LANSING – Waukesha could qualify to draw its water from Lake Michigan, but only with some changes to its application, a regional advisory body said Wednesday. Most importantly for the community, it would not be able to serve as many customers as proposed under the recommendation.

The Wisconsin community is the first to apply under the relatively new Great Lakes Compact to draw water from the lakes for use outside the Great Lakes Basin.

The Great Lakes Regional Body, made up of representatives of the eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces, voted without objection to recommend that the application be approved with a number of conditions on use of the water, Grant Trigger, Governor Rick Snyder‘s representative on the body, said after the vote Wednesday.

Minnesota, which had last week asked for a delay of the decision, abstained from Wednesday’s vote as officials continued to gather additional information and input.

The Great Lakes Compact Council is scheduled to take up the application at its meeting June 21. The council is made up only of the eight states and has the final authority over the withdrawal.

Trigger said the key recommendation was to narrow the service area. The city had applied to provide water to not only its own residents, but to an expanded service area outside its boundaries.

The recommendation, he said, would essentially limit the withdrawal to the city’s current water customers. It would also, then, reduce the proposed withdrawal to 8.2 million gallons per day from the 10.1 million gallons the city had requested.

Trigger said the regional body’s recommendations included some additions Michigan requested. “We established a mandatory pharmaceutical and personal care products recycling program to improve the quality of the water being returned to Lake Michigan,” he said.

The proposal was offered by Michigan tribal representatives and echoes a program in place in Traverse City, he said.

The recommended changes would also require Wisconsin to ensure that no other community be allowed to draw water from the Great Lakes Basin and release it to the Mississippi River Basin. Waukesha is currently diverting some water and approving the application would ensure all future water is returned to Lake Michigan, he said.

Though the compact council is made up of essentially the same United States representatives as the regional body, Trigger said Wednesday’s vote does not indicate how the council would vote.

“Michigan is supporting action by the Regional Body to forward the City of Waukesha Declaration and Findings to the Compact Council for further deliberation and final consideration,” Trigger said in a prepared statement. “It should not be presumed that this action indicates Michigan will approve the final Declaration/order of the Compact Council. Governor Snyder will make a final determination only after all deliberations have been concluded and after a final review and briefing on the final order when presented to the Compact Council on June 21.”

He also noted that New York has a different representative on the council than on the regional body.

And the compact requires unanimous consent from all of the states to approve the withdrawal.

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