Portion of Town of Waukesha placed in city's future water service area

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Jan. 25, 2013
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By Don Behm of the Journal Sentinel

Jan. 25, 2013 0

Town of Waukesha -- A northern slice of the town will be included in the City of Waukesha's future water service area and become part of the city's request for Lake Michigan water, under a resolution approved unanimously by the Town Board.

The town board drew a line on a map and all properties in the town west of Springdale Road and north of Racine Ave. and state Highway 59 could be served by city water if needed, Town Chairman Angie Van Scyoc said Friday.

The board took the action at a meeting Thursday, just a few days before a state deadline of Feb. 1 to make a decision on whether to participate in the city's future water service area. A deadline was needed so that the state Department of Natural Resources could assess the need for the regional service area and finish its review of the city's application for Great Lakes water, DNR officials said.

Waukesha City Administrator Ed Henschel said Friday he was pleased this piece of the application was complete.

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission had included the Town of Waukesha, as well as portions of the City of Pewaukee and Towns of Delafield and Genesee in a City of Waukesha future water service area. 

State law requires each municipality included in a water service area to approve the plan. Pewaukee and the Towns of Delafield and Genesee have approved the plan.

The Waukesha Town Board's designated area encompasses all isolated town islands not annexed by the city but does not include the remainder of the town generally south of Highway 59, or Les Paul Parkway, Van Scyoc said.

On the northwest side of the town, the line extends north of Sunset Drive along county Highway TT and Merrill Hills Road, Van Scyoc said. Town properties east of the line would be included in the service area.

Should the city obtain Lake Michigan water for its residents and businesses, it could only distribute lake water within the officially designated service area. As a consequence, the town board's action generally prohibits the city from expanding south of the line.

Waukesha is asking the eight Great Lakes states to approve diverting up to an average of 10.9 million gallons a day from the lake by 2050, under terms of a Great Lakes protection compact.The total volume will be slightly reduced now that the entire Town of Waukesha will not be part of the plan.

Each of the eight states must approve the application. If approved, Waukesha would become the first community wholly outside the lakes' drainage basin to receive water under terms of the compact.

The new supply would enable Waukesha to stop using deep wells drawing radium-contaminated water from sandstone.

"The city does not have an adequate water supply" without turning to the lake, Van Scyoc said Friday in support of the city's application.

Town land within the designated service area includes all of the 112 or so residences and businesses in the Town of Waukesha that have been hooked up to city water over the years after experiencing problems with their wells.

"The city has extended water and sewer in the past in response to health and safety concerns with those wells without requiring annexation," she said.

Annexation of town land within the designated service area will come at a cost to the city. At its meeting Thursday, the town board accepted certain annexation conditions offered by the city.

Waukesha will pay the town 20 years worth of town property taxes for each parcel in the service area to be annexed. This condition is implemented only if the city obtains lake water.

The service area includes a half-dozen or so families east of Highway 59 along Arcadian Ave. that have been receiving bottled water from We Energies, Van Scyoc said.

We Energies agreed to provide bottled water several years ago after those residential wells were found to be contaminated with unsafe levels of a metal, molybdenum. A possible source of the metal was a nearby coal ash landfill that had been closed in the 1970s.

The town hall on Center Road is located within the service area and that could come in handy for sewer service, Van Scyoc said.

The hall's septic system is undersized and one possible solution is connecting to a nearby city sanitary sewer, she said. That would not be possible if this area of the town was not included in the city's sewer service area. Both service areas generally overlap, under state law.

In November, Oak Creek officials agreed to sell lake water to Waukesha if the city's Great Lakes application is approved.

A letter of intent commits Oak Creek to supply Waukesha an average of 7 million gallons of lake water per day beginning later in this decade. The volume likely would be increased based on annual water demand at the time the diversion begins around 2018.

In 2011, the city's average daily demand from its wells was 6.97 million gallons of water a day.  

Don Behm thumbnail
About Don Behm

Don Behm reports on Milwaukee County government, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, the environment and communities in southeastern Wisconsin. He has won reporting awards for investigations of Great Lakes water pollution, Milwaukee's cryptosporidiosis outbreak, and the deaths of three sewer construction workers in a Menomonee Valley methane explosion.

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