Waukesha Rolling Towards Lake Michigan Diversion Application

Waukesha city officials took several hours of comments and questions Monday evening about the proposed Lake Michigan diversion scheme, and while there are more meetings ahead, and decision points down the road, the application will come to a very consequential vote by the Common Council on April 8th that feels like a foregone conclusion in light of the years of effort and preparatory money spent so far.

That vote would come after the water utility commission's guaranteed approval of the application on March 18th, so the council vote would pave the way for the application to get to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for state consideration - - and set the stage for separate discussions with Milwaukee, Oak Creek and Racine about which of the three cities is the best potential seller of water to Waukesha.

The DNR will review the application, produce a formal environmental impact statement, and, at some point, should it pass muster forward the application to the other seven Great Lakes states for their mandatory approvals, too.

And while Waukesha has other long-term water supply alternatives still available - - though overly expensive, officials say - - the die is just about fully cast in favor of the $164 million (and another $7 million annually for operations) Lake Michigan option, come what may.

Several citizens and representatives from three environmental organizations - - Midwest Environmental Advocates - - a public interest lsw firm - - Milwaukee Riverkeeper, and the Waukeshe Environmental Action League raised detailed and substantive concerns and questions about the pending draft application, but Waukesha officials, while welcoming the comments, did not appear particularly moved by the observations and the commenters' criticisms.

Including suggestions that the application was fundamentally flawed under terms of the all-important Great Lakes Compact.

It all reminded me of something that former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist said about major highway projects - - and easily transferable to something as big as a long pipeline from Milwaukee to Waukesha and another shorter wastewater pipe to Underwoood Creek in Wauwatosa:

'There are two stages to these projects,' Norquist would say - - and I'm paraphrasing a bit.

'The first is that it's too soon to draw any conclusions, and the second is that it's too late to do anything about them.'

While Waukesha says it is still taking comments and doing studies and planning more meetings and expects multiple reviews before there are irrevocable decisions, it feels like the city is already at stage two - - locking in a precedent-setting quest for Great Lakes water though any one of seven other states' Governors could nix the whole thing.

Will Waukesha slow itself down, and get its application right, or fully compare and explore every alternative on the table?

It sure doesn't feel that way.