Great Lakes Blogger

Christian Science Monitor on fate of freshwater

The fate of the Great Lakes -- commodity or commons of humanity -- hangs in the balance.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies - notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company.

Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.

But governments pushing to privatize costly to maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford, those water warriors say.

ah, this newspaper gets it

But, for all our unfashionable faults, Wisconsin features one asset that is becoming more and more en vogue as the nation's population ages and migrates to climates milder and drier: Clean, fresh water. We've got entire Great Lakes full of the stuff.

[snip]

Having the Great Lakes Compact in place assures these folks (and entire generations of eco-savvy, recreation-hungry younger Americans, too) will long have a Wisconsin to return to that harbors clean, abundant water – a Wisconsin that will welcome those who care to enjoy it and help sustain it. It's not unreasonable to expect that, in not too long, the state will see an eco-boom – a reverse exodus, a return.

Now, let's just close the gaping loopholes left by the compact, and practice true water conservation.

a visit to Gluespace

Now here's a site that addresses an urgent need -- tapping and articulating the wisdom, knowledge and yearnings of the rising Great Lakes generation of young professionals and others in urban areas. Listening to these voices (and heeding their message) will yield both hope and insights for the future.

Much has been said about the future of the Great Lakes region by academics and traditional stakeholders in public policy. Yet rarely have 18-40 year olds, the target of scores of ‘brain drain’ research and attraction and retention efforts, been asked as a demographic what they envision, or how their day-to-day experiences in “declining” post-industrial cities inform that vision.

“The economic potential of the Great Lakes region will not be fully realized unless water protection is paired with inclusive and innovative reinvestment in cities like Milwaukee, Erie, and Youngstown,” said Pittsburgh native Abby Wilson, Co-Founder of GLUE. “The shared potential of our region’s environmental and human capital is truly extraordinary, but untapped – partly because our cities are struggling. The region’s cities must be the laboratory, the nucleus, and the expression of that possibility.”

Canada's piece of paradise (on Lake Ontario)

Never heard of this park before, but it needs to go on the life list.

Ontario's Sandbanks Provincial Park, located in Prince Edward County, has been a popular vacation spot for Ontarians for years. But as glowing newspaper articles spread the word coast to coast, this collection of some of Canada's most beautiful beaches has become a hot destination for vacationing families.

lake superior kayak trek begins

From Thunder Bay, 2200 kilometers around the lake.

Under favourable conditions, two local paddlers embarked Wednesday from the Marina on a two-month journey to fulfill a dream of kayaking around Lake Superior.

report on global warming & Great Lakes

ANN ARBOR, MI (May 28, 2008)—The Great Lakes can lessen the impact of global warming or become global warming’s victim—it all depends on Congress, according to  a new report from the Healing Our Waters®-Great Lakes Coalition. The authors urged Congress to enact a comprehensive plan to restore the health of the Great Lakes.

 

“Great Lakes Restoration & the Threat of Global Warming” synthesizes current climate change science and presents the likely impacts warming temperatures will have on the lakes, including lower lake levels, more sewage overflows, and increased pressure to divert Great Lakes water. The report describes the following likely impacts:

 

• Daily high temperatures in the region will increase 5.4 to 10.8 degrees relative to what was typical from 1961-1990, with wintertime temperatures increasing even more than summer temperatures.
• Increased evaporation from warming lakes—particularly in winter—is expected to result in less ice cover, contributing to lower water levels and increases in lake-effect snow.
• Lake levels could drop during the next century by approximately 1 foot on Lake Superior, 3 feet on Lakes Michigan and Huron, 2.7 feet on Lake Erie, and 1.7 feet on Lake Ontario.
• Water quality will likely worsen as more intense storm events will send polluted urban and agricultural runoff to our waterways, leading to drinking water impacts, beach closings, and higher costs to water suppliers.
• Biological dead zones will increase, jeopardizing fish and other aquatic life.
• Great Lakes forests and grasslands will change as plants adapted to the area confront increasingly unsuitable habitat. The ranges of some plants and animals will shift northward, while other creatures will vanish.

MN coalition kicks off drive for conservation funding

After years of effort, a broad-based coalition has succeeded in convincing the Minnesota Legislature to put on the November ballot a state constitutional amendment devoting about $300 million annually to clean water, parks and trails, fish and wildlife habitat, and cultural heritage. The campaign to persuade voters to approve the amendment began today. An historic opportunity to protect Minnesota's Great Outdoors is now before the citizenry. Let's hope voters make the investment in the future of their children, grandchildren and the state. And then other Great Lakes states can follow suit.

More information, including the ballot language, is available here.

Chicago Trib takes note of GL compact

Former Michigan reporter Tim Jones does a good job of tracing the politics behind the pending Great Lakes Compact, and pointing out that the immediate threat to the Lakes is not Arizona but the Great Lakes states.

How many more Waukeshas and Lowells are there? The vast majority of territory in the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York are outside the Great Lakes Basin, and old industrial centers with troubled water systems could eventually be lining up to obtain clean water from the lakes. That would set up some politically difficult confrontations in the new and more localized water wars.

"There will be others coming because of radium and groundwater issues," said Jodi Habush Sinykin, a lawyer for Midwest Environmental Advocates, in Milwaukee.

Michigan is a threat, too, even though it is almost entirely within the Great Lakes Basin. Its thoughtless sanctioning of water diversions in bottles could doom the whole compact, but that's another story.

a quaint notion

Water -- a public trust, not a product. A quaint, but correct, notion.

Thank you, George Weeks.

what's wrong with this story?

Peter Luke is a first-rate reporter. This story about Michigan's struggle over water withdrawal legislation has no inaccuracies. Yet it's as unsatisfying as a bag of expired potato chips.

The longer version, which ran in other newspapers in the same chain around Michigan, has particular problems. It quotes an advocate on behalf of Nestle saying that water exported out of Michigan in bottles is no different from beer made with Great Lakes water as an ingredient shipped out of Wisconsin.

Among other fallacies:

* Water is not a man-made product. It's natural. Beer isn't.

* You can live without beer (although some in Wisconsin might disagree). You can't live without water.