Waukesha council affirms lake water need

Published on: 7/27/2010

Waukesha - The Waukesha Common Council on Tuesday urged state environmental officials to resume reviewing the city's application for a Great Lakes water source.

On a 13-1 vote, the council approved sending a letter to the state Department of Natural Resources, saying, "There is no reasonable water supply alternative" other than Lake Michigan available to the city.

Ald. Eric Payne was the lone dissenting vote.

"The official position of the city is established by the Common Council," the letter says. "It is not determined or changed by the comments of an official who may disagree with the policy of the city."

The council held Tuesday's meeting to respond to a June 9 decision by the DNR to halt its review of the application.

The DNR's action came after Mayor Jeff Scrima's publicly stated intention to continue pursuing other water sources. On July 2, Scrima sent a letter to the DNR saying that the city should not move ahead with the application.

More than 50 city and area residents attended Tuesday's meeting. Of 16 people who spoke only two expressed opposition to the lake application, while eight urged the council to move forward with the plan and six did not indicate an opinion.

Scrima does not accept a Lake Michigan supply as the best choice for the city. He continues to push for a combination of sources - existing deep wells tainted with radium, more shallow wells and local quarries - that consultants describe as not reliable and more costly than the lake option. He has suggested drawing water from deep wells in western Waukesha County, pumping water directly from the Fox River or from wells built on the banks of the river.

The council's April 8 decision to apply for a Lake Michigan water source remains the official position of the city, according to the letter approved Tuesday. In urging the DNR to resume formal review of the application, the letter states: ". . . the city is without adequate supplies of potable water that are environmentally and economically sustainable for the long term."

No other source or combination of sources "is as protective of public health, as environmentally sustainable, as protective against environmental impacts, as a Great Lakes supply," the letter states. And none of the other options is as affordable, according to the analysis of consultants.

The lake supply application must be approved by Wisconsin and each of the other seven Great Lakes states, under terms of a regional compact.

Two area business groups - the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce and the Sustainable Water Supply Coalition - asked their members to support the city's Great Lakes application.

Chamber members were encouraged to attend the meeting or to call council members and express their support.

The coalition reminded its members to sign an online petition that will be submitted to the council. More than 60 business owners and 85 other local business representatives had signed the petition by Tuesday morning, the coalition said in an e-mail.

The shortcomings of Scrima's preferred combination of sources are summarized in the city's request for a lake supply and in a July 26 memo to the Waukesha Water Utility from consulting firm CH2M Hill.

Adding up the costs of using all of Scrima's preferred sources would total $286 million just to design and build - or $122 million more than the lake supply estimate of $164 million with Milwaukee as the supplier, according to the July 26 memo.

Generally, building additional wells drawing water from shallow aquifers in sand and gravel is not sustainable because water levels in the aquifers would drop quickly, reducing water flows to local streams and wetlands, consultants have said. It is not certain that more shallow wells would be permitted under those circumstances.