Don't Drain on Our Parade
Op Ed piece from Globe and Mail
Adèle M. Hurley and Andrew Nikiforuk
July 07, 2005
- English
In this opinion piece for the Globe and Mail, Adèle Hurley and Andre Nikiforuk note that the stress that drought, climate change and U.S. population shifting will put on water resources will soon increase the pressure to divert water from the Great Lakes. To date, Ontario is the only Great Lakes jurisdiction that understands the implications of doing so: It simply has the most to lose. It is not only the largest consumer of water in the basin but also the most densely populated.
This explains why Ontario killed a flawed binational management scheme for the Great Lakes in 2004. Incredibly, this draft compact would have permitted unlimited diversions out of the Great Lakes and would have amounted to a "water for sale" sign. The most recent version of the compact, which eight U.S. states and Ontario and Quebec have submitted for public comment this summer, is a vast improvement. But it is not yet storm-proof.
The authors stress that the basin's citizens should insist that the new deal respects the basin's natural boundaries defined by the height of land between the Great Lakes and Mississippi drainage basins. Using these natural boundaries, the region could end the theft of groundwater by straddling communities by giving them a five-year period to apply for piped water, provided they can prove a real need, balance their water budgets and return the treated wastewater. Without these changes, denizens of the Great Lakes could soon be hit by a constellation of extreme political and ecological events that may ultimately bleed the region of its true source of wealth: water.