In the Great Lakes region, Michigan is the last state to pass laws that protect the Lakes from large-scale withdrawals. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
In the Great Lakes region, Michigan is the last state to pass laws to
protect the Lakes from large-scale withdrawals. The GLRC’s Mark
Brush has more:
More than twenty years ago, the eight Great Lakes states pledged to
protect the Great Lakes from large scale water diversions. But until now,
Michigan officials never put a cap on how much water could be
withdrawn.
Mike Shriberg is the director of the Public Interest Research Group in
Michigan – an environmental advocacy group. He says it was especially
important for Michigan to pass these laws since the state is nearly
surrounded by the Lakes:
“Michigan needed to establish a precedent here saying we’re taking care
of our own water that we’re actually setting limits on who can use our
water, before we really had good standing in any regional debates over
diverting Great Lakes water as a whole.”
The new laws say any new businesses planning large scale water
withdrawals will need to get permits from the state. The laws will allow
bottled water to be shipped out of the region in containers as big as 5.7
gallons.
For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.