Waukesha water:
But utility year away from deciding how to cut phosphorus
The state is due to rule in June on Waukesha’s request for Lake Michigan water, but the city is a year away from deciding how to deal with phosphorus pollution.
Though state officials in June will say if Waukesha’s request for Lake Michigan water complies with a Great Lakes protection compact, the city’s wastewater utility is a year away from deciding how it will reduce phosphorus pollution in its treated wastewater.
Since the city and state have not synchronized the two timetables, environmentalists from around the Great Lakes region are questioning whether the Department of Natural Resources has sufficient information to sign off on the water plan next month.
One of the advocates is suggesting the city pull back its request for lake water until it decides how to comply with phosphorus regulations.
An ongoing study has identified available treatment technologies that could meet the new phosphorus water quality limits, Waukesha Water Utility General Manager Dan Duchniak said.
By June 30, 2016, the wastewater utility must select one of those technologies for future installation, under terms of its state discharge permit.
But that should not prevent decisions this year on the city’s request to divert Great Lakes water across the subcontinental divide, Duchniak said.
Consultants using state-approved computer models found that the city’s discharge — if lower phosphorus limits are achieved — would improve water quality in the Root River, a lake tributary, he said. Duchniak acknowledged that the city’s sewage treatment plant cannot now meet the lower limits on a regular basis.
Waukesha has proposed discharging treated wastewater into the tributary, rather than building a pipe all the way to the lake, if the water supply request is approved.
“We want to take this opportunity to assure the department that it has the necessary information” to determine a wastewater discharge to the Root River “is approvable” for phosphorus, Duchniak said in an April 2 letter to Russ Rasmussen, Water Division administrator for the state Department of Natural Resources.
Duchniak said he anticipates the DNR next month will conclude that the city’s request to divert lake water could be approved under a 2008 Great Lakes compact.
DNR water and environmental regulators have not publicly disclosed their findings. The department intends to publish in June a draft summary of its five-year review of the city’s request to switch to lake water.
One environmental group, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, said its expectation is that Waukesha’s application would not proceed unless the city’s proposed discharge meets Clean Water Act requirements, as well as Great Lakes compact requirements.
“If the DNR is not certain they have sufficient supporting information from Waukesha to prove this, then the DNR should ask for it before determining whether to move forward” with the application, Riverkeeper Cheryl Nenn said.
Duchniak says the city in its request is making a commitment to meet new stringent phosphorus limits, plus a “margin of safety” to be required by federal regulators to protect the Root River.
But the April letter and other documents reveal the city’s wastewater utility is 13 months away from selecting a treatment technology for future installation.
Waukesha is the first community in the United States located entirely outside the Great Lakes basin to request a diversion of water under terms of the protection compact.
Although the compact prohibits diversions of water outside the basin, there is one exception that fits Waukesha and hundreds of other communities: A municipality outside the basin can ask for Great Lakes water if it is in a county straddling the basin divide.
Waukesha County straddles the subcontinental divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.
Given the precedent-setting nature of its request, Waukesha would be expected to gather all the information necessary to justify its plan before the request is forwarded to the other Great Lakes states, said Marc Smith, senior policy manager with the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office in Ann Arbor, Mich. He is a member of the Council of Great Lakes Governors’ advisory committee for the compact.
The governors would expect the city to show how it will comply with phosphorus limits, and meet other requirements, by the time the request is forwarded to the states for review, Smith said.
The compact cautions the eight states not to authorize an exception to the law’s prohibition of diversions “unless it can be shown” that a project
Waukesha will not endanger the integrity of the Great Lakes’ ecosystem.
Yet, Waukesha’s wastewater discharge permit requires that utility to recommend by June 30, 2016, which new treatment technology it will choose to meet new phosphorus discharge limits.
A draft report on the water diversion’s environmental impact, as well as draft documents analyzing whether the city’s request complies with the compact and other laws, will be published in late June of this year, according to Ebersberger.
After a summer public comment period of 45 days or longer and public hearings, and possible revisions of the draft publications, the DNR would forward the city’s request to the seven other states by the end of this year.
The Council of Great Lakes Governors has pledged to complete the regional review within six months of receiving the request, or around June 2016.
Each state would vote on the diversion request at that time. Unanimous approval is required for the project to proceed.
Oak Creek
Racine
Waukesha is seeking permission to divert up to an average of 10.1 million gallons of lake water a day by midcentury. In 2014, the city pumped an average of 6.6 million gallons of water a day from 10 wells.
If the city’s request is approved, Waukesha would stop using deep wells drawing radium-contaminated water from a sandstone aquifer when the new supply is available. The city relied on its seven deep wells to provide 83% of its water last year.
The city is under a court-ordered deadline of June 2018 to provide radium-safe water.
The cost of designing and constructing a lake water supply is estimated at $206 million. Oak Creek would supply the water to Waukesha.
A Lake Michigan water supply is the only reasonable and sustainable option for Waukesha, its officials say.
A series of studies by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded the deep sandstone aquifer beneath southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois has dropped so low that continued withdrawals are unsustainable.