Town of Waukesha holds special meeting Thursday as water service annexation issue heats up

April 17, 2013
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By Don Behm of the Journal Sentinel

April 17, 2013 0

Town of Waukesha - Owners of more than 1,000 acres of property are poised to seek annexation to Waukesha unless the town board includes more land area in the city's future water service area, newly elected Town Chairman John Marek said Wednesday.

"This is a travesty for the town," Marek said of the potentially dramatic shift of land to the city through annexations requested by town property owners.

The town board has scheduled a special meeting Thursday, but Marek is not optimistic the board will reverse a late January decision to place only a small northern portion of the rural community in the city's service area.

A change in course is possible after an April 2 election for town chairman became a referendum on whether to rescind the board's earlier action. Incumbent Town Chairman Angie Van Scyoc lost the race to Marek.

Marek won with a pledge of putting most of the town in the service area as an insurance policy for residents. Property owners who encounter well problems or failing septic systems should have the opportunity to connect to municipal services, Marek said.

Where to draw this boundary across the town takes on greater significance since it will be set in stone, with no opportunity to alter the map in a few years, as part of the city's request for a Lake Michigan water supply, according to Marek and city officials.

Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak is demanding a final answer from the town by April 30, in a letter he sent this week to board members. The city is not able to complete its request for Lake Michigan water until the water service area boundaries are set, the letter says.

Wisconsin and the other seven Great Lakes states must approve the city's request to divert up to an average of 10.9 million gallons a day from the lake by midcentury. Once the request is forwarded to the other states, the water service area boundaries cannot be redrawn.

Including the town in the city's municipal services area gives landowners "the option to obtain drinking water or sewer services from the city, but no obligation to obtain those services," Duchniak says in the letter.

Threats to private wells in the town include contamination with arsenic and molybdenum in bedrock as well as bacteria from failing septic systems.

Water from test wells the city built in the town north of the Vernon Marsh State Wildlife Area found concentrations of arsenic that would require treatment if used as a drinking water source, according to Duchniak. Water in the test wells comes from the same shallow sand and gravel aquifer tapped by private wells in the area.

Initially a small area

In late January, the town board decided to include a small northern portion of the municipality in the city's water service area. The service area approved by the board encompasses town land west of Springdale Road, north of Racine Ave. and Highway 59, and east of county Highway TT and Merrill Hills Road.

The Waukesha School District subsequently asked the city to annex a 127-acre property west of Merrill Hills Road where it had planned to build one or two schools when needed. City water and sewer services are needed for a large public school, and access to those services was part of the development plan since the property was acquired in 1999, district officials said.

The city approved the annexation in March.

Marek wants the town board to approve a city water service area recommended by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission.

The commission included most of the town except for the far southwestern corner on the north end of the Vernon Marsh. The corner excluded is southwest of the intersection of county Highway XX and Hazelhurst Lane.

Town consultant Bruce Baker, a former state water administrator, supports including the entire town in the city's water service area, Baker says in a letter to officials that is posted on the town's website.

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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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