A five-year-old agreement between the United States and Canada called the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Water Resources Compact ensures that the lakes’ waters won’t be shipped wholesale from the region even if the temptation to do so presents itself to one state or province or another...
But the expectation may grow that in an increasingly thirsty world, those who benefit most from the Great Lakes should figure on sharing their fresh-water fortune with the rest of America and maybe beyond. Nothing says the Compact couldn’t be modified or overturned by future political pressures.Notes to Dale:
* Great Lakes water levels are falling.
* Rain and snowfall replenish them at about 1% a year.
* Great Lakes water moved to "the rest of America and maybe beyond" doesn't come back to industries and drinking water systems.
What then?
And maybe the thirsty world could relocate within the basin and make those communities the next North Dakota of natural resources.
ReplyDeleteWhat an economic idiot. Water could turn Detroit around and into a clean city of economic prosperity. But no, he'd rather pipe water to America's worst planned communities for their short sighted sprawl.
The first shot was fired last week by a letter to the editor in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel...it drew no response from anyone.
ReplyDeleteI recently moved from Wisconsin to Texas. Down here they know they are draining the Ogallala aquifer and they are slowly starting to panic about it. Beware your Great Lakes water.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 70s and the oil crisis, I seem to recall people from the SW US telling us in the Rust Belt, "Let them freeze in the dark."
ReplyDeleteIf they can't control their development and water consumption, that's their problem.