Extra! Extra! Waukesha water statistics!

This mildly interesting story about water usage in Waukesha ran in Monday's Regional Journal Sentinel:

Water use in 10 major Waukesha County communities has grown only 4% since 1997 despite a 9% growth in population, leading water experts to challenge critics who argue that little is being done to preserve water resources.

In just one more example of how my news judgment has deteriorated over the years since I left the newspaper business. I would have put that story back in the Metro section.

It ran on the top of the front page, as the top story in the paper, with a big two-line headline:

Water use trailing
population growth

Do you think someone has an agenda -- like helping Waukesha siphon water out of Lake Michigan?

Meanwhile, on Tuesday's editorial page, there's a more rational approach. While hailing the report as good news, the editorial also says:

But it still doesn't mean that Waukesha should be able to pipe in Lake Michigan water without returning it to the lake. Waukesha has proposed such a diversion as a way of addressing the problems posed by decreasing water levels in the deep underground aquifers that the city relies on for its water supply. The Great Lakes are simply too vital a national and natural resource to risk damaging by allowing diversions that don't return water to the Great Lakes basin.

It's just the latest example of how agendas in the news and editorial departments sometimes clash. (I know, the news operation should not have an agenda, but I quit believing in the tooth fairy on my first newspaper job 40 years ago). Other examples are the sewage district, where the news room has been on an anti-MMSD crusade for several years, while the editorial page remains rational, and the voter ID/election "fraud" stories which sensationalize some relatively minor problems while the editorial page points out that voter IDs won't solve them.

If they ever all get on the same page, we could be in real trouble.