Who
owns the Great Lakes? Or perhaps more to the point, who
gets to use them, and who decides that?
Last
week, the Council of Great Lakes Governors (the governors and Canadian premiers
of the Great Lakes area) released proposed agreements
that tackle those questions. The documents — part of an international
agreement known as the Great Lakes Charter Annex — spell out exactly how the
states and provinces ringing the lakes would regulate the withdrawal of Great
Lakes water.
Public
hearings will be held on the proposals in September, and comments are being
accepted through October 19. Once that period is over the states, and provinces
will have the chance to ratify the agreements and, in the US
side, send them in the form of a compact to Congress. If approved by Congress,
the compact would be binding for the states. (The agreement that includes the
provinces would be nonbinding, since no mechanism exists to enforce
cross-border promises between states and provinces.)
Under
the proposed agreements, Great Lakes governors and
premiers would have to approve any water withdrawal from the Great
LakesBasin of more
than 1 million gallons a day in a 120-day period. Any consumptive use — an
activity that doesn’t return the water to the lakes — of more than 5 million
gallons a day would have to get similar approval. States and provinces would be
required to police smaller withdrawals within their own borders. Water diverted
out of the basin would have to be returned in a way that improves the basin’s
ecology.
Bordered
by two nations, eight states, and two provinces, plus numerous local
municipalities, the lakes are subject to a hodgepodge of overlapping legal
jurisdictions. Consolidating that control is among the aims of the Council of
Great Lakes Governors.
The
impetus for the council members’ work was their recognition that the region
faces the threat of major water withdrawal, from across the globe to their own
backyard. The possibility of external threats was driven home in 1998, when the
Ontario government gave the
Canadian-based Nova Group a permit to export 156 million gallons of Great
Lakes water to Asia each year. At the last
minute, the permit was revoked under intense national pressure, but the
incident left many people wary.
Meanwhile,
inside the basin tremendous amounts of water are already being regularly
withdrawn for such purposes as power generation, industry, public supply, and
agriculture. Although much of what leaves the lakes and their tributaries
eventually finds its way back, much is also lost.
But
in a chain of lakes that contains an estimated 6 quadrillion gallons, does even
5 million gallons a day add up to more than a drop in the bucket?
Noah
Hall thinks it does. An attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, Hall worked
on the advisory group that helped draft the Council of Governors’ proposed
agreements. The International Joint Commission (created by the 1909 Boundary
Waters Treaty between the US
and Canada to
administer border waters) estimates that only 1 percent of the lakes’ volume is
restored through precipitation, run-off, and other sources each year, says
Hall. Take more than that, he says, and we’ll be reducing the amount of water
in the lakes beyond what nature can restore.
Are
we at that 1 percent yet? “We don’t know for sure,” says Hall. “We know we’re
getting close.” And while thirsty users vie for more water, increasingly
there’s less to go around, Hall says.
“Right
now, we’re seeing low lake levels in the region,” says Hall. That’s probably a
combination of three factors, he says: increased water use, global warming, and
natural cycles.
If
users around the basin top the 1 percent mark and start permanently lowering
the level of water in the lakes, Hall says, that could be catastrophic. Fishing
alone is estimated to generate about $6 billion in local economic activity
throughout the basin, he says. Commercial shipping ($4 billion in economic
activity, 70,000 jobs), tourism, and hydroelectric power generation at
facilities like those owned by the New York Power Authority in Lewiston-Niagara
and Massena could also be big losers if lake levels drop. Those two power
projects alone generate 10 percent of New YorkState’s electricity.
Questions of
control and ownership are behind one specific fear that haunts many environmental
groups around the basin. They’re wondering whether, if push comes to shove, any
water protection can hold up before the tribunals that resolve disputes over
international trade agreements.
The
North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade are designed to keep nations from implementing protectionist policies.
Nobody seems to know whether (and to what extent) NAFTA and GATT might apply to
public natural resources. With about 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface
water in the Great Lakes, and the United Nations
estimating that 2 billion people will be living with water shortages by
mid-century, regional governments don’t want to wait and find out the hard way.
“Free
trade agreements are certainly one of the things that’s creating an urgency to
get this thing done,” says Hall.
“With
international trade agreements,” he says, “it’s much more difficult to say no
to diversions, because that could be seen as discriminatory.”
“Generally,
if you allow the citizens of one country to do something, you have to let the
citizens of another do the same,” adds Reg Gilbert, senior coordinator with
Buffalo-based Great Lakes United. He lists “the increasing power of trade
agreements” as one of the top threats facing the basin’s water.
But
protecting water supplies isn’t a hopeless task, provided that the right laws
are in place, says Hall. “Both agreements [NAFTA and GATT] have provisions for
environmental protections,” he says. That’s why the passing the Council of Governors’
proposed agreements — with their conservation-based rationale — is so
important, he says.
Losing Great
Lakes water to other shores isn’t the only danger. States in the
Southwest and Southeast are experiencing population surges as Northeasterners
flee the cold or follow jobs. That’s causing two simultaneous trends that worry
regional environmentalists: even as burgeoning populations are strengthening
the political clout of states outside the region, they are sucking up the
limited water resources of their regions at an increasing pace.
Reg
Gilbert foresees large-scale plans to move huge quantities of Great
Lakes water to other regions of the country. While no one has said
they’re planning to do that, says Gilbert, “we are speculating on the basis of
trends.” Regardless of whether Bush or Kerry is elected this fall, he contends,
“we’re going to have more of these extraction-based governments in the future.”
