Governors should say no to Waukesha

Waukesha, Wisconsin, could be Port Huron’s twin.

It’s practically surrounded by water. And for decades it battled with federal regulators over water quality.

The cities diverge there a little. Port Huron was in denial over that wastewater that was ending up in the Black and St. Clair rivers every time a heavy rain overflowed the city’s combined sewer system. Waukesha has been in denial about its drinking water.

Although surrounded by small lakes and crossed by the Fox River, Waukesha has been getting its water from wells — because it is less expensive. After generations of sprawl — Waukesha is a part of Greater Milwaukee — aquifers beneath the city have shrunk to the point that radon and other contaminants have become dangerously concentrated.

Waukesha is under orders to either treat its well water or find a safer source.

Here, Waukesha and Port Huron diverge further. Port Huron stepped up to its responsibility and spent $176 million to rebuild its sewer system.

Waukesha wants a cheaper, easier solution that building a water treatment plant to clean up its well water. It wants to pump water from Lake Michigan, which is about 17 miles away. The city says Lake Michigan is its only alternative. Critics say it is only the least expensive one.

The problem is that the town, although only about 17 miles from the lake, isn’t in the Great Lakes watershed. Water pumped out of Lake Michigan to taps in Waukesha wouldn’t return to the Great Lakes after flowing down the drain. By contrast, the water pumped from Lake Huron by the Detroit and under-construction Flint pipelines ultimately returns to the watershed.

To take Lake Michigan’s water, Waukesha needs the permission of all eight states within the Great Lakes basin, as required by a 2008 compact. So far, permission has been granted exactly once, when New Berlin, another Milwaukee suburb, tapped Lake Michigan in 2009. New Berlin, though, is partly within the basin, so Waukesha is a different precedent.

A bigger difference this time is historic drought conditions in California and across much of the West that could add pressure to convert a Waukesha trickle into something bigger.

Great Lakes governors need to say no to Waukesha.