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posted by martyb on Friday August 28 2015, @01:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the sign-of-things-to-come dept.

The city of Waukesha, Wisconsin proposes taking water from Lake Michigan to deal with contamination in their local aquifer. The city is just outside the drainage basin from the lake and thus the Great Lakes Compact of 2008 comes into play, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/us/waukesha-plan-for-lake-michigan-water-raises-worries.html?_r=0

This might be a landmark case to test the Compact which requires approval of all eight governors of the surrounding states before large quantities of water can be taken outside the lake drainage area. Here is one article on the 2008 law: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/americas/24iht-24lakes.16429199.html.

From the bottom of the first article:

So far, the compact has proved ironclad. New Berlin, a suburb of Milwaukee, received a small diversion in 2009, but that was seen as fairly routine because part of the suburb sits within the lake’s basin, a circumstance contemplated in the compact as a relatively simple exception.

The strength of the compact is offering hope to some officials in the Midwest who see Great Lakes water not just as something to cling on to, but also as a powerful draw for a region that has had much of its population head to the Sun Belt.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by albert on Friday August 28 2015, @06:22AM

    by albert (276) on Friday August 28 2015, @06:22AM (#228863)

    the lake can't be drained away, to irrigate Kansas, or process ore form some mine five states away

    What if I move there and start a bottled water company? Can I not do that?

    Suppose I start a company that makes snow globes. These are clear plastic containers filled with plastic "snow", a liquid, and usually some sort of winter scene related to Christmas. I sell huge numbers of these to a company in California that then empties them out to irrigate almond trees. They of course send back the damaged snow globes for recycling.

    Suppose I grow fruit. Anything will do, even poison ivy berries. I ship it out of state to a company that will freeze-dry it. Of course, they save the resulting water.

    Maybe I'll just offer the water for free to airline passengers, on condition that they pee into a particular toilet when they land. The pee will of course be distilled to recover the water.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @12:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @12:09PM (#228946)

    Unlike some states, the Great Lakes region sets limits on water usage. This isn't California where all is sunny and bright year round. This is a region where "winter is coming" isn't just a GOT reference.

  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday August 28 2015, @08:22PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Friday August 28 2015, @08:22PM (#229170)

    Your answer is "It Depends".

    There are rules -- and restrictions -- and it depends on where you are located as you bottle the water, and how much you take.

    http://www.greatlakeslaw.org/blog/bottled_water/ [greatlakeslaw.org]

    They have indeed considered the option of someone draining the lakes at a profit via selling bottled water to people experiencing watering restrictions due to the very same lakes experiencing levels low enough to apply restrictions and fine people for flouting them. But not selling the water at a profit...

    So, your points are valid--it is a concern, and they've considered it, but there is no great consensus going to any deep granularity. If you were to blast the water into space to never return, that may get you in trouble, but if you bottle and distribute cola/soda throughout the region, you are probably OK as long as you document (loosely) your use.

    I personally have wondered why there is not a water pipeline built from Canada to California, instead of an oil pipeline. CA needs the water today and will need it going forward; the oil is intended for international sale anyway. If whisky is for drinking and water is for fighting, then a pipe like that could prevent us from having to annex Canada in 2077 (unless we wanted their oil, of course).

    There is likely not as much money behind the bottled water industry as there is behind the fossil fuel industry, though, so perhaps that is why we haven't heard about it. Considering the amount of lakes that have been impacted in Canada as a result of resource extraction, it would have made sense to sell that water to us Yanks before they poisoned it. I guess they still can; water treatment exists to reclaim sullied water, but once oil is burned you can't get that back.