Local government officials have no greater responsibility than serving as stewards of the land -- after all, they're not making fresh land and water any more -- but some local officials in southeastern Wisconsin are forgetting their role.

Take the series of missteps and miscommunications among local, state and regional officials that led to the improper building by a private developer of a townhouse and a recreational center into an environmental corridor along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the City of St. Francis.

When the mistake was discovered, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources proposed a solution: have the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission make up a new map that would reflect the evaporation of some of the corridor.

Imagine if U.S. Forest Service folks up north discovered that a development somehow got built inside the forest, and then decided, "Hey, let's just look the other way and draw us up a new map.'' You wouldn't think they were doing their job as land stewards and making sure the forest remained a forest for future generations to enjoy.

To its credit, SEWRPC declined to approve an official act of denial. Its stand may lead to the addition of green space or other actions to address the problem, rather than tinkering with the lines on a map.

Now travel more than 40 miles to the rural town of Oconomowoc in northwest Waukesha County, where another case of stewardship shoulder shrugging is gathering speed.

No, this is not another broadside against the massive Pabst Farms development. That's where more than 400 high-end, single-family homes and amenities of a small city are being spread on top of the very land through which rainfall could help replenish the dwindling Waukesha County underground water table.

This is a different, more rural, case study -- one that helps answer that question we've all blurted out when driving around a curve on a country lane and seeing a brand-new subdivision instead of the tall corn you remember: "How the heck did that happen?"

The land where "that" seems likely to happen yet again is 77 acres of corn and hay country sitting along a quaint, hilly two-lane blacktop called Norwegian Road in the township's northeast corner.

Some tweaking of land use rules and soil definitions could allow the construction of housing on 25 acres of the parcel -- farmland that has been productive since the 1840s, according to some of the neighbors who are fighting the proposal and trying to keep their rural lifestyle intact.

This is a rural area where there are shallow wells and no sewer lines -- territory so rural that there is no yellow centerline down the middle of Norwegian Road because there's so little traffic. For now.

The land is surrounded by other productive farmland and is something of a rarity. It lies within the last remaining 3 percent of all Waukesha County land that the county still rates as prime for agricultural productivity.

This is land that feeds us, that holds the rain.

Land stewardship? Resource conservation? Is anybody listening?

Granted -- to city folk, 10 homes on 25 acres might not sound like a big deal.

This particular piece of rural Waukesha County is an area of open vistas, historic barns and silos. But the town board and its plan commission have moved the development forward. And the town is supported by county officials who believe that clustering homes -- though city folks would say that houses on such big lots isn't much of a cluster -- makes this and other similar developments in the county desirable compromises.

Building a housing development on the parcel doesn't conform either to SEWRPC or Waukesha County's recommended land use guidelines that view residential subdivisions as generally incompatible with land zoned, as this parcel is -- agricultural preservation. In that category, only one house per 35 acres is permitted, leaving the land more easily farmed.