A Thirsty Wisconsin Town Could Be A Menace To Lake Michigan

By JoshMogerman in News on May 3, 2015 7:00PM

With historic drought ravaging California and Texas, much has been made of the need to protect our own Great Lakes from distant thirsty states that want to tap our water supply. As it turns out, though, Lake Michigan’s death by a thousand straws could come from a much closer source if a ruling is found in their favor.

The State of Wisconsin has announced a decision is forthcoming on the city of Waukesha's request to tap Lake Michigan despite sitting outside the Great Lakes basin. The request, from Milwaukee's largest suburb, is seen by many as a threat to the Great Lakes Compact, which is the legal protection (a bipartisan act of Congress!) that prevents other parts of the country from sucking the Lakes dry.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:

Waukesha is the first municipality in the United States located entirely outside the Great Lakes basin to request a diversion of water under terms of the protection compact. Although the compact prohibits diversions of water outside the basin, there is one exception that fits Waukesha and hundreds of other communities: A municipality outside the basin can ask for Great Lakes water if it is in a county straddling the basin divide. Waukesha County straddles the subcontinental divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. If the city's request is approved by each of the eight Great Lakes states, Waukesha would stop using deep wells drawing radium-contaminated water from sandstone when a new supply is available. Cost of a lake water supply is estimated at $206 million.

So, California may be eyeing our water—but it's the thirsty Cheeseheads to the north that may be the ones to open the door to draining the Great Lakes. Not that we are in a position to talk given the massive (albeit legal) diversion of Lake Michigan water that is the Chicago River…

Wisconsin’s decision is likely to come out next week. We will be watching.