I'm all for clean water

John Hopf is hiking the Appalachian Trail to raise money for clean water. Instead of walking 2,200 miles, would he mind instead taking a hike along Hwy 18 to Lake Michigan? I know he wouldn't raise as much money, but if he could drag along a rather large garden hose and drop it into the lake near the Calatrava about 40,000 people would be really grateful.

We once sold the water

Waukesha is exploring new technology that would remove the radium from our water and create a useable byproduct, limestone pellets that can be used as filler for concrete.

I wonder if this means Mayor Nelson will get invited to travel to more conferences.

Let it glow

On this date in 1902, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie isolated the radioactive chemical element, radium.

Meanwhile, Waukesha was selling bottled water that gave people that healthy glow.

Now comes the hard part

Okay, we have an agreement on the Great Lakes Water Compact which is a good thing because I found myself in the very strange position of agreeing with Mayor Larry Nelson, Steve Schmuki, Governor Jim Doyle, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and a host of lefty bloggers. I'm sorry but that's just not a good neighborhood to be in. I think I have a rash. Never mind, it's just the radium.

So we have an agreement on the compact after the Assembly Republicans finally understood the single-state veto wasn't going anywhere. As I wrote in this week's column for the Waukesha Freeman (always worth the 50 cents) :

What the opponents appear to be forgetting is that the current federal law governing diversions also grants each state a veto. There isn’t any criteria or process for granting permission for a diversion, so a state can veto a diversion application without offering any justification.
It’s quite unrealistic to expect any state’s governor to give up that kind of authority. Political bodies as a rule tend to jealously guard power that has been accumulated. If the four years it took to negotiate the compact didn’t shake loose this provision, it’s unlikely four or even eight more years will accomplish it.
But even under the current law the governors approved a diversion for Pleasant Prairie. With the compromise in place, Waukesha should be able to look forward to that kind of successful request.

Now comes the hard part. We get to apply for a diversion from Lake Michigan. That means we'll have to figure out how to pipeline the stuff in, pay for it, conserve water when we can, pay for that, clean the water, pay again, and somehow return the treated water back to the source (oh, how we'll pay). Pay, pay, pay. That means development in Waukesha County is going to have to take into account just how much water we will consume and what it will cost. And then we'll have to decide how we're going to pay for it. Even more important, who will pay for it.

Unlike the liberals that tend to believe signing a piece of paper solves everything, the rest of us are going to have to live in the real world. That means some hard choices ahead.

The good news is, we get to keep the lake. Maybe.

What do you mean the story changed?

I write my Waukesha Freeman columns (always worth the fifty cents) on Tuesday to see them run on Thursday. That means anything that happens on Wednesday can really screw me up.

I had two really solid columns that I wanted to do this week. One was on the Great Lakes Water Compact and the other was the possibility of a school tax referendum. With the school board meeting tonight to discuss a possible referendum I went with the less-fun-but-ultimately-more-important Great Lakes Water Compact. After all, the two sides are far apart, the Assembly Republicans are in no hurry, and this mess probably won't be resolved until June at the earliest. Heck, there was a chance this thing wouldn't get resolved at all this year. I thought briefly about a comment on the Beijing Olympics, but the American part of the ongoing disaster was occurring when? That's right. Today, a Wednesday.

So of course while I twiddled my thumbs today Googling every five minutes what was happening out in San Francisco, the governor reached a compromise with the Assembly Republicans. I found out with a call from the newspaper asking me if I wanted to update my column in light of today's events. Events? What events? They did what? When? Why would they want to do that? Don't they know it's Wednesday?

I'd like to remind my readers in Madison that bi-partisanship does not always make good copy even when it achieves good results.

Dammit. I hope they got the corrected version in time.

Update! They did. It's safe to flip past the comics and your horoscope tomorrow directly to the Opinion Page.

Maybe Owen will need to run the hose to my house

John Torinus has an interesting article on the perils of development planning in Washington County without asking where is the water to sustain it.

So, there’s lots of work to do to save this precious resource. Just tapping Lake Michigan with a big pipe is not the only answer, even though the eastern half of Washington County could qualify for such a project. That part of the county is on the right side of the sub-continental divide.

Part of that conservation work involves land use, which is what the Smart Growth land use planning is all about.

Unfortunately, the regional planning commission has taken forever to finish its regional water study, and it isn’t done. Hence, water was not fully considered in our 2035 county plan.

Because the planners ducked that issue, it became easier for some supervisors to think that they can get away with erasing the protections for secondary corridors.

