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US lawmakers hope to approve Great Lakes compact, but lawyer warns Canadians the water pact will deplete Great Lakes

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 24, 2008 at 5:33 am

From MLive.com:

A compact to prevent the diversion of water from the Great Lakes has widespread support in Congress and a strong chance of winning approval by the end of the year, lawmakers said Wednesday.

House and Senate leaders from the region said they had not detected any significant opposition to the plan and would aggressively push to complete the process this year to provide more protections for one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water. “It will be done by the end of this session, I assure you,” said Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who is leading efforts in the House.

Senate leaders, however, were more cautious, noting their chamber can be unpredictable because rules allow individual members to block legislation from moving forward. Election year politics also can add complications. “I cannot tell you with confidence that it will pass this year — but I will tell you with confidence that it will pass,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. His Republican colleague, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, said he was hopeful it would pass before the end of the year.

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However, a U.S. environmental lawyer has warned Canadians that the pact is actually bad news for the Great Lakes in this article from The Star:

A pact designed to preserve the Great Lakes is in reality a “slippery slope” that threatens severe harm to the world’s largest body of fresh water, a top U.S. environmental lawyer has warned Canadians. “In effect, a precedent is being set, in that it allows for the commercialization of water. You are privatizing it,” James Olson said yesterday of an agreement among eight Great Lakes states now before the U.S. Congress and linked to Ontario and Quebec through a side deal.

Among other concerns, Olson criticizes an exemption in the Great Lakes Compact allowing water to be removed by private industry as long as it’s not “bulk diversion” – in other words, restricted to containers no more than 20 litres in Canada or 5.7 gallons in the U.S., with no limit on the number of containers a business, such as a bottler, can sell. That means an important legal precedent has been set giving water a “product” exemption from the diversion ban on Great Lakes water at the heart of the deal. It is a product to be exploited for private gain, and not to be recognized as a public trust.

While Olson is worried about the gradual loss of water levels through the activities of, say, bottling companies, under current limitations, he predicts these quantitative restrictions will turn out to be mere formalities destined to be overturned in court challenges. “The agreement has been reported to have a veneer of glory around it, but it’s much less than that,” Olson said in an interview from Traverse City, Mich. “But it can do great public harm, including to Canadians.”