A local lawmaker is among those who think it's OK that a legislative committee has disbanded after failing to reach agreement on a bill to ratify the crucial Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.

Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Allouez, says committee chairman Sen. Neal Kedzie, R-Elkhorn, made the right move because the panel's work to date "was not going to be a good thing for sustainability of the Great Lakes."

This is not to say Wisconsin's participation in the Great Lakes Compact is not essential. Ann Sayers, program director of the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, summed it up well in a recent interview with the Press-Gazette: "This is the discussion of: Will thirsty states like Arizona and New Mexico be able to come to Wisconsin and take our Great Lakes water to solve their own water shortages?"

Framed in those terms, it seems astounding that the committee was unable to draft legislation to approve the Compact. But many committee members weren't framing the issue in those terms.

Cowles notes that about eight of the 19 members had strong ties to Waukesha, a community with an interest in tapping the lake's water. The problem with that is, unlike municipalities like Green Bay where water taken from the lake drains back into the system, Waukesha is outside the Lake Michigan watershed, tapping its water from a deep aquifer under Southeastern Wisconsin.

In other words, diverting Lake Michigan water to Waukesha may be easier than sending it to Arizona, but it would have the same negative effect on the lake's long-term health. That's not how the folks in Waukesha see it, though, and having 42 percent of the committee come from that neighborhood probably worked against a solution that's good for Lake Michigan.

It's especially important now to preserve Great Lakes water because the lakes are approaching all-time low levels. Lake Michigan water levels are currently within a foot of the minimum set in September 1964, and Lake Superior will set a new record low if the current level is maintained for the rest of the month, according to measurements by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Compact creates a framework for Great Lakes states "to act together to protect, restore, improve and effectively manage the waters and water-dependent natural resources" of the Great Lakes Basin. The task of drafting ratification legislation now falls to a working group created by Gov. Jim Doyle.

"It's critical that we pass this Great Lakes Compact to make sure that Wisconsin maintains control of its water resources and that we continue to use our water resources in a way that is efficient and conserves them," Sayers told us. We couldn't put it better.