Ex-GOP Ohio Gov: some Waukesha water diversion needless
[Updated, 12/10, 10:25 p.m.] Former Ohio GOP Gov. Bob Taft, who with Wisconsin Democratic Gov Jim Doyle led the successful regional push for the Great Lakes Compact, has penned a cautionary letter to the Chicago Tribune about Waukesha's precedent-setting diversion application and criticized a key element in it:
Waukesha’s demand for water has been decreasing since the late 1980s. The city’s diversion application proposes to needlessly divert Great Lakes water to nearby communities that already have a satisfactory existing supply of water.That Waukesha proposes to send some diverted water to communities that didn't even ask for it - - as well as to land ripe for development - - has always been the application's biggest flaw, as I suggested in 2010:
The weakest link in the application - - and what will raise questions all the way from the Town of Waukesha to the City of Milwaukee, and with reviewers and regulators in all the eight Great Lakes states, is Waukesha's plan to send Lake Michigan water into parts of Pewaukee, Genesee and the Town of Waukesha.Waukesha and Wisconsin officials have said that cutting back Waukesha's diversion request to its current boundaries is off the table:
Waukesha has said state law obligates it to distribute water to the [Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning] Commission's designated future service area, and that is the area included in the city's Great Lakes water diversion application…
Of equal significance to Waukesha, DNR Water Use Section Chief Eric Ebersberger has said in an interview and in informal conversations with Milwaukee representatives that the department will not accept a water deal that does not distribute water to the entire future service area.The Great Lakes governors convene on the issue Thursday.
1 comment:
New York State (where Donald Trump just embarrassed the Cruz-Walker cult 60.5% to 14.5%)has also been asking questions about Waukesha's proposed industrial increase request use. Here's a snippet from from the consultant report the WDNR referred New York to:
" 1. An industry is investigating developing within the City of Waukesha, which may increase the average industrial water usage by approximately 1.0 MGD
http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/WaterUse/documents/Waukesha/TechMemoWaukeshaResponse2014-02-19.pdf
Any water dependent business should be located in the basin where job growth is needed, not outside where Waukesha will force socioeconomic hardships own it's own community to build, operate, and maintain a 207 million dollar pipe dream.
Waukesha residents operate under a rate structure where the more you use, the higher the rate. Commercial and industrial uses are on a declining rate structure; the more they use, the lower the rate. That's the Walker way with the PSC.
Milwaukee already has excess capacity and could use the job creation. Unless, this proposal is another relocation program by Scott Walker from Milwaukee to Waukesha... Just saying because the customer did not want to be identified.
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