During her campaign for re-election, Wisconsin's Attorney General Peg Launtenschlager was criticized for going after a cranberry grower.  Back then, commercials were incredibly expensive and responding to yet another attack, baseless though it was, from her GOP rivals was cost prohibitive.  Now she's speaking out.  Here's what she said:

I love cranberries. They are good for our health and play a central role in my favorite avocation, cooking. This Thanksgiving, cranberries found their way into a number of items I served at our weekend family gatherings: sauces, relishes, salads, stuffing, and desserts. Indeed my campaign football schedules included a recipe for my very own cranberry concoction, “Peg’s Tailgate Cranberry Bars.”

As Wisconsin Attorney General, my obligations go beyond just the cranberry—or the politically-powerful cranberry lobby.

Among my varied responsibilities is a constitutional mandate that I protect the rights of all Wisconsin citizens to use our lakes, rivers, and streams. That’s right: I am charged with the obligation to make certain that you may boat, fish, and swim our waterways.

This is where my personal love for the cranberry is transcended by my obligation to you.

First, from an environmental standpoint, growing cranberries is a messy business. Chemicals and altered water temperatures are used in the process. This impacts the wildlife around the cranberries. Most cranberry growers, accordingly, are careful to minimize the impact of their businesses on these waters.

One cranberry grower, however, has been an exception. His outdated practices threaten the eighth largest lake in our state, Lac Courte Orielles. The pollutants he dumps into the lake’s Musky Bay have created choking aquatic plants and produced a thick, slimy, smelly algae mat that covers much of the lake for much of the year. It is harming the lake’s fish population and interferes with recreation.

Were I to have opportunity to enjoy this beautiful lake, I’d be miffed that the “rights” of one selfish cranberry guy trump the rights of the rest of us. I’d also be miffed if there were nothing I or my elected officials could do to make him stop.

Because of this grower’s stubborn refusal to stop destroying these waters, I initiated a court action using the centuries-old public nuisance law to ask the court to stop the grower’s bad practices. Our constitution protects our right to use the lake and it obligates me to protect these rights.

The judge in this case for the most part agreed, stating there is no doubt that the grower’s intentional discharges of chemicals into the lake have created plants and algae that “interfere with the public’s right of use and enjoyment…” He noted that only because this interference was not yet year-round, would he not yet find a public nuisance. He warned, however, the grower was now “on notice” that continued actions of this sort might well create a public nuisance which the court would end.

The State Journal opined last week that I “concocted” this case to inure to my political benefit. From the day I authorized its filing, I knew that this case would be a political nightmare—taking on the cranberry industry, and its supportive farm and manufacturers’ lobbies, is something few will risk.

As Wisconsin attorney general, it is my obligation to enforce this law and protect the rights of all citizens, despite the risk or political fallout. Through the "cranberry lawsuit" I have done just that. As for "concocting," I save that for baked goods I make for family and friends.