Fox River

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorially supports the Lake Michigan diversion plan being rolled out by the City of Waukesha. The editorial is here.

But the carts are being lined before the horses, so to speak.

For one thing, the editorial says the diversion and preferred water return-flow plan are in line with recommendations in a study being done by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

Correct. The Waukesha plan appears to be in line with the study that is being done. It is not finished. The recommendations are preliminary. They have only been recommended by an advisory committee.

The recommendations are to be reviewed at a series of public meetings at which the agency staff and consultants are supposed to listen, then work that public feedback into a report to the full commission.

Can we at least go into that public meeting phase with the expectation that public input will be genuinely absorbed?

The editorial also says that Waukesha has a plan to return the water it borrows from Lake Michigan.

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The City of Waukesha revealed a key element in its plan to divert drinking water from Lake Michigan - - discharging its treated wastewater back to the lake by sending it down Underwood Creek in Wauwatosa.

From there, the wastewater will flow into the Menomonee River and into the lake, and while the Great Lakes Compact requires that diverted water be returned, it is not clear whether Waukesha's preference for Lake Michigan water as its long-term supply solution is superior to finding additional underground supplies in Waukesha County's clean, shallow aquifers.

That will be up to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; the other Great Lakes states would have to agree to the Waukesha diversion plan, and one element of the Waukesha proposal is sure to raise objections in the other states: Waukesha's belief that it can discharge a portion of the diverted water after treatment into the Fox River, which flows into the Mississippi River, not towards Lake Michigan, if the return flow might cause flooding.

The Great Lakes Compact is an eight-state regional agreement designed to establish uniform procedures and standards.

It does not allow for a partial return of diverted water. The Compact requires a return of all water, minus a reasonable portion that is consumed.

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