At The Shores Of Wisconsin's Great Lakes, Great Concern Over Water

From the shores of Wisconsin's two Great Lakes, leaders downstream from proposed big projects being foisted on their communities are raising the alarm about what power brokers want to do with the water.

*  Some Racine elected officials object to the City of Waukesha's plan to divert water from Lake Michigan and then send it back every day as about 10 million gallons of treated waste water through the Root River and into Racine's harbor.

Said State Rep. Cory Mason:

Racine is not Waukesha's toilet.

Amplified by Racine County Supervisor Ken Hall:

Sitting on the deep aquifer they sucked dry, Waukesha’s ways must end. They chugged their endowment and flushed it to the Mississippi...

*  And, to the north, Bad River Band chairman Mike Wiggins, Jr., explains in this short video what a massive open pit iron ore mine just upstream will do to tribal drinking water and the surrounding Lake Superior watershed.

Little wonder that Wiggins calls the consequences "non-negotiable." 

Imagine if the plan were to dig a hole 4.5 miles long, a quarter of a mile wide and 1,000 feet deep in Waukesha's Lake Country, or near Madison's four lakes.

At the heart of both predicaments north and south at the edge of both the state's Great Lakes is a demand for greater respect for clean, conserved water  - - or the Great Lakes will lose their value and status as "great."