Gov. Jim Doyle on Wednesday called a special legislative session to ratify an interstate treaty designed to prevent parched states from sucking water out of the Great Lakes.

Four states and two Canadian provinces have approved the Great Lakes Compact. Wisconsin lawmakers have been at loggerheads over the treaty, though, with Republicans complaining the compact's language was rushed and gave too much power to other Great Lakes governors.

But lawmakers announced Wednesday they had hammered out a compromise. Doyle ordered them into special session beginning April 17 to vote on the deal.

"Through a lot of hard work, through a lot of cooperation, through some real persistence, we are ready in Wisconsin to pass the Great Lakes Compact," Doyle said at a news conference in New Berlin. "By doing so we will protect the asset that defines who we are geographically."

Eight governors signed the compact in 2005 after four years of talks. They were driven by fears that booming Southwestern states would try to pull water out of the lakes, which hold 90 percent of the nation's fresh surface water.

The compact would allow any Great Lakes governor to block any request to use lake water. It also sets out new guidelines for municipalities in the Great Lakes basin to draw water and encourages water conservation.

All the Great Lakes states and Congress must ratify the treaty before it can take effect. Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and New York have signed the treaty into law. So have Quebec and Ontario.

Wisconsin's Democratic-controlled state Senate ratified the treaty in early March, days before the end of the legislative session. But Republicans who run the state Assembly balked, saying they didn't have enough time to review the document before the end of the session.

They said the single-governor veto could slow development in southeastern Wisconsin, where cities are looking to Lake Michigan for water. They also said the compact might inadvertently expand state control to groundwater in the basin, stripping property owners of their right to control their own water.

Rep. Scott Gunderson, R-Waterford and chairman of the Assembly's Natural Resources Committee, held a hearing on the compact but refused to let his panel vote to move it to the full Assembly. The session ended without any action on the compact in that house.

Under the compromise, one governor could still veto any request to pull water. Gunderson, who helped lead the compromise negotiations, said at Doyle's news conference that lawmakers realized as they studied the compact that they didn't want to alter it so drastically that other states would have to re-ratify it. Other changes should ensure cities can get water when they need it, Gunderson said, but he didn't elaborate.

Gunderson spokesman Mike Bruhn said the new deal states federal law will govern water draws until Congress gives the compact final approval. Some cities planning to apply for lake draws were unsure which rules to follow in the period between state and federal ratification, Bruhn said.

The new deal does not give the state any new authority over groundwater, Bruhn said, and it allows the Legislature to nix any changes the governor would want in water draw guidelines.

"This is an important day for the entire southeast Wisconsin region," New Berlin Mayor Jack Chiovatero said. "The Great Lakes Compact is very important and a key step in allowing our community to provide our citizens with a safe supply of water."

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