Posted on 03/31/2008 1:50:50 PM PDT by E Rocc
They've been praying for rain in the thirsty American South.
Will they prey upon the Great Lakes next?
Whether diverting Lake Erie or other Great Lakes water to bail out our dried-up fellow states is preposterous or possible is a matter of dramatically different opinions.
But when Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and some state lawmakers bowed their heads last November, they illustrated the continuing desperation as drought persists in parts of the United States.
"That picture -- the governor of Georgia praying for rain on the Statehouse steps -- has been burned into my memory, that's for sure," said Sean Logan, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. "It was a reminder of an important message: Water issues can bring you to your knees."
Water grab in future?
Some are worried that the South might soon take matters into its own hands by petitioning the federal government for help.
"I think a large-scale diversion of water from the Great Lakes is fairly likely sooner than later," said Noah Hall, an environmental law professor with Wayne State University in Michigan. "There are a lot of frightening developments out West and in the Southeast and the climate change models don't offer much hope."
David Naftzger, executive director of the Council of Great Lakes Governors, said a water grab is virtually assured.
"Look at a map showing water shortages and population growth and see how they match up," he said. "Now look at us and you can see a concern that, as time moves on, those areas will be looking at the Great Lakes to bring them water -- either through a tanker, pipeline or natural channels."
But others dismiss entirely any idea that Lake Erie water is going anywhere.
Las Vegas Water Department General Manager Patricia Mulroy, head of a water department where drought is a constant threat, said it would take "an Armageddon-like series of events" to force Western states to start sniffing around the Great Lakes to solve their water crisis.
Julius Ciaccia, until recently her counterpart in the Cleveland Water Department, agreed.
"In 20 years of discussing and debating water issues at a national level, I've never once heard a utilities director in the South or West say one word about tapping Lake Erie for water," said Ciaccia, now head of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. "Those cities are more interested in water reclamation, re-use or even desalination than in coming to get our water."
Mulroy said Las Vegas is now recycles all of its waste water, for example.
There are also now more than 13,000 desalination plants worldwide, producing more than 12 billion gallons of drinkable water daily from salty ocean water, according to the International Desalination Association.
But as for long-distance water diversions: "It's not technically impossible, but it's also not economically feasible," Ciaccia said.
Water quarrels now
But it is being talked about.
In October 2007, then-presidential candidate Bill Richardson of New Mexico called for a national water policy to consider redistributing water to needy areas -- saying the West was suffering needlessly while places like Wisconsin were "awash in water."
Richardson had a point: We are awash in water compared to the rest of the nation. The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of surface water -- about 20 percent of the available fresh water in the world.
A University of Alabama professor, around the same time, unveiled a detailed plan to pipe Great Lakes water to the arid sun belt, and a Georgia congressman proposed a federal commission to oversee all water matters, including those involving the Great Lakes.
Maybe more significantly, a United Nations network of scientists recently projected that drier conditions in the American Southwest will probably heighten attempts to divert Great Lakes water.
"There might need to be borrowing of water from one place to another," Robert Corell, director of the global change program at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C., told the Associated Press in the days following the U.N. report by the International Panel on Climate Change.
But Great Lakes leaders have shot back at their colleagues in arid states, blaming their lack of planning for their plight.
"Regions of the country that have overbuilt look at our freshwater with an envious eye," Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said in a January speech in which he called for that state's legislature to approve the Great Lakes Compact, an interstate agreement aimed at preventing water diversions from the lake system.
But even that proposal among eight states and two Canadian provinces is now in flux as the Ohio Senate and Wisconsin House of Representatives address some concerns about how the compact might affect existing laws on property ownership.
But even those slowing down the Compact right now have agreed that in the end it will be the best possible legal protection for the Great Lakes.
World, U.S. water woes
Some say that protection may someday be put to the test. Various sources have repeated variations on this claim: "The wars of the 20th Century were fought over oil, but the wars of the 21st Century will be over water."
Scientists say there is a finite amount of fresh water in the world but a growing number of people. The climate-change panel said this year that by 2050, up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages.
In fact, in some water-stressed regions, it's already "about survival and about war," said Gary White of WaterPartners International, which focuses on solving global water needs.
"In North America, we're talking about conservation and negotiation over water availability -- things like the Great Lakes Compact," he said. "It's a much better place to be, in that respect."
It might be better, but not without growing concern -- from increasingly shallow aquifers nationwide to diminishing snowpack in the West to depleted reservoirs in the South.
The climate-change panel reported in 2006 that:
• The Ogallala aquifer, which supplies water to nearly 2 million people in an eight-state region from Minnesota to Texas, faces a 20 percent loss in its reserve from more people and less rainfall.
• Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is shrinking -- even after heavy snows this season. It supplies about 40 percent of the water to densely populated Southern California.
"That's one of the scariest maps out there -- the one that shows the diminishing snowpack that L.A. and other areas rely on for water," said Wayne State's Hall, who also works for the National Wildlife Federation. "The water supply for millions and millions of people is at risk."
• Great Lakes water levels and surrounding underground aquifers could drop 3 to 7 feet if temperatures continue to rise over then next 100 years. A winter of record or near-record snowfall in the upper Great Lakes this winter has helped replenish water levels in the lakes, but most scientists are still expecting a long-term downturn.
And water in the Great Lakes is not inexhaustible.
Rainfall and rivers supply only 1 percent of the system's water. The rest is ancient glacial deposits -- a finite supply.
