Tag: michigan

To Dam or Not to Dam

  • Residents on Boardman Pond are upset about the water level dropping after the pond was drawn down because of safety concerns at a nearby dam. Homeowners here are worried that if the dams are taken out, they'll lose their waterfront property permanently. (Photo courtesy of Jim and Joane McIntyre)

America has been a country that builds
dams. There are more than 75,000 major
dams in the US. But now, a lot of those dams
are getting old and they’re breaking down.
That means people who live near those dams have
some choices to make. Rebecca Williams has
the story of neighbors who are debating what
to do with their river:

Transcript

America has been a country that builds
dams. There are more than 75,000 major
dams in the US. But now, a lot of those dams
are getting old and they’re breaking down.
That means people who live near those dams have
some choices to make. Rebecca Williams has
the story of neighbors who are debating what
to do with their river:

We’ve built dams for good reasons – they can produce electricity and help
control floods. But a lot of the dams in the US are 50 or even a hundred years
old. In dam years, that’s really old.

“Right now we’re sittin’ on an earthen dam, which is Union Street dam.”

Sandra Sroonian lives in Traverse City, Michigan. It’s a touristy town on a
bright blue bay of Lake Michigan. The Boardman River flows into the Great
Lake and it cuts right through town. There are four old dams on the
Boardman.

The utility company that licensed those dams decided they weren’t profitable
anymore. So they gave up the licenses, and now the city and county are trying
to decide what the heck they’re gonna do with the dams.

Sroonian is an engineer who’s turned into a mediator of sorts. She’s helping
people here sort through all the options. Some of the dams could be made to
generate power again, or some of the dams could be taken out to restore the
river to a more natural state. The water would be faster and colder.

“So depending if you’re a fisherman or fisherperson you may feel it’s a benefit
to remove the dams to improve the fishing along the river.”

She says other people want a whitewater park to kayak on.

But the Boardman is a blue ribbon trout stream, it’s one of the best. Biologists
say it’d be even better without the dams.

And then, there are the people who say they have the most to lose if the dams
are taken out.

(sound at Boardman Pond)

Jim and Joane McIntyre live on Boardman Pond.

“When we bought this house 14 years ago it never entered our minds that we
wouldn’t always be on this wonderful little piece of paradise.”

McIntyre says if the dams are taken out, their pond will be drained. They’ve
actually gotten a taste of that already. Because of safety concerns at one of the
dams the water level in the pond was lowered. The McIntyre’s dock is 25 feet
above the water. They can’t even get their boat out on the water.

“We would be having this interview floating around on our electric deck boat
with an adult beverage (laughs). But we’re not able to do that. So from that
standpoint we’ve lost some of the attractiveness of living on water – it’s
beautiful but we want to use it.”

The McIntyres say they want what’s best for the river. But they also want to
keep their waterfront property. And they say it’d make more sense to produce
electricity from the river.

And that’s what this debate is boiling down to: energy versus property rights
versus the environment versus the economy.

Mike Estes is the Mayor of Traverse City. He says boosting the local economy
matters most.

“We’re trying to increase tourism here. Traverse City is already a destination
spot for people to visit – they visit because of our golden sand beaches and the
bay. Adding the river to it is simply going to add to that mix.”

This dam debate has lasted more than three years – there’ve been lots of studies
and dozens of public meetings. Some people here joke they won’t be alive by
the time the whole thing gets resolved.

But a decision on this Michigan river is expected by the end of the year. Most
people think it’ll be a compromise – maybe keep some of the old dams, take
some out.

A lot of towns close to rivers all across the nation will be having these same
debates.

And you can bet that not everyone’s going to be happy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Part One: Canada’s Take on Trash

  • Jen Spence's collection of trash/ recycling containers on the east side of Toronto. The city has retooled its recycling program in recent years to make it easier for residents. The big blue container is for recycling, the green hanging pail is for compost. Toronto only picks up trash twice a month - but Spence's family doesn't even fill that small trash can. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Sometimes it takes a little public
embarrassment to get on the right track.
Back in 2000, the city of Toronto couldn’t
find a place to send its garbage – so it
started trucking trash across the border
to the US. Julie Grant reports that inspired
Toronto to create one of the most aggressive
recycling programs in North America:

Transcript

Sometimes it takes a little public
embarrassment to get on the right track.
Back in 2000, the city of Toronto couldn’t
find a place to send its garbage – so it
started trucking trash across the border
to the US. Julie Grant reports that inspired
Toronto to create one of the most aggressive
recycling programs in North America:

Some days Toronto has sent as many as 150 trucks full of
trash 300 miles to a landfill in the U.S. For those of you
counting at home, that’s 90,000 highway miles a day. That’s
not only bad for the environment. As gas prices have risen,
it’s also bad for Toronto’s bottom line.

But the bigger issue was Toronto wasn’t taking care of its
own trash. It wasn’t even keeping it in Canada. It was
trucking it to Michigan.

And the people in Michigan – they didn’t like it too much.

They’ve complained about the stink of Toronto’s trash for
years.

