Joining papers in Ohio and Michigan, the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette minced no words a few days ago opposing the City of Waukesha's proposal for a precedent-setting diversion of Lake Michigan water...
...beyond the Great Lakes' boundaries.
Said the Pittsburgh paper's editors:
...beyond the Great Lakes' boundaries.
Said the Pittsburgh paper's editors:
A proposal by Waukesha, Wisc., to divert water from Lake Michigan could affect all other Great Lakes states, including Pennsylvania. The diversion plan would violate the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, the 2008 agreement among the eight states that border the lakes.
Gov. Tom Wolf, who represents Pennsylvania on the council, should speak out and challenge the plan...
The states allow communities in the lakes’ watershed to draw water — but only if the amount is reasonable and a town has exhausted every other option. Neither of these conditions applies to the Waukesha plan...
Every governor’s vote counts because it will take the unanimous consent of all eight Great Lakes states for Wisconsin to divert water.Or as the Cleveland Plain Dealer put it:
Waukesha's Great Lakes water grab should sink without a ripple
And here is the letter they published from Dan Duchniak of the Waukesha Water Utility in response:
ReplyDeleteI would like to respond to your recent editorial about the Waukesha, Wis., proposal to use and return Lake Michigan water (“Hands Off: A Water Diversion Plan Threatens the Great Lakes,” Aug. 28).
Waukesha strongly supports efforts to protect the Great Lakes, which is why we supported the Great Lakes Compact. Our proposal to use 1/100,000,000th of Great Lakes water will cause no harm, especially since we will return the same volume as we withdraw.
It is important to understand that the compact explicitly allows Waukesha to apply for water because it is located in a county that straddles the Great Lakes Basin divide. Waukesha is not a precedent for water to be pumped to places beyond those counties, since that is prohibited under the compact.
The compact is the result of regional trust and cooperation. The intention was to create a process for objective, scientific reviews of local requests to prevent legal challenges to the law’s protection of the lakes.
Political reactions, or the misinformation being circulated by an organized group of opponents, should not be the basis for decisions. Waukesha’s proposal is under review by Wisconsin and is not yet before the other states and provinces. The compact’s review process can be relied on to provide the appropriate findings of fact that the governors should base their decision upon.
This is not a choice between protecting the Great Lakes and providing clean and reliable drinking water for the citizens of Waukesha. The compact ensures that both goals can be met. I urge everyone to allow the compact process to proceed before formulating their decision.
Bill,
ReplyDeleteNow Dan is lying too.
You are not returning the same volume as you withdraw. Please stop spreading this bad information.
I hope the water utility plans on giving you a bigger bonus this year... I mean it must be difficult to try and defend all of this garbage knowing you are misleading the public.
How do you sleep at night?