County Supervisors Do Not Like Waukesha Waste Water Dump Scheme

A Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors Committee goes on record against that portion of Waukesha's Lake Michigan diversion proposal that has the Waukesha'waste water stream headed to Wauwatosa's Underwood Creek.

Early in Waukesha's thinking, State Rep. Corey Mason, (D-Racine), emphatically said no way to a Root River alternative that would have turned his community, he said, into Waukesha's toilet.

Little wonder. As I noted a few weeks ago, would the City of Waukesha appreciate Wauwatosa proposing to channel its waste water into the Fox River and the heart of Waukesha?

Maybe the full Milwaukee County Board will set the resolution aside, maybe not.

But it indicates a few things:

Waukesha, in addition to the diversion permission needed from all eight Great Lakes states, will need a substantial number of easements and other arrangements across Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties to build various pipelines and other pieces of infrastructure.

It also needs to negotiate a waste water discharge arrangement with Wauwatosa if Underwood Creek remains the route for the waste water back to Lake Michigan.

And it will have to negotiate a water sale, and perhaps regional cooperation contract with a selling community.

As had been said many times, the Lake Michigan option is no slam dunk, but Waukesha believes the water supply options to the west and south, involving shallow wells, is less attractive.

New wells near the Fox River, under study by the UWM WATER Institute, could end up solving a portion of Waukesha's problem.