They even got the U.S. Congress to look at ways to stop it
from crossing the border.

But, free trade even covers a commodity such as garbage.

The people in Toronto are a little embarrassed by it all.

(sound of a neighborhood)

David Wallett looks perfectly pleased with the landscaping in
his small lawn in east Toronto. But his eyes tilt downward
when he’s asked about shipping the city’s waste to Michigan.

“The downside of that is all those trucks ripping down the
401. I mean that can’t be good for the environment to have
lots of trucks burning gas just getting it there.”

But the City of Toronto had signed a contract with a
Michigan landfill. So the trucks kept ripping down highway
401, even as fuel costs got higher and higher.

Geoff Rathbone is Toronto’s general manager of solid waste.
He says the contract is a dark cloud – but it got the city and
residents on-board with recycling.

“The shipment to Michigan really became a wake up call that
allowed us to set very aggressive waste diversion targets.
And to realize that what we were shipping out of our country
was really more of a resource than a waste.”

Rathbone says Toronto set a tough goal – to reduce the
waste stream by 70%. And the city put up nearly a half-
billion dollars to do it.

But a funny thing happened as they started increasing their
recycling stream. Oil prices kept rising. That meant
commodity prices kept rising, too. Metals, plastics, and
paper have started to gain real value. Recycling paid!

And Toronto kept re-tooling its recycling program to make it
really easy for people.

(sound of a neighborhood)

On the east side of Toronto, Dick Wallett and his neighbors
each have one of those huge cart-like garbage barrels – the
ones with a handle and wheels. But it’s not for trash. It’s for
recyclables.

Jen Spence says it’s much easier than it used to be.

“For awhile it was very complicated. We had to put
newspapers in one bin and glass and bottles and jars in
another bin.”

Now they just throw everything into that one big container
and wheel it to the street. The city picks up and sorts the
recyclables. For free. It also picks up compost. You know,
food waste. Spence takes out a small pail from under the
kitchen sink to show me. It’s latched shut.

“This is the green bin. The city of Toronto sends this out to
anyone who’s going to be producing garbage. It collects
flies really badly, and it’s hard to clean, so they send out
these bags that are perfectly for it. It’s a nice size. It fills up
pretty quick and doesn’t stink. We used to have a huge can
and now it’s just that little guy that goes out every two
weeks.”

The city makes it kind of hard to take out regular trash –
things that can’t be recycled or composted. Like Spence
said, it’s only picked twice a month. And you pay as you
throw. The more you make, the more you pay.

Toronto has been able to cut the number of trucks headed to
the landfill in Michigan in half. And it’s moving toward it’s
goal of reducing the waste stream by 70%.

The city even plans to make energy out of the compost it’s
collecting.

The city plans to generate electricity and eventually make a
biofuel from the compost. That will be used to run Toronto’s
trucks to the landfill.

Oh, but those trucks won’t be going to the landfill in
Michigan.

The city has finally found a Canadian landfill that will start
taking Toronto’s waste in 2010.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Adopt-A-Watt

  • The Adopt-A-Watt program allows people to sponsor clean energy (Photo courtesy of Adopt-A-Watt)

A new program gets businesses and
groups to pay towns to switch to alternative
energy. Lester Graham reports it’s a
little like an “Adopt-A-Highway” program:

Transcript

A new program gets businesses and
groups to pay towns to switch to alternative
energy. Lester Graham reports it’s a
little like an “Adopt-A-Highway” program:

Imagine seeing a bank of solar panels that power nearby street lights, and a sign
underneath which recognizes the company that sponsored the project.

Thomas Wither is the founder of the National Adopt-A-Watt program.

“Our program mimics the very successful “Adopt-A-Highway” program. Only instead
of giving supporters community recognition for picking up litter alongside the road,
we have come up with a means of giving community recognition for supporting clean
energy and the funding for alternative fuels.”

Wither says several airports are among the first to use the “adopt-a-watt” program.

Sponsors get the benefit of being connected to clean energy – like solar power – and
airports, towns, and other government entities get the cost of using clean energy
subsidized by those sponsors.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Gl Compact Goes to Washington

  • Lake Superior's South Shore, Wisconsin (Photo by Dave Hansen, courtesy of the EPA)

There’s a new agreement that says the
Great Lakes water has to stay in the Great Lakes.
It’s been approved now by all eight of the states
and the two Canadian provinces that border the
Lakes. Rick Pluta reports the agreement is now
on its way to Congress:

Transcript

There’s a new agreement that says the
Great Lakes water has to stay in the Great Lakes.
It’s been approved now by all eight of the states
and the two Canadian provinces that border the
Lakes. Rick Pluta reports the agreement is now
on its way to Congress:

The Great Lakes region was worried that drier parts of the country and the world might
be eyeing the largest supply of freshwater on Earth.

Ten years ago, a Canadian company got permission from Ontario to send millions of
gallons of water to Asia via tanker ships. Fierce opposition from around the Great Lakes
region put an end to that project. But regions neighboring the Great Lakes basin still see
them as a possible cure for their water shortages.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says the Great Lakes compact offers an answer to
anyone outside the region who wants to get their hands on that water.

