Will Walker Have The DNR Dilute Agency's Review Of Waukesha's Great Lakes Diversion Application?

There's more than a little buzz about that possibility, posed as this post's headline, and made more real by the probable appointment by Scott Walker of an anti-DNR zealot to run (slow down, divert, hamstring) the agency.

From an ideological, anti-regulatory, small-government point of view, and also among the City of Waukesha's troubled Great Lakes diversion application's authors in and around its Water Utility and Common Council, such a short-sighted move might be tempting and welcomed.

But given that the agency had established in writing the application's short comings with multiple citations to federal and state statutes, along with the Great Lakes Compact also approved in the Wisconsin legislature (read the DNR's 12/2 letter on the matter at its website, here), and also approved by seven other Great Lakes states and the US Congress, such shameless procedural and policy-making tampering would absolutely boomerang and doom the application to rejection in one or more of the other states.

And without the unanimous approval of all eight Great Lakes states, the application is vetoed, leaving Waukesha behind in its clean water supply planning and mandated 2018 compliance, and also at least $1 million in the hole paid out to consultants, lawyers and PR reps.

They say that elections have consequences, and that is oh, so true.

But using an election as the justification for meddling and mucking around in such weighty matters as managing the world's largest supply of fresh surface water - - very inadvisable.

Will Walker rewrite the DNR's mission statement, too?

Our Mission

To protect and enhance our natural resources:

our air, land and water;
our wildlife, fish and forests
and the ecosystems that sustain all life.

To provide a healthy, sustainable environment

and a full range of outdoor opportunities.

To ensure the right of all people

to use and enjoy these resources
in their work and leisure.

To work with people

to understand each other's views
and to carry out the public will.

And in this partnership

consider the future
and generations to follow.