[URBAN NOTE] "Great Lakes states approve U.S. city's plan to draw water from Lake Michigan"
CBC reports on the proposed Great Lakes diversion. I share the concern of, among others, the government of Ontario.
A suburban Milwaukee city won a hard-fought battle Tuesday to draw its drinking water from Lake Michigan, a key test of a regional compact designed to safeguard the Great Lakes region's abundant but vulnerable fresh water supply.
A panel representing the governors of the eight states adjoining the Great Lakes unanimously approved a $207 million US proposal from Waukesha, Wis., where groundwater wells on which the city has long relied are contaminated with radium.
The city is 24 kilometres from Lake Michigan, but lies just outside the Great Lakes watershed, which required it to get special permission under a 2008 compact that prohibits most diversions of water across the watershed boundary. It provides a potential exception for communities within counties that straddle the line. Waukesha is the first to request water under that provision.
"There are a lot of emotions and politics surrounding this issue but voting yes - in co-operation with our Great Lakes neighbours - is the best way to conserve one of our greatest natural resources," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said. "Mandating strict conditions for withdrawing and returning the water sets a strong precedent for protecting the Great Lakes."
The city won a conditional endorsement last month from a panel representing eight states - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - plus Ontario and Quebec. It required Waukesha to reduce the volume of water it would withdraw daily from 37.8 million litres in its application to 31 million litres, and to shrink the size of the area it would provide with Lake Michigan water.
A suburban Milwaukee city won a hard-fought battle Tuesday to draw its drinking water from Lake Michigan, a key test of a regional compact designed to safeguard the Great Lakes region's abundant but vulnerable fresh water supply.
A panel representing the governors of the eight states adjoining the Great Lakes unanimously approved a $207 million US proposal from Waukesha, Wis., where groundwater wells on which the city has long relied are contaminated with radium.
The city is 24 kilometres from Lake Michigan, but lies just outside the Great Lakes watershed, which required it to get special permission under a 2008 compact that prohibits most diversions of water across the watershed boundary. It provides a potential exception for communities within counties that straddle the line. Waukesha is the first to request water under that provision.
"There are a lot of emotions and politics surrounding this issue but voting yes - in co-operation with our Great Lakes neighbours - is the best way to conserve one of our greatest natural resources," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said. "Mandating strict conditions for withdrawing and returning the water sets a strong precedent for protecting the Great Lakes."
The city won a conditional endorsement last month from a panel representing eight states - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - plus Ontario and Quebec. It required Waukesha to reduce the volume of water it would withdraw daily from 37.8 million litres in its application to 31 million litres, and to shrink the size of the area it would provide with Lake Michigan water.