Time Enough? After More than 15 Months, No DNR Rules For Great Lakes Diversions

Gov. Jim Doyle signed Wisconsin legislation approving and implementing the Great Lakes Compact on May 27, 2008 - - more than 15 months ago, yet the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has yet to write the key administrative rules that should guide communities readying applications to pipe in water under the Compact framework.

A fifteen-month delay is not an accident.

It's a deliberate waiving of responsibility and public trust to smooth the way for Waukesha's application approval in Wisconsin - - which takes place prior to the review by the states.

For the last week or so I have been posting commentaries with links to documents provided upon request by the Waukesha Water Utility about these matters.

In the record, there is an unverified assertion from a Waukesha Water Utility consultant that it would take 4,000 hours of DNR work to write the rules - - the implication being that the task was overly burdensome on the DNR.

I have asked the DNR to verify the number, but I have yet to receive an answer.

Let's say it's accurate.

It sounds like a huge number, but with more than 2,000 hours in a working year, a small team of four employees could have finished the task by now having worked on the project less than half-time.

And much of the data and materials needed had already been assembled because the Compact had only recently been approved, with the DNR as lead agency at the Capitol.

And had represented the state in negotiations that produced the Compact over several years along with counterparts from the other Great Lakes states.

I don't think this approach is going to help Waukesha in the long run convince the public, and the other states that must approve it unanimously that the Waukesha application is as credible as it could and should have been.

Or that it had the most comprehensive review possible by Wisconsin authorities.

This is why the City of Milwaukee, as the probable Lake Michigan water seller, wanted the DNR to have rules in place prior to receiving Waukesha's application -- requests of the DNR made twice by Milwaukee leaders that went unanswered.

If and when Waukesha's application stalls, say, in Michigan's review, or elsewhere, the DNR or others advising or directing it will shoulder much of the blame.