Clean Wisconsin Defender, Winter 2014

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Defender

Winter 2014

Waukesha’s application for Lake Michigan water under scrutiny

We are seated at the crossroads of history for the Great Lakes. In October, the City of Waukesha filed a revised application to replace its groundwater sources of drinking water with water from Lake Michigan. This marks the first substantive test of the protective standards of the Great Lakes Compact and its general ban on diverting water outside the Great Lakes Basin. What happens here will set a precedent as to how these treasured waters can be used in the future in Wisconsin, other Great Lakes states and Canada’s Great Lakes provinces. At a time when Lake Michigan needs the support of everyone who cares about or has a stake in our Great Lakes, nearly 3,700 of you answered an important call to action by filing comments with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) on Waukesha’s application. Your voice underscored its key deficiencies, and your effort was loud and heard as elected officials, academics, water experts, environmental groups and other concerned members of the public all came forward. With many voices and much skepticism at both the local and national level, everyone almost uniformly arrived at the same conclusion: Waukesha’s application does not meet the protective standards of the Great Lakes Compact and cannot be approved as drafted.

wejoinbelieve everyone us: deserves clean water and clean air

OUR WATER, OUR LAKE MICHIGAN

By Clean Wisconsin Staff

continued on page 5

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THE GTAC SAGA CONTINUES... By Clean Wisconsin Staff

Also in this issue

Since Gogebic Taconite (GTAC) arrived in Wisconsin three years ago, the company has run roughshod over Wisconsin’s tradition of strong environmental protection, citizen involvement and open government. And the last three months are no exception. In mid-January, a DNR report identifying the potential environmental risks of mining was made public and instead of GTAC using it as an opportunity to demonstrate how it planned to address those risks, GTAC called the report “protester language” and accused the DNR of being “anti-mining.” GTAC followed up those comments with a letter to DNR refusing to answer any more questions about its bulk sampling operation, asserting that the new mining law doesn’t require the company to provide that information. This is particularly concerning as DNR and independent scientists have positively identified sulfides and asbestiform materials in the mine area. GTAC’s proposed mine has the potential to produce acid mine drainage, pollute our lakes, rivers and continued on page 9

The Central Sands & the fight for groundwater | Legal Updates


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