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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Here is an article from the Great Lakes area that
has some parallels to our situation. As the reader can see, even where
there seems to be plenty of water, drinking water can be scarce.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dianne French</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Helvetica color=#000000 size=+1>NY Times<BR></FONT><TT><FONT
color=#000000 size=+1><B>August 12, 2005<BR><BR></B></FONT><FONT color=#000000
size=+3><B>Growth Stirs a Battle to Draw More Water From the Great
Lakes<BR><BR></B></FONT><FONT color=#000000><B>By</B></FONT><FONT
color=#000066><B> FELICITY BARRINGER</B></FONT><FONT
color=#000000><B><BR><BR><BR></B><FONT size=+1>WAUKESHA, Wis. - Time was when
Waukesha's mineral-rich water was coveted by Milwaukeeans and Chicagoans, who
scorned the Lake Michigan water lapping at their shores. In 1892, one speculator
even tried to pipe the city's water to Chicago for the coming World's Columbia
Exposition, until aroused Waukeshans trained pistols, pitchforks and fire hoses
on the pipe layers, who retreated.<BR><BR>What a difference a century makes.
Waukesha has sucked so much water from its deep aquifer that it is now looking
to the vast blue expanse of Lake Michigan, just as Chicagoans once eyed its
water.<BR><BR>But the authorities who control some of the largest bodies of
fresh water in the world are not sure that any of it should go to communities
like Waukesha, which is 15 miles from the lake's shore but outside of its
watershed.<BR><BR>Their fear is that without strict rules on who gets Great
Lakes water and who does not, water-starved western cities will eventually knock
at the door.<BR><BR>"Today the economics are not there to say we're going to
take all the water in the Great Lakes and ship it to Phoenix and Vegas," said
Todd Ambs, the water division director of the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources. "But water's not getting cheaper. Twenty-five, 30, 40 years from now,
the economics are going to be different. We've got to have a system in place to
deal with that."<BR><BR>Fights over who owns and who deserves water have long
been a part of life in arid states like California and Nevada. But as the spread
of exurbia has more than consumed the savings of a generation's worth of
technological improvements like low-flush toilets, even places not perennially
in danger of running dry have become jealous of their water.<BR><BR>Akron, Ohio,
had to ask for Great Lakes water in the late 1990's. It received permission, but
Lowell, Ind., was turned down.<BR><BR>And Michigan has told a Nestlé subsidiary
that if it wants to increase production of its Ice Mountain bottled water in
Mecosta Township, Mich., all of the additional water pumped out of the ground
must be "delivered and sold within the Great Lakes basin." The company is
fighting the requirement in federal court.<BR><BR>In the last 25 years, ideas
have been suggested to build a slurry pipe that would send Great Lakes water to
help Wyoming mines and to build a 400-mile canal between the Missouri River in
South Dakota and Lake Superior. New York City has raised the possibility of
using Lake Erie water to ease droughts.<BR><BR>The Great Lakes basin has "more
and more demands for water and certainly more and more development," Mr. Ambs
said. "One of the reasons we're looking to have a water management strategy is
preparation for the future."<BR><BR>In 2001, the eight states that border the
Great Lakes, along with Ontario and Quebec, two provinces within the lakes'
watershed, pledged to develop a plan to manage access to the lakes'
water.<BR><BR>By the end of this year, that plan may include an agreement -
requiring ratification by the states' governments - that the water does not
leave the Great Lakes basin except under rare circumstances, based on the
applicant's proximity to the basin and whether the wastewater could be returned
to the Great Lakes system.<BR><BR>The basin's western boundary is a barely
perceptible rise in the land called the subcontinental divide; the water west of
the divide flows into the Mississippi River system, and to the east it drains
into the Great Lakes.<BR><BR>Waukesha's problem is that it is west of the line.
