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Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Saturday, May 17, 2008

Great Lakes Compact will help conserve valuable regional resource

By La Crosse Tribune Editorial Board

If you want to know why the Great Lakes Compact — approved by both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature this week — is so important, consider some comments from some of its supporters.

The compact, which has been ratified by most Great Lakes states, protects lake water from large-scale diversions and helps promote the conservation of water.

Wisconsin legislators ratified the compact after coming to a compromise between Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans worried some aspects of the plan would discourage development, and the Republican-controlled Assembly would not consider the plan after it was passed by the Senate.

There were negotiations, and some changes to the way the compact will be implemented. But the original agreement remains intact.

Rep. Scott Gunderson, a Waterford Republican who was instrumental in the negotiations, said, “We’ve got something that will protect the Great Lakes for generations to come. Sometimes you’ve just got to sit back, take a breath, do our work and communicate, and when we do that we come up with historic legislation as we have today.”

Anne Sayers, an official with the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, said, “The fact that we have 20 percent of the world’s fresh water sitting in the Great Lakes has not gone unnoticed by other thirsty states.”

While the compact would prevent diversions of water outside the Great Lakes Basin, it would allow exceptions for cases in which communities are on the border.

Waukesha and New Berlin, for example, have wanted to use water from Lake Michigan as the source for their communities. Under the agreement approved by the Legislature, they would be able to do that if they returned treated wastewater to the lake.

Water is important to the life of communities. Just ask anyone who lives in California or the mountain West, where they are subject to wildfires and water shortages.

Approving the Great Lakes Compact — and working with other surrounding states — is the way Wisconsin can help promote wise use of this important resource.