard spirits, but not, you know, beer is, it's a table beverage. It's a, we're patriotic, we're going to make it, but of course they don't. Like they're all caught up. Wine, spirits, and beer are all outlawed. So those are kind of fun little, like I said, doffs of the cap or tips of the cap to Conrad understanding and knowing his good fortune. So what we really would like for people when they're leaving here, what we want them to take away is, yeah, the SIPP story, it's interesting. The entrepreneurial story is definitely interesting and relevant in any period. You have a good idea, you work hard, there's opportunities. Good luck is always involved in being successful. But that's, for many people, still the American dream. Like if you have a great idea and you work hard and a couple things go your way, you could be successful in a line of business. But we also want people to leave here feeling maybe a little bit more excited and empowered about historic preservation. Maybe hearing how difficult it was to save this place, and it took 10 years to go through some legal maneuvering. We're zoned residential. The museum's not residential. Would the community accept it? There was opposition. But this family stayed the course, and they wanted to make sure that it could be given to the state of Wisconsin for future generations. Maybe somebody's leaving here and going, you know, the old post office in town is slated for demolition, or there is a house in my neighborhood that's going up for sale that's 120 years old, and I've always thought about buying an old home, but now I feel like I can do it. I want people, we want people when they leave here to just be a little bit more aware of the value of historic preservation and that it's not possible.

Dave D. Simone is the director of the Black Point Estate in Lake Geneva. He joined WUWM's Eddie Morales last year. And that's Lake Effects for today. I'm Audrey Noakowski. If you've missed any of Lake Effect this week, you can find all of our conversations at www.com. If you'd like to take the show on the go, just download the Lake Effect podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Tomorrow on Lake of Fact will bring you a roundup of today's election results. You can continue listening to WUWM throughout the day and check our website for election updates and results. Thank you so much for joining us today right here on listeners-supported 89.7 WUWM Milwaukee's NPR.