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12/5/2005 Dec. 13 U.S.-Canadian Water Pact Loophole Favors Sprawl, Diversions By James Rowen MILWAUKEE -- Democratic and Republican legislators are rushing to make Wisconsin one of the first states to ratify a new U.S.-Canadian management plan for the Great Lakes. Historians, and our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, will lament it as an historic mistake. Call it the Wisconsin Jobs Creation Act, III -- more environmentally-insensitive legislation that will spur sprawl development and, worse, set a precedent that will add new stresses to the already-burdened Great Lakes. The revised water management agreement, known as the Great Lakes Annex 2001, will be signed December 13th in Milwaukee by governors from the eight Great Lakes states -- Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York -- plus Canadian provincial premiers from Quebec and Ontario. The signing follows four years of negotiations. It also comes after two rounds of public hearings in Wisconsin and across the Great Lakes basin that produced testimony that overwhelmingly supported tough bans on Great Lakes water diversions. That is because diversions add to the burdens of the Great Lakes. These precious resources are already suffering from invasive species, multiple forms of pollution, beach closings, diminishing fish populations and lake levels projected to drop as the climate gets warmer. MORE DIVERSIONS LIKELY UNDER NEW AGREEMENT While the agreement sets up some procedures to manage the waters and requires the states to mandate unspecified conservation measures, the agreement will increase the number of water diversions from Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes. By contrast, the existing agreement, which some critics called weak and unenforceable, had only allowed two diversions of water out of the Great Lakes basin since it was signed in 1985. The new agreement will allow water diversions to communities like New Berlin, which straddles the Lake Michigan basin boundary (also known as the sub-continental divide). It further makes all communities in Waukesha County eligible to apply for out-of-basin diversions because the county contains some land that straddles the basin boundary. This huge loophole virtually guarantees that the city of Waukesha, which wants a water supply that is cleaner than some of its current well water, will be first in line under the new agreement to apply for a diversion. The city has said it wants to pipe in 20 million gallons a day, and though it pledges to reduce consumption by 20 percent by 2020, the size of the proposed diversion is more than double its current daily use of nine million gallons. The city of Waukesha wants a big, long-term supply of inexpensive water because it has grown over the last 20 years from 15.5 square miles to 23.6 square miles -- 52 percent increase, according to a report released in Waukesha last month by Midwest Environmental Advocates, a public interest law firm. Citing official city of Waukesha sources, the report further indicates that the city wants to add 13 additional square miles to its water service delivery area. This means that the city of Waukesha will continue to incorporate large amounts of rural and open land on which developers will add homes (think big-lot, single-family, McMansion-style housing, not multi-family or moderately priced units). Each of those McMansions will need water. WAUKESHA SPRAWL RAMPANT, LONG-DOCUMENTED Sprawl west of the sub-continental divide, where water resources are dwindling, has been documented for years by the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SEWRPC), though its findings often have been ignored. In 1993, SEWRPC reviewed its updated, 1977 master plan, and found these disturbing trends: a net loss of 2.5 square miles in Waukesha County of so-called "primary environmental corridors"; a net, unplanned loss in Waukesha County of 29.7 square miles of "prime agricultural land"; and 53 percent of all urban development in Waukesha County taking place in areas not recommended by the master plan. This development -- which SEWRPC calls "scattered," and which others would label "sprawl" -- took place "without public sanitary sewer and water supply facilities," the report said. This helps explain why communities across Waukesha County find themselves in a pickle, and why the new water agreement will only make the sprawl situation worse. Getting Lake Michigan water across the Great Lakes boundaries will fuel that development. It will accelerate the sales promotions for scattered, low-density, upscale subdivisions. It will jack up property values. This new recreational, commercial and industrial boom -- something akin to a land rush -- will take place 20-to-40 miles from the city of Milwaukee, where there is the largest pool of unemployed workers in the state, and also the largest number of people without cars. Politicians in Waukesha won more in the water agreement's negotiations than the "straddling county" diversion exemption. RETURN FLOW 'WATERED-DOWN' What also helps Waukesha is the absence in the new agreement of a bedrock principle of water conservation -- an ironclad return-flow provision -- requiring diverted water, minus a reasonable amount consumed, to be returned to its source. Instead, the agreement says that an unspecified portion of the diverted water could be blended with other water and returned somewhere in the basin, not to the diverted water's source. That raises the possibility that some of Waukesha's radium-tainted well water could find its way in this blended ``return'' and eventually drain into Lake Michigan. Waukesha leaders say they are already looking for a cheap water return option -- probably blending some treated Lake Michigan waste water with treated well water and dumping it into a creek where it can trickle back into the basin. Waukesha still wants to dump most of its treated wastewater into the Fox River, as it has done for decades, even though the Fox flows into the Mississippi River and away from Lake Michigan. That is part of Waukesha's low-cost water treatment goal and that may meet the weak standard in the proposed agreement. Waukesha has consistently complained that it cannot afford to send back diverted and treated Lake Michigan water. Hearing Waukesha officials say they cannot afford to pipe back diverted Lake Michigan water is like listening to your rich uncle gripe about how much it's costing him to gas up his Mercedes-Benz. Remember when the city of Milwaukee had to find a way to avoid a repetition of the cryptosporidium contamination of the mid-1990's? Though it had several options, Milwaukee chose top-of-the-line ozone gas water treatment equipment even though it was expensive -- $89 million. Milwaukee spread the cost across its base using long-term borrowing. It bit the bullet and did not ask the region to subsidize the costs, or take an environmental hit so it could save money. And on a per-capita