In the News

 

 

There was a lot of buzz last week around water in Milwaukee — it was officially Great Lakes Week — and some of the news was very good. There was Thursday's dedication of the city's new Global Water Center, a technology and business incubator centered on water issues. And there was the federal Environmental Protection Agency announcement of a $1.5 million grant for several Milwaukee estuary and Great Lakes projects.

 

But the meeting of the Great Lakes Commission in Milwaukee also carried several reminders of the challenges the lakes still face and, in particular, the need for Congress to restore funding for Great Lakes restoration and clean water programs and the federal governments' utter failure to this point to do anything about lower lake levels.

 

On Monday, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) drew attention to action by a House subcommittee that would have initially cut funding from $285 million annually to $60 million. The House Appropriations Committee restored much of that funding, to $210 million, but that still doesn't do the job.

 

As the Journal Sentinel's Lee Bergquist reported Tuesday, federal Great Lakes funding goes to programs that include cleaning up toxic waste, combating the threat of invasive species and reducing storm water runoff. Examples in Milwaukee include funding to remove toxic sediments from the Milwaukee River at Lincoln Park and on the Kinnickinnic River, between W. Becher St. and S. Kinnickinnic Ave. The cost of both projects, using a mix of state and federal funds, was $46.6 million.

 

State Department of Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp, an appointee of Republican Gov. Scott Walker, didn't pick sides in the funding fight in an interview with Bergquist, but she did say it was unlikely that many of the projects would have been funded without the Great Lakes funds.

 

"These are the kinds of dollars that turn around and yield exponential benefits," she said.

 

She's right, as was Barrett when he criticized cuts to a revolving loan program for sewer fixes. At the commission meeting, Barrett called sewers "the invisible infrastructure, because most people don't think about the sewers at all until something goes wrong. Throughout Milwaukee, throughout southeastern Wisconsin, we have to constantly update these sewers."

 

Baldwin and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) called for Congress to restore funding to the original $300 million level, and that's a worthy goal. These programs are vital to the businesses and families that rely on the Great Lakes, arguably the largest freshwater network on the planet. They are vital to a healthy economy and a healthy environment, and Congress should provide full funding to restore them.

 

 

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On Great Lakes water levels, the federal government's record is even worse. The Journal Sentinel's Dan Egan reported Tuesday that the commission in 2007 passed a resolution asking the U.S. and Canadian governments to investigate how to slow flows on the heavily dredged St. Clair River in order to raise water levels on Lakes Michigan and Huron.

 

There's been no answer to that request.

 

In April, as Egan also reported, the International Joint Commission, a binational board that oversees U.S. and Canadian boundary waters, formally recommended that the two governments explore some type of remediation project in the St. Clair, which is the primary outflow for Lakes Michigan and Huron.

 

That request is still "under review" by the two governments, Joint Commission spokesman Frank Bevacqua said Monday.

 

In January, Lakes Michigan and Huron hit a record low. They have since rebounded thanks to an exceptionally wet spring, but they're still about a foot and a half below their long-term average for this time of year.

 

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Canadian governments aren't even fiddling while Rome burns; they're taking naps.

 

Government officials on both sides of the border need to wake up.

 

 

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The commission also heard last week from Dan Duchniak, general manager of the Waukesha WaterUtility, on the city's precedent-setting request to use Lake Michigan as its source for water. Duchniak said the city had reduced the amount of water it projects to withdraw and assured the commission that 100% of the water would be returned to the lake, and that it would have zero effect on lake levels.

 

The city's application will receive a thorough review by the DNR, which must approve the application before it is sent to the other Great Lakes states. As we've said before, if the city's numbers are right and there is no significant adverse impact, we see no reason to deny the request.

 

Nor do we think the reset button should be tapped for the application, as some critics of the request argue, simply because the proposed return flow route now goes through the Root River instead of Underwood Creek. The Root was always one of the possible options, and it appears that the Root could be made healthier with the return flow.

 

Let the application move forward for a final resolution without any more needless delay.