Water is the proverbial elephant in the room, and how Paul Mueller and his planning staff could develop a document without dealing with that and related issues is beyond me.

The radium in Waukesha's well water may have been a blessing in disguise. At least the water issue is now a part of the development discussion.

These idiots are all wet

It’s been a rough week out there for politicians. I thought that maybe I would spare the usual suspects some embarrassment this week because of Easter. But then the fools came out of the woodwork fast and furious.

Can we start with Senator Barack Obama? Obama’s long time close relationship with the worst embarrassment of a minister since… wowzers. I know the Left has been pointing to some doozies on the Right, but then we’ve heard it all before, haven’t we? How do they like it when we turn it around? Oh, not very much.

It’s not the close relationship with Reverend “God Damn America” Wright that gets the junior senator from the flatlands in trouble. No, it’s the claim he sat there for 20 years in the pews and only heard the good stuff, and then he threw grandma under the bus.

The moral of the story, Grandmas, don’t let your babies grow up to be senators.

Then there was State Representative Jason Fields (Democrat-Milwaukee). Fields was one of ten members of the state legislature who stabbed then-Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager in the back by urging Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk to run for the Democratic nomination. Lautenschlager was consider vulnerable due to a drunk driving conviction in a state car that led to all sorts of questions about her use of state vehicles.

How did that work out, Fields?

This week Fields was himself busted for DUI. Can you say, “irony?” I knew you could.

Fields avoids being the winner by not being stupid even when he was being stupid. He didn’t pull a DYKWIA, and he didn’t claim he was on his way to Madison on official business and therefore should be let go. Warning to legislators, when getting busted for DUI those attempted evasions will move you immediately to the top of the idiots list.

It’s a bi-partisan “idiot politician of the week” this week with State Senator Mary Lazich making a late entry into the contest. In the Small Business Times she claimed eighteen months on a committee studying the issue as credentials as an expert on the proposed Great Lakes Compact, but then turned around and complained the State Senate acted too hastily in passing it and that she didn’t know what the amendments did even two weeks later.

Mary Lazich is apparently not an Evelyn Woods graduate.

Wait a second, it’s a non-partisan contestant for first place! Falling just short is Judge Michael Gableman. If he loses the Supreme Court election to Justice Louis Butler, Gableman can point the finger of blame at an ad attacking Butler for defending a sex offender who then went on and offended again. Missing from the ad was the dull part of the story where Butler was unsuccessful in defending the criminal, the criminal went to jail, served his time, was released, and then decided to re-offend.

The Gableman campaign had to know the ad was going to be controversial and compared to the Willie Horton ad (it was). The campaign could’ve weathered that. But they omitted the most important details from the story that made it clear nothing that happened was Butler’s fault. Not surprisingly, Gableman got clubbed like a baby seal by both the left and the right. He then compounded the problem by getting into a dispute over releasing his e-mails with the Associated Press. It was not a good week for the judge.

But there’s something in the whitewater of Whitewater, WI, home to Police Chief James Coan and City Manager Kevin Brunner, that’s really detrimental to the collective IQ. Coan, with Brunner’s backing, is using taxpayer resources and the power of the police to pursue pseudonymous blogger John Adams, author of FreeWhitewater.com. In another community, Brunner and Coan would be thrown out of office for such behavior. That there isn’t a recall effort yet shows the need for more people in Whitewater to speak out and defend free speech. So while they may cling to their little fiefdom, Brunner and Coan have become laughingstocks in the rest of the state and this week’s Idiot Politicians of the Week.

Lori Luthor, mad (political) scientist

The Waukesha Common Council decided in last year's budget to cut the mayor's travel budget and organization membership budget. Included in the cut was his membership in the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Mayor Larry Nelson tells the Waukesha Freeman he didn't fight it at the time because of the difficulty in getting a budget passed. So he claims he asked the city administrator for a solution.

Administrator Lori Luthor told him to go around the city council and ask a department of the city, the Waukesha Water Commission, for $5,000.00.

It's kind of a novel solution when you think about it. When the top governing authority in the city decides the membership wasn't worth it, climb down the ladder and find a governing body underneath to cough up the cash. Heck in upside-down Waukesha where the mayor is asking the city administrator what he should do, this makes perfect sense. And think about it from our evil genius Lori Luthor's point of view. If she gets Mayor Larry out of town, she's in control of everything, de jure as well as de facto.

