Updated: Lake Michigan water in Waukesha closer to reality as tower’s construction completes

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By Ethan Duran and Steve Schuter
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Waukesha’s newly raised water tower is near completion as part of a massive 35-mile, $286 million pipeline project connecting the west suburban community to Lake Michigan’s water supply.

Once the project is complete, Waukesha residents should expect their water bills to double, officials said during an interview Thursday with The Daily Reporter.

Kevin Lahner, Waukesha City Administrator, tells The Daily Reporter that the city has already begun to raise water bill prices. However, some Waukesha residents say the cost is worth it.

“Clean drinking water is one of the most important things in life … whatever it costs is what we should pay,” Chalene Sabino, a lifelong Waukesha resident, said during an interview with The Daily Reporter.

Waukesha needs to connect to Lake Michigan’s water supply for two reasons, according to Waukesha Officials.

“One (reason is) the radium. We have a radium contamination problem within the water source for the city. The other reason is the for the replenishment of the aquifer,” said Lahner.

As previously reported by The Daily Reporter, Waukesha’s water supply exceeds federal health guidelines for Radium, which is a naturally occurring radioactive carcinogen. The levels became so unsafe, it had been subject litigation.

Sabino says the water quality in Waukesha has been so bad for so many years that her family drives out to Parry Spring in Oconomowoc to fill up on water for drinking and cooking.

Officials expect the project to come in under budget and on time, wrapping up in August of 2023, just before a court-ordered deadline of September of 2023. Waukesha Water Utility officials say the project took years of planning and the latest addition of the tower is symbolic.

“The tower is symbolic of the greater project rising from the bottom to the top,” Dan Duchniak Waukesha Water Utility General Manager said, noting that the project started in 2020 and took more than five years of planning with approval from a Great Lakes coalition.

On Tuesday, it took more than four hours for crews to raise the 1-million-gallon storage tank to the top of a concrete column near the Waukesha Booster Pump Station. The station is located next to the New Berlin city limits on East Broadway and Les Paul Parkway in Waukesha.

The project involves five contracts: An 11-mile water supply pipeline, a new booster pump station at 76th Street and Oklahoma Avenue in Milwaukee, two 8.6-million-gallon reservoirs and booster pump station where the water tower stands, improvements for phosphorus removal processes at Waukesha’s clean water plant and a 24-mile double return flow pipeline project alongside Interstate 43 returning water to the lake.

A final contract introduced a common corridor pipeline project providing both return flow and water supply in the same corridor running up Racine Avenue to Les Paul Parkway and the booster pump station on Broadway, Duchniak said.

Waukesha is approved to use up to 8.2 million gallons of water per day, but when the project starts out it will be close to an average of 6 million gallons daily, the general manager added.

“We will be returning all that water to the Great Lakes through the river. So, I believe we’ve become one of Milwaukee’s largest customers immediately,” Duchniak said.

The pipeline comes in as Wisconsin elected officials pushed legislation for healthy drinking water and grants for water testing and treatment for those living in rural areas.

On Wednesday, U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the bipartisan Healthy Drinking Water Affordability Act, or The Healthy H2O Act, to provide grants for water testing and treatment technology directly to individuals and non-profits in rural communities.

Currently, nearly 43 million households, primarily in rural communities, rely exclusively on groundwater delivered through private wells for their drinking water, according to Baldwin.

“Currently, these sources are not subject to the same oversight and testing for contamination of public water sources. Water quality improvement systems installed at the faucet or within a building can provide immediate and ongoing protection from known and emerging water contaminants, like PFAS, lead and nitrates,” Baldwin said in a statement.

“Regardless of where you live, every Wisconsinite deserves access to clean drinking water and an environment free of toxic chemicals. Across our state, many rural and smaller communities are struggling to identify, treat, and get rid of emerging chemicals that endanger our health, especially that of our children,” said Senator Baldwin.

Across the United States and in Wisconsin, communities face threats to their drinking water from a number of contaminants, including lead, arsenic, nitrates, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PFOA, PFOS, hexavalent chromium-6, and others, according to Baldwin.

“I am excited to partner with my Republican colleague to introduce legislation that will cut costs and expand access to water testing and treatment for families in rural communities so that when they turn on the faucet, they can be confident our drinking water is safe,” Baldwin added.

Waukesha’s stretch to Lake Michigan started with an order from the Waukesha County Circuit Court, Duchniak said. The Wisconsin Department of Justice pushed for the consent order for the city to comply with state level standards for radium in the drinking water.

The city currently gets its water from a major aquifer stretching from northeastern Illinois to Green Bay which has seen years of overuse, Duchniak said. When the city draws from a cone of depression, it uses older water soaking up rocks with naturally occurring radium. The water utility found radium levels were three times higher than the standard.

It’s likely other communities will push for similar Great Lakes pipeline projects in the future as the aquifer is used, Duchniak said. Waukesha had to get unanimous approval from all eight Great Lakes states and get input from Canadian provinces Quebec and Ontario. The city was eligible because Waukesha County straddles the Lake Michigan basin and is under specific requirements to return 100% of the water it uses to Lake Michigan.

“Getting into the position where you’re recycling and reusing the water, you’re not doing any harm to the Great Lakes and having a sustainable water supply for many centuries to come,” Duchniak said.

Butler-based Mid City Corporation, Menomonee Falls-based Super Excavators, SJ Louis Construction and Milwaukee-based C.D. Smith worked on different parts of the project.

It’s likely other communities will push for similar Great Lakes pipeline projects in the future as the aquifer is used, Duchniak said. Waukesha had to get unanimous approval from all eight Great Lakes states and get input from Canadian provinces Quebec and Ontario. The city was eligible because Waukesha County straddles the Lake Michigan basin and is under specific requirements to return 100% of the water it uses to Lake Michigan.

“Getting into the position where you’re recycling and reusing the water, you’re not doing any harm to the Great Lakes and having a sustainable water supply for many centuries to come,” Duchniak said.

Butler-based Mid City Corporation, Menomonee Falls-based Super Excavators, SJ Louis Construction and Milwaukee-based C.D. Smith worked on different parts of the project.

@DailyReporter talks to Waukesha city officials and residents about the water supply transition to Lake Michigan water. #waukesha #lakemichigan pic.twitter.com/iCgZNMxznY

— Ethan Duran (@duranethanj) March 16, 2023