bottled water on the run, Part II

Thank you, Detroit Free Press.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070826/OPINION01/708260548/1068/OPINION

Water withdrawal regulation, already agreed to by all the Great Lakes heads of governments, passed in Minnesota, Ontario and, just this month, Illinois. Michigan has the legislation teed up for possible discussion this fall.

But the pact exempts from oversight all water exports in containers 3.7 gallons or smaller, meaning water bottled here can travel anywhere on the globe.

This agreement took painfully long to negotiate and it must proceed...

But it's also not hard to imagine that someday 3.7-gallon and smaller containers of Great Lakes water -- or water from the springs and groundwater that feed into them -- might become, in an increasingly drier world, a sought-after supply, nationwide and globally. The Great Lakes State, now and in the future, can't let the issue go dormant.