Foxconn water use would not require approval of eight Great Lakes states

At Tuesday's legislative hearing on Wisconsin's incentive package for Foxconn Technology Group, a Department of Natural Resources official raised the possibility the company's massive water use might require approval by the other Great Lakes states.

But later an attorney for the agency said no such approval is expected to be needed. 

Deputy DNR Secretary Secretary Kurt Thiede appeared at the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee in Sturtevant and responded to a question from Sen. Jon Erpenbach, a Democrat, about legal requirements for water use from Lake Michigan.

Thiede said approval from other states might be required under the Great Lakes Compact.

DNR attorney Eric Ebersberger, who was at the hearing in Sturtevant, clarified Thiede's remarks.

Ebersberger said the eight Great Lakes states and the provinces of Quebec and Ontario could review water use if Foxconn could not return an average of 5 million gallons of water a day over a 90-day period to the basin. 

But he said there was no requirement for multi-state approval.

Foxconn is expected to use millions of gallons of water a day to make liquid crystal display panels. The company is considering locating a manufacturing plant in a community in either Racine or Kenosha county. 

Racine or Kenosha would not need approval of the eight Great Lakes states to pump water to a Foxconn manufacturing plant unless the high-tech factory was located in a community outside of the Lake Michigan drainage basin, under terms of a 2008 federal law known as the Great Lakes protection compact.