Watershed deal aimed at protecting Great Lakes

[Spiel]

Watershed deal aimed at protecting Great Lakes

 

 

September 25, 2008

Martin Mittelstaedt / The Globe and Mail

 

 

 

Compact largely bans massive transfers

 

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a historic compact that largely bans major diversions from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, protecting the world's largest body of fresh water from massive transfers.

 

The measure had already been passed by Ontario, Quebec, and the eight states along the water system, and goes into effect on Dec. 8.

 

U.S. President George W. Bush must still sign it, but this is considered a formality, because he has pledged to do so.

 

Environmentalists said the new protections go a long way toward removing one of the gravest threats to the Great Lakes - that parched areas elsewhere in North America or abroad would try to grab some of its waters.

 

"It's a good signal to the rest of North America that they can't depend on the Great Lakes water when they get into trouble," said Mark Mattson, president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, a Toronto-based conservation advocacy group. "Hopefully, it's a signal that we're going to start keeping water in our watersheds."

 

Although public support has always been overwhelming in Canada for protecting the integrity of the Great Lakes, the need for the compact arose when a former Ontario Conservative government in 1998 approved a plan to allow a company to use tankers to scoop 3 billion litres of water from Lake Superior for sale to Asia.

 

The idea was dropped after intense public criticism, and led the states and provinces to negotiate the water protection pact over the past seven years.

 

"The passage of this is reassuring and very timely," said Adèle Hurley, director of the program on water issues at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, which has published research indicating Canada's water isn't well protected from diversion.

 

Ms. Hurley said the compact's approval has come at an opportune time because water levels in the lakes will face pressure from the effects of climate change and from rising populations. She also said that with an economic downturn in the offing, it might have become more difficult to get such a comprehensive environmental protection measure passed.

 

Although the lakes are massive and contain 18 per cent of the world's fresh surface water, most of this resource is the legacy of melting from glaciers at the end of the last ice age. Only about 1 per cent of the water is considered renewable each year from precipitation.

 

The pact is known formally as the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, and doesn't require federal approval in Canada.

 

Under the arrangement, new diversions of water are almost completely banned from what is known as the Great Lakes Basin, or all the drainage areas where rivers and groundwater flow into the five big lakes and the St. Lawrence.

 

However, a minor exception allows diversions for communities that lie partly within the basin. This occurs in some parts of the United States, such as Illinois and Wisconsin, where parts of municipalities drain into the Mississippi River and other parts into Lake Michigan.

 

These communities will be able to draw water for public supplies. They may also be required to return water to the basin after it is used. Bottled-water businesses will also be prohibited from shipping water out of the basin in containers larger than 20 litres.

 

The Ontario government issued a statement yesterday saying the House approval is "great news" for the province because it "further protects" waters in the Great Lakes.