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State legislators reach agreement on Great Lakes Water Compact
Published April 9, 2008 - BizTimes Daily
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Gov. Jim Doyle announced today that he and Wisconsin legislators have reached an agreement on the Great Lakes Water Compact. Doyle said he will call for a special session on April 17 for the Legislature to adopt the compact.
"We are ready to pass the Great Lakes Compact," Doyle said. "We have an agreement on a bill that will pass overwhelming in both houses with bipartisan support. This is a great day for the state of Wisconsin and for the entire Great Lakes region. I believe what we have agreed on is something we will look back on and say was one of the most significant accomplishments of our time."
The compact is an agreement of the seven Great Lakes state governors and the two Great Lakes Canadian provinces to regulate water diversions outside of the Great Lakes basin. Under the compact, long distance diversions will not be allowed. Communities in counties, such as Waukesha County, that straddle the edge of the basin, will be able to apply for a Great Lakes water diversion. The compact is critical in Waukesha County because communities such as Waukesha and New Berlin have high radium levels in their groundwater and will need Great Lakes water to provide a healthy water supply to their residents.
The Democrat-controlled state Senate had approved the compact, but the state Assembly failed to do the same during the last legislative session, primarily because several Republicans raised concerns about a provision in the compact that a single state's governor can veto an application for a water diversion by a community, such as Waukesha, that is outside the basin but inside a county that straddles the edge of the basin.
However, the single-state veto already exists in federal law, and Wisconsin lawmakers have agreed to leave it in the compact bill that they will pass.
To address the concerns of communities that will apply for water diversions, lawmakers tweaked the language in the compact to lay out a clear application process for a diversion and to maintain the legal rights of those communities, Doyle said. Communities that divert Great Lakes water will be required to return their treated wastewater to the basin.
"We are laying out a very clear process, a very clear set of standards," Doyle said. "We wanted to put in place an understandable system for those (water diversion) applications.”
Supporters of the compact say it is critical to protect the Great Lakes from future attempts by other rapidly growing and dry regions, such as Atlanta, that have a low supply of fresh water and may try to tap into the Great Lakes.
"The presence of water in this part of the country is going to be one of our greatest assets," Doyle said. "A lot of businesses that think the southwest is a great place to be, in the future they might decide they should be somewhere (like Wisconsin), where there is water."
The compact has been adopted by state Legislatures in Illinois, Indiana, New York and Minnesota and still must by approved by Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan and the U.S. Congress to be fully adopted.
Supporters promised to continue working until the compact has been approved by Congress.
"This will probably be the most important legislation that the Legislature passes in the time I am in the Legislature," said Rep. Scott Gunderson (R-Waterford). "The Great Lakes Compact is something we had to pass. This is about a precious resource that is so important to all of us, not just Wisconsin but the entire Midwest."
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said, "This is good news for Wisconsin. The fresh water of the Great Lakes is our greatest natural resource and passing the Compact is essential to protecting that asset. I will continue my advocacy for the compact's adoption at the State and Federal levels and believe that today's announcement is a huge step forward."
The impact of the Great Lakes Water Compact was the focus an in-depth cover story in the March 21 issue of Small Business Times.
