While water policy doesn?t take center stage at presidential debates or rank as an important issue in public opinion polls, this inattention dramatically understates the issue?s importance. The decisions that the federal government, states and municipalities are making today regarding how to manage the existing water resources in the United States will have vast repercussions for the future standard of living and lifestyle available to citizens of this country.
One issue that has seen a fair bit of recent news coverage and is certainly relevant to Wisconsin concerns the usage of water from the Great Lakes. A quick search for facts on the Great Lakes reveals a number of impressive and important statistics: The lakes contain over one-fifth of the world?s surface fresh water and more than 95 percent of the United States?
surface fresh water. They border on Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. For shipping and recreational purposes alone, the Great Lakes make up one of the most valuable resources in the entire country.
However, the Great Lakes may become an even more valuable resource simply because of what fills them: water. As I have written before, many urban areas in the Southeast and Southwest areas of the United States are under threat from the looming exhaustion of both surface water supplies and underground aquifers as a result of overuse, higher air temperatures and drought. Should these areas run dry at some future date, it is not far-fetched to imagine plans to transfer water from the abundant Great Lakes to parched urban centers farther south.
The eight states bordering the Great Lakes have come up with a plan to end this possibility. The plan working through these states? legislatures, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Waters Resources Compact seeks to create a structure to govern the use of the massive freshwater resources that the Great Lakes contain. Above all, it seeks to effectively ban the distribution of Great Lakes water to regions from which it will not return to the Great Lakes via drainage. This will limit the use of Great Lakes water to regions along the coast or to areas along rivers that flow into the Great Lakes.
For example, Madison would not be able to use Great Lakes water because it falls into the Mississippi River Drainage Basin. This strategy is intended to ensure water levels in the lake remain near their present levels and the environment of the lakes remains unchanged. Any exceptions to the ban on use outside the drainage area would be subject to strict regulation by the authority set up by the compact.
Currently, Wisconsin is the only state that has not passed a bill approving the compact or does not have a bill pending approval. Accordingly, a group within the state Legislature is trying craft a bill that could be put to vote so that the compact could take effect. Support for this effort seems to be fairly strong: I?ve seen several opinion columns from state papers, and all support the bill and the restriction of Great Lakes water to uses within its drainage basin. The only main critique I?ve seen has been to allow communities right on the edge of the basin to also have access to the water.
While I believe this attempt at conservation and protection of the tremendous freshwater resources of the Great Lakes deserves consideration, I do have some reservations. The ban on use of the water outside of the drainage basin may have an adverse effect on some Wisconsin communities that otherwise could have used Great Lakes water. A 2006 USA Today article highlighted the Milwaukee suburb of New Berlin as one community that would need special dispensation from the compact?s authority to use the water. I would personally like to see more flexibility for use of the lakes? water within the bordering states.
Furthermore, the immediate rejection of the possibility of diverting some Great Lakes water to destinations further off seems ill-thought-out. Transporting Great Lakes water to some areas might turn out to be relatively efficient or low-impact. An outright ban on this activity may deter more detailed examinations of this possibility.
If using Great Lakes water to help sustain life in the drier parts of the United States will help prevent dislocation and hardship to millions of people, doesn?t it deserve some consideration?
As with signing any treaty, contract or other binding agreement, every party involved must have a clear idea of what the agreement involves. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact has noble goals.
Hopefully, when this compact becomes law, it won?t end up leaving too many of our state?s citizens out to dry.
Andrew Wagner ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in computer science and political science.