Unfortunately for the mayor and the city administrator, the Waukesha Water Commission decided -unanimously- they didn't want to catch trouble for authorizing money the common council already denied, especially when citizens are already complaining about the price of water in this town.

"If the commission doesn’t think it is right to do it, then I will have to go back and find the funding elsewhere." Next stop for the mayor, the Taj Ma Library.

Compact argument

State Senator Mary Lazich has an article in the Small Business Times that explains her vote against the Great Lakes Compact. Lazich gives two reasons: the speed with which the Senate passed it (with 33 amendments on the implementation) and the single-governor veto.

Lazich herself points out that she sat on a committee that looked at the proposed Great Lakes Compact for a year and a half as a way of demonstrating her expertise on the subject. After eighteen months even a slow reader should be able to cite every phrase and comma and footnote in the Compact. To complain about the number of amendments thrown in at the last minute is really to do herself a disservice. Surely Lazich could have turned to her colleagues as each amendment was introduced (even at lightning speed) and said which were the good, the bad and the ugly. That Lazich still cannot point to a single flaw in any of the amendments that would have been fatal to her support even two weeks after they were passed.

As for the single-governor veto, this is an issue which we've discussed here before. But Lazich helps my case, even as she argues against it.

To relinquish our sovereignty to a regional body of governors that can make changes after the compact is adopted is unacceptable. Where else do we have a dictatorial or totalitarian form of government where we give up our decision-making authority?

I do not support a document that relinquishes our sovereignty to another state.

Aside from the misuse of the terms "dictatorial or totalitarian", she does inadvertently find the key to the debate: no state will willingly yield it's sovereignty over the Great Lakes. But Lazich will have a hard convincing any state that it should yield such sovereignty to a majority vote, especially when under current federal law they already have absolute sovereignty - the veto power to which she objects. Does she think that Wisconsin will maintain an absolute veto, but that other states will yield theirs?

More importantly, why should Wisconsin want to yield it's power over diversions from the Great Lakes to a majority vote of other states?

Finally, after 18 months of committee time, two weeks after the vote, despite Lazich's assurance it is so, nobody has stepped forward and said what is so objectionable about the proposed compact that doesn't already exist in current law. Someone with the extensive time spent on this issue Lazich claims as the basis of her expertise should be able to find some flaw in the pact and articulate it, or else she should concede that she is opposed to any compact.

I'm going to need more hose

Owen Robinson celebrates the state assembly's failure to pass the Great Lakes Water Compact during the most recent session.

Good.

The Republican majority in the state Assembly tonight blocked an effort by Democrats to hold a vote on the Great Lakes compact.

There is no reason that Wisconsin should surrender its water policy to the neighboring states, who have no interest in Wisconsin’s well being.

I agree. Iowa should have absolutely no say in the water coming from Lake Michigan. Screw 'em.

However, since we kinda share the Great Lakes with a bunch of other states, we're kinda stuck with sharing the decision making. It's not like we can say we'll give this part of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior to Wisconsin, this part of Lake Superior to Minnesota, this part of the Great Lakes to Michigan, etc. It's one big interdependent freshwater system with the state of Michigan in the middle.

To mask this as an issue of a state's sovereignty over it's resources is just silly. (What are we going to do? "Fresh water or fight! Manifest Destiny for Wisconsin! Knock those UP'ers right in the lake!") Even if we could have Senator Mary Lazich's dream of no controlling authority over the lakes we would be faced with a long-term losing proposition. Doesn't anyone remember the "tragedy of the commons"? What do Lazich and Huebsch think is going to happen with unlimited straws in the drink?

Unfortunately for Lazich and Huebsch and Robinson and the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce, even if they could convince themselves some anarchic utopia is possible, current law won't allow it. D'oh!

Current law allows each state veto authority over any diversion from the lakes. Unlike what life would be under the compact, there would be no defined criteria for a diversion. There would be no process. It would be at the capricious whim of each of the Great Lakes governors. Don't trust Michigan now? Why would you feel better if they didn't have to justify their veto?

Now I'm not going to lose any sleep over the state assembly not taking up the Compact because there's going to be a special session, etc. And seriously, a couple of weeks or even a couple of months isn't going to make much difference except wear down the opposition. I suspect that some of the screams of partisanship about the Great Lakes Compact are really just partisan ploys themselves. (Republicans bad. Republicans want Great Lakes to be Arizona's bath tub. yadda yadda yadda.) Besides, a delay keeps Jim Rowen busy and out of trouble.

