Waukesha's Biggest Obstacle To Lake Michigan Water Is Its Self-Professed Exceptionalism

I was a little disappointed in reading Patrick McIlheran's April 17th op-ed about Great Lakes water and the disputes about whether Waukesha will gain access to Lake Michigan water and return that water to the Great Lakes basin.

This so-called "return flow" principle is central to Great Lakes water conservation, plus Great Lakes watershed stewardship, and is a keystone element of the Great Lakes Compact - - the regional (as in Great Lakes region, not southeastern Wisconsin) water agreement that some Waukesha city, county and private sector officials are opposing.

McIlheran dismisses concerns about Waukesha's commitment to the return flow principle with this sentence:

"Of course Waukesha would return the water, maybe even build a wetland for treated sewage before it flows into a lake-bound river.

The problem with that statement is that Waukesha has not made that commitment.

What it is doing is thinking about return flow options, including the use of the Root or Menomonee Rivers, but according to my sources, for only a portion of the return flow.

The rest it would continue to send away from the Great Lakes basin.

Furthermore, Waukesha twice last year sent Gov. Doyle confidential requests for permission to divert water from Lake Michigan without any return flow activity.

And only acknowledged the existence of the requests after an open records request discovered their existence and forced Waukesha to forward those documents to a state legislative committee trying to craft legislation to implement the Compact in Wisconsin.

So the record is about 179 degrees across the compass from "Of course, Waukesha will return the water..."

Waukesha would advance farther in the debate and perhaps towards an eventual and successful diversion application review if it would:

a) Formally agree to return flow and negotiate that with downstream communities.

b) Endorse the Great Lakes Compact.

c) Establish comprehensive and measurable conservation practices that integrate land use planning with water use.

That would show that Waukesha recognizes that the Compact's reason for existence is regional water conservation and resource stewardship, and is not a document to be redrafted to guarantee any single community across the Great Lakes region access to those waters.

The longer that Waukesha takes to accept return flow and the common trust arrangement that underlies Great Lakes management (the trust principle is part of the Wisconsin Constitution, so, really, forget dropping that out of the Compact's implementation in Wisconsin), the less likely it will be that Waukesha can win the approvals it will need for a diversion.

And, paradoxically, approvals that will come either under the Compact or existing federal law that gives the other Great Lakes states even more power to veto diversion requests.