When Regional Non-Cooperation And Sabotage Masquerade As Regional Cooperation

Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas raised Double-Speak to a new high in these parts, saying that he supports the Great Lakes Compact...but sides with the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce which calls for gutting the Compact of its underlying principle:

All eight Great Lakes states must approve diverting water outside of the boundaries of the Great Lakes basin.

That requirement is also embedded in the applicable federal law passed in 1986 - - The Water Resources Development (WRDA) - -because the Great Lakes belong to all the eight Great Lakes states (and two Canadian provinces), so a cooperative agreement assures stewardship of this unique fresh water resource through ral management - - by unanimity.

Vrakas, the Chamber, the Metropolitan Builders Association, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC), State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) and other Compact obstructionists know this full well:

Trying to delete such a major provision would void Wisconsin's approval, preventing the unanimous ratifications among the states needed to send the Compact to Congress for its adoption - - and after wrecking the Compact's planning dating to 2001, the gutting would open the Great Lakes to reckless and unmanaged drawdowns.

More information about the WMC's role, here.

Quite the risk in this era of water awareness and shortages, eh?

Saying, as does Vrakas, that he supports the Compact minus the eight-state diversion approval procedure is the opposite of supporting the Compact.

It is a knowing and willful effort to undermine, even destroy, the Compact, a spinning, headline-hunting passive-aggressive feint, but devoid of content, credibility and courage.

It is also designed to pressure the Doyle adminitration to support a Compact too weak to be accepted by his gubernatorial counterparts - - but to make him the bad guy in Waukesha County if he won't.

This is how cynical politics is orchestrated by Waukesha game players.

Their ideologically-based sabotage extends even to a willingness to undercut their own efforts to win water deals with Milwaukee.

If Waukesha County leaders try this end-run around the law and the heart of the Compact (following two 2006 secret failed efforts), growing anti-diversion positioning in Milwaukee and across the Great Lakes will accelerate.

More and more, I believe the ultimate goal of certain Waukesha political and business states', us-firsters/states' rights conservatives is the side-tracking or death altogetherof the Compact (I've said this before), followed by litigation to nullify WRDA - - an act of imperious and self-defeating selfishness.

The fallback plan is prodding the regional planning commission, (SEWRPC), to createa new regional authority to distribute water across Waukesha County to its outer bounaries through a Compact loophole.