The diversion ban carries two primary exceptions. One is water that leaves the Great Lakes basin in containers that are 5.7 gallons or less. The other is water that leaves in a pipeline but goes only to a city that lies inside a county that straddles the Great Lakes watershed border, and can demonstrate that it has no other viable public water supply, and will agree to send its treated wastewater back to the lakes. The exemption was tailor made for Waukesha, which was not surprisingly the first city to apply for such a diversion under the new compact.