And in the meantime, Owen Robinson has promised everyone in Waukesha we can borrow some of his radium-free drinking water. We'll just need to run a hose to his house in West Bend and help ourselves to as much as we want. Who has got a Fleet Farm charge card to buy a really big hose?

Water torture

Darryl Enriquez and Stacy Forster take a look at the Great Lakes Water Compact as it makes it way to the state assembly. (ht: Spring City Chronicle)

The Senate version of the Great Lakes Water Compact that passed this week gives the state the leeway to grant permits and seek other governors' approval for some water diversions for counties such as Waukesha that straddle the Lake Michigan drainage basin.

The compact has been approved by the governors of eight Great Lakes states and is now making its way through the legislatures in those states. If approved by all eight, it would go to Congress for ratification.

The provision added to the Wisconsin Senate version of the legislation Thursday says that a water diversion to Waukesha County could be approved before Congress acts.

"Under the bill passed by the Senate, Waukesha could apply for Great Lakes water before the compact is ratified," DNR Deputy Secretary Pat Henderson said. "The bill lays out the criteria/standards it will have to meet and then the proposal will go for a vote by the governors."

For a project outside the drainage basin to go forward, it must be approved by all eight governors.

The article predicts the opposition will come from those opposed to the ability of a single governor to veto a diversion. For example, the Waukesha Chamber of Commerce:

Neighboring states like Michigan, which is almost entirely within the basin and wouldn't ever require a diversion, and Illinois, with its near-limitless 2.1 billion gallons per day court approved diversion ability via the Chicago River, would control the fate of straddling communities like the City of Waukesha as well as Stevens Point and Burlington," Patti Wallner, president of the Waukesha County Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.

However, nobody opposed to the proposed pact has answered how they expect to get around the single governor veto when that is already the current law? The Great Lakes Compact updates current federal law and creates a process for permitting diversions. Under current law there is no process for permitting diversions - no criteria for accepting or rejecting an application.

Yes, it's a flawed pact. Any pact that allows any single Great Lakes governor veto power is not ideal. However, sending the pact back for re-negotiations will not eliminate that provision. No governor is going to give up that power and it would not be in the best interests of their respective states to do so. All we would accomplish is delay of the city of Waukesha's best chance for a diversion of Lake Michigan water.

And as the bill stands now, there is even a provision that allows the City of Waukesha to begin the application process as soon as the compact is ratified by the states without waiting for congressional approval.

I think State Representative Bill Kramer is wrong on this issue, (although it looks like he's keeping an open mind) but here's his interview with the Waukesha Freeman.

The two biggest issues that I have, with the compact, is there’s language in there that talks about the water being in public trust. Dealing with courts and lawyers, the public trust doctrine has been in effect a lot in the western states, but there already are, from what I understand, groups lining up to sue on that issue to say that ground water is included in that. So even if Waukesha is not looking to divert water from the Great Lakes – and return it – we could then have just given our ability to sink a well, we may have to get an approval from those states as well. That’s the first issue. The biggest issue, though, is Waukesha right now, because of what the federal government and (Environmental Protection Agency) have determined, needs another source of water. I don’t feel comfortable allowing Waukesha’s ability to get water – the people who send me to Madison need water. I don’t feel comfortable abdicating my ability to get water for the residents of the city of Waukesha to a veto power to a governor in Michigan or Illinois that none of them would have a say in electing.

The problem is, no governor is going to give up the power to divert water from the Great Lakes to the other governors in the region. After all, each of them have constituents, too.

Yes, it has flaws

Dean takes a thoughtful look at the Great Lakes Compact and finds it flawed but ultimately necessary.

Meanwhile, the Spring City Chronicle takes on Mayor Larry Nelson for conspiring with Democrats to behave like Democrats. He also asks the not-so-fun question, what if?

The problem is, what if works both ways. If the pact fails, then we still have any governor can veto any diversion for any reason.

I understand all of the opposition to the pact and the desire for development. And yes, I'm afraid of skyrocketing water bills, although I think that will happen anyway. After all, any plan to return the water back to Lake Michigan is going to be expensive. But someone is going to have a hard time convincing me that going back to the drawing board is going to make things better.

For an opposing view,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Senator Ted Kanavas
March 6, 2008 (608) 266-9174
Kanavas Statement:
Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson Endorses Plan
That May Exclude Waukesha From Receiving Fresh Water
(Madison)…“This is not how we do things in Waukesha County.” said Senator Ted Kanavas (RBrookfield) after he learned about secret, closed door dealings between the Mayor of Waukesha and Senate Democrats who are trying to enact a version of the Great Lakes Water Compact that does very little to ensure that communities in Waukesha County will have access to drinking water in the future.

