Tag: diversion

Candidates Play on Water Diversion Issue

Great Lakes water has become an issue in this year’s presidential campaign as both candidates try to pick up valuable votes in the swing states. Both of the major party candidates say they’re against diverting the water to other states, and both say their opponent has been inconsistent on the issue. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

Great Lakes water has become an issue in this year’s presidential campaign as
both candidates try to pick up valuable votes in the swing states. Both of the
major party candidates say they’re against diverting the water to other states,
and both say their opponent has been inconsistent on the issue. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:


President Bush says he favors keeping Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes.
He said so this summer during a campaign stop in Traverse City, Michigan.


“My position is clear. We’re never going to allow diversion of Great
Lakes water.”


And John Kerry says he is against diverting Great Lakes water. It’s one of six
points included in his recently-released plan to clean up and preserve the lakes.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm discussed that plan in a conference call
with reporters.


“They are adamantly opposed to diverting water from the Great Lakes
basin. They will institute a no diversions policy for the Great Lakes.
They will block any water diversion.”


And while both the Bush and Kerry campaigns are promising not to let other
states tap into the Great Lakes, they’re accusing each other of going back and
forth on the issue. Bush says back in February, Kerry referred to the diversion
issue as a “delicate balancing act.” The next day, Kerry’s campaign said the
Democrat was “absolutely opposed” to diversions. The Kerry campaign
says back in 2001, President Bush expressed support for diverting Great Lakes
water to the Southwestern United States. The president wasn’t that specific
about it, though he did say he’d be open to discussions about water with
Canada’s prime minister.


Michigan’s Governor Granholm says there’s no immediate threat that Great
Lakes water would be diverted, though she says it has to be a concern as the
dry, Southwestern part of the United States continues to add people, and
members of Congress who might one day vote on such an issue.


But some experts say diversion of Great Lakes water is much more likely to happen
in areas closer to the Lakes. They say diverting water to the arid Southwest
would cost too much.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.

Related Links

Diverting Great Lakes Water to Cities

  • Fast-growing cities beyond the Great Lakes basin want to withdraw water from the lakes. The Council of the Great Lakes Governors is considering allowing more to do so. (Photo: Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lake Michigan, by Lester Graham)

More cities and businesses outside the Great Lakes basin want to take water from the Lakes. Great Lakes governors and provincial leaders are working on proposed new rules to control water diversions. Their proposal is expected to be released this month. Some say there’s a chance that more communities just outside the basin will get some water from the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story:

Transcript

More cities and businesses outside the Great Lakes basin want to take water from the Lakes. Great Lakes governors and provincial leaders are working on proposed new rules to control water diversions. Their proposal is expected to be released this month. Some say there’s a chance that more communities just outside the basin will get some lake water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has the story.


Only a few communities outside the Great Lakes Basin currently get water from the Lakes, but some inland cities are growing and running short on groundwater supplies. One such city is Waukesha, Wisconsin. Waukesha is 25 miles away from Lake Michigan. The city is on the far side of the sub-continental divide that separates the Great Lakes basin from the basin where surface waters drain to the Mississippi river.


(pump house noise for a few seconds, then fade under)


At the sunset pumping station in Waukesha, blue-painted pumps push groundwater from a large storage tank towards the homes of some of the city’s 65-thousand residents. Waukesha’s population has grown about 30 percent over the last two decades, so water utility general manager Dan Duchniak says the city is pumping more water than it used to…especially during dry periods when people water their lawns.


“When we did not have all the rain we had, we had our peak days around 10-11 million gallons a day – now around 12-13 million gallons a day. It goes up couple hundred thousand gallons per year.”


(gradually fade pump noise out)


No one in Waukesha is doing without tap water, but the groundwater table has dropped 300 feet over the last 50 years. And there’s another problem. Waukesha’s water supply is tainted by radium, a naturally occurring contaminant that could cause cancer. One of Waukesha’s long-term ideas for improving its water is to abandon the city wells and pump in up to twenty million gallons a day from Lake Michigan. In a complicated argument, hydrologists say Waukesha’s groundwater aquifer and the lake are connected anyway, so Dan Duchniak says a pipeline to the lake would not be a new withdrawal of water, and would actually help restore the original natural system.


“All we’re saying to make it real simple right now we have a vertical straw that is pulling water from the aquifer that has its tributary to the Great Lakes, we just want to take that water and make it horizontal for the better of the environment all around us.”


Duchniak has the ear of Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle. Governor Doyle is the new Chair of the Council of Great Lakes Governors. Among other things the council decides on water withdrawals from the Great Lakes. The governors of the eight Great Lakes states and leaders of Quebec and Ontario are expected to soon release a proposal called annex 2001. If passed, it will update rules on diverting great lakes water. Governor Doyle says he opposes sending water out of the Midwest, but he says short-distance diversions might be okay, if there’s a drop for drop return of clean water. Doyle acknowledges he needs unanimous agreement.


“There’s no reason for a governor of another state to approve even a small diversion unless they have some real confidence that the Great Lakes will be protected. That’s the way we protect it. Every single governor needs to approve.”


Governor Doyle says any change in diversion policy is years away. Still, environmental groups are closely watching for the annex 2001 proposal. Reg Gilbert is with Great Lakes United. He says before any more diversions are allowed, the plan should include more guidelines for water conservation. he says the lakes are too important to put them at risk by withdrawing too much water.


“Both our quality of life and a significant part of our economics come from a good functioning Great Lakes and if the rules for protecting it require it being difficult to divert water even those communities that want to divert that water might want to think twice and see it’s in the best interest of the whole region to have pretty strong rules… even if it makes it a little bit harder for some communities to get the water they need.”


Gilbert says he’s also looking for a plan that will pass muster with international trade courts that have questioned the legality of great lakes officials controlling the local waters. Gilbert’s hoping a lot of people will weigh in with their ideas during an upcoming comment period.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

Related Links

Judge Orders Water Bottling Plant to Stop Pumping

A judge in Michigan has given a spring water bottling plant three weeks to stop pumping water from the ground. He says the Ice Mountain facility is causing harm to surrounding lakes, streams and wetlands. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:

Transcript

A judge in Michigan has given a spring water bottling plant three weeks
to stop pumping water from the ground. He says the Ice Mountain facility is
causing harm to surrounding lakes, streams and wetlands. We have more from the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:


The Ice Mountain plant pulls hundreds of thousands of gallons a day from
an underground spring in northern Michigan. The bottled water is shipped
across the Midwest.


Environmentalists say that should be considered an illegal diversion of
water from the Great Lakes basin.


Mecosta County Circuit Judge Lawrence Root said that’s not the case. But
he did say the facility is having an adverse effect on nearby surface water
levels, fish, and plant life. He ordered the plant to stop pumping water.


Plaintiff Terry Swier says that’s good enough for her.


“All of us that heard it could only say, ‘Wow.’ It is, uh, it’s great.”


Ice Mountain officials say the impact of this will be felt by farmers,
golf course owners and other businesses that require large withdrawals of
groundwater.


They plan to ask for permission to continue operating while they appeal
the decision.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta in
Lansing, Michigan.

Related Links

Great Lakes Diversion

The International Joint Commission is looking into the issue of
diversion of Great Lakes water. They’ve been given six months to
recommend an interim policy. Over the last two weeks, they’ve been
conducting a series of public forums on the issue. I-J-C Chairman Tom
Baldini has a few thoughts:

Water Diversion Plan Dropped

An Ontario company has withdrawn its bid for a permit to sell Lake
Superior water to Asian countries. But, as the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports, it probably won’t be the last time
someone will try to divert water from the Great Lakes: