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

Lauri Jones: Support for WUWM Podcasts 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.

Audrey Nowakowski: From 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR, this is Lake Effect. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. 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.

Chad Berginnis: These buildings are gonna be with us for decades, or even over a hundred years. And we need to make sure that we're building for not only flood safety of today, but flood safety tomorrow.

Audrey Nowakowski: Plus, we'll learn about a local non-profit that provides dental care for underserved children who are on Medicaid.

Scott Marshall: 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 healthcare.

Audrey Nowakowski: 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 eight 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/voterguide. 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 wasn't clear about the next steps for removal. Stephanie Tsosie is a senior attorney with EarthJustice and represents the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She talks with WUWM Environmental Reporter Susan Bence about the latest on Line 5.

Stefanie Tsosie: At the end of July, the Seventh Circuit ruled on a case that it's been sitting on for the 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 to 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, Enridge 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's going to enforce that remedy. But they do you need to stop. The Seventh Circuit also found the amount of money that was awarded to the band for trespassing wasn't quite right. And so they remanded it 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 nuisance is 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 Wisconsin.

Susan Bence: So bottom line, Stephanie, what's the significance of this decision?

Stefanie Tsosie: That victory with the Seventh Circuit, that recognition that Enbridge has been illegally operating on reservation land since 2013 is a great affirmation 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 gotta 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 once this goes back, that they see that there has to be a remedy for trespass. Something has to happen if somebody is on your land illegally since 2013. And I am really hoping the lower court sees that. And I'd like to clarify that EarthJustice is not representing the band in this lawsuit and trespass. But I think this is something that we would like to see is companies being held accountable for.

Susan Bence: Passing 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?

Stefanie Tsosie: Correct.

Susan Bence: Okay.

Stefanie Tsosie: Yes, the matter goes back to Judge Conley in the federal district court in Wisconsin to fashion some remedies consistent with that decision.

Susan Bence: Okay. So in the meantime, construction of this reroute, which you just touched on, intended to move Line 5 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 yeah, I believe that triggered a pause in construction?

Stefanie Tsosie: Yeah. And just to clarify really quickly, the construction was only paused at four waterway crossings. So Enbridge is still constructing in other parts of the reroute. So it's only these four waterway crossings. And that, 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, the types of permissions that Enbridge thinks is 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 Judge Anderson in state court to lift the stay, meaning that they can start construction.

Susan Bence: Mm-hmm.

Stefanie Tsosie: 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 13. 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 right-bearing owner, which means you need 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 because they met certain exemption criteria.

Susan Bence: 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.

Stefanie Tsosie: Yes. In October of 2025, the Army Corps published the final decision document, which had all of its environmental analyzes in that document. And they issued a preliminary permit that wasn't signed. It wasn't until February of this year that the Army Corp issued the final signed permit. And the Bad River Band is challenging that decision in federal court. We're in the to DC in front of Judge McFadden. So we're in the process of responding to that, and we'll return those briefs in September, I think September 14th is our next deadline. So that's a back and forth briefing schedule that's going right now.

Susan Bence: What's the significance of this case in your mind? Why is it important?

Stefanie Tsosie: 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 Band's reservation. And they have been for over a decade. And what we need and what we've been fighting for is a recognition of that. And also, 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 Band's reservation and into Lake Superior, into the Bad River sloughs, which are the heart of the wild rice beds in that region. And I don't know if you've been out there or if any of your listeners have been out but the place is, it's magical. The sloughs are magical, and the wetlands in that region, you know, we were very fortunate to have staff from Bad River Band's 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 of 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.

Susan Bence: Anything you want to add?

Stefanie Tsosie: I think it's important to remember there's a lot of moving parts here. So when we're talking about Line 5, Line 5 is a very long pipeline. It goes through Wisconsin. It goes through Michigan. And there's a lot opposition, not just in the Bad River Band's 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 5 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 5. It's all along Line 5. 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 DC. 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 goin' 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 as something happening there. And there was a part of the Seventh Circuit ruling, they talk about how much of a quote-unquote "good" Line 5 is, with the energy that it provides. I just want to remind everyone that a lot of the product that goes through Line 5 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 U.S. 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 waterway laws in Wisconsin to protect those resources. And, you know, at the heart of our challenge is that Enbridge didn't comply with those laws. So regardless of what the Seventh Circuit says, you still gotta follow the law.

Audrey Nowakowski: Stefanie Tsosie is a senior attorney with EarthJustice, and she represents the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. She spoke with WUWM Environmental Reporter Susan Bence. 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 Kokal is joined by Chad Berginnis of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. He shares how schools can be prepared for the next storm.

Katherine Kokal: 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 wanna know: what is the best-case scenario? What is the way for a school or a school district to prepare its buildings for flooding?

