Please join the River Alliance of Wisconsin on February 10, 2009 as we host the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival On Tour, sponsored by Patagonia. Local sponsors include Home Savings Bank, Fontana Sports, and Trek Bicycles of Madison. Beginning at 7pm and taking place at the Majestic Theatre in Madison, the event will include four films from the 2009 Festival, a post-screening reception catered by The Roman Candle, a prize raffle featuring Patagonia gear, and a special appearance by Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton. Tickets are $10 for the screening and $25 for the screening and reception. As a special bonus, all $25 ticket buyers automatically become members of the River Alliance of Wisconsin! Tickets will be available at both Madison-area Fontana Sports stores and the River Alliance office beginning January 15th and at the Majestic Theatre box office on the night of the event. For more information, call Megan Gibson at 608-257-2424 ext. 116.
Waukesha prepares its pitch for Lake Michigan water
After a jolting several-month ride through the Wisconsin legislature, the Great Lakes Compact got through Congress with meteoric speed, and was signed by President Bush in October.
The Compact officially took effect December 8, but the city of Waukesha has reinvigorated its campaign, underway for years, to get Lake Michigan water. The city wants to replace the radium-tainted groundwater it is now using, but also, presumably, to supply its expanding population – an expansion that isn’t possible without more water.
The Compact requires any entity removing Great Lakes water from the basin (watershed) – and the city of Waukesha is outside that basin – to essentially put the water back in the Great Lake whence it came. Short of building a pipe from Waukesha all the way to Lake Michigan that would return treated sewage to the lake, Waukesha would have to return that sewage via a river. Its river of choice, for the moment, is Underwood Creek, which flows to the Menomonee River.
That choice, among a score of other issues, has generated lots of questions from observers of Waukesha’s request to divert Lake Michigan water out of its basin. The City of Waukesha needs a permit from the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources to make this diversion, and must also have the unanimous consent of the seven other Great Lakes states.
Several conservation groups that pushed passage of the Great Lakes Compact, including the River Alliance, are now actively scrutinizing the Waukesha diversion proposal. The city’s proposal to simply take water from Lake Michigan, use it, and put it back where it came from seems like a sensible cycling of water – more sensible, on its face, than the more typical water use here in Wisconsin of taking it from the groundwater and flushing it down a river to the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, questions abound.
The public conversation starts next Tuesday, at the Waukesha City Council’s public forum on Great Lakes water. We will keep you apprised of developments on what will be precedent-setting water policy.
Honoring a River and a Man
re preservation of Wisconsin’s most pristine rivers in a natural, free-flowing state. When the law was passed in 1965 (unanimously!), the Pike, Popple and Pine Rivers in northeast Wisconsin were given this special recognition, but no rivers have been designated Wild since then.
The Brunsweiler traverses land once owned by Martin Hanson and donated to become part of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The river flows past Martin’s long-time home near Mellen, where legend has it grand ideas such as forever preserving the Apostle Islands and reintroducing Elk to Wisconsin were first hatched. It is fitting that the first river in 44 years to be provided this special recognition should be Martin’s, and we hope this will be the first of many more in coming years. For more information about Martin Hanson’s remarkable contributions to conservation in Wisconsin, click here. To support the Wild River designation for the Brunsweiler River, call your legislator and ask them to co-sponsor LRB0143/1 and vote for its passage.
Joining the River Alliance is Now Even Easier!
Would you like increase your support of the River Alliance, while making a positive environmental impact? Have you wanted to help save Wisconsin’s rivers, but found it difficult to afford a single, larger gift? Then consider making a recurring monthly or quarterly donation today.Recurring donations are a great way to spread your gift out while increasing its size and impact. And they reduce the overall amount of mail you receive from the River Alliance, because there’s no need for us to send you renewal notices. You’re a member as long as your donation is active.
When you contribute to the River Alliance, you become a partner in protecting and preserving Wisconsin’s beautiful flowing waters. Your support—and that of nearly 3000 others like you—allows us to make sure our fresh water resources get the attention they deserve. Without your commitment, we wouldn't be able to help restore rivers around the state, work to battle aquatic invasive species that threaten our fresh water resources, or help local watershed groups be even more effective in protecting the waters that run through their communities.
Go to our DonateNow page to set up your gift today. Simply select “I want to make a recurring donation…”, then fill out the simple form. Your gift will automatically begin one month from the day you set it up. Make a monthly gift of $10 or more*, and we’ll remove your name from our quarterly appeal mailing list for the duration of your commitment!
*If a recurring gift is canceled, the donor’s name will automatically be restored to the quarterly mailing list.
In This Issue
Wild and Scenic
Waukesha Water Woes
Wild River
Join the River Alliance!
Read the latest issue of our quarterly print newsletter
