Waukesha Diversion

Waukesha’s diversion of water from Lake Michigan to the City of Waukesha and adjoining areas was the first test of the Great Lakes Compact’s ban on diversions of Great Lake water.  The Compact included 2 exceptions to this ban– for a community straddling the Great Lakes watershed divide and for a community in a county straddling the divide—and Waukesha met this latter exception. Despite a flawed application and widespread opposition to this diversion, with over 39,000 people from all around the Basin raising concerns, the Regional Body approved an exception to the ban on diversions for Waukesha, with limited conditions. Waukesha is now in the process of implementing their diversion plan, which includes construction of drinking water pipelines from Milwaukee and sanitary pipes to return treated wastewater back to Lake Michigan via the Root River.

The Compact Implementation Coalition (CIC) opposed this diversion because it did not meet the spirit or letter of the law, and created a bad precedent for other communities around the Basin seeking to take water from the Great Lakes. Any weakening of the Great Lakes Compact threatens the precious water that the Compact was enacted to protect. The CIC continues to watchdog the state permitting process and will be holding Waukesha accountable for meeting the conditions in the diversion approval as well as all state and federal regulations.

One of the biggest issues with Waukesha’s diversion approval was that Waukesha has a viable and sustainable alternative water supply for current AND future needs and therefore does not meet the Great Lakes Compact’s requirement that states that any entity seeking an exception to the ban on diversions demonstrate that they have  no reasonable water supply alternative. Waukesha has a local water supply alternative that is almost half of the cost of diverting water from the Great Lakes, allows for growth and development within its city limits, satisfies expected water demand from a growing population, and is safe from contaminants with treatment for radium and other contaminants.

The Great Lakes Compact states that no part of the total amount of water requested in an application for Great Lakes water can be included in the application if it can be avoided through conservation measures. The City of Waukesha has not clearly shown that it has done all it can to avoid requesting water from the Great Lakes.

Enforcing the Compact: Waukesha’s Diversion Application

After 3 years, the City of Waukesha submitted its revised Great Lakes diversion application proposing to divert an average of 10 million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan to Waukesha.

Waukesha DiversionWaukesha lies wholly outside of the Great Lakes Basin, but is within a “straddling county” and thus eligible to apply for an exception to the ban on diversions of water outside of the Great Lakes per the Great Lakes Compact.

The Great Lakes Compact is an unprecedented, multistate agreement aimed at protecting the Great Lakes from “overspending.” Under the Compact, the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes agree to adopt water-conservation plans and to abide by Compact rules for allowing and managing diversions of Great Lakes water. The Compact recognizes the lakes as a shared resource, which no single state owns, but of which all states are stewards. As such, a defining feature of the Compact is its emphasis on using regional cooperation to manage the lakes as a single ecosystem.

In July 2011, DNR began formal review of Waukesha’s application for a proposed Lake Michigan diversion and held public hearings regarding the application, as well as the scope of what should be included in the Environmental Impact Statement for the project.

Riverkeeper testified at this hearing, and along with the Compact Implementation Coalition, submitted written comments. On October 18th, DNR released its summary of the comments made at these hearings, as well as a response to those comments. DNR expects to release its draft Environmental Impact Statement by early 2012, which will indicate whether or not it will approve Waukesha’s application. If the application is approved, DNR will then forward it to other Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces for their consideration per the Great Lakes Compact.

We maintain that Waukesha needs to prove that returning flow to Lake Michigan via Underwood Creek and the Menomonee River is protective of the “physical, chemical, and biological integrity” of the receiving water in conformance with the Compact and other state and federal laws and regulations. Waukesha also needs to show it has no other reasonable water supply alternatives. This is a high bar to meet considering that the City has other well publicized water supply options available. Waukesha has also begun meeting with potential water suppliers in Racine, Oak Creek, and Milwaukee. In late September, Milwaukee’s Public Works Committee voted to begin compiling the information necessary for city officials to make a decision on whether or not to sell water to Waukesha per an earlier City resolution.

Waukesha Diversion

The revised application includes major changes from the initial application submitted in May 2010, including a slight decrease in the amount of water requested, a new preferred water supplier of Oak Creek, and a change in the preferred wastewater return location from Underwood Creek near Wauwatosa to the Root River near the Racine County line.

Waukesha now gets its public water supply from a mix of shallow and deep groundwater wells. The groundwater in the deep aquifer contains high levels of radium, a carcinogen, which Waukesha needs to address per court order by 2018. By mixing water sources, Waukesha currently meets federal radium standards 11 months out of the year.

The revised application materials are now available on the DNR website.

Why is there so much attention being paid to Waukesha’s proposed Great Lakes diversion?
Waukesha is the first test case of the Great Lakes Compact, which was established to ensure that Great Lakes water stays in the Great Lakes. And thus, Waukesha’s application will set a precedent for all future water diversions out of the Great Lakes, not only for Wisconsin, but also for the entire Great Lakes Region.

The Great Lakes Compact generally bans diversions of water outside of the Great Lakes Basin but provides for an exception for “straddling communities” that extend across the Great Lakes Basin line as well as communities in “straddling counties” that can show that they have no other reasonable water supply alternative. Communities seeking a diversion need to return Great Lakes water back to the basin (as close as possible to the water source), minus an allowance for consumptive use. The Great Lakes Compact also provides a better framework for cataloging the amount of water being consumed and used throughout the Great Lakes Basin for large water users (which wasn’t really known before) as well as requires water conservation both within the Great Lakes Basin and for communities seeking a diversion.

The State of Wisconsin has passed their own rules to implement the Compact, which provides more detail as to how applications are reviewed and how key Compact provisions are interpreted and enforced. The State has a provision that specifies, for example, that any return flow discharged to surface waters must ensure that there are no physical, chemical, or biological impacts on streams, and applicants must meet these State implementing laws as well as key provisions of the Compact. Ultimately, the State must approve a diversion application first, then it gets forwarded to the Canadian provinces for consultation, and then to the other Great Lakes states, who must approve it unanimously.

Position of the Compact Implementation Coalition

The Compact Implementation Coalition, a group comprised of conservation and environmental organizations, works for effective implementation of the Great Lakes Compact in Wisconsin. Our Coalition is not for or against diversions of water from the Great Lakes basin. Rather, our goal is to protect the integrity of the Compact. The Compact prohibits diversions with the exception of limited circumstances and only as a last resort; protects and manages the magnificent resource of the Great Lakes in a unified manner; and requires the adoption and implementation of strong water conservation measures. After years of attempting to work with the City of Waukesha on evaluating water supply options for the City, and offering constructive suggestions for its diversion application, the revised application does not meet several of the basic requirements of the Great Lakes Compact. Examples of some major deficiencies of the revised application are:

  • The City of Waukesha has not made a compelling case that it is without a reasonable local water supply alternative and, therefore, it does not need a diversion.
  • The City seeks water for a greatly expanded service area that includes communities or portions of communities that have their own adequate supplies of potable water;
  • The City does not fully employ conservation measures available to reduce its water need;
  • The City proposes to discharge treated wastewater into a waterway that is already impaired by pollution and they do not demonstrate how this would comply with the requirements of the Clean Water Act.
  • In reviewing the City of Waukesha’s application, Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources should address these and other deficiencies in the City of Waukesha’s application in a straightforward manner. The Department should ensure that these issues are fully resolved and are in compliance with the Great Lakes Compact or else they should not approve this application.

Additional Information

Below are additional resources:

Attachments