The LA Times Captures The Heart Of The Great Lakes Water Wars

The bellwether event for diverting Great Lakes water from the boundaries of its basin looks like Waukesha, WI, according to the Los Angeles Times.

That's what Wisconsin activists, and this blog, have been saying repeatedly: if a community like Waukesha is allowed to divert water outside of the Great Lakes basin - - in contravention of the standards in the pending Great Lakes Compact or existing federal law (the US Water Resources Development Act) - - the door opens wide to farther-away communities and the US south and southwest.

This is the reason that a Wisconsin elected official like State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin) wants to bottle up the Compact by sending it into additional negotiations - - stalling reduces the legal protections against ill-conceived diversions, something Lazich shortsightedly thinks helps her constituents - - even though in the longer run it could cost New Berlin and all of the Great Lakes region its vital water supplies.

The Great Lakes region, long dissed as the rust belt, is on the verge of a waterborne renaissance. Industry and residents are poised to locate close to the Great Lakes, where water is in ample supply - - if it is managed conserved, respected and stewarded effectively.

Waukesha has sent mixed signals when it comes to whether a diversion application would include returning water - - a requirement in the pending Compact, and without it, likely grounds for rejection under the Compact and existing federal law.

In 2006, Waukesha twice confidentially asked Gov. Jim Doyle to grant it diversions of Lake Michigan water without the consent of the other Great Lakes states and without a return flow requirement.

Gov. Doyle did not approve the requests and the Attorney General later that year said the state could not grant any diversion requests from Wisconsin communities that did not pass muster under the pending Compact and existing federal law.

In recent statements, Waukesha officials have said the city would return diverted water to the Lake Michigan basin - - but where and how (is the Root River route acceptable to Racine and other downstream communities?) are unanswered questions. Waukesha has also indicated that the return of water might be only a partial practice, as Waukesha wants to retain its treatment facility that now empties into the Fox River and helps keep the Vernon Marsh wet.

Whether partial return flow would meet the Compact's standards, and win approvals from the other states as required by both the Compact and federal law, is iffy at best.

And the Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewerage District would have to give its blessing to any return flow scheme that added to its capacity downstream from Waukesha.

Some discussion of these issues appears in the comment section of a related blog item, here, initiated by "Bill."

All the more reason that Wisconsin needs to get busy with adoption of a strong Great Lakes Compact implementing bill that lays out conservation requirements and other actions that make diversions genuine exceptions, not matters of sprawl-accelerating convenience in Waukesha County or anywhere in southeastern Wisconsin.