Annexation Deadline Looms for Municipal Water Requests

The Town of Waukesha has finally made a decision on whether it wants to be included in the city’s future water service area after two years of deliberations.

While the town board months ago ruled that it only wanted properties north of Highway 164 and east of Meadowbrook Road included in the city’s future water service area, it confirmed its decision after new board members were elected in April.

The move sets the stage for more annexation requests. More than 300 acres of town land have been annexed already, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and requests are expected. Property owners representing more than 1,000 acres of land are prepared to annex into the city if the properties are not included in the future water service area, Town Chairman John Marek told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in April.

The Waukesha School District has already annexed a property into the city that could be used to build a future school. School leaders were unwilling to remain in the town without access to municipal water at the property that represented a $1.4 million investment.

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The city needs to move forward in its quest for Great Lakes water as it has just over five years to meet a June 2018 deadline to remove radium from its water supply. The city is seeking Lake Michigan water from Oak Creek as a way to address both a declining water quality and a declining water quantity from its groundwater resources.

Property owners in the Town of Waukesha that want to be included in the city’s future water service area need to request to annex into Waukesha by May 20, according to a news release from the Waukesha Water Utility.

 “At this point, as the city has previously made clear, we must proceed with our application with only limited areas of the town included in the water supply and sewer service area,” said City Administrator Ed Henschel in the release.

Property owners, under the original water service area that included the Town of Waukesha, would have had to request the municipal connection and the city wouldn’t have been able to force city water on the town residents who still use private wells. However, now town residents will not have that option if wells dry up, become damaged or have high levels of arsenics.

The town was asking for payments for properties that annexed into the city that would continue forever if it were to include the entire town in the city’s future water service area. Waukesha was unwilling to meet those demands, Henschel said. The city was willing to pay a fixed payment for 20 years to the town for annexed properties if the entire town was included in the water service area.

“Once a property is annexed, responsibility for services to properties – and the costs of these services – is shifted to the city,” Henschel said. “There is no justification for such payments or for shifting such costs onto other city property taxpayers. The city had already accepted a revenue-sharing agreement that was more than reasonable if the town was included in the water service area.”