Lake Erie is even more vulnerable because it gets 80 percent of its water from the upper lakes so it is also hurt by any water loss upstream. Lake Erie is also the shallowest lake, so it doesn't have as much reserve. Great Lakes concerns
Even so, few outside the Midwest are wringing their hands over the Great Lakes.
"A water crisis here in the Great Lakes? It would be hard to say with a straight face when looking at those five bodies of water that we are in crisis," said Rich Bowman of the Great Lakes office of the Nature Conservancy, an international conservation group.
But water issues run deeper than the surface.
"It's true, there are more than 'big lake' issues here," Bowman said. "We have concerns also about unique features and ecosystems, particularly marshes and other wetlands, that can be affected very immediately if water is taken from them."
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said the lakes are un "I do believe climate change is real, affecting every part of our planet and likely to have an impact on the Great Lakes," Strickland said. "It's imperative that we do everything we can to protect this resource." der pressure -- internally from the threat of invasive species and oxygen-depleted dead zones and externally from other states. That is why he said he would sign the compact if it is approved by the legislature
Fortunately, Canada gets to have a say in the diversion of water from the Great Lakes so this is unlikely to happen.
The solution is to dredge the chicago riveer, send lake michigan to the Missippi river and then pipi the water across Missippi nad Alabama to Georgia.
That should have been addressed before all the "development", just like the mortgage crisis could easily been for seen.
If they can carry it, they can come and pump out of our basements. :)
Agreed. Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, and other Great Lake States are having enough economic problems without some other state stealing our water. If they want to pay top dollar to help us out, fine. Otherwise stop the talk.
Yep, i agree. Atlanta is so desperate, they tried to make Tennessee give up land in order for them to have access to the Tennessee River.
Good spot for my favorite bit of Michigan trivia.
Q.- What country is directly south of Detroit?
A.- Canada. Check a map. :)
Hey, one of the reasons we lack “sunshine” here in the leee of Lake Erie is because of the water!
Ever hear of “lake effect”?
One under-discussed fact in these hypothetical solutions is elevation: most effective water-source solutions practically require the source be above the destination. Desalination is a nifty idea with great new technologies coming to do it relatively cheaply, but trying to pump a half-billion gallons of water 1km straight up _daily_ just isn’t going to work. I’m not sure that a 1000-mile pipline from the Great Lakes to Atlanta is gonig to be much better.
The real solution is simply charging for water what it’s worth.
I couldn’t agree more. Ohio is having serious economic problems - I think we need to think really hard about what we’re going to do with our golden goose.
Cleveland and other GL papers run the same story every year.
It is easier to move people and businesses than it is to move Lake Erie. BTW there is plenty of open space in Cleveland, Ohio left there by a bunch of people who decided to go live in a desert.
“They’ve been praying for rain in the thirsty American South.”
We got anywhere from 3-12 inches with 100 miles of my house the last 3 days and all the creeks and lakes are at or above normal since December.
Maybe 20 years ago, but not now. Lake Erie is doing just fine, thank you. No zebra mussels, no heavy metals. Bethlehem Steel is long gone, the fish are biting and the waters are fine to swim in every summer. I know, I live here.
So do I, and I’d advise against eating too many of those fish at one sitting.
In any other era of human history this would have been a clear indication that all the folks in New Mexico should be vacating their homes and moving somewhere else.
Nature really has a way of fixing our delusional fantasies, doesn't it?
Sorry, but I gotta pull the bullsh*t lever on this article. The great lakes hold about 6 Quadrillion gallons of water; the St. Lawrence flows 237 Billion gallons per day; 55- 110 Billion gallons per day are lost through evaporation and the Chicago River takes another 2 Billion gallons. By my quick arithmetic, the "ancient" glacial deposit would have been exhausted after only 5-10 years.
If anybody on this thread went to Michigan State, maybe they could confirm the arithmetic.
Build nuclear power plants on the coast, couple them with desalination plants. Problem solved.
Water Nazis. Is there anything they won't label a drought?
Hmmm....
Well, if I wanted to take the same childish position then I would say the same thing about things that you get from the south and southwest, too.
Things like oil and the products made from it, electricity, out of season produce, seafood, etc.
There was once a bumper sticker here that said “Let them freeze in the cold and the dark”.
And what country is east of Washington State?
Hmmm....
Well, if I wanted to take the same childish position then I would say the same thing about things that you get from the south and southwest, too.
Things like oil and the products made from it, electricity, out of season produce, seafood, etc.
There was once a bumper sticker here that said “Let them freeze in the cold and the dark”.
If you’re standing in Lake Erie on March 31, it’s a miracle that you can find anything to pee with.
Ummm...Fermi I and II and Davis Besse will take care of the electricity needs just fine. We don’t really need the out of season produce, we can eat potatoes and tomatoes, oh, and no more cherries, blueberries, or apples for you. :)
Now if the envirowhackos could exported to Siberia to experience Global Warming up close and personal we’d ALL be better off.
Not if we take the water from just OUR side. ;-)
The solution is to round up the Great Lakes liberals who are polluting the southwest and southeast with their socialist poison and ship them back to the Great Lakes states.
Hmmm....
Well, if I wanted to take the same childish position then I would say the same thing about things that you get from the south and southwest, too.
Things like oil and the products made from it, electricity, out of season produce, seafood, etc.
There was once a bumper sticker here that said “Let them freeze in the cold and the dark”.
well......we get plenty of oil from canada(which is just a skip and a jump north. we get plenty of electricity from niagra falls and we can “can” our veggies and fruits and seafood can be had from maine and other northeastern states.
we’re all set.
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