Waukesha - The Waukesha Common Council has scheduled a special meeting for 7:45 p.m. Tuesday to consider how it will respond to the Department of Natural Resources regarding its Great Lakes Water application.
The DNR has halted its review of the city's application submitted in May because, in part, Mayor Jeff Scrima has publicly lobbied for his own plan of alternatives. The DNR has also asked the city for additional information.
Scrima has refused to sign a letter to the DNR saying Lake Michigan was the only reasonable option for the city and sent a letter of his own saying the city needed to consider all options.
On Friday, he released a letter to the Common Council - and copied to DNR and Town of Waukesha officials, as well as Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak - outlining steps that he says would make the process "100% transparent." Discussion of his letter is not on the council agenda.
The letter calls for using the $12,800 a month now paid consultant Martin Schreiber & Associates for another study - "an independent scientific and fiscal evaluation" of the Lake Michigan water diversion compared with local alternatives, including conservation methods he says were not previously considered
He also called for a public presentation and hearing on the application and the study he advocates and said the city should not expand its water service territory into the Town of Waukesha.
The Common Council in April, just days after Scrima's election, voted 14-1 to pursue an application for Lake Michigan water, a source of water the city is seeking to meet a 2018 deadline for reducing radium levels in its water supply.