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.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @04:58PM
Technically, while Michigan and Huron have separate names, the lakes are a single body of water. There is no separation between them as there is between the other Great Lakes (E.g. Erie and Ontario are connected by the Niagara River and are not a common body)
That means water extracted from Michigan is extracted from Huron and that body of water is governed by both the US and Canada. This is not something that should be up to the US to decide. It is an international issue.
But the US won't see it that way. Surprise!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @12:35AM
Except, of course, that the compact is the manner in which the states implement an agreement which includes Ontario and Quebec. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact [wikipedia.org]