MILWAUKEE - With Lake Michigan as a sparkling backdrop, a few dozen local officials from southeastern Wisconsin stressed the need for the Legislature to act so that lake water isn't wasted.

Although the governors and premiers of the states and provinces around the Great Lakes signed a treaty about two years ago, those concepts must be encoded in legislation by state legislatures, the provinces' parliaments and the U.S. Congress.

"Wisconsin is the only state that has not introduced this legislation," Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said at the gathering at Discovery World.

Earlier this year, a special legislative committee looking at the issue disbanded without reaching any consensus on a bill.

The entire issue revolves around moving water outside the Great Lakes drainage basin. In Racine County the western boundary runs north-south between highways 45 and 75, west of Union Grove. Lake advocates point out that although the lakes contain about 20 percent of the world's fresh water, only 1 to 2 percent of that is replaced in any given year.

The government leaders who met Tuesday want any bill to:

n Require any community to implement strong water conservation measures before being allowed to divert water.

n Require conservation measures for communities inside the basin.

n Clarify rules for companies producing bottled water.

n Assure that the public has the maximum opportunity to express its opinions on any new diversions.

Mostly they want the Legislature to get moving.

Carla Vigue, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jim Doyle, said Doyle has been talking with people interested in the issue and passing the treaty legislation is one of his top priorities. Budget work obviously pre-empted that, she said.

"I think everyone agrees we need a new format, new ideas, new legal structure to protect the waters," said Racine Mayor Gary Becker, who was unable to make the Milwaukee gathering. He was a signer of a resolution supporting the points of the Milwaukee group.

The broad idea of protecting the lakes is not at issue, Becker said. What is often a concern is the details of how the state law will be written. He said he favors controls that are as tough as possible.

Several speakers referred to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson who recently became the latest in a line of people who have cast covetous eyes on the lakes and suggested that its water could help the development of their states.

"I mean, look at what's going on down in the South with the drought; it's terrible," said Ann Brodek, a village of Wind Point trustee and participant in the Milwaukee meeting.

"And out West, I think that's just a matter of time. Las Vegas and Arizona and Los Angeles - those aren't places that people were ever meant to live in great populations. They just don't have the water there. It's not sufficient; so I think it's pretty scary." As time goes on, Brodek said, Great Lakes water will seem more and more important.

Two weeks ago in Tokyo, Craig Donohue, chief executive of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, told the London Times that the development of a futures market in water wouldn't surprise him.