City-hating suburban legislator forgets her water comes from Milwaukee
Yesterday I reminded Menomonee Falls GOP Assemblywoman Janel Brandjten - - she who
who spouted a racially-tinged and doltish suggestion over crime in the area that the state should punish Milwaukee with funding cuts - - that some illegal gun-selling in the region originates in the very counties she represents.
Today I want to remind her that her hometown of Menomonee Falls gets a diversion over the subcontinental divide Milwaukee water from Lake Michigan and gets it despite having helped kill a public bus line- - and some job access to central city Milwaukeeans -- - that had connected Menominee Falls to Milwaukee.
If she wants to make a point about regional cooperation, she might, as a first-term legislator, read up on that history, here.
I'll also bet she doesn't know that the Lake Michigan diversion to Menomonee Falls in Waukesha County was turned on administratively by the Wisconsin DNR in 1999 during the Tommy Thompson years without the unanimous approval by or even consultation with the other Great Lakes states as called for by the governing law and practices in place at the time.
The current Great Lakes Compact of 2008 replaced the earlier agreement; the City of Waukesha's pending diversion application falls under the Compact's legal standards and procedures.
The diversion to Menomonee Falls and another to Pleasant Prairie, WI made under similar circumstances without all the I's being dotted and T's being crossed were noted on this blog, and also in an under-reported, 2006 Attorney General opinion.
I am aware that recent efforts to link to and distribute that opinion have been unsuccessful.
But imagine if someone asked a court to take a look at that kettle of Great Lakes fish?
Or took her demagogic, toxic approach and decided to cut back water deliveries, by say, oh 1,000 gallons of diverted water a day for every dollar of state funding she intends to strip away from Milwaukee.
Diverted water the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described this way:
who spouted a racially-tinged and doltish suggestion over crime in the area that the state should punish Milwaukee with funding cuts - - that some illegal gun-selling in the region originates in the very counties she represents.
Today I want to remind her that her hometown of Menomonee Falls gets a diversion over the subcontinental divide Milwaukee water from Lake Michigan and gets it despite having helped kill a public bus line- - and some job access to central city Milwaukeeans -- - that had connected Menominee Falls to Milwaukee.
If she wants to make a point about regional cooperation, she might, as a first-term legislator, read up on that history, here.
I'll also bet she doesn't know that the Lake Michigan diversion to Menomonee Falls in Waukesha County was turned on administratively by the Wisconsin DNR in 1999 during the Tommy Thompson years without the unanimous approval by or even consultation with the other Great Lakes states as called for by the governing law and practices in place at the time.
The current Great Lakes Compact of 2008 replaced the earlier agreement; the City of Waukesha's pending diversion application falls under the Compact's legal standards and procedures.
The diversion to Menomonee Falls and another to Pleasant Prairie, WI made under similar circumstances without all the I's being dotted and T's being crossed were noted on this blog, and also in an under-reported, 2006 Attorney General opinion.
I am aware that recent efforts to link to and distribute that opinion have been unsuccessful.
But imagine if someone asked a court to take a look at that kettle of Great Lakes fish?
Or took her demagogic, toxic approach and decided to cut back water deliveries, by say, oh 1,000 gallons of diverted water a day for every dollar of state funding she intends to strip away from Milwaukee.
Diverted water the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described this way:
Quiet Water Diversions
Indeed, Wisconsin has a history - albeit a quiet one - of unilaterally approving Lake Michigan diversions, provided the treated wastewater is sent back. That is the case to the south of Milwaukee, where the City of Kenosha has been supplying water to communities beyond the basin's dividing line for decades. It is a similar story in the Village of Menomonee Falls, where water has been flowing over the basin dividing line since 1999. The DNR never sought out-of-state approvals for these diversions, which total roughly 1.4 million gallons daily.No water penalty today is probably going to ever be assessed against Menomonee Falls, but the Village and the clown it elected as its public face in the State Assembly should think twice about trashing the very city that is supplying its people and businesses with tap water..
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