or per-property basis, Waukesha is a lot wealthier than Milwaukee. Bottom line: Waukesha wants a Tiffany's solution at Wal-Mart prices, and by balking at water return to Lake Michigan, is putting its parochial interests above those of the region as well as the health of Lake Michigan. That is a subsidy the Great Lakes region cannot afford. WILL MICHIGAN SAY "NO" TO WAUKESHA, OTHER STATES? Throughout the long agreement negotiations, in which government, agriculture, business and environmental representatives participated, some political and public policy leaders in Wisconsin and neighboring states thought that Waukesha would never qualify under the final agreement for a diversion because the entire city is outside of the basin. They also thought that even if diversion eligibility was granted, the city's stubborn and controversial refusal to return water directly to Lake Michigan would force another state like water-conscious Michigan (it is the only state entirely within the Great Lakes basin) to veto the application. It only takes a single "no" vote among the eight U.S. states making up the Council of Great Lakes states to veto a diversion application. "Don't worry," they assured themselves and others, "Michigan won't let it happen." Well, don't be so sure. Negotiators from Michigan, Wisconsin and the other states created the straddling county exemption through a series of compromises -- then tweaked the draft language further so return flow could be achieved short of meeting the best practice standard of returning treated, diverted water directly back to its source -- in Waukesha's case, Lake Michigan. And remember: a diversion to Waukesha could set a precedent across the Great Lakes states. Indiana has 24 percent of its residents living in straddling counties while Ohio has 17 percent, Illinois, 47 percent, and New York, 20.4 percent. Maybe not all the communities in these counties would want a diversion, but there is more than one Waukesha out there. In fact, a consortium of planning commissions in southeast Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Indiana has said 16 counties in those states alone need 275 million gallons of new water daily to meet projected demand -- or nearly 14 times what Waukesha says it wants. And if the new agreement makes straddling counties eligible for Great Lakes water, who is to say that a judge in western Wisconsin won't declare the entire state a "straddling" jurisdiction, ruling that if Great Lakes water can flow across the sub-continental divide into western Waukesha, then it can come farther west, too? And couldn't Iowa to the west or Kentucky to the south of the Great Lakes basin argue that because they adjoin a state with straddling counties their jurisdictions are just as eligible for Great Lakes water as a community in Waukesha County, Wisconsin -- a community which is out of the Great Lake basin? Details. Details. Details. But here's the important one: it's an election year, so Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans have agreed to push the ratifying legislation and will claim, in unison, that they are helping the environment -- even though the new agreement will set the one precedent that experts have said for years is the path to ruin in the Great Lakes region -- making it easier, as a matter of policy and law, to take water out of the Great Lakes, and not being required to put it back. It will be intriguing to see if these legislators will hold public hearings on their proposal. Real hearings, not the kind of Job Creation Act-like sessions called on short and inconvenient notice, but real hearings in all the affected areas -- from the Lake Superior shoreline to southeast Wisconsin. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle is co-chairman of the Council of Great Lakes Governors. He has not taken a formal position on a possible diversion application from Waukesha, though he has said he wants good water science to rule the process. Todd Ambs, a state DNR official and Doyle's representative in the water agreement negotiations, has said that approval of Waukesha's likely application would face significant hurdles. It's worth noting that proposals have been made repeatedly -- and continue to be refined by credible scientists -- showing that modern conservation, water re-use and recycling can provide Waukesha and similar communities with ample water resources that obviate the diversion argument. Many people in Waukesha County and other suburban and rural areas understand that a fresh round of water-fueled sprawl will end a desirable way of life. But their opinions have been drowned out by Waukesha officials who have engaged top-shelf technical, legal and political consultants to put together an aggressive diversion plan and adoption strategy. The team includes Martin F. Schreiber & Associates on the public relations side, and a key Illinois water policy firm, The Cadmus Group, to head up diversion planning. The Cadmus Group's lead staffer on the Waukesha water project is Jeff Edstrom, who, according to Waukesha Water Utility documents, was senior policy director for 10 years to the Council of Great Lakes Governors. Edstrom "staffed the negotiation and drafting of the Great Lakes Charter Annex and has worked closely with, and knows personally, most of the individuals who will review any new diversion proposal," records show. DOES TRICKLE-DOWN WORK IN ECONOMICS OR LAKE RECHARGE? Waukesha has spared no expense positioning itself in the diversion debate and the coming application process. What you won't find in that process or in the agreement is an acknowledgement that trickle-down water return policies will not make a dent in the racial and employment divide between Waukesha and Milwaukee. You will hear in its rush to implement the agreement in the Legislature that there will be some trickle-down economic benefits to Milwaukee, but the greatest development opportunities will take place as a result west of the sub-continental divide. We're headed for a more dangerous replay of the southeast Wisconsin freeway expansion debate; the ramifications and likelihood for distorted development and rampaging sprawl in Wisconsin and elsewhere across the Great Lakes are geometrically larger than local freeway expansion. By enabling more water diversions from the Great Lakes, the agreement will divert equity from the lives of tens of thousands of low-income Wisconsin residents and rob small town and rural traditionalists near both Lake Michigan and Superior of their chosen lifestyle. The integrity of Great Lakes' resources -- water, land, habitat, air -- and the lives of the people who live among them are profoundly intertwined. Those connections, that history and future, are why the Great Lakes are considered a Public Trust -- a legacy and bond that will be torpedoed by the December 13th agreement. -- Rowen, a former top city of Milwaukee official, is a public policy analyst and writer. |
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