Excellent regional coverage of Waukesha water plan
This is a must-read piece about the implications of a Great Lakes diversion to Waukesha:
But if it [Waukesha] succeeds in staking this claim, based on a narrow-sounding exception in the rule against out-of-basin diversions, Waukesha will become the first municipality entirely outside the basin to be granted rights to Great Lakes water. And that will set a precedent that hundreds of other communities across eight states and two Canadian provinces could point to and say:
Hey, what about us?With its eye on the Great Lakes basin's big, basic Lake Superior, Minnesota should carefully look at Walker's entire and horrible water-quality-andrelted-environmental record, and also remember that Walker was willing to sacrifice the Lake Superior watershed and water quality for a massive open-pit, mountain top removal iron mine and its toxic mine runoff.
2 comments:
Walker admin. would also like to have a factory hog farm in the Lake Superior basin. More worries for MN and other GL states and Canadian provinces. Wisconsin has become a real pain in the ass.
It's a good topical piece. But the author starts out painting a picture that because Waukesha draws water with radium from the deep aquifer, it has no other options except a Lake Michigan Diversion Exception.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Waukesha is already filtering radium from some of the deep aquifer wells. If the application fails, they will need to install filters on the remaining wells to satisfy the June 2018 court ordered agreement and stipulation.
Considering that the deep aquifer has risen 100 feet in the last 15 years, the application is baseless.
The cost of a wait-and-see approach is pocket change to the utility customers. There is no shortage of water unless developers and local officials create it.
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