Waukesha — The next step in the city's quest to drink Great Lakes water is asking officials from Milwaukee, Racine and Oak Creek for letters stating their willingness to negotiate selling Lake Michigan water to Waukesha.
The Common Council on Tuesday unanimously authorized Mayor Larry Nelson to request potential water suppliers to submit letters by Jan. 31, 2010.
Waukesha would be required to have at least one such letter in hand before it can submit an application to use Lake Michigan water to the state Department of Natural Resources, under terms of a Great Lakes protection compact. The city intends to make the application early next year, Nelson has said.
After DNR review, the city's bid would need the approval of each of the governors of the seven other Great Lakes states.
In an e-mail sent to officials from the three communities, Nelson offered to meet with the officials soon to discuss the letters.
Nelson prefers to buy lake water from Milwaukee and he is seeking a meeting with Mayor Tom Barrett, Common Council members and Milwaukee Water Works officials in November, Nelson said Wednesday.
Switching Waukesha's supply from ground water wells to Lake Michigan would cost $78 million to start with and nearly $5.8 million a year to operate the new system, Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak said last week.
The bulk of the initial cost would be $56 million to connect the city to a new supplier. Building a pipeline to discharge the city's treated wastewater to Underwood Creek in Wauwatosa so it would flow back to Lake Michigan, as required by the Great Lakes compact, would cost an additional $22 million, Duchniak said.
Waukesha's deepest wells are contaminated with unsafe levels of radium as well as salt. The city must be in full compliance with federal radium-safe water standards by June 2018, under a stipulation with the state DNR. Buying Lake Michigan water would allow the city to close the deep wells and avoid radium treatment costs.
In his e-mail correspondence, Nelson urged the communities to agree to 'negotiate the benefits of a water sale to a community in need.'
A draft application likely will be distributed publicly at a Dec. 8 joint meeting of the Common Council and Water Utility Commission, Nelson said Wednesday. If the document is available at that time, Nelson said he will provide time for public comments and questions on the application at the same meeting.