As part of the most critical test of the new Great Lakes Compact, the city of Waukesha, Wis. will take public comment at 7 p.m. tonight and again March 8 on its draft application to divert water from Lake Michigan for municipal use.

The Great Lakes Compact, approved by Congress and signed into law in 2008, prohibits diversions of Great Lakes water outside the basin with a few limited exceptions – one of which Waukesha now hopes to meet.

Although Waukesha is located entirely outside the Great Lakes Basin, the city is eligible to apply for Great Lakes water under the compact because it lies within a county that straddles the Great Lakes and Mississippi River divide. That county, Waukesha County in southeastern Wisconsin, is located 18 miles west of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan.

"The compact becoming federal law was the end of one story and the beginning of another,” said Ed Glatfelter, Alliance Water Conservation Program director, who is preparing comments on the application. “Now it’s up to the states to aggressively implement the law the region fought long and hard for.”

Two key points of regional import have leapt to the top of the Alliance’s concerns:

• The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources may incorrectly consider the application complete. Other states will look to the agency for a determination of when a diversion application is complete, a matter complicated by the fact Wisconsin has yet to promulgate rules and regulations specifying what is needed in a complete application.
• Waukesha is claiming that it has no reasonable water supply alternative, a requirement of the compact. Glatfelter noted that the city’s application discusses two alternative supplies Waukesha is prepared to pursue should its application be denied.