Great Lakes mayors lobbying governors and premiers against Waukesha proposal →
The London Free Press, February 22, 2016
Author: Barbara Simpson
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley is calling on the Ontario government to make waves about a controversial Wisconsin proposal to tap into the Great Lakes' water supply.
The City of Waukesha – a Milwaukee bedroom community with a population similar in size to Sarnia – hopes to start diverting 38 million litres of water daily from Lake Michigan via pipeline for its own use. The same volume of treated wastewater would then be pumped back into the Root River in southeastern Wisconsin and head back out to Lake Michigan.
Proponents of the plan say it's a necessary move in light of Waukesha's current sources of water containing high levels of radium.
But mayors across the Great Lakes are panning the plan out of fear over the potential impacts to both water levels and water quality.
“We treat the Great Lakes as a toilet bowl,” said Bradley, who wrote a letter on the proposal to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne last week.