For Immediate Release
April 13, 2010

For more information, contact:

Jodi Habush Sinykin, Of Counsel, Midwest Environmental Advocates (414) 507-0004
Peter McAvoy, Sixteenth Street Community Health Center (414) 385-3746

Shoddy New Berlin Compliance A Foreshadowing of Worse to Come?

NEW BERLIN—The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources gave notice to the City of New Berlin that the city had failed to meet its commitments under the terms of the Lake Michigan Diversion Approval it was granted last year, on May 21, 2009.   The City of New Berlin was the first community within any of the eight Great Lakes states to receive approval for a diversion under the historic Great Lakes Water Resources Compact enacted December 8, 2008. 

In a letter to Mayor Jack Chiovatero, DNR Water Use Section Chief Eric Ebersberger stated that the information which the City of New Berlin was required to submit in order to comply with the Diversion Approval was “either missing or incomplete.”

The City of New Berlin was provided an additional 30 days, from receipt of the Wisconsin DNR’s letter dated March 30, 2010, to provide the required information called for under the terms of the Diversion Approval, to include reporting on:

• Water quantities sold within the city limits and within the approved diversion area;
• Water amount diverted to the diversion area on a monthly basis;
• Water quantity pumped from municipal wells; and
• Estimates of sewerage return flow by category.

“The City of New Berlin’s failure to meet the terms of its Diversion Approval is actually not a first for the city,” explains Attorney Jodi Habush Sinykin, Of Counsel to Midwest Environmental Advocates, Wisconsin’s only non-profit environmental law center, “as New Berlin was five months late on an earlier required dead-line to provide details on its Water Conservation Program.” 

Although New Berlin was required to submit additional water conservation information by August 21, 2009, the City did not, in fact, comply until January 12, 2010. 

As stated by New Berlin citizen, Mary Hiebl, “The way that New Berlin is handling its commitments under the Compact comes as no surprise; from the city’s initial sub-par submission until now, documents have been mediocre or incomplete.  Still, I had hoped for better.”

The City of New Berlin’s poor compliance has local and regional conservation and environmental advocates concerned, especially with the City of Waukesha’s water diversion application so close at hand.

Peter McAvoy, Vice President for Environmental Health at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, adds, “The City of New Berlin’s continuing disregard of the terms of its Diversion Approval highlights the importance of long-term vigilance with respect to communities granted water diversions under the Great Lakes Compact.  Others in the region considering diversion requests, such as the City of Waukesha, should take heed of the Compact’s long-term, far reaching reporting, monitoring and compliance obligations.  In Waukesha’s case, all eight Great Lakes States and two Canadian Provinces will have a say in tracking the city’s diversion application and any conditions attached to it.”

Others around the Great Lakes region find New Berlin’s failure equally troubling.  Ed Glatfelter, Director of Water Conservation Programs for the Alliance for the Great Lakes, adds, “Communities, like the City of New Berlin, seeking diversions under the Great Lakes Compact should know that they have a duty to comply with the law in its entirety and honor their long-term commitments under any diversion approval granted.”

 “The passage of the Great Lakes Compact is an incredible achievement for Wisconsin and our Great Lakes region as a whole,” Habush Sinykin observes, “Wisconsin DNR is doing its job—and doing it well—holding the City of New Berlin accountable to the terms of its Diversion Approval.”

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