Environmental groups are pushing back on the City of Waukesha’s claims that it must pipe in Lake Michigan water to solve its long-simmering radium problem.
Waukesha faces a 2018 deadline to reduce the amount of naturally occurring radium in its drinking water supply pumped from its deep aquifer. To do so, it wants to bring in Lake Michigan water, even though Waukesha is outside of the Great Lakes Basin, and it’s asking for enough water to serve a handful of neighboring communities—the towns of Waukesha, Genesee, Delafield and Pewaukee—as well as the City of Waukesha.
Waukesha would like to purchase water from Oak Creek, have it piped through Franklin, then build out a pipeline to Waukesha. The treated wastewater would be returned to the basin via the Root River, which flows into Lake Michigan.
The diversion of water outside of the basin is allowed under the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement finalized in 2008 by the eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces to ensure the wise management of water regionally. Since Waukesha County straddles both basins, communities within it, such as the city of Waukesha, can apply for a diversion if they lack a reasonable in-basin water supply.
Waukesha’s application for Lake Michigan water would be the first of its kind under the compact.
The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has given its preliminary OK to the application, but it’s asking the public for input during a 60-day public comment period that ends Aug. 28. It’ll also hold three public hearings, one each in Waukesha, Racine and Milwaukee.
If the DNR signs off on Waukesha’s application, it’ll go to the Great Lakes states, which must unanimously approve it for Waukesha’s plans to move forward. Members can also reject or give a provisional approval if certain conditions are met.
But if the Compact Implementation Coalition (CIC) has its way, Waukesha’s application will be rejected in favor of a much less expensive, local solution.
Keeping It Local
Waukesha’s application for Lake Michigan water has always been controversial.
Politically, it’s been a tough sell, thanks to the strained relationship between Milwaukee and Waukesha. Milwaukee rejected Waukesha’s offer to purchase water from the city’s utility, citing its concern that Waukesha would use its extra water to boost development at Milwaukee’s expense and exacerbate the region’s socioeconomic and racial divisions.
|
|
Waukesha, for that matter, hasn’t always been on board with the application. In 2010, Jeff Scrima was elected mayor, largely if not solely because of his opposition to purchasing water from Milwaukee or any other Lake Michigan community. He lost his re-election bid in 2014.
Environmentalists, including the CIC, have long been skeptical about Waukesha’s claims that it must pipe in Lake Michigan water to solve its radium problem. But until last week they didn’t have hard evidence that Waukesha could use local sources to provide safe drinking water to its community.
Members of the CIC, a nonprofit coalition of major environmental groups, include Clean Wisconsin, Midwest Environmental Advocates, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, the National Wildlife Federation, the River Alliance of Wisconsin, Waukesha County Environmental Action League and the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.
Released last week, the CIC-commissioned study by the engineering firm GZA GeoEnvironmental found that Waukesha doesn’t need to look to Lake Michigan to solve its water woes and that Waukesha water customers will find a less expensive solution by keeping it local and managing its water wisely.
The CIC argues that Waukesha is asking for too much water in its application, isn’t doing enough to conserve its existing water sources, and can’t ask to provide water to other municipalities unless those additional communities also lack an adequate supply of local water. Most of the residents in the surrounding towns use private wells and septic systems and aren’t hooked up to the Waukesha Water Utility’s system.
According to the CIC, Waukesha’s proposal will cost its water utility customers $334 million, while the CIC’s more limited proposal will cost about half that, $168 million.
Waukesha’s residential water bills will spike from $261 annually to $897 annually by 2024, according to the CIC’s analysis of Waukesha’s water application.
CIC members say that, contrary to Waukesha’s claims, it has enough local water for residents if the utility uses reverse osmosis technology in at least three of its nine wells.
“There’s been a pretty significant rebound in the deep aquifer in the course of the past 15 years,” said Jim Drought, a hydrogeologist with GZA. “The radium, which has been a challenge to the city of Waukesha for some time in its water supply, can very readily be treated through a variety of treatment technologies. Clearly, there is a reasonable water supply alternative available to the City of Waukesha by making use of their existing network of wells.”
CIC members also took aim at Waukesha’s bid to supply water to four additional communities, saying that it artificially inflates Waukesha’s need for a high volume of water. The GZA analysis found that Waukesha’s water use has actually declined in the past decade.
Attorney Jodi Habush Sinykin of Midwest Environmental Advocates said the application’s inclusion of surrounding communities was setting up a “house of cards” that cannot survive review by the Great Lakes states.
“Those surrounding communities have not met the key compact criteria of demonstrating an inadequate amount of potable water,” Habush Sinykin said. “Further, they haven’t met another important compact requirement, which is demonstrated water conservation.”
Dan Duchniak, general manager of the Waukesha Water Utility, told the Shepherd that those communities would only be added to its system if the communities requested it.
“We’re looking out for the long term,” Duchniak said. “We don’t want to build something and then come back in 20 years and say it wasn’t enough.”
He said the DNR has fully vetted Waukesha’s application and found that there isn’t a reasonable in-basin water supply that doesn’t harm the environment.
“It isn’t just Waukesha saying this,” Duchniak said.
The Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Molly Flanagan said that since Waukesha’s application is the first real test of the Great Lakes Compact, it’s important that it meets a high standard.
“It’s really important that we get this right, both in Wisconsin and in the region,” Flanagan said. “The Great Lakes are one of our most important natural resources.”
The DNR is sponsoring presentations and public comment hearings on Waukesha’s water diversion application at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 17, at the Carroll University Center for Graduate Studies Auditorium, 2140 Davidson Road, Waukesha; at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 18, at UW-Milwaukee’s Zilber School of Public Health, 1240 N. 10th St., Milwaukee; and at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the Racine Masonic Center, 1012 Main St., Racine. All hearings will begin with a one-hour presentation followed by a public hearing. For details, go to dnr.wi.gov/topic/wateruse/WaukeshaDiversionApp.html.
