Waukesha Completes Water Diversion Application, But How Late Is It?
The Freeman today says this:
Waukesha’s water application officially complete, 18 months behind scheduleWell, that's generous, since Waukesha's Common Council voted to approve the expensive and olitically-charged application around the April, 2010 local election, and the deadlines ever since have been, shall we say, fluid.
And Waukesha's water utility general manager told the Journal Sentinel more than 15 months ago that the drop dead date to have all the approvals done and construction begun was June, 2013.
Waukesha - Time appears to have run out on Waukesha's landmark effort to obtain Lake Michigan water by a court-imposed deadline of June 2018 to provide residents with radium-safe drinking water.
June of next year is a "drop-dead" date, Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak says, to have in place all of the pieces the city needs - approval from Wisconsin and seven other Great Lakes states, a water purchase deal from Milwaukee or another city and a host of pipeline construction contracts - in order to have lake water flowing to Waukesha by the summer of 2018.
Five years are needed to build the new system, he said.
If all of those hurdles are not cleared and work started by June 2013, Waukesha will have no choice but to select a different and more costly strategy for providing safe drinking water to its residents, Duchniak said, vowing an aggressive push for its lake water plan.Whatever the reasons for the obstacles and missed deadlines - - changing technical consultants mid-stream, extensive preliminary written DNR questions, difficulty finding a willing supplier - - the initial delay is about twice what Waukesha is saying.
"We're optimistic we'll have a decision by next summer," Duchniak said.
Look for more delays, as the DNR and regulators in seven other Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces raise more questions internally, and through hearings galore, provoke discussion on both Waukesha's application and one big contextual issue.
Well, make that two.
Waukesha hopes all these loose ends can be tied up by next spring. I'd doubt that.
5 comments:
According to the geniuses at the JS editorial board, "needless delays" are over now. Immediate approval--even before reading the thing--is what they recommend. Let the cheerleading begin.
They know that many of these delays have been self-inflicted, and that the governing Great Lakes Compact and state legislation lays out processes and procedures and priorities, and the notion of "immediate approval" is no where to be found.
The application is nowhere-to-be-found on the City of Waukesha or Waukesha Water Utility website.
Damn good thing the DNR is requiring local dog and pony shows by the utility, after all the locals are being asked to pay for the least reasonable option.
Try to spin that one Bill.
Does the application include the most reasonablely cost effective solution to meet the 2018 court ordered deadline? Installing radium filters on all the deep aquifer wells would be significantly less costly and allow Waukesha literally decades to apply for Lake Michigan water or develop over time shallow wells to offset the deep aquifer draw down. The aquifer drawdown has already significantly slowed partly because an Illinois community has changed sources.
I see no reason for Waukesha to rush the application through with no immediate demonstrated need.
And I see no need for the other states to rush to judgement on the first ever application diversion of Great Lakes water.
How late is the application?
Too late and too many times "ready" for the Water Utility and City to have any credibility left.
Too late for its disregarded and unmaintained existing infrastructure, failed wells and leaking pipes: "You see, we need a new system because we didn't keep up the current system. We spent it all on PR."
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