Chad Berginnis: 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 rain fall 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.

Katherine Kokal: 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?

Chad Berginnis: Yes. So, you know, if you're a school district and, you know, let's say you're looking even at siting a new school building, a first place to start are FEMA flood maps. But that is not the endpoint. And I need to be very clear for the listeners here. 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.

Katherine Kokal: 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 1000-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 1000-year flood.

Chad Berginnis: Yes, that's correct.

Katherine Kokal: Are there any schools, or districts, or even 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?

Chad Berginnis: You know, unfortunately, none really come to mind. What we typically see is that a significant flood happens and buildings get damaged. And then kind of the "a-ha" moment happens, where 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. I think it made the news where there were a lot of helicopter rescues, because it was a significant flood in the middle of the day. And when 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. It was only built within the last 10 years. So we have got to do a better job of siting 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.

Katherine Kokal: 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.

Chad Berginnis: You know, Kati, that's actually, I'm glad you brought up both hospitals, because yes, the one I was thinking about was that Eastern Tennessee, the Unicoi 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, flooding has been around forever. 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 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 masonry building and can basically render the building flood-proofed 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 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 you could do the heavy work of actually elevating whole buildings or parts of buildings.

Katherine Kokal: If you're just joining us today, we're hearing from Chad Berginnis 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?

Chad Berginnis: It is. Some of these technologies can be quite expensive, but then 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 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.

Katherine Kokal: 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 of 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.

Chad Berginnis: The very best thing I think that we can do at this point, and this is where, you know, the Association of State Floodplain Managers and through my career have been focused on, is I need the very best data for today that's forward looking, so that we could make the very best design and land use decisions. Something that is also coming that I think is gonna be very helpful, not only in Wisconsin, but nationally, is that NOAA is working on a product called Atlas 15. And Atlas 15 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.

Katherine Kokal: That product sounds really interesting and also a little scary to have that much data. NOAA, by the way, is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I should point out NOAA 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.

Chad Berginnis: 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.

Katherine Kokal: 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.

Chad Berginnis: Great. Thank you for the opportunity, Kati.

Audrey Nowakowski: Chad Berginnis is the executive director of the Madison-based Association of State Flood Plain Managers. He spoke with WUWM Education Reporter Katherine Kokal. 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 non-profit 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 healthcare 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.

Scott Marshall: The founding of Community Smiles Dental was a few nurses in the Waukesha school system who were seeing more and more kids come into the nurse's office, and they had tooth pain. 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 it was set up as a non-profit because those low reimbursement rates for 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.

Audrey Nowakowski: You mentioned state insurance. Is that the primary obstacle preventing people from being able to get regular quality care?

Scott Marshall: 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 on Medicaid is 25 cents on the dollar, 30 cents on a dollar. They lose money every time one of those kids is in their chair. And so, us being a non-profit, 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 wanna make sure they're doing the right thing and bring them in to see the dentist.

Audrey Nowakowski: Now, with shortages, right? We could pick a plethora of where there are shortages, but just like, you know, there's rural healthcare shortages. And dental healthcare shortages are a fact across the U.S. How does Wisconsin and southeastern Wisconsin fare in this?

Scott Marshall: 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 that is a non-profit to be able function, it is really gotta be a force of will to be be able create that organization. And it was a force of will that started Community Smiles Dental. But unfortunately, there are very few non-profit 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.

Audrey Nowakowski: And as of right now, you have two clinics, right?

Scott Marshall: Yeah, we have one clinic with six operatories or chairs in Waukesha and we have the same thing in Menominee Falls on Appleton Avenue.

Audrey Nowakowski: 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?

Scott Marshall: 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 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.

Audrey Nowakowski: 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 healthcare change, which is no small thing, right? But I wanna talk about the infrastructure of dental care and how we all gotta navigate it, starting with dental insurance. Why has dental insurance always been considered a separate add-on?

Scott Marshall: I think there's a lot about dental care that can slip to the back of your mind, and 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 healthcare.

Audrey Nowakowski: As you've mentioned, this big limitation is that so few dental clinics accept 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?

Scott Marshall: 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're seeing just the tip of the iceberg of the amount of kids that really do need the amount care that we have, but we are working to be able to increase that.

Audrey Nowakowski: And just one clarifying thing for me. I know we're focusing a lot about on kids, but you treat adults as well, right?

Scott Marshall: We treat adults with special needs and expectant mothers, both of whom are covered by Medicaid. As a 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 healthcare, especially with Medicaid.

Audrey Nowakowski: With such a growing need, I imagine the wait list is long, right?

Scott Marshall: 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 cancelation 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 in to see the dentist.

