New Approach To Water Management Holds Great Promise

It may strike some people as inside baseball, and others will find it hard to get used to another entity with pieces of names that sound somewhat familiar, but the Southeastern Wisconsin Watershed Trust rolled out last week after more than a year of inclusive planning holds great promise for sane water management across the Watershed region.

And not an artificial region drawn on a map by politicians the way the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission was roped together across seven counties 50 years ago.

SEWRPC could have been four counties. Could have been one or two or six or ten, or none.

Little wonder, then, that SEWRPC is busy writing water, transportation and land-use plans that distort its region's growth in ways that have aided developers, but have also put unstainable pressures on water supplies, farmland and open space at the expense of the environment as defined by the region's rivers and watersheds.

This is why the watershed model is so promising.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Watershed Trust arises within a region defined by Mother Nature's creeks and rivers that flow across political boundaries naturally to Lake Michigan.

How eminently logical, and promising.

Based on an Illinois model, the Watershed Trust will bring together many stakeholders that start out with something in common: they/we are all residents within one of the watersheds in our region, already with a seat in the same boat who need and want the same things - - clean, plentiful water for mutual satisfaction, sustainability, progress.

That's the beauty of the watershed approach. It will redefine and refine the debate, with the operant question being, repeatedly: What's good for the Watershed?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel correctly offered a lengthy Sunday editorial on the Watershed Trust concept and goals, and gave credit where credit was due to a long list of serious folks who have been working to change the conversation and also to make a new, and much needed initative succeed.

The paper had earlier last week published a fine piece by Don Behm that laid out the Trust's definition and ambitious goals, and its promise of a much less-polluted watershed, from Fond du Lac to Racine, as a legacy for later generations.

No doubt the Watershed Trust's educational efforts will be coming to a neighborhood association, church group, hearing, planning meeting or other venue near you for your thoughts and participation.

Don't miss it.