Less than five miles west, but it might as well be 500 miles.<BR><BR>The city's
mineral springs and hotels made Waukesha (pronounced WAW-keh-shaw) the "Saratoga
of the West" in the late 19th century, and the water and the railroad that once
brought in resort tourists later nourished a healthy mix of factories and
agribusiness. The cityscape is now a mosaic of old industry and new
subdivisions; a small downtown offers an eclectic tableau of stores, with a
tattoo parlor, fish store and law office side by side near a modern town
clock.</FONT></FONT></TT></DIV>
<DIV><TT><FONT color=#000000 size=+1><BR>The draw-down of water from the deep
aquifer was gradual at first, accelerating in the late 1980's and throughout the
next 15 years. In recent measurements, the water level had dropped about 600
feet. And the deeper the water source, the more likely that it would be
contaminated with too much radium, a naturally occurring radioactive
element.<BR><BR>The city water's radium content is now more than double the
acceptable level set by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2000. In setting
the standard, the agency said that a person exposed over a lifetime to radium
levels twice as high as Waukesha's "is projected to have a significantly
increased chance of developing fatal cancer."<BR><BR>More than 50 Wisconsin
communities, mostly in the southeastern part of the state, and up to six times
that many nationally are in violation of the radium standard.<BR><BR>The
Waukesha Water Utility is seeking 20 million gallons a day to be piped from Lake
Michigan. "Water is the No. 1 need and the No. 1 issue for all Waukesha County
communities," said Carol J. Lombardi, the city's mayor.<BR><BR>The county has
grown nearly 35 percent in the last 25 years to an estimated 377,000 people in
2004. Other communities in Waukesha County also draw from the same deep aquifer
as the city.<BR><BR>The deeper water also comes with high concentrations of the
minerals that initially made Waukesha famous. Steve Korthoff, who has lived in
the city for 28 years, said his family uses a water softener for household uses
like showering because of a concentration of calcium. They drink the water
freely. Asked about its taste, Mr. Korthoff said, "You get used to things." But,
he added, "I'm not sure you would like it."<BR><BR>If the city does not get
access to Lake Michigan water, it will face bills of perhaps tens of millions of
dollars to lower the radium levels by either cleaning up the existing water or
finding a new, uncontaminated source. But some politicians in Milwaukee, where
the population fell by 8.9 percent in the 1990's, are loath to sell the city's
Lake Michigan water to suburbs that have been draining away their businesses and
wealthier residents, and their tax base.<BR><BR>Waukesha County "supports
widening roads to allow for more transportation on the roadways to get more
access out to that community, rather than try to limit the sprawl out there,"
said Michael Murphy, a Milwaukee alderman. "Their solution to the problem is not
the conservation of their limited resources, but looking to Lake
Michigan."<BR><BR>But Dan Duchniak, the general manager of the Waukesha Water
Utility, said a diversion of 20 million gallons a day from Lake Michigan would
be sufficient, and "70 million gallons a day would be enough to correct all the
problems of southeastern Wisconsin."<BR><BR>Chicago, Mr. Duchniak noted, is
eligible under a Supreme Court ruling to draw as much as 2.1 billion gallons a
day from Lake Michigan, even though the vast majority of Chicago's land is
outside the basin.<BR><BR>And, he said, Waukesha has more of a claim on Lake
Michigan water than other cities outside of the subcontinental
divide.<BR><BR>The argument requires an excursion into hydrology. Once, the deep
aquifer the city tapped into was high enough that it tended to flow into Lake
Michigan. Now, so much has been drawn from the aquifer that some geologists
believe the flow has reversed.<BR><BR>"Our argument is that we're different,"
said Mr. Duchniak - a claim his critics contest. "We're not Las Vegas, we're not
even Madison, Wis. We're using Great Lakes water today. What we'd like to do is
take Great Lakes surface water rather than ground water."<BR><BR>"I want to take
a straw sucking up ground water and change it from being a vertical straw to a
horizontal straw," he said.<BR><BR>For critics like Emily Green, who oversees
Great Lakes issues for the Sierra Club, Mr. Duchniak's arguments are a dodge.
Her complaint, like that of Mr. Murphy, the Milwaukee alderman, is the absence
of conservation as the growth spurt of the western exurbs, in towns like
Oconomowoc, has accelerated.<BR><BR>"Yes, people need a place to live," Ms.
Green said. "But do they need McMansions on five-acre lots?"</FONT></TT></DIV>
<DIV><TT><FONT color=#000000 size=+1><BR>Mr. Duchniak said his city was working
on a conservation plan that could reduce water use by 20 percent in the next 15
years. It is short on specifics, but hints at the likelihood of price
increases.<BR><BR>The city has already embarked on a $12 million project to
blend water from a shallow aquifer with the radium-laced water from farther
down.<BR><BR>But that will not solve the ultimate problem of Waukesha's water
supply. If the surface water from Lake Michigan is not available, Mr. Duchniak
said, the city will have to spend $87 million bringing in underground water from
areas west of the city - more than double what the Lake Michigan water would
cost.<BR><BR>"Have we done things wrong in the past?" he asked. "Yes.
Unequivocally, yes. But we have to move
forward."</FONT></TT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>