Water talks ... on again The suburbs decide not to throw out ASR in a bid to keep talks going By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle They're still talking. A brief meeting between Mayor Jim Schmitt of Green Bay and Len Teresinski of the Central Brown County Water Authority is leaving open the possibility of an agreement to build a single pipeline to Lake Michigan to serve both sides. Teresinski was trying to arrange a meeting for today as of late afternoon Wednesday. To keep things going, the authority decided Wednesday not to drop aquifer storage and recovery from its list of possible options for water service to its member suburbs. Green Bay is testing ASR and wants to use it to supply the suburbs, but no tests of the scheme have succeeded, and the suburbs had decided to drop it as an option because they face a 2006 deadline to have radium-free water. But Ashwaubenon village president Norbert DeCleene read a message to the authority's meeting Wednesday saying his village's board would not support an agreement that doesn't have ASR as an option. Other municipalities have been against ASR. De Cleene said the city still wanted ASR as an option in a deal with the suburbs, and that the two sides were close enough to a deal that it "could be done in a day." He suggested the sides were within $600,000 of a contract. Teresinski said he had met with both Schmitt and former mayor Paul Jadin, who is still part of the negotiations, and expressed the belief that the authority's preferred backup to ASR, "modified contributed capital," was a 'done deal." He said the talks were "not negotiations," and that the suburbs were continuing to try for a one-pipeline result. Michael Parmentier of the Brown County Planning Office, who advises the authority, said Green Bay ASR tests so far had shown an increase in arsenic in water pumped into the test well. The well has been lined after failing an earlier test. The sides agreed to leave the issue open, allowing talks with Green Bay to continue. The authority still faces an Aug. 25 deadline set by the Green Bay Water Commission to prove its plans are better for the city than the city's proposal to increase its own water capacity through additional booster plants rather than a new pipeline. "We're still trying to do what's best for the largest number of people," Teresinski said. DeCleene also expressed concern with the projected figures issued by the authority, showing an increase in the cost of ASR from projected figures earlier in the year. Consultants said the increase was mostly because of a change in the authority's plans to get money from its member communities, requiring later bonding and higher payments.