Great Lakes Compact Zanies Are At It Again

State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), had been singing the praises of Tim Grendell, one of her Ohio legislative counterparts, as they together hauled out state rights' cliches and rhetorical bombast to try and kill the Great Lakes Compact.

After calling the eight-state agreement dictatorial, Lazich has backed off, grasping finally that the Compact will help her home town of New Berlin get Lake Michigan water faster than under an existing set of rules in federal law that could block it forever.

And the rest of the Waukesha GOP delegation is now on board with a bill to implement the Compact because it will create an interim period of indefinite length during which other diversions in Wisconsin could get a less-stringent review.

But Grendell is still at it in Ohio, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which reported Friday that the Compact is still stalled there, in part, because Grendell has yet to introduce his state constitutional amendment he says is needed to ensure that the state will not somehow use the Compact to steal water on private property.

Grendell was also scheduled to address an Ohio citizens group today.

The group's leader, according to the Plain Dealer, believes that since God makes it rain, the state can't control how water is regulated once it hits the ground.

That makes Wisconsin's Compact opponents look downright reasonable by comparison.