Waukesha Water Application Discussed; Uphill Climb Predicted

Thursday's meeting of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's (SEWRPC) Environmental Justice Task Force centered on whether and how environmental justice would or could be influenced by the preliminary recommendations reached last year by another SEWRPC body, its regional water advisory committee, that had endorsed the diversion of Lake Michigan water to Waukesha, among other draft recommendations.

Given that the EJTF has been assigned a review of the water advisory committee's preliminary recommendations, EJTF's consultants in their progress report Thursday made some insightful and noteworthy remarks about the necessity and implications of Waukesha's May, 2010 application for Great Lakes water.

These were the meeting highlights, as I saw them:

1. Consultants from the UWM Center for Economic Development hired six months ago by SEWRPC, and assigned to the EJTF, said their research to date indicated it was unlikely that there would significant socio-economic consequences if a community like Waukesha changed its water source from groundwater to Lake Michigan Waukesha - - but that "existing regional socio-economic imbalances could be rectified through an intergovernmental cooperative agreement."

They suggested hard details be included in such future agreements, in contrast to an approach to socio-economic matters in Milwaukee's recent water deal with New Berlin they called "soft."

The New Berlin-Milwaukee agreement contained an unenforceable pledge against job poaching, and called for a yearly meeting to discuss issues of mutual concern - - a meeting which has not been held as the second anniversary of the deal approaches.

2. The EJTF, however, agreed that its consultant work was not yet done and should be expanded to examine potential socio-economic impacts inherent in some additional possible Waukesha water supply options other than the Lake Michigan alternative from Milwaukee, such as groundwater sources.

Waukesha's Water Utility and Common Council have said such alternatives are less desirable and more costly.

They recommend, and will seek from the eight Great Lakes states, a Lake Michigan supply alternative with an estimated $164 million price tag with Milwaukee the preferred seller.

But Waukesha has not released the projected costs of a Lake Michigan supply from either Oak Creek and/or Racine - - a brewing legal and political problem.

And Waukesha has rejected a groundwater supply solution, such as maintaining and improving existing deep wells, or drilling new shallow wells, or tapping into the Fox River's bank, or a groundwater source combination; the EJTF is saying the socio-economic question and consultant mission requires the examination of some groundwater alternatives.

Current Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima - - elected in an April upset over pro-diversion Larry Nelson - - has questioned the Lake Michigan option, and called for more study of non-Lake Michigan alternatives - - so is being ripped mightily by the Water Utility and Common Council.

The Wisconsin DNR has said Waukesha needs to supply more information in the application about various water supply, cost, discharge and Great Lakes Compact compliance issues - - and for the time being has set the application aside.

History here.

These various calls for more research and/or data by Mayor Scrima, the DNR and the EJTF are not coordinated - - but could become the framework for an upgraded Waukesha water supply if The Common Council and Water Utility were willing to consider what could be a more practical approach.

3. UWM Prof. Joel Rast, the lead UWM consultant to the EJTF, also said his review of existing studies indicated "Waukesha had enough water if they managed it properly to sustain development through 2035."

Said Rast: "The ground water is going to be adequate. There isn't actually a pressing need for Lake Michigan water."

Waukesha's application faced a "tough" and uncertain future, Rast said, because "the science says it is not needed, not necessary."

4. The EJTF consultants are preliminarily recommending that future studies like the SEWRPC regional water study have designated representation from disadvantaged communities, and that recommendation is already being implemented, according to SEWRPC Executive Ken Yunker.

He pointed to SEWRPC's establishment of the the EJTF (in 2007) and the agency's assurance that an EJTF member had been placed on what became the next major SEWRPC study committee - - on regional housing.

The water advisory committee's all-Caucasian 32-member makeup - - frequently criticized - - still exists with the same makeup it has had since it was named by SEWRPC, with local government and private sector input in 2005.

The overall water study is on hiatus, awaiting the ETFJ component's completion in a month or two.

The full water advisory study committee, SEWRPC standing committees and the full 21-member SEWRPC commission will need to approve the water supply study - - with the EJTF input - - before the water supply study becomes final and is available to all municipalities in the seven-county region as a set of recommendations only.

Let's put today's meeting into some context:

Waukesha's biggest legal hurdle to winning access to Lake Michigan water lies in convincing regulators in eight states under the Great Lakes Compact that 'the science' indeed says that Lake Michigan water is the city's only reasonable water supply alternative - - therefore using this precedent-diversion application under the Compact to define what "reasonable" means.

Talk about a political process!

Throw in that citizens and water ratepayers in Waukesha and the neighboring communities where it wants to transfer some of the diverted water - - including the Town of Waukesha, plus Pewaukee and Genessee - - will have to decide what's "reasonable" to pay to a selling community for water.

And officials in a selling community - - probably Milwaukee, as Racine and Oak Creek are too expensively far from Waukesha, and in Oak Creek's case, with infrastructure too small to seriously compete with Milwaukee for the sale - - will also have to decide what is "reasonable" to charge for the water and to use its value to mitigate or rectify socio-economic imbalances.

More politics!

See what a slog Waukesha's diversion application has in front of it?