LANSING – With a final decision expected next week, Attorney General Bill Schuette joined the array of Michigan public officials opposing plans to allow Waukesha, Wisconsin, to use water from Lake Michigan.
Schuette co-signed a letter Wednesday with U.S. Rep. Candice Miller (R-Harrison Township), who had earlier co-signed a similar letter with U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) (See Gongwer Michigan Report, May 19, 2016), calling on the members of the Great Lakes Compact Council to reject Waukesha’s application to divert 8.2 million gallons of water per day out of the Great Lakes Basin.
Under the application, which a group representing the eight Great Lakes states as well as the two Canadian provinces that border the lakes had urged be approved (See Gongwer Michigan Report, May 18, 2016), the city would have to return that much treated water back to the basin.
But Schuette and Miller said the goal of the compact was to prevent any diversions of water from the lakes.
“The integrity of the Compact is being tested for the first time with this request and it is critical that the impetus to its creation be considered,” the two said. “Opening our Great Lakes to a municipality that is outside of the Great Lakes Basin boundary lines and one that has not exhausted other options is certain to generate new requests that will thus demand to be held to the same reduced standard of eligibility.”
The two argued that Waukesha has had time to look for other options, but has looked only to the option of diverting Great Lakes water.
The city is eligible to apply under the compact because it is in a county that straddles the boundary between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.
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