Racine Mayor Won't Rule Out Lawsuit to Halt Waukesha Water

WAUKESHA — A committee of representatives from 10 Great Lakes states and Canadian provinces is meeting in Chicago this week to work on finalizing Waukesha's plan to pipe in drinking water from Lake Michigan, according to an NPR report.

Racine Mayor John Dickert is not happy about Waukesha's plan to return about 8 million gallons of treated wastewater to the lake by sending it down the Root River through Racine.

According to NPR's report, even if the plan gains momentum amongst participating public officials, Racine Mayor John Dickert won't rule out a lawsuit to halt the plan. Dickert said he'll do everything he can to protect his city, and its river.

State Rep. Cory Mason (D-Racine) is an outspoken critic of the plan, which he said will threaten the health of the river and undermine many of the area revitalization efforts that are happening along the river in the Racine area. His position has been consistent with this news release he issued back in 2012, when he indicated 'Racine's Root River Is Not Waukesha's Toilet'

While Racine officials raise concerns over what will happen to the Root River water quality if such a plan were to be enacted, Waukesha Water Utility general manager Dan Duchniak told NPR the treated water his city would pipe to the Root at a pumping station in Franklin would not harm Racine's economic development.

''There's going to be no partially treated sewage, no raw sewage that's going to be going down the Root River," he said to NPR. "The only water that can make it to the return flow pump station is fully treated wastewater effluent that would be of the highest quality."

This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.Attribution: José Manuel Suárez

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