No Surprise: Waukesha Wins At SEWRPC
It took five years, requests from organizations like Waukesha County and $1 million - - about a quarter of which was diverted to SEWRPC in 2004 from deed registration fees from Milwaukee County to get it all financed and finished - - but the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission finally approved at its Wednesday meeting a set of water supply recommendations that include piping Lake Michigan water to Waukesha.
Waukesha is hailing the SEWRPC action, but take that with a grain of salt, as I'll explain.
SEWRPC is also recommending that Waukesha be allowed to ship some of the diverted water to a new service territory that is 80% larger in acreage than what it supplies now - - and it will need all the new customers it can get to help finance the possible diversion, should it happen, as it carries a minimum estimated cost of $164 million.
Waukesha will build up the SEWRPC water report adopted Wednesday as some sort of imperative etched in stone, a directive to water regulators in Wisconsin - - who are still sitting on the city's diversion application paperwork and labeling it after eight months, "deficient" - - and a message also to the other Great Lakes states, when, in fact, the water study recommendations, like all SEWRPC findings, are recommendations only.
And can be ignored - - like its recommendations for ag land or environmental corridor preservation in Waukesha County and elsewhere.
As SEWRPC Executive Director Emeritus Kurt Bauer - - chairman also of the water advisory committee - - himself recounted in a 2007 posting on this blog when discussing the loss of open space SEWRPC had recommended in the region for preservation.
From my interview with him in that posting:
"Pabst Farms was at one time in a prime agricultural area. If the [SEWRPC] Regional Land Use Plan had been followed, it [Pabst Farms] would not have been given over for development...it should have been kept in agricultural, open use."
And as to agriculture in Waukesha County, which Bauer said was a worldwide cattle provider as late as the 1960's?
"Agriculture is pretty much gone there," he said.
Bauer said the key to containing sprawl is land use decision-making at the front end of the planning and development processes because "land use is the key to all these problems that we don't address" - - but he said that residential developers across the region continue to convert open land, with commercial and industrial land following.
"The containment of sprawl: [SEWRPC] has been preaching against it for forty years, but it's crying in the wilderness."
"Pabst Farms is a big change. You can see it," Bauer said.
"But a lot of these changes occur in small increments. What do the Chinese say? 'It's the death by a thousand cuts.'"
6 comments:
Do you prefer development on well and septic systems instead of urban sewer and water?
Waukesha’s plan to switch from an unsustainable water supply to a sustainable water supply will not promote sprawl, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story points out:
“SEWRPC hired the Center for Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to evaluate social and economic impacts of the regional plan. Among its conclusions: switching Waukesha or any of the other communities to lake water would not cause any significant social or economic imbalances through 2035.
“Specific to Waukesha, the center found that providing lake water even to an expanded future water supply service area would not promote sprawl because there was not much undeveloped land to be had there, said Kate Madison, a policy analyst with the center.”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/111223134.html
I may have had a typo in my question.
Do you prefer development on well and septic systems instead of urban sewer and water?
Waukesha’s plan to switch from an unsustainable water supply to a sustainable water supply will not promote sprawl, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story points out:
“SEWRPC hired the Center for Economic Development at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to evaluate social and economic impacts of the regional plan. Among its conclusions: switching Waukesha or any of the other communities to lake water would not cause any significant social or economic imbalances through 2035.
“Specific to Waukesha, the center found that providing lake water even to an expanded future water supply service area would not promote sprawl because there was not much undeveloped land to be had there, said Kate Madison, a policy analyst with the center.”
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/111223134.html
Bill - - there will be sprawl into those new lands and the growth there will continue the trend: upper-income housing and jobs relative to development in Milwaukee.
the JS article misstates the SEI findings. The actual report, and comments of the consultants, make it clear that sprawl will continue. the basis for the finding of no greater impact is that the SEI is based explicitly on SEWRPC's representations that the science shows that if the suburban communities don't get Lake water they can use groundwater to develop. So, basically, they will sprawl as much as they want.
of course, if - as SEWRPC claims the science shows - groundwater is a reasonable alternative, then the suburbs can't legally get Lake water under the compact.
and if groundwater is NOT a reasonable alternative, and the Lake is the only option, then the SEI consultants were clear that selling water could result in adverse impacts on low income and minority communities.
Bill,
It's still sprawl when new development leapfrogs over ag land, conservation area and other open space--whatever the sewer and water supplier.
Your contention that "Waukesha’s plan to switch from an unsustainable water supply to a sustainable water supply" is laughable. Do you not get it that if the deep aquifer water--water that's used once, then flushed down the Fox River--were to be re-used or re-cycled back into the aquifer--it, too, could be easily sustainable? And far less expensive than the pricey Star Wars plan you propose.
Your Kate Madison quote is useless in advancing your argument and contradictory to the inflated number of gallons per day your old application asks for. 18 million gallons/day is nearly 3 times the amount of water used on average currently. If there isn't much undeveloped land to be HAD there, then there won't be the population to support the exorbitant amount in the application. You can't have it both ways, although I grudgingly admire your persistence in trying.
Your continued claim that Lake Michigan is a sustainable source is also ridiculous--and false. How much "consumptive use" will Waukesha claim--10%? 15%? 20%?--that won't be returned to the Lake? You need to go back to the drawing board to write some new talking points. People are on to you.
And while you're there--at the drawing board--you'd better get started on a new application. Looks the DNR thinks you need one. Please make it good this time around, and quit wasting precious time and the taxpayers' money in re-working the old, failed application. Or commenting on blogs such as this one.
Busy, busy--get to work! Start spinning!
"and if groundwater is NOT a reasonable alternative, and the Lake is the only option, then the SEI consultants were clear that selling water could result in adverse impacts on low income and minority communities."
The CED report and interested parties to this issue have a gross misconception about Waukesha. Waukesha has the largest percentage of low income and minority communities in Waukesha County. Waukesha is not the "perfect suburban community" Milwaukee residents have come to believe. We have crimes of murder, rape, drugs and poverty like any other city.
In my opinion the report by the CED's greatest flaw is the baseless falsehood, "switching Waukesha or any of the other communities to lake water would not cause any significant social or economic imbalances through 2035." Really? Will the poor, fixed income, and low income in Waukesha stop bathing because they cannot afford their water bill?
Waukesha's poor, low income, and fixed income will suffer financially over the cost of a Lake Michigan diversion.
Based on the handout past out by the water utility, the water portion alone will increase from $67 per quarter to $142. Then add the sewer portion. Then add the construction cost. Then add the maintenance cost. Then add economic compensation costs for water purchase rights.
A diversion to Wakesha has the potential to bring economic chaos.
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