Protect the lakes

If the eight U.S. states adjoining the Great Lakes go ahead with a plan to allow Waukesha, Wis., population 70,000, to divert water from Lake Michigan, the small city could pose a big threat to the future of the Great Lakes.

Waukesha recently became the first city outside of the Great Lakes Basin to get permission to draw from the freshwater bodies. It’s an exception to a 2008 “compact” between the Great Lakes states and Ontario and Quebec — a decision that environmentalists and politicians worry will set a dangerous precedent.

After all, the Great Lakes, which hold 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, are not a renewable source. Only 1 per cent of the lakes’ water is replenished through snow melt and rain. The other 99 per cent was left behind by melting glaciers more than 12,000 years ago and is irreplaceable.

That’s why the compact bans populations outside of the basin from drawing water from any of the Great Lakes. The eight states, however, approved Waukesha’s request after the city argued that even though it is not in the basin, it’s in a county that is. (Ontario and Quebec sadly don’t get a vote on U.S. diversions.) Now, 123 mayors from cities bordering the Great Lakes in Canada and the U.S., members of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, are rightly fighting back.

“This decision opens the door to every neighboring city and county to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Basin in the U.S. and Canada to get water from the basin without meeting the conditions of the compact,” Mayor Paul Dyster of Niagara Falls, N.Y., cautions. Experts have been warning of such a slippery slope for decades.

The mayors have asked for a hearing with the eight states, called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Barack Obama to intervene and appealed to the International Joint Commission, which settles trans-boundary water disputes between Canada and the U.S.

Policy-makers should heed their call. After all, as one Ontario mayor said, the results of the decision could be “catastrophic.” It may even signal “the end of the Great Lakes as we know them,” as another warned.

That should worry everyone, not least Ontarians. If water levels in the lakes get drawn down, 90 per cent of the population of Ontario — not to mention 40 per cent of Canada’s economic activity — could be affected.

Given the stakes for us and others in the basin, it hardly seems fair that the only public hearing held on the issue took place in Waukesha.

It was only two years ago that the water levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron hit historic lows. Environmentalists warn that with climate change there will be yet more evaporation. The Great Lakes mayors, who represent more than17 million people, are right to demand that the decision be reversed. Once the water is gone, we can never get it back.

Mayors must stop Wisconsin city from diverting water from Lake Michigan