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Senate passes Great Lakes Compact

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by Michael Evert

Friday, March 7, 2008

The Wisconsin state Senate passed a bill Tuesday ratifying an agreement to standardize how much water from the Great Lakes can leave the region.

The Great Lakes Compact — signed among leaders of eight Midwestern states and two Canadian provinces — would ensure the protection of Great Lake water, limiting its exportation outside the Great Lakes basin.

So far, four states have ratified the agreement in both houses of their Legislatures. Three more, including Wisconsin, have ratified it in one house of their Legislatures.

Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton said she is confident the measure will pass in the Republican-controlled Assembly if it comes up to vote, but added, “I am not confident that (Assembly Speaker Mike) Huebsch would allow it to come to a vote.”

The Great Lakes basin covers much of Wisconsin, but areas as close to Lake Michigan as Waukesha County are not part of the basin and would be subject to the exportation limitations set forth by the bill, essentially regulating the amount of Great Lakes water they could receive.

Currently, a federal law known as the Water Resources Development Act prohibits the diversion of exportation of Great Lakes water to areas outside the Great Lakes basin without the approval of that state’s governor. It does not require agreement or standards between the states in regard to water exportation or diversion.

The Great Lakes Compact would create water diversion and exportation standards among all participants.

The participants must also agree on any proposed standards for them to take effect. Ryan Murray, a spokesperson for Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said Fitzgerald and other Republicans who voted against the proposal were not fundamentally opposed to the agreement.

“We’d like to pass the compact, but we are concerned about some key aspects of the bill, such as the one-vote veto,” Murray said.

The one-vote veto would allow a single state to overturn a ruling that related to protecting water in the Great Lakes from imports.

Though supporting the overall goals of the bill, Murray said, related problems could include a possible loss of state sovereignty over water issues.

“This may be the most important piece of legislation of the year,” he added.

Murray said both Republicans and Democrats are in agreement on the overall goals of the compact and the significance of the legislation.

Lawton echoed this support of the legislation.

“It is very important that we have protections in place,” Lawton said. “Half of Wisconsin gets their water from Lake Michigan. We [the citizens of Great Lake states] understand better than anyone that the Great Lakes are an essential nonrenewable resource.”

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Anonymous (March 9, 2008 @ 1:44pm):

Too bad the crooked politicians in Chicago get to waste so much Lake Michigan water flushing their toilets into the Mississippi.

Milwaukee got screwed into the deep tunnel fiasco instead.

But yeah, the pols better get off their duffs before the rest of the country sticks big straws into the Great Lakes and start sucking.

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