Call For DNR Diversion Rules Belatedly Reported: Agency Arrrogance Again Surfaces
Well, better late than never.
The Journal Sentinel finally gets around to reporting that Milwaukee officials in writing asked the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to please write rules governing Great Lakes diversions before approving them.
That fact, and a link to the letter, was supplied by this blog five days ago.
But the delay in reporting has an upside: Darryl Enriquez found a DNR official, Bruce Baker, saying the DNR doesn't have to write rules to implement legislation - - and that's not the first time that Baker has taken the position that the DNR can act so independently.
You may remember that prior to the passage of the Great Lakes Compact in 2008, Baker and others at the DNR were saying the agency could approve diversions of Great Lakes water outside of the Great Lakes basin without following approval procedures outlined in federal law in force at the time.
Then-Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager in a lengthy, written opinion strongly took the opposite view; her opinion was not reported at the time by the mainstream media, but I posted it several times to get the word out .
A summary post with commentary, and a link to the opinion, is here,
Though the DNR did wait until the Compact was ratified before New Berlin's diversion application - - and that application fell into a less-complex review category - - Waukesha politicos are arguing that the DNR should proceed with its diversion review review prior to its writing rules about out-of-basin diversion permission formats and content.
What's the rush?
Why the push for a quickie review?
Regulators have given Waukesha until 2018 to comply with clean water standards, so there is plenty of time to proceed with this process logically and comprehensively from the outset: First, the Compact was approved: then write the implementing rules before diversion are implemented.
Waukesha is already talking about construction schedules before anyone has had a chance to really analyze its probable discharge plan, which involves dumping millions of gallons of treated wastewater into Underwood Creek in Wauwatosa.
An earlier plan floated out by Waukesha to dump its discharge into the Root River was met with strong opposition from Racine's Rep. Cory Mason, )D), who said Racine did not want to become Waukesha's toilet.
Is Wauwatosa, and the Menomonee Valley downstream, anxious to get Waukesha's flush?,
I smell a huge, politically-motivated power play coming from Waukesha, and, apparently with some support signalled high-up in the DNR, to ramrod through an application and diversion before the rules are written that will set a precedent across eight states.
Let's be clear: that's a very risky ploy.
I predict that if Wisconsin goes this route, the other seven Great Lakes states that, per the Compact, have to approve Waukesha's diversion will block it, treating Wisconsin as a regional renegade, uncooperative and arrogant, thus throwing the entire Compact and years of collaborative risk into court and down the drain.
Why go there?
1 comment:
This is the lead from the story in the MJS that is the subject of this Political Environment post...
"Waukesha's pursuit of Lake Michigan water is likely headed for a logjam of delays because state rules are not in place to guide the thirsty community through a potentially thorny quest to gain permission by other Great Lakes states to turn on the tap, Milwaukee officials and environmental advocates say."
Just try to pick your way through the various manifestation of cant and slant in this cliche-ridden lead paragraph scribbled by famously clueless Journal Sentinel reporter, Darryl Enriquez.
The crazy quilt of mixed metaphor is laughable. He asks us to envision a logjam as they crash through the thorny thicket: Larry Nelson and Dan Warren hurrying to turn on a faucet that will deliver Lake Michigan water.
But the attribution is what is simply wrong. The people who are cautioning against a hurried attempt to get a water diversion approval are simply asking for an orderly procedure guided by carefully constructed rules-- rules that are to be crafted by DNR staff.
There has been a long series of delays in getting a safe drinking water supply in Waukesha. And ALL of those delays are attributable to the Waukesha Water Utility Commission and the Waukesha City Council. They insisted that the need to rid the water of radium was a ridiculous requirement of the EPA, that Waukesha water was perfectly safe and drinkable. So, they stalled and appealed and brought lawsuits beginning when George Herbert Walker Bush was president. They lost every time, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only after decades of pig-headed insistence that they were right, did they reach the end of the line and admit that cleaning up Waukesha's radium problem had to be addressed.
And they hatched a scheme to apply for water from Lake Michigan with lots of undisclosed encouragement from DNR hacks.
Enriquez is flat wrong (as is so often the case) in painting a picture of environmentalists and Milwaukee politicians creating logjams and thorny thickets to impede progress.
The Waukesha Water Utility Commission has for decades been a clubby little group of clueless politicians and manipulative sprawl advocates pursuing their own interests, holding dozens of hours of secret meetings, spending untold hundreds of thousands of dollars on PR consultants, silk stocking law firms and sleazy Washington lobbyists to achieve their ends.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and its third-string Waukesha reporter have increasingly been there to act as the Commission's mouthpiece.
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