With a long tradition of broad cooperation on important issues facing Waukesha County, Waukesha County state legislators were frustrated by Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson’s lack of sound judgment after he kept legislators from Waukesha County out of the loop on private negotiations he had with Democrats in the Wisconsin State Senate.

“The Mayor made an incredibly important, non-partisan issue partisan,” said Senator Kanavas. “He decided to exclude Waukesha County legislators and negotiate with Senate Democrats, the Department of Natural Resources and Governor Doyle, to the detriment of everyone else in Waukesha County.

“The Mayor did not stop there. Before he even saw the final version of the bill, Mayor Nelson issued a statement endorsing a bill that fails to ensure the City of Waukesha will have long term access to fresh water. Democratic state senators waved the Mayor’s statement in the air during the Senate’s floor debate, using it as ammunition against Waukesha County legislators who were fighting for their constituents.

“The bill that Mayor Nelson endorsed will have a substantial impact on Waukesha County and the State of Wisconsin for the next two hundred years. Decisions about the future of Waukesha County should not be made behind closed doors, during private meetings, or during one day of debate on the floor of the State Senate, without even seeing the final version of the legislation.

“Protecting the Great Lakes is far too important to be given such short shrift. A decision of this magnitude should not be rushed through the State Senate without proper consideration. Mayor Nelson should be ashamed of himself for collaborating with the Senate Democrats to the detriment of his constituents and every other resident of Waukesha County.”

Chattanooga water

Atlanta is desperate for water. So desperate, they're talking about adjusting the Georgia/Tennessee state line so they can tap into the Tennessee River. Reminiscent of the tennis balls sent by the French to Henry V, the mayor of Chattanooga sent a truckload of bottled water to Atlanta and issued a proclamation:

WHEREAS, it has come to pass that the heavens are shut up and a drought of Biblical proportions has been visited upon the Southern United States, and

WHEREAS, the parched and dry conditions have weighed heavily upon the State of Georgia and sorely afflicted those who inhabit the Great City of Atlanta, and

WHEREAS, the leaders of Georgia have assembled like the Children of Israel in the desert, grumbled among themselves and have begun to cast longing eyes toward the north, coveting their neighbor’s assets, and

WHEREAS, the lack of water has led some misguided souls to seek more potent refreshment or for other reasons has resulted in irrational and outrageous actions seeking to move a long established and peaceful boundary, and

WHEREAS, it is deemed better to light a candle than curse the darkness, and better to offer a cool, wet kiss of friendship rather than face a hot and angry legislator gone mad from thirst, and

Whereas, it is feared that if today they come for our river, tomorrow they might come for our Jack Daniels or George Dickel,

NOW THEREFORE, In the interest of brotherly love, peace, friendship, mutual prosperity, citywide self promotion, political grandstanding and all that

I Ron Littlefield, Mayor of the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee,

Do hereby Proclaim that Wednesday, February 27, 2008 shall be known as

“Give Our Georgia Friends a Drink Day”

I hope nobody in the Town of Waukesha sees this.

Nelson's shades

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Darryl Enriquez questions the need for a closed session to hire Fred Abadi as the new public works director.

The problem is that he's supposed to be intervierwed by the council in closed session, and there's no notice on the agenda to reconvene into open session to formally hire him.

So, Mayor Larry Nelson said this aftrernoon that the vote would be taken in closed session. Abadi's hiring, if desired by the council, would then be announced by the mayor's office.

Nelson said it was a mistake that a reconvened open session was not put on the agenda.

If the interview was done in open session, and the closed session skipped altogether, there wouldn't be a problem.

But Nelson said he was following legal advice from the city attorney's office to conduct the council interview in closed session, where the public cannot hear the questions.

By mistake or design, an uncomfortable veil is hiding the government of the city from prying eyes. Last Autumn when the city administrator hiring process was being debated, the mayor objected to any attempt to make the process open, even objecting to aldermen not participating in the interviews from sitting in. The mayor is also fighting the release of an appraisal of land the city might purchase for the purpose of developing more wells, another request by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (Maybe someone will ask him about it on Thursday.)

During his campaign for mayor, the mayor handed out little bookmarks, "How To Build Community" with little sayings on it. Yes, I still have mine. One of the fortune cookie fillers, "Open your shades." Perhaps instead of asking the city attorney on advice on how to keep the shades closed, the mayor should be looking for excuses to open them.

