BY ERIC WOLFF, Politico Morning Energy

WAUKESHA’S GREAT LAKES EFFECT: The Great Lakes Compact, a bipartisan, collaborative agreement that largely blocks diversions of Great Lakes water, will be tested today when eight states gather to decide if Waukesha, Wisc. can start pumping from Lake Michigan. As Pro’s Annie Snider reports, the compact forbids diversions from the Great Lakes under most circumstances, but it allows for narrow exceptions for areas that straddle the Great Lakes Basin. Waukesha’s water is tainted with radium, and since it located in Waukesha County, which extends into the basin, the city became the first major test of the compact’s diversion provisions.

“The Great Lakes compact is one of the last bastions of bipartisanship left in the United States of America, so this is going to be a really big test of whether this document that was designed to take politics out of water will be successful,” said Peter Annin, co-director of the Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation at Northland College and author of “Great Lakes Water Wars.” To read full article.