Great Lakes Water Sale Predicted In 10 Years, Ohio Official Says

Ohio's Lt. Governor, who also serves as the state's development director, told The Toledo Blade that the Great Lakes states would have to decide in a decade whether to sell water to states and countries beyond the Great Lakes basin boundaries.

The Great Lakes Compact, stalled in the Ohio Senate and Wisconsin Assembly by the same stripe of obstructionist Republican states' rightists, would establish rules and procedures to make out-of-basin sales difficult by requiring that diverted water be returned.

So a community like Waukesha could meet that standard, but a community in Georgia, Arizona - - or in Asia, for example could not.

So why is the Compact stalled in Wisconsin?

Because a handful of Waukesha-area legislators and business leaders don't want any restrictions on Waukesha's ability to pull Lake Michigan water across the basin, even though Waukesha City Mayor Larry Nelson has said he can live with the Compact agreement and its terms, as written.

Those blocking the Compact would leave the door open to diversions taking place without the water being returned, or without the Compact's regional water conservation requirements firmly in place.

Setting up the Great Lakes and their watershed for net water losses is absurd.

But so far, that is the risk that Waukesha and state chamber of commerce leaders, along with Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, (R-West Salem), State Rep. Mark Gunderson (R-Waterford), State Sen. Mary Lazich, (R-New Berlin), and Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas are willing to take.