Lazich Butchers Water Issue, English Language

State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), is at it again, declaring in an online suburban newspaper column her opposition to the Great Lakes Compact.

The full text is here.

Lazich claims the City of Milwaukee is practicing "extortion" by saying it will not sell Lake Michigan water to a portion of New Berlin that is outside of the Great Lakes basin until the Compact is ratified.

How is that extortion, which, by the way, in common usage has a felonious, legal definition, and libel suits have been filed for far less unpleasantness that suggesting that someone is a criminal.

Furthermore, Milwaukee's position is completely logical and legal: the Compact sets in place formal Great Lakes diversion procedures that are designed to standardize that process, minimize diversions, encourage conservation and preserve the Great Lakes.

A state that jumps the gun and approves a diversion before the Compact has been adopted by all parties runs the risk of either a) triggering a wholesale rush in other states for diversions without standards, or b) a veto of a community's application by one of the other Great Lakes, since unanimous approvals by all eight Great Lakes states is already required by a 1986 federal law and by the Compact itself.

Lazich seems to be the only one in Wisconsin who cannot grasp these simple facts, along with a state legislator in Ohio whose flimsy property-rights opposition to the Compact was shot down by Wisconsin's DNR months ago as irrelevant to Wisconsin law.

Lazich knows that because she forwarded the Ohioan's arguments to the state study committee that met for a year and failed to draft a Compact bill - - in part due to Lazich's obstructionism - - and the DNR told the study committee in writing that the Ohio argument sent its way by Lazich had no merit for Wisconsin.

Here is the DNR's statement, which has been posted on a state website for months, and it contains key phrases like "incorrect interpretations" and "no relevance."

Lazich knows that sending back the Compact for renegotiation is a way to kill it. The negotiations that created it over a five-year period could not be duplicated, and every day that the Compact is delayed is a day of peril for the Great Lakes.

Furthermore, the Compact negotiations produced a compromise package that included diversion exceptions, permissions and procedures specifically carved out for communities like New Berlin and Waukesha that were not included in the first draft of the Compact called Annex 2001.

So New Berlin and Waukesha have already won a crucial victory: all they need to do to apply for water is to follow the rules, and all Wisconsin has to do is adopt them.

Lazich doesn't want to do that, and still wants Waukesha County communities to be able to take Lake Michigan water - - a shared, internationally-managed resources - - away from the Great Lakes basin, and calls other people extortionist?

Finally: the old newspaper reporter and editor in me has to highlight her claim that Milwaukee's position is a "shot across the bough" to the suburbs.

"[Milwaukee Alderman Michael] Murphy’s blunt statement is a direct shot across the bough, a clear indication that the city of Milwaukee doesn’t have any intention of assisting communities like New Berlin or Waukesha in dealing with their need for water," she says.

The term references naval tactics - - a cannon shot "across the bow" was a way that a naval vessel could warn a ship to stop. The bow is the front of a ship.

A shot "across the bough" presumably flies over a branch, perhaps during a squirrel hunt.

Could it be that Lazich knows she is barking up that wrong tree, the one that gets in the way of seeing the rest of the forest?