This is just one post in the National water news Category

Will the U.S. drain Canada dry? Some Canadians think so

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 21, 2008 at 5:22 am

From Canada’s National Post:

It was here in southern Alberta, a century ago, when Canadians first learned of U.S. plans to take our water supplies. It would be the first and last battle over fresh water the two neighbours would fight. But Canadians have worried ever since that the day will come again when Americans will come after our fresh water. And if you believe certain nationalist groups, we may be powerless to do a thing about it.

Strange, considering that Canada plainly triumphed in the St. Mary River tussle, when Montana ranchers plotted in 1901 — with Washington’s blessing — to channel water from the flush, northbound waterway, 30 kilometres east to the much drier, southbound Milk River. After Albertans threatened to dam the Milk on its brief foray north of the 49th, blocking the water from returning to Montana, the Americans settled for a joint commission governing the rivers. It let Montanans take some of the water. But Alberta ended up winning the bulk of St. Mary’s flow.

Canada, with 10 times the renewable fresh water per capita as the United States, is by global standards a water heavyweight. Though we boast of our trade muscle on energy matters, Canadians come off as positively paranoid we’re powerless to stop Americans from siphoning our precious water.

“We’ve got this national neurosis about the United States, it’s our great fear we’re going to wind up like Finland — at any moment they’re going to march over our border and take us down,” says Chris Wood, the B.C.-based author of the recently released Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America.

The Ottawa-based Polaris Institute last week released a study warning: “It is not at all clear that either Ottawa or the provinces are in a position to deal with a challenge coming from Washington to turn on the taps for Canadian bulk water exports.” In March, Ottawa blocked a UN vote that would have declared water a human right, purportedly nervous the policy might let parched nations demand our H20.