The Great Lakes Compact, which became federal law in 2008, generally bans the use of lake water outside of the Great Lakes basin.
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Also at the conference, the Cities Initiative approved a collaborative strategy to reduce phosphorus entering the Thames River through improvements to farmland water management and drainage.
We will hold the Compact Council and its member states accountable to their obligations to monitor and enforce the conditions under which the precedent-setting application was approved. It will cost more than $200 million – leading to water rates two to three times higher than they are now in Waukesha. Waukesha is a suburb of Milwaukee that lies about 15 miles inland.
Critics say the Great Lakes Compact Council should have focused more on the impact of sending wastewater down the Root River through Racine. “Therefore, I have voted to approve the project”.
A panel representing the eight US Great Lake states agreed to Waukesha Wisconsin’s to draw water from the lake.
Representatives from MI, llinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted in approval of Waukesha’s request.
Minnesota did push for several amendments to the plan, along with MI.
Great Lakes governors were swayed in part by research showing some of the groundwater now being drawn by Waukesha would flow toward Lake Michigan if it no longer is used by the city.
Under a current regional agreement between the states and Ontario and Quebec, diversions of water away from the Great Lakes-St.
The Compact Regional Body, consisting of the Great Lakes states and provinces, issued a Declaration of Finding last month that contains the conclusions of their detailed technical review of Waukesha’s application. “It is expected to go up to about $900 per year at the worst-case scenario”, said Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly.
Gallo said the process had been very thorough and amendments that reduced the service area of Waukesha’s water application, essentially to the city’s existing boundaries, limited potential avenues for a challenge.
One clearly positive outcome, it seems to me, of the process leading to Tuesday’s decision is the determination by the compact’s eight states – Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Wisconsin – that they could, as a group, reshape an applicant’s plan for tapping the Great Lakes.
“I think a number of organizations are going to need to review the compact council’s decision and look really carefully at what the compact council did”, Flanagan said.
It’s just the beginning of what many worry will be growing fights over who has the right to clean drinking water from the Great Lakes.
Each of those governors had veto power to halt the request, but none could muster the backbone necessary to wield such a tool to defend the Great Lakes. “We continue to believe the compact council should have denied Waukesha’s proposal to divert Great Lakes water until the remaining areas of non-compliance were remedied”.
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“Today’s vote is not the end of the story”, the groups said in a statement.
