Gov. Pence, Say No To Waukesha →

Gov. Pence, Say No to Waukesha - NUVO News, December 10, 2015
Author: David Hoppe

Dear Gov. Pence,

I know we’ve had some rough spots. But in the spirit of the holidays I’m bringing you an issue I hope we can agree on: Water.

Lake Michigan water. 

You’ve been busy, so you may have missed the recent decision by Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources to request permission from the other Great Lakes states to let the town of Waukesha begin siphoning Lake Michigan water via a pipeline.

Waukesha is a town of just over 71,000 people, 18 miles west of Milwaukee. It lies outside of the Lake Michigan basin and has always drawn its water from underground springs. Waukesha was known as “the Saratoga of the West.”

In 1893, when people tried building a pipeline to Chicago to make this spring water available at the Columbian Exposition, the good people of Waukesha rose up in protest and scuttled the project.

Since then, Waukesha has boasted the lowest rates for water in the state of Wisconsin. 

But Waukesha was exhausting its famous springs. In 1987, the state warned the town its drinking water was showing unacceptable radium levels, a consequence of overpumping. The town, however, acted as if this was no big deal.

That’s changed. Today Waukesha claims it is running out of clean water and needs a new source — Lake Michigan.

Read the complete article here.