Audrey Nowakowski: 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?

Scott Marshall: Well if anyone is listening to this, they currently are in this situation that we're describing or if they know someone, you can simply go to communitysmiles.org and you can look it up and you request an appointment. Otherwise, we get referrals from everything from the Seal-a-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 ProHealth Care, with Aurora, with Ascension, with Froedterdt. 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.

Audrey Nowakowski: Since its founding in 2007, there was the first clinic in Waukesha, and soon after, one in Menominee 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?

Scott Marshall: Well, one of the things that we learned as originally a Waukesha-centric organization, just based on our capacity, when we opened a Menomonee 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-2027, our third clinic right in the heart of Milwaukee.

Audrey Nowakowski: 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.

Scott Marshall: Thanks so much for having me and helping us get the word out about Community Smile Dental.

Audrey Nowakowski: Scott Marshall is the CEO of Community Smiles Dental. For more information and dental care resources, head on over to wuwm.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 Seipp, an influential brewer during the Gilded Age. Dave Desimone is the director of the historic site, and WUWM's Eddie Morales met him at the estate to explore its history and artifacts.

Dave Desimone: Imagine it's 1888 and this is a 8,000 square foot cottage. You know, it's technically a three seasons house that we don't have... Well, 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, it 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 every household kind of knows them. The Seipps aren't in that level, but they're close. And the same thing with Pabst, they all have these vacation homes.

Dave Desimone: So 8,000 square foot home, it's gonna have what you would expect for entertaining. First floor: living room, music room, billiard room, and dining room. Second floor: six bedrooms. And on the third floor: seven bedrooms. So in a lot of ways, imagine a big B&B or a historic hotel for your own family. The house, when it was donated to the State of Wisconsin in 2005... So it was Seipp, Schmidt, Peterson, 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. 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 of the story, a historic house that also has layered over time. Yeah, but we'll head on up to the tower. We're going to go into the tower from a spiral staircase.

Eddie Morales: DeSimone 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.

Dave Desimone: And then we'll go up the spiral staircase. And then the view over the lake is really pretty remarkable.

Eddie Morales: Wow.

Dave Desimone: 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 Adolph Cudell. He also had just designed a house for the Seipps in Chicago in 1887. And we have some correspondence between the two. I'll paraphrase: it's basically Seipp 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 wood lot, 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 a view of the lake from the second floor. You sorta have a view of lake from some of the third floor bedrooms, but these trees are not getting any taller. You'll always have a view of a lake from where we're at.

Dave Desimone: 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 that at one point there are 60 piers on this lake around 1900. Last year there were over 1,100 piers. 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 kayaker, you'd probably want to be done by about noon. Otherwise you might... It was going to be a lot of boat wake. So it's pretty, it's a pretty spectacular view up here though. So I want to head back down. So it just always awkward to get back in the staircase. It's like getting into the hull of a boat. I say whatever works for you. Some people sit down. You're a little bit taller, so, but whatever is comfortable. Just don't hold on to this because it'll close.

Eddie Morales: 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 Seipp entertained his guests and shows me some of the estate's artifacts.

Dave Desimone: 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 that comes. It's a digital recording now but it is of a Stella music box. This is real simple technology. It's a metal disk 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 Lamb," is a few years off into the horizon. And that 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 can play an instrument, chances are you would need something that's sort of pre-recorded. This is about one of your only options, like almost like a music box.

Dave Desimone: Billiard room. The table is one of the oldest artifacts in the house. This table is from 1871. Conrad Seipp 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 little beer 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 the house, he made sure that these two would stay here. These would have been probably their house warming gift, or maybe a wedding gift to Conrad and Katerina. 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 their home in Chicago. Fancy dinner, there's a 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 Seipp beer stein.

Dave Desimone: 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 "Seipp's beer is a-okay." 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 1910s 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. Seipp picks Uncle Sam. Jacob Rupert, who is a New York brewer, has the Statue of Liberty. And Anheuser-Busch adopts the American Bald Eagle. You'll still see that on the Anheiser-Busch bottle. There's like an eagle, and he's holding arrows in one talon and quivers in the other. If you ever tour 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 latch-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.” It's, a table beverage. It’s, “We're patriotic. We're going to make it." But of course they don't like it. 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.

Dave Desimone: So what we really would like for people, when they're leaving here, what we want them to take away is, yeah, the site 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 impossible.

Audrey Nowakowski: Dave Desimone is the director of the Black Point Estate in Lake Geneva. He joined WUWM's Eddie Morales last year. And that's Lake Effect for today. I'm Audrey Nowakowski. If you've missed any of Lake Effect this week, you can find all of our conversations at wuwm.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 Effect, we'll 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 listener-supported 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR.