Waukesha - City Attorney Curt Meitz has rejected Mayor Jeff Scrima's demand for a detailed summary of all changes made to the content of Waukesha's application for Great Lakes water between its approval by the Common Council on April 8 and its delivery to state environmental officials on May 20.
No substantial changes were made to the application so Meitz did not send the final document back to the council for review before it was submitted to the state Department of Natural Resources, Meitz says in a memo responding to Scrima's June 1 request for a copy of the application with highlighted changes.
"Had there been any substantive changes, I would have advised that the application go back to the common council for explanation and approval," Meitz says in the June 8 memo. His memo was released publicly Wednesday.
In a telephone interview, Meitz described revisions to the document as nothing more than "rearranging the furniture" and "changing the format."
"The technical, engineering document approved by the council was molded into a legal document," he said. Such a revision was needed to emphasize how the city's request to purchase Lake Michigan water would comply with state law and a Great Lakes protection compact, according to Meitz.
"This is critical as the application must be presented in a manner to withstand future administrative review and other potential legal challenges," he says in the memo.
Waukesha is seeking lake water to replace radium-tainted water from deep wells drawing from a sandstone aquifer. Residential and business demand could increase to an average of 10.9 million gallons of lake water per day after 2035, according to the application.
The request must be approved by Wisconsin and each of the other seven Great Lakes states, under terms of the compact.
Meitz's memo to Scrima says: "The reasoning behind the application, as well as the facts and interpretations of the studies set forth therein, were not changed in any way."
Scrima said Wednesday that he still wants to see each change.
"His response is not substantive," Scrima said in an interview.
"This response does not fly, in my opinion," he said. "It would take anybody several hours to put the two documents side by side and go over them word by word."
In a written response to Meitz, Scrima says: "Please provide the common council and me a 'red-lined guide' of the changes, as originally requested" by June 15.
A separate memo prepared for Meitz by a representative of CH2M Hill, an engineering consulting firm hired by the city to help prepare the application, states: "The April 8th and May 20th drafts include the same water supply alternatives, the same cost estimates, the same analyses and conclusions."
"The revisions did not include substantive changes to the technical, economic, or environmental content of the application," the CH2M Hill memo says.
As of Wednesday, Scrima had not supplied records the Journal Sentinel requested under the state open records law 17 days ago or provided a response indicating whether the records would be released.
On May 24, the newspaper requested the tape recording he made - without other participants' knowledge - of a meeting between himself, Meitz, City Administrator Lori Luther and attorney Don Gallo, a consultant on water issues, the week before.
Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.