Important breakfast discussion on water

I hope somebody takes good notes, or gets it on video. This Thursday there will be a panel discussion on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resource Compact at 7:30 AM at (where else?) the Country Springs Hotel. If you want Republicans to attend, it has to be at the Country Springs Hotel.

The forum, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Half Empty or Half Full - The Great Lakes Water Compact." The forum begins with a continental breakfast at 7 a.m. at the Country Springs Hotel, 2810 Golf Road.

The panel discussion will include Matt Moroney, executive director of the Metropolitan Builders Association; Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson; Peter McAvoy, vice president of environmental health, Sixteenth Street Community Health Center; and Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas. Journal Sentinel associate editorial page editor Ernst-Ulrich Franzen will moderate.

"The forum will help give the community expert opinion from business leaders, advocates and political leaders coming together to discuss the merits of the compact," said Patti Wallner, chamber president.

The compact has stirred debate about whether it will help or hinder Waukesha and other Waukesha County communities from obtaining Lake Michigan water for community use.

After a rousing discussion of water conservation and Waukesha's long-term water needs, everyone can cool off by splashing around in the water park.

Um, yeah.

Pretentious? Moi?

Concerning Mayor Nelson's remarks about the ostentation and pretentiousness of Brookfield and Delafield, I comment in this week's column that I don't think the mayor is anyone to talk,

...this is the same mayor who promotes the downtown Art Crawl and is the prime proponent of the luxury Clarke Hotel and The Black Trumpet restaurant. Hanging out with Robert Redford in Sundance, Colo., to discuss water conservation is not the activity of the ordinary proletariat. And last I checked, most people don’t visit the factory in Europe to see their new Saab come off the assembly line.

But I also add that I don't think an apology is in order:

After all, just what would he say? "You’re right, I forgot about the big ugly mall in Brookfield and the giant glop of retail stores right off the freeway in Delafield. There’s nothing ostentatious or pretentious about them. In fact, they’re really just common examples of suburban sprawl."

I tapped into my inner Jim Rowen for those lines.

A quick and somewhat related note on the news the Pabst Farm developer is getting cold feet, is this really a bad thing? I came late to the Pabst Farms issue and so have been reluctant to stick my nose into it, but it looks like to me the county just saved $1.75 million in freeway costs, we saved a few million gallons of water, and we aren't artificially subsidizing competition to the business districts in already existing areas (ya know, like downtown Waukesha). Take this land off the books as retail property and you've just made the existing retail property in the county that much more valuable.

It seems to me we've just been given a chance to re-think the entire idea, and we should take advantage.

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Gimme some water

Interesting look at the cost of water and the development in the west. I'm not so sure I believe we haven't passed the point of needing to stick a straw in Lake Michigan, but Jim Bouman thinks we can sustain what we have with the water we have if we don't develop further.

And what's the magic number? $360,000. Read his post and discover why.

(To: Chris Lufter, I know you already know the answer.)

Building a really big straw

I'm sorry I missed tonight's meeting in Waukesha about the shrinking water supply in the city. I understand it was very informative. Unfortunately, water in the future is not going to get any cheaper for residents:

The city plans to ask the state Public Service Commission to implement a new rate structure for residents that makes water consumption more expensive as more is consumed, he said. Now the cost of water use becomes cheaper as use increases.

Duchniak said residential rates are being targeted because they account for 76% of the nearly 3 billion gallons of water the utility taps each year.

No word yet if we'll get a discount if we choose the radium enriched water. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reports we're determined to get that good Lake Michigan water:

Duchniak's presentation culminated with an outline of the city's interest in obtaining a new supply of water from Lake Michigan. He discussed the likely need to return 100% of used and treated Great Lakes water to the lake through a tributary, such as the Root River.

Using and returning Lake Michigan water is the most environmentally sound solution to Waukesha's water needs because it would have no impact on lake levels, he said.

The amount sought by the city - about 22 million gallons a day - is the amount of water that evaporates from Lake Michigan in 30 seconds, he said.

However, not discussed at tonight's meeting was how science may have found a solution to the water crisis: an Arctic Ocean sized water resevoir in the Earth's mantle.

Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, working with former graduate student Jesse Lawrence (now at the University of California, San Diego), analyzed 80,000 shear waves from more than 600,000 seismograms and found a large area in Earth's lower mantle beneath eastern Asia where water is damping out, or attenuating, seismic waves from earthquakes.

The bad news is that we'll have to fight the Mole Men to get it.