Milwaukee alderman pitches plan for Waukesha water talks
Compromise possible if cities agree to negotiate two separate deals
Milwaukee Ald. Jim Bohl said he will ask the Common Council on Tuesday to approve negotiating two Lake Michigan water sales agreements with the City of Waukesha as one way to break an impasse in talks between the two communities.
Compromise is possible if both cities agree to forge one deal for distributing lake water to Waukesha's current service area and a second deal for distributing water in the future to a larger regional service area, Bohl said Monday.
Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak has said he is willing to discuss terms of extending water service to portions of four municipalities in a future service area designated by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.
A July 6 resolution adopted by Milwaukee's Common Council approved negotiations for distributing water only to Waukesha's existing service area. This area includes the city and 112 or so residences and businesses in the Town of Waukesha that have been connected in recent years without annexation after problems with private wells.
Waukesha is obligated by state law to distribute water to the commission's designated future service area, according to Duchniak. A map of the full area - extending into the City of Pewaukee and Towns of Delafield, Genesee and Waukesha - is included in Waukesha's Great Lakes water diversion application.
"We appreciate Alderman Bohl's efforts," Duchniak said Monday. "As long as we're allowed to negotiate water service for the entire area, we look forward to talking with the City of Milwaukee."
Bohl acknowledged Monday that gaining 10 votes needed to adopt his proposal, a two-thirds majority of the council, will depend on whether Mayor Tom Barrett supports the plan.
Awaiting DNR response
Barrett and Common Council President Willie Hines are waiting for state Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp to clarify whether Milwaukee or another seller must agree to distribute lake water to the additional communities, a spokesman for Barrett said Monday.
A Great Lakes protection compact generally prohibits diversions of water outside the lakes' drainage basin. An exception can be considered for a community outside the basin only if it is in a county straddling the sub-continental divide.
Even then the exception could be permitted only if the community was without adequate supplies of potable water, Barrett and Hines say in a July 18 letter to Stepp.
Milwaukee officials recognize that Waukesha faces a challenge in providing safe drinking water for its residents because it depends on deep wells drawing radium-contaminated water from sandstone, according to Barrett.
But Waukesha's diversion application does not describe current water supply problems in portions of four municipalities included in a future service area, the letter to Stepp says.
"We are not aware that those municipalities have provided evidence that they lack an adequate potable water supply," the letter says. Barrett wants the DNR to declare whether portions of the four outlying communities must pass the same potable water supply test as Waukesha under terms of the compact.
Without showing each community's need for a new water supply, Waukesha's diversion application might violate the compact and would fail to gain the necessary unanimous approval of each of the Great Lakes states, Barrett and Hines suggested in the letter.
There already is evidence of the need for a new potable supply in at least one of the four municipalities.
The DNR requested that a portion of the Town of Genesee be included in Waukesha's future service area because a large number of private wells were susceptible to contamination with bacteria from failed septic systems.
DNR water use section chief Eric Ebersberger has said the department will not accept an agreement between Waukesha and a supplier that does not distribute water to the entire future service area.
Waukesha has been negotiating a possible water purchase with Oak Creek and Racine for nearly a year.
