GREEN BAY – Grabbing the relay baton from former U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, Mike Gallagher has resurrected his predecessor’s “Save the Bay” initiative.

Save the Bay is a coalition of farmers, environmentalists, scientists and others interested in tackling problems of phosphorus abatement and other water quality issues.

Ribble, a Republican from Sherwood, brought them together for periodic discussions, sharing things like best farm practices and updating each other on the progress various groups were making in area watersheds. Gallagher, R-Green Bay, brought them back together Tuesday. About 50 people, members of the state Department of Natural Resources, professors from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, scientists, business leaders and activists, gathered at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College for their first meeting since Gallagher took office.

“I have to give credit to Reid Ribble for starting this, and I want to continue his great example of having stakeholders in the community coming together to solve problems at the local level and share best practices,” Gallagher said.

Tuesday’s meeting mostly was organizational, with members refining a formal mission and vision statement, agreeing to establish a set of measurable goals and promising to meet quarterly.

They discussed the need, in the face of ever-shrinking federal and state funding, to find ways of showing progress and highlighting successes in the battle for cleaner water.

The process of reducing phosphorus in the water­shed will take years, but the public can still see that progress is being made by changes in farming and storm water management practices, members of the group said. The group needs to find ways to highlight those improvements to help people understand progress is being made, it agreed.

“What’s particularly exciting about this group is, rather than sit and wait to see what the federal government can do for us, we’re all coming together to say, ‘What are the unique needs of our area of land in northeastern Wisconsin, and what have we learned?’” Gallagher said. “We’re a world leader in agriculture; we should be at the leading edge of fixing some of these issues rather than waiting for someone from Washington, D.C., to come show us how to do it.”

Gallagher said his hope is for the federal government to show more willingness to let individual states find solutions. Different states, even different areas within Wisconsin, have different topography, different problems, and it’s important to let the search for solutions happen at the local level, Gallagher said.

His role in the group is to use his office to help bring people to the table “and have a responsible, productive conversation rather than sit in their own corners and point fingers.” That includes owners of concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, the large-scale farm operations often blamed for pollution from runoff and tainted wells.

“CAFOs have really come to the table in an honest fashion and have been willing to engage in that discussion,” Gallagher said. “They’ve taken great strides in investing in what works” to alleviate pollution problems.

“We shouldn’t have to choose between having a healthy, robust economy, particularly as it relates to the dairy industry, and protecting our environment,” Gallagher said. “I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive. I think the more conversations we have like this, the more we can bring both sides to the table, which includes CAFOs, to talk about how we move forward.”

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This article originally appeared on Wisconsin: Gallagher reconvenes Ribble’s Save the Bay effort