As Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Tuesday held a press conference proclaiming the unanimous approval of the Great Lakes Compact members to allow the city of Waukesha to pump over eight million gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan, a Northland College expert on Great Lake Water issues says that the action will have only a very limited impact on policies governing Great Lakes water withdrawals.

Peter Annin, Co-Director of the Northland College Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation, said the event nevertheless was “an enormously historical event.”

Annin, who is also the author of “Great Lakes Water Wars,” which has been called the definitive work on the Great Lakes water diversion controversy, said Waukesha’s application to take water from Lake Michigan was the first test case of its kind on the Great Lakes since the Great Lakes Compact was approved by Congress in 2008.

“It was extraordinarily controversial throughout the Great Lakes,” he said of Waukesha’s application. “Environmental organizations were pretty unanimous in their opposition to the application. So was the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Cities Initiative.” To read full article.