Even this winter's heavy snows did not bring the Great Lakes back to their historic average depths, as a warming climate increases evaporation.

Lower lake levels mean navigation troubles and lighter, less-profitable loads for shippers, heightening the need for coordinated efforts to maintain the waters' quality and quantity.

And despite the growing awareness across the region, and certainly worldwide, that all water is absolutely precious, radical Republicans carrying political water for business interests in Waukesha County, with allies in the conservative fringes in the Ohio legislature, are blocking an eight-state water conservation agreement for Great Lakes management.

What they want are Great Lakes diversions with few standards and controls, even though four of the eight Great Lakes staes have approved the agreement - - known as the Great Lakes Compact - - and further delay could easily kill it.

Details here.

Waukesha County GOP legislative leaders act out, and act badly, when a bi-partisan water conservation measure doesn't go their way in the State Senate.

Since one of their major complaints is that the measure jeopardizes their sense of sovereignty, perhaps they should consider seceding from Wisconsin, and setting up the 51st state, Exceptionalonia, just for special people.  

Two states have fully-approved The Great Lakes compact, two more states' legislatures have passed it and bills are on their Governors' desks, so with four states left to finish off this seven-year process, what is happening in Wisconsin?

On Thursday, the day a bill finally was produced for legislators at the State Capitol for an informational hearing, Assembly Republican leaders announced they wanted the whole package sent back to the eight Great Lakes states for more negotiating.

In other words, death by tabling.

Now there's regional cooperation and bi-partisanship for you, and also some dangerous messing around with the Great Lakes for narrow and partisan purposes.

Details here.

When you don't like an agreement, see if you can change the wording after all parties signed on, and also agreed to making no major changes.

That's what Waukesha wants to do with the eight-state Great Lakes Compact - - toss out its major decision-making standard.

That's so Waukesha can get more water, or so it thinks.

Similar thing happening in Georgia.

Legislators there want to change the boundary with Tennessee, so Tennessee water becomes Georgia water.

If these jurisdictions were talking conservation and sustainable planning and development, none of these tricks would even be open for discussion.

Details here.

Wisconsin business leaders keep undermining the Great Lakes Compact, since it hasn't been written solely with their narrow interests in mind.

Public citizens they are not, as Yoda might phrase it.

Details here.

In the last few weeks, a coalition of elected officials in Milwaukee County, along with a separate action by Milwaukee's Common Council, approved strong resolutions of support for the Great Lakes Compact.

The Compact is an agreement among the eight Great Lakes states to establish diversion rules, conservation standards and legal processes to preserve this precious regional fresh water system.

The Madison Capital Times editorially amplified these growing calls for action by urging the state legislature to approve and implement the Compact.

The Cap Times editorial was an unusually strong statement: details here.

Dave Dempsey is one of the Great Lakes most credible, prolific writers and activists, and he thinks the Wisconsin DNR is treading on thin ice if it thinks it can approve a diversion of Lake Michigan water to New Berlin without the approval of all eight Great Lakes states.

As others, including then-Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlater have pointed out, it's a matter of federal law.

Details here.

I detail here, using Wisconsin's open records law, how the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources argues that a 21-year-old federal statute controlling how water can be diverted from the Great Lakes doesn't necessarily apply to the agency.

To make matters worse, major media in Wisconsin will not disclose a lengthy Wisconsin Attorney General opinion that documents just how and why the law does apply to Wisconsin. 

Two years ago this December, the Great Lakes governors and Canadian premiers met in Milwaukee and agreed to a Compact to manage the Great Lakes. Two years later, Wisconsin doesn't even have a draft bill on the table,

And in December of 2006, Wisconsin's Attorney General warned state agencies like the DNR that it could not approve a diversion of Great Lakes water to a city like New Berlin or Waukesha without the approval of all the other Great Lakes states, according to a federal law.

The DNR is dismissive of the opinion, and major media in the state will not report it.

So here's more information about both the legislative and media failures to protect the Great Lakes. Some legacy for Wisconsin.

Wisconsin hosted a Great Lakes governors' energy summit this week that produced lofty promises to coordinate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

A few hours later, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation released the schedule to spend a record-setting $1.9 billion to add another north-south traffic lane on I-94 between the Mitchell interchange near the airport for 35 miles south to the Illinois state line.

So we're inducing more driving at a time of record oil prices, knowing that driving releases greenhouse gases?

And we're spending this money on highway expansion based on gasoline costing $2.30 a gallon, when today's price is more than 25% higher and only going higher?

And the funding sources for this giant sop to road-builders aren't even nailed down, as Gretchen Schuldt points out on her blog?

These contradictions make a mockery of the Governors' energy summit and the state's commitment to sound fiscal and environmental stewardship.