The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has told the City of Waukesha by letter on December 3rd that its Lake Michigan diversion application now under departmental review "lacks a sufficient explanation for the projected increase in the rate of water use" in the short and long term, and asks the city for either an "explanation and evidence-based justification" or a revised demand projection.
The application seeks, on average, a daily diversion of 10.1 million gallons of water, though the city's current usage is about seven million - - and the city has said it is not seeking water for growth into areas outside of its city limits - - among the points of controversy - - where it does intend to send some water.
The DNR added charts showing Waukesha's downward water usage trends.
More on this later.
Update: The letter is now posted on the DNR website.
I did not expect that from the DNR - something must have gone amiss. Was Stepp on vacation or what?
ReplyDeleteThis has probably got the Walkeritess in Walkerstan steaming.
Waukesha has undertaken a significant plan of aggressiveness toward installing new water mains and some customer laterals in older parts of the city. This is water that was pumped but not metered by the final user - leakage.
ReplyDeleteBusinesses are cooperating with the utility to reduce waste.
Some water based businesses have left Waukesha for fear of the cost of doing business.
Nobody waters their lawns in the summer. Nobody had to this past summer.
Has Waukesha's efforts to reduce waste and conserve more cultivated favorable results? Certainly. So then, why the request for more water? SEWRPC
SEWRPC has Waukesha, city and county targeted for more and more apartments as written in their recent housing report. I would imagine this has developers and land owners excited.
Have you ever been to a presentation by the Waukesha Water Utility? I've always taken note of the statistic that The Town of Waukesha has only 15% available land for development. What's the land destined to be used for? Obviously something that's going to require millions of gallons of water per day.
So yes, this is all about growth.
And Walkerstan can't grow without water - how sad.
ReplyDelete