On a slow quest for water
Needy communities not likely to see change soon
By DAN EGAN, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal
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Chicago - It was a precocious Cub Scout who taught one of the chief planners for the Chicago area almost everything he needs to know about the politics of water.
Sam Santell, director of planning for the 7 million people represented by the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, recalls a Scout troop tour of the St. Charles City Hall about 17 years ago. The kids stopped at the desk of the public works director for the Chicago suburb, and the director tried to impress upon the youngsters the significance of his not-so-glamorous job.
He asked them what would happen if they awoke one day to find their faucets dry.
"My dad is a lawyer," snapped one Scout. "We'd sue."
That story got a roar out of the 200 planners, scientists, engineers and environmentalists who attended a two-day conference in Chicago this week for regional communities coping with water shortages.
But Santell sees as much wisdom as wit in the wisecrack.
"There are two lessons in it," said Santell. "One: People really don't know where their water comes from. And two: They're going to be really mad when it's not there."
It may seem paranoid to hold a water shortage conference on the shores of the world's sixth biggest freshwater lake, but a collision of politics, public health and hydrology has put a crunch on many communities that lie just beyond the Great Lakes basin dividing line, including a host of suburbs west of Milwaukee.
The line is the boundary Congress uses to determine who is entitled to Great Lakes water and who is not. The idea behind keeping Great Lakes water inside the basin is to prevent the lakes from shrinking; water taken from lakes but kept inside the basin ultimately flows back into the Great Lakes. Lake water taken beyond the basin line, in this region, ultimately flows down the Mississippi River.
The eight Great Lakes governors are plodding ahead writing new rules that could stretch the lake-use boundaries. But the rule-writing has been under way for more than three years, and nobody is expecting changes any time soon.
Meanwhile, the people whose job it is to keep the water flowing in the communities just beyond the dividing line are starting to sweat.
Their wells are, literally, running dry.
"What's frustrating," said Ray Grzys, New Berlin's director of utilities and streets, "is not getting an answer. . .we can't hold off too long."
New Berlin, a case study
New Berlin is indeed "Exhibit A" for the issues examined at the two-day conference, sponsored primarily by the non-profit Joyce Foundation and titled "Straddling the Divide: Water supply planning in the Lake Michigan region."
The booming city of 38,000 actually straddles the basin divide, and not only are its wells steadily going dry, much of the water that is left is contaminated with dangerous levels of radium, a naturally occurring substance that the Environment Protection Agency worries could lead to increased rates of bone cancer.
The city is in the process of linking its east side to Lake Michigan water via the city of Milwaukee.
But residents west of the divide are stuck with well water, and the EPA has given New Berlin until Dec. 8 of next year to either figure out how to take the radium out of the water or find a safer source.
New wells could solve the city's problem, at least for a while. But it's a multimillion dollar investment that may not be needed if the new Great Lakes rules are approved.
Gryzs said it could cost up to $4 million to upgrade the well system. Hooking into Lake Michigan would be a permanent water fix, and it wouldn't be much more complicated than opening some valves - the entire city system will soon be physically linked to Milwaukee, but lake water will flow only on the east side of the divide.
Fixing the political machine to allow that to happen is a much more complicated process - eight governors have to agree to the rule change, then eight state legislatures, then Congress. It is a process that likely will be measured in years rather than months.
Alternatives to the Great Lakes
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee hydrogeologist Doug Cherkauer sees the problem as deeper than untangling red tape.
He told conference attendees it is time for cities to rethink their relationship with water. For decades, Milwaukee's western suburbs have pumped with abandon from their wells, taking far more water than was naturally flowing back into them. Water levels in the deep aquifer have plummeted by as much as 600 feet in the last century, and they continue to drop at a rate of about six feet per year.
Cherkauer said cities should develop a water management practice based on the simple philosophy behind a balanced checkbook - don't spend more than you take in.
Specifically, he said communities west of the divide could alleviate their shortages if they tapped into shallower wells. The shallow aquifer, which is separated from the deep aquifer by a largely impermeable layer of shale, does not hold as much water as the deep aquifer, but it is replenished faster. The trick to ensuring its replenishment, he said, is to disperse treated wastewater in a manner that allows it to seep back into the ground.
He said some people may find the concept of consuming treated wastewater distasteful, but cities already are doing it. For example, the city of Waukesha sends treated wastewater down the Fox River, which is a drinking water source for a number of downstream communities in Illinois.
"It probably means treating (wastewater) better than we are treating it now," he said. "It's not going to be easy. It isn't going to be cheap. But it can be done."
Industry could be affected
Sitting quietly in the crowd was Miller Brewing Co.'s Audrey Templeton. The governors are also looking at changing the way water inside the basin is managed, and under their current proposal, big consumers, such as breweries, could be subject to increased water regulations.
Templeton, the brewery's environmental coordinator, said Miller is the biggest industrial user of Milwaukee water, which she referred to as "our lifeblood."
"Miller situated its brewery in Milwaukee because of the (nearby) source of water. That's why all the breweries were here," she said.
Water is also the reason Chicago exists, said Dave Ullrich, director of the Great Lakes Cities Initiative, which represents dozens of Great Lakes cities.
"We're here because the water is here," he said, adding that crafting new rules that both protect the Great Lakes and provide access to them is "probably one of the toughest and least popular jobs out there right now."
But it's a job he says has to be done. "The system we have now. . . is seriously flawed and will not ultimately stand the tests that will be put upon it," he said.
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