Great Lakes Compact: Selfishness and Self-Interest in Wisconsin
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.26.08
Tip O'Neill nailed it when he said "All politics is local;" In Wisconsin, the Great Lakes Compact may crash over Tom Gustafson's second bedroom. He lives right on top of the boundary line of the Great Lakes watershed, what the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel calls "what could become one of the 21st century's most contentious borders - the line that could someday separate those who have access to Great Lakes water from everybody else." Unlike Michigan, which is almost entirely within the watershed, Wisconsin is divided, and people on the wrong side of the line want access to the water, instead of the radium-tainted aquifer that they draw from now.
Read a thorough article about how petty politics and local power plays may skewer the whole thing at the ::Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
You think that's bad? AZ and NM have been eyeing that water for years. irobot here we go.
What people outside of this watershed don't seem to understand are the ecological consequences of tapping the Great Lakes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against letting people with tainted water supplies go without water. But how many people in NM and AZ are going to use that water to make their lawns nice and green? Currently, I'd say way too many people would rather destroy one of the largest fresh water habitats than conserve some water.
Or better still, take Orange County's lead and reuse your current waste water.
Is that really the full watershed of the Great Lakes? I would have thought they are fed from a far larger catchment area.
First rule of watershed management is to keep the water in the watershed. Live with what you've got and take good care of it.
Places have evolved in balance with the water regime they have. Shipping large volumes of water in or out will upset that balance, and probably lead to plenty of unintended consequences, which could be catastrophic for people, other organisms and ecological balance.
Lots of people living in the middle of a desert just is not sustainable. We shouldn't be encouraging more of this, and billions of dollars invested in shipping more water to the desert is a very poor investment.
The Great Lakes Watershed is the last and greatest remaining of the worlds large aquifers and should be valued not just in the current context (thankfully we haven't trashed it too bad yet), but in the future context (exponentially increasing worth in light of northward-migrating farm belt).
Tapping the Great Lakes for the midwest and southwest is short sighted and lazy. We need to be done with short sighted and lazy.
If the southwest can't solve it's problems with desalination, they should migrate. They've been piping water west for years, they could pump it east instead. Or replenish the Ogalala aquifer from the Gulf of Mexico.
All possible tomorrow.
The most natural reason to not live in a desert is the very same reason most life doesn't. This is one case where mob hubris can be fatal, and protests will be heard no doubt. But they'll quiet down once they're paying more for water than gas and their lips start cracking.
Deserts are far more valuable as energy resources anyway.
For SW states, why not just build a combined power/desalination plant on the Gulf of California? Surely one of those could be built for the price of an enormous pipeline from lake Michigan to the SW.
I blog about the Great Lakes water and political issues daily at:
http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com
and wrote an op-ed for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published last week updating the legislative intrigue surrounding the Compact's pending approval in Wisconsin.
That URL is:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=743764