- It's been less than a year since Waukesha gained approval
to divert Lake Michigan water for its own use.
A diversion granted as an exception to the Great Lakes
Compact as the city argued it needed the water because its
wells are contaminated by radium.
But next week there's a hearing on a challenge to the decision
approving the water diversion.
We sat down with Scott Gordon, journalist for WisContext, for
more on the status of the Waukesha water deal and started
by asking why a group representing cities surrounding
the Great Lakes in the U.S.
and Canada is bringing a challenge to it.
- So their big overarching concern is to make sure that the
Great Lakes Compact is being enforced the way they think it
should be.
So that whole issue of precedent is a big one.
But they've also are kind of looking at this from an
environmental standpoint, you know, what kind of affects
Waukesha will have in drawing the water and discharging
wastewater back into the Great Lakes through the Root River.
And they also are still contending that Waukesha still
has alternative water sources.
- You're reporting on what happens to the water that
Waukesha pulls out of Lake Michigan, treats and returns to
the lake via the Root River under the agreement and
specifically the river itself.
What have you found about the Root River?
- The Root River has some environmental problems,
especially with the level of phosphorus in the water.
The Department of Natural Resources considers it impaired
for its level of phosphorus.
Other issues include the fact that sometimes the flow of the
river is very low and it's struggled to maintain some of
its fish population and stuff, which has effects
on other things like recreation and tourism,
which are important to Racine.
- Meanwhile, Waukesha says that the water it treats will go back
into the Root River cleaner than the Root River was originally.
- It's an interesting argument they are making because Waukesha
is basically saying that its sewage plant that it's going to
be discharging this water from, they actually call their sewage
plant the clean water plant.
That's the actual name of it so clearly they take pride
in how they're treating it.
But they're saying that they're going to be able to discharge
water that meets pretty high standards, that it will have
lower concentrations of phosphorus than what's already
in the river.
Kind of an interesting argument they're making - well we're
actually improving the quality of the river by diluting it even
if we're adding more phosphorus into the overall picture.
- So what have you learned about what happens once that
water that's running through the Root River that has been,
you know, discharged from the clean water plant in Waukesha,
what happens when it reaches the lake?
- One city like Waukesha by itself is probably not going to
have a huge environmental impact on the Great Lakes, just because
it's such a large body of water when you put it altogether.
The Great Lakes overall are in fairly decent shape in a lot of
senses when it comes to phosphorus.
It's gotten a lot better since the '60s and '70s, probably
better than a lot of people would expect just given the
amount of large cities around the Great Lakes and the amount
of shipping and other activities that go on.
Lake Erie obviously is an exception.
It has had huge problems with phosphorus.
But I think the concern is less about what Waukesha by itself
could do to the system and more about what would be the
cumulative effect of more communities coming and doing
this.
- None of this is happening anytime soon, though, right?
What's the status of this project itself?
- So Waukesha still has to build some infrastructure to be
able to actually do this.
The water itself is coming in from Oak Creek, so they'll be
taking the water from Lake Michigan and then Waukesha has
to build a pipeline that takes the water from Oak Creek to
Waukesha.
Then they have to build another pipeline that takes wastewater
from their treatment plant to an outflow site on the Root River,
which is going to be in Franklin, Wisconsin.
And of course they still have to finalize plans and get permits
to construct all of that.
And they're saying at this point that won't start happening until
2019 and, you know, the whole drawing and wastewater issue
won't actually start happening until probably 2023.
So it's a while out, but right now Waukesha is really confident
that the agreement will be upheld and they're basically
kind of already behaving as if
it's full speed ahead with this thing.
- All right, Scott Gordon, thanks very much.
- Thanks very much, Fred.