Recently the Village of Pleasant Prairie has been under some scrutiny resulting from the promotion of Peter Annin’s recently re-released book, “The Great Lake Wars.”
In the late 1980’s, when Pleasant Prairie began to evaluate water provision throughout the municipality it was discovered that the underground water system was contaminated with radium. The Village sought approval to use Lake Michigan as the Village’s water source. Half of the Village is in the Lake Michigan water basin and the other half is in the Mississippi River water basin, which required the Village to approach the Great Lakes Governor’s Council for water diversion. Under the Water Resources Development Act, the Village was approved to draw 3.2 million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan through the Kenosha Water Utility. This agreement was conditional on the Village decommissioning water treatment plants in the Mississippi River basin and directing all waste water to be recycled and returned to Lake Michigan through the Kenosha Water Utility by 2010. The Village complied with this condition, and currently operates a closed system, meaning that technically little to no water is truly diverted because it is returned to the Great Lakes basin via the Kenosha Treatment facility.
In 2010 the Great Lakes Compact became the new governing law for water diversion. During this time the Village of Pleasant Prairie was experiencing significant development. To meet the future capacity of economic development, Pleasant Prairie took this opportunity to request from the State an increase in the permitted water supply. The justification for this request was based on the Wisconsin Public Service Commission’s requirements for the Village to design and build infrastructure to meet future demand and capacity.
“It doesn’t make sense to oversize infrastructure, but then restrict the supply on the actual water we can provide in that system,” stated Village Administrator, Nathan Thiel, “So having those conversations with the State, the bar was set at 10.69 million gallons per day, even though the system could handle approximately 18 million.”
In granting the increase the State complied with the laws. The Village has been compared to more recent diversion requests like Waukesha and Foxconn; however, it is important to remember the Village’s:
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Original permit and conditions predates these developments by several decades,
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Territory straddles the Mississippi River and Great Lakes divide, and
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System is closed and all wastewater is recycled and returned back into Lake Michigan.
Today, the Village’s average water use is 2.7 million gallons per day and peak usage is 5.7 million gallons per day. As more businesses develops and neighborhoods expand in Pleasant Prairie, more water will be used.
“The Village believes in water conservation and prides itself on smart and sustainable growth,” said Thiel, “It is unfortunate that the definition of diversion is being unfairly misapplied on the Village given our balanced approach.”