Waukesha - Water Utility Manager Dan Duchniak drove to Madison on Thursday and hand delivered the city's request to buy Lake Michigan water to state Department of Natural Resources officials, beginning a lengthy review process requiring approval of each of the eight Great Lakes states.
The application proposes diverting up to 10.9 million gallons of lake water per day after 2035 to serve an estimated 97,400 residents, as well as businesses and industries. In 2009, the city's average daily demand was 6.8 million gallons.
Waukesha would return almost all of the water that it buys to the lake as treated wastewater, under terms of a 2008 Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.
The DNR will work with Waukesha over the next several months to draft a comprehensive environmental impact study for the plan, Water Division Administrator Bruce Baker said. The public will be given an opportunity to comment on the city's application and the impact study this year.
The department's role is to determine whether the application is complete and meets requirements of the Great Lakes protection compact, Baker said. Only then would the DNR approve it and forward it to the other states for review.
"There is a long road ahead of us, but we look forward to the scrutiny of the Great Lakes states," Duchniak said.
The application was submitted six weeks after the Common Council approved seeking lake water.
If the eight states approve the request, the city would negotiate to buy water from Milwaukee, Oak Creek or Racine and abandon deep wells pumping radium-tainted water out of a sandstone aquifer, Duchniak said. Though sandstone wells deliver more than 87% of the city's supply, water levels in the deep wells have dropped between 500 and 600 feet in the last century and continue to drop up to nine feet per year.
Dropping water levels require more energy - and higher costs - to pump the water to the surface, the application states. Water from deeper depths contains more radium and other contaminants, such as salt, that must be removed to comply with federal drinking water standards, according to the application.
Water sent back to lake
To meet the compact's requirement for return of the water, Waukesha proposes discharging treated wastewater to Underwood Creek near W. Blue Mound Road in Wauwatosa. The creek flows to the Menomonee River, a tributary of the Milwaukee River, which flows to the lake.
Waukesha Mayor Jeff Scrima, City Administrator Lori Luther and Duchniak are scheduled to meet Monday with Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines and Ald. Robert Bauman to discuss possible purchase of lake water from Milwaukee. Scrima also intends to schedule meetings with officials from Racine and Oak Creek.
On Wednesday, Hines and Bauman met with Waukesha Common Council President Paul Ybarra, Ald. Joan Francoeur and Ald. Rick Tortomasi.
The Great Lakes compact generally prohibits water diversions outside the lakes' drainage basin. Though Waukesha is outside the basin, it can seek an exception because it's in a county that straddles the subcontinental divide between the Lake Michigan basin and the Mississippi River basin.
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Public information
The public can read Waukesha's application to divert Great Lakes water at the Water Utility office, 115 Delafield St.
Early next week, the application will be available on the city's Web site.