Lake Michigan Excursion
Occasionally people worry that the Great Lakes are in danger of being sold off to the highest bidder, leaving residents with dusty mouths…
Part of living in the Great Lakes, one of the richest sources of fresh water in the world, is living with a little undercurrent of worry that someone out West or around the world is coveting our water.
That fear isn’t based on nothing – there have been schemes floated out there to load water into tankers and ship it to Asia, and trial balloons floated over the years.
…But just how likely is Great Lakes water moving that far west?
Not very, according to Noah Hall, a law professor at Wayne State University who used to manage the Great Lakes Water Resources Program for the National Wildlife Federation.
For one thing, there’s an agreement between eight Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces that prohibits diversions outside the Great Lakes basin. Congress passed it and so did the president. As long as that compact stays in place, the Southwest and the rest of the world should be out of luck.
Hall says the cost of moving water that far west, and moving it uphill to boot, is too expensive to be possible anyway.
“As a general matter, the West is short of water because it’s a desert, and we’ve chosen to settle and live there as if it’s an eastern climate,” Hall said. “A large, thousand-mile diversion from the Great Lakes to another part of the country is the least affordable, practical and feasible way of meeting their water needs.”
He said the Southwest is already considering other more efficient, cheaper options like conservation, and recycling and reusing water. They’ll have to learn to live with what they have, he said, not look to the Great Lakes. That could mean people starting to move back to regions with more water, rather than trying to bring the water to them.
“The West is a dry region,” Hall said. “The reality is it’s never going to look as green as it is in Michigan. If you want green all around, you probably should live east of the 100 meridian.”
(click here to continue reading How likely is the fear the West could steal Great Lakes water? | WBEZ.)
So, no need to worry, yet