Even
the idea of an Alaska
pipeline-style project, seemingly farfetched, is a possibility, he believes.
“Who knows,” he says. “Don’t put anything past — I won’t say human ingenuity
— human stupidity.” Speaking in a more serious tone, he adds: “This is a
government that’s not afraid to waste money.”
Hall
agrees. As recently as the 1980s there’s been talk of sending water westward to
the plains, he says, but mostly it hasn’t been taken very seriously. Like
Gilbert, he believes that’s about to change. “I think we’re a few years away
from a legitimate proposal to divert water to the Southwest and the Southeast,”
Hall says.
How
long is a few years? “Two to three years,” responds Hall.
“When
towns in Arizona are running out
of water, it’s going to be difficult for this region to say no,” he says. The
Council of Governors’ proposed agreements will help Great Lakes
states do that, he believes.
But
he emphasizes that it’s not simply about being stingy: “Our guiding concern is
the health of the great lakes,” Hall says.
“The biggest
certain threat to the basin is that there are no rules to regulate the
day-in, day-out withdrawals from the basin,” says Gilbert. “The only
regulations there are, protect drinking water.”
Farm
irrigation inside the basin figures prominently among those day-in, day-out
withdrawals that have environmentalists like Gilbert worried. According to a
November 2002 report released by the Minneapolis-based Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy, irrigation in the Great Lakes
states increased by 30 percent from 1987 to 1997. This was “despite a
significant decline in overall land in farms in the Great Lakes
region” during that period: about 30 percent, according to the IATP.
And,
says a May 2003 report by the Great Lakes Commission, while irrigation
accounted for only about .04 percent of the water withdrawn from the Great
Lakes in one recent year, 1998, it was responsible for 17.3 percent of the
water lost — withdrawn and not returned.
Patrick
Hooker, director of the New York Farm Bureau’s Public Policy division, cites
the specific needs of certain crops as a primary reason for irrigation in the
generally rain-rich Northeast. “It’s very difficult to grow some vegetable and
fruit crops anywhere in the Great Lakes basin without
irrigating,” he says.
Some
of the neediest of those crops are right here in our backyard: “The soils of
the Western New York region and in MonroeCounty are great for fruit growing,”
says Hooker, who adds that the Greater Rochester and Finger Lakes
areas use more Great Lakes water than any other area of
the state.
Farm
Bureau Legislative Director Jeff Williams says that some irrigation operations
in the area withdraw more than 100,000 gallons per day. That would subject them
to state review under the proposed agreements. None meet the 5 million gallon
per day threshold that would subject them to review by the council of regional
governors and premiers, he believes.
Williams
declined to identify any of those local operations.
Noah
Hall believes he knows why irrigation is on the rise. “It’s not because we’re
farming more, but because we’re irrigating more,” he says. He cites as
anecdotal evidence a story told in “Water Follies,” a recently released book by
University of Arizona
Professor Robert Glennon. In order to produce
potatoes that McDonalds can use for supersized french fries, farmers have resorted
to heavily irrigating a plant that ordinarily thrives in dry conditions, the
book says.
“Those
companies require a uniformity of product that can only be achieved through
massive irrigation,” says Hall. “It’s not even really keeping small farmers in
business; it’s to satisfy the needs of a few commodity buyers.”
Farm
Bureau officials did not respond directly to those assertions. They do share at
least one large concern with environmentalists, however. Both groups fear the
possibility of putting a price tag on the Great Lakes
water in the not-so-distant future. Like homeowners, who pay for the services
provided by a water authority — getting the waters of LakeOntario treated and into your tap at
home — rather than the water itself, farmers who irrigate are not charged for
the use of Great Lakes water.
“If
there ever were to be a charge for water, that’s a concern for our members,”
says Hooker. He acknowledges that the Council of Governors’ agreements don’t
contain any provision to do that, but he is apprehensive of what he calls
“mission creep.” Hooker defines that as the tendency of governments to slowly
adopt increasingly restrictive pieces of legislation. “It’s remarkable when you
run a business in this state — especially a farm — how many government
agencies you have to deal with,” he says.
Gilbert
also hopes that the water in the Great Lakes will stay
free of such economic entanglements as registration and water-use fees, though
for slightly different reasons. “That’s the first step toward ownership
rights,” he says. He points out that in the West, where water rights are an
established way of life, water-based resources and the environmental quality of
many areas often suffer as a result. Though no one’s suggesting that the Great
Lakes could be privatized, at least not yet, that fear is in the
back of many environmentalists’ minds, including Gilbert’s.
“How
do you protect the environment when the most basic element is owned?” he asked.
Giving your comments
Three public hearings will be held on the proposed
legislation governing withdrawal of water from the Great Lakes:
in Niagara Falls on September 14, in
Rochester on September 15, and in Watertown
on September 16.
The Rochester
hearing will be at the Rochester Institute of Technology Hotel and ConferenceCenter from 6:30
to 9:00 p.m.
You can also submit written comments. Send them to David
Naftzger, Executive Director, Council of Great Lakes Governors, 35
East Wacker Drive, Suite 1850, Chicago, Illinois60601. Or e-mail them
toAnnex2001@cglg.org. You can also submit comments online at www.cglg.org,
where you can find the complete text of the proposal.
The deadline for comments is October 19.
This article appears in Jul 28 – Aug 3, 2004.
