Waukesha's timing couldn't be worse, and its need to conserve water instead of diverting it from a dwindling Lake Michigan - - regardless of all the city's promises to return it - - couldn't be greater, as politics and nature seem to be lining up against the diversion:
Ever since the 1990s, Lake Michigan has been predominantly below its long-term water level average, and trending downwards. Water levels plummeted precipitously in the late 1990s, after a strong El Niño event warmed up the waters.
“That event drastically increased water temperatures,” explained Drew Gronewold, a physical scientist at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL). “Over the course of just one year, water temperatures went up by 2.5 degrees Celsius. That’s huge. And the cycle is reinforcing; one really warm year led to more than a decade of dropping lake levels.”
Grelickville, Traverse City, MI – Low Water
CREDIT: NOAA
As the lake warms, it’s changing the water levels, as well. Most evaporation on the Great Lakes occurs in the fall when the lake is still warm from the summer, but the air has turned cold and dry. When the water is warmer than usual, the peak evaporation season begins earlier and lasts longer into the early winter. Warmer water also leads to less ice formation and fewer days of ice cover...
In other words, last winter’s record low lake levels are a glimpse of what a warmer climate in the region would do to the lakes — a glimpse that so far has lasted 15 years, set off by one hot summer.
And about those Great Lakes politics:
The Mayor of Thunder Bay, Ontario is strongly objecting to Waukesha, Wisconsin's plan to divert Lake Michigan water across the boundaries of the Great Lakes basin.
Thunder Bay's mayor says he'll fight an American city's bid to take Great Lakes water...
Before it was politics and nature lining up against the diversion, it was science and common sense.
ReplyDeleteWell, you can't have one without the other, eh?
ReplyDeleteBetsey: Pls. resend you comment. Google is balking...
ReplyDeleteApparently the latest invasive species in the Great Lakes is Jim Rowen’s red herrings. The Great Lakes Compact REQUIRES Waukesha to return the water to the Great Lakes, minus consumptive use. So dismissing return flow as just a “promise” is silly. The truth is, Waukesha has said it will actually exceed the Compact’s requirement and return at least 100% of the volume of water.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, to imply that Waukesha could have any impact on Great Lakes levels is political spin that ignores the facts and intentionally misleads the public. Waukesha’s withdrawal will be one one-millionth of 1% (an amount that cannot be measured in lake levels) of the water in the Great Lakes – and then it will put that amount back. The fact is, the volume of water in the Great Lakes will not change due to Waukesha’s proposal.
The purpose of the Compact is to review applications for Great Lakes water on the facts, not on politics. Talking about imaginary impacts on lake levels is exactly the opposite and does nothing to help the Lakes or the Compact.
Red herring in cream sauce. Yum!
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't seem to say that Waukesha would lower lake levels, though. He calls on Waukesha to conserve, not withdraw water and points out lake levels are lowering. That's different.
1 city may be negligible but thousands likely not. Waukesha would be the first nonwatershed city to withdraw water (and return less than withdrawn as you say). That would be a precedent. So their impact is more than one city's withdrawal.
Ah Bill,
ReplyDeleteHow quick your memory fades.
Remember that letter from March 28,2006 asking Governor Doyle to grant a Lake Michigan diversion for 24 million gallons per day and not returning 1 freak-in gallon because a return flow would harm the Fox River? And least we not forget that the law firm submitting the request tried to conceal it from public records under the balancing test?
Credit - James Rowen.
Good remembering there, Anonymous 1:05 AM.
ReplyDeleteI recall some years before the March 28, 2006 Stealth Diversion Request, back to when the Compact had not been finalized, much less ratified by the Great Lakes states or the federal government, Waukesha never supported returning the water to the Great Lakes basin. In fact they opposed it, groaning about the high cost of building two--not one, but TWO pipes!--and said they could never afford it. They only picked up the flag of return flow and began waving it around after those rotten environmentalists and perhaps some other Great Lakes states insisted on the return flow provision. Once Waukesha reversed course about replacing the water, then the spin--which Bill is responsible for, remember?--became all about how sustainable is the Lake Michigan water source**, and what a gift to Underwood Creek or the Root River is Waukesha's effervescent effluent.
Bill, maybe you should review your notes or even some old invoices, before you try to out-fact James Rowen and other People Who Remember Things.
**Failing to note that any source of water combined with water recycling or reuse is also eminently sustainable.
"Regardless, to imply that Waukesha could have any impact on Great Lakes levels is political spin that ignores the facts and intentionally misleads the public." [Do you mean to imply it ignores your chosen set of facts and spins in the opposite direction of your spin, Bill?]
ReplyDelete" . . . The fact is, the volume of water in the Great Lakes will not change due to Waukesha’s proposal." [the point being made is that Waukesha's application will likely impact future lake levels via its precedent-setting status, a fact you try to dismiss despite knowing better. The law is the law, and then there is the application of the law, which you bloody well know can be interpreted to mean something slightly or greatly different.]
"The purpose of the Compact is to review applications for Great Lakes water on the facts, not on politics." [You can't seriously be accusing someone of playing politics with the Compact or Waukesha's application, can you? You're a Spin Doctor, not a journalist or a scientist, or did you fall victim to your own spin?]
"Talking about imaginary impacts on lake levels is exactly the opposite and does nothing to help the Lakes or the Compact." [or you, or Waukesha's application--yea, we get it.]