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Protecting Water In the Great Lakes Basin
The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 grants the governors of the eight Great Lakes states the power to veto plans to divert water outside the Great Lakes Basin. But with drought conditions in the Southwest and Southeast showing no signs of abatement, talk of moving water to dry areas of the country has the lake states scrambling to better protect their resources.
When legal experts suggested that the Federal law was too weak to prohibit future attempts to divert water from the basin, the governors of the U.S. states bordering the lakes—New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, along with Ontario and Quebec—drafted, in 2005, the Great Lakes Basin Water Resource Compact. But since then, only two states, Minnesota and Illinois, have approved the compact, which would also go before Congress.
The Great Lakes contain 18 percent of the planet’s fresh water, but with several lakes already below their long-term averages, natural resource policy makers in the region are eager to protect the water before proposals that would grant control to the Federal government gain traction. One such proposal from Rep. John Linder (R-GA) would create a national water commission. Concern that the 2010 census count may reduce the congressional delegation from lake states and increase the number of representatives in states experiencing drought conditions adds urgency to those pushing the Compact.
Because resource mismanagement played a significant role in depleting water reserves around the country, any proposal that aimed to divert water from one region to another should carefully consider the environmental impacts, and it should only send water to locations that meet strict conservation criteria.
Sources: The Christian Science Monitor, The Detroit News
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