“Can’t touch this. (laughs) That’s what we say. They need to look at their own way of
preserving and managing their resources.”

When Granholm signed new laws in a ceremony here on the Lake Michigan shoreline,
Michigan became the last of the eight Great Lakes states to formally join the compact.

The compact was put together by leaders of the US states and two Canadian provinces
that border the lakes. Granholm says, once it’s adopted by Congress and signed by the
president, it will give the Great Lakes states new authority to protect their water.

“This allows me as governor to veto any large diversion of water, so we can put a stop to
it ourselves. It really allows us the autonomy of protecting these Great Lakes overall.”

It took 10 years for the Great Lakes states to get the compact through their legislatures
and signed by their governors. Members of Congress from the region are hoping it won’t
take quite so long to get it to the president’s desk.

Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel is expected to lead the effort to get the compact
through the US House. He says congressional hearings will begin this year and the
compact should be approved in time for it to be sent to the new president in early 2009.
Emanuel says he’s not expecting any problems.

“Because people understand and know, this is our Yellowstone Park, this is our Grand
Canyon. This is a national treasure. There’s been a lot of work and years of effort to get
this done. The good news is a lot of the chairmen of the committees that are relevant, come
from the Midwest, know how important the Great Lakes are and will act with due speed
in getting it done.”

Both the Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic candidate
Barak Obama have said they would sign the compact.

Environmental groups are among those backing the deal. But many of them say it
still comes up short because it does not stop bottled water from leaving the Great Lakes
region.

Cyndi Roper is with Clean Water Action.

“Water is water. You can’t fill a tanker with water and take it out of the Great Lakes, but
you can fill that same tanker with bottles of water and ship them to other parts of the
country and other parts of the world, and we believe as we move forward, that’s a very
dangerous precedent to set.”

She says that’s because many millions of gallons can still trickle out of the lakes – even if
it’s 12 ounces at a time.

For The Environment Report, this is Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Imax Movie Highlights Great Lakes

  • "Mysteries of the Great Lakes" is an IMAX film highlighting the threats to Great Lakes wildlife (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s a new IMAX film about the threats to wildlife around the Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach has more:

Transcript

There’s a new IMAX film about the threats to wildlife around the Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach has more:

The film “Mysteries of the Great Lakes” highlights some less commonly known stories, like that of the massive fish known as the lake sturgeon. Biologists are trying to bring the threatened fish back to healthy numbers.

Ron Bruch is a key figure in the new movie. Here, he discusses a 120 year old female sturgeon he’s seen numerous times on spawning runs.

“I’ve gone through this ritual eight times with this fish, and each time I wonder if it’ll be the last. But she’s a survivor and maybe 50 years from now, she’ll come up this river looking for me, and I’ll be gone.”

The film also looks at possible health risks to bald eagles, and what invasive species are doing to native wildlife.

“Mysteries of the Great Lakes” has started its run in several U.S. and Canadian cities.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Great Lakes Call for Help

  • Some feel the Great Lakes are being ignored by Congress (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)

The Great Lakes might be the most ignored
resource on the continent. Great Lakes advocates
say they have not been able to get enough attention
or money from Congress. Rebecca Williams reports
one group is outlining what needs to be done to fix
the Lakes before climate change makes things worse:

Transcript

The Great Lakes might be the most ignored
resource on the continent. Great Lakes advocates
say they have not been able to get enough attention
or money from Congress. Rebecca Williams reports
one group is outlining what needs to be done to fix
the Lakes before climate change makes things worse:

Washington D.C. is a long way from the Great Lakes. Most members of
Congress don’t live near the lakes. And many don’t understand just how big
they are.

Don Scavia used to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Washington.

“I’ve spent 15 years inside the Beltway and I just know that the Great Lakes just don’t
have the same sense of urgency and importance inside the Beltway as some other places like the Chesapeake Bay and others have. Senators and
Congressmen don’t have boats on it like they do on the Chesapeake. I think
it’s a matter of if you haven’t been here, if you haven’t seen them, you
really don’t get it.”

These days, Don Scavia is a scientist at the University of Michigan. He’s a
co-author of a report on global warming and the Great Lakes. He says we
need to help the Great Lakes adapt to the changes that are already happening
because of global warming.

“The restoration strategy is put in place specifically to increase the
resiliency of the Lakes, increase the buffering capacity of the Lakes, to allow them
to adapt to this near-term climate change.”

Just about everyone around the Great Lakes has noticed that water levels are
dropping. Recreational boats can get stuck. Big cargo ships can’t get into
harbors. And they have to carry lighter loads when lake levels drop. That
means more trips, and, eventually, higher prices for all of us. And
climate change might make it worse.

On top of that, the Great Lakes are struggling with fisheries collapsing,
invasive species damaging the ecosystem, and pollution that’s never been
cleaned up.

Jeff Skelding is with the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.

“When Great Lakes effort began, we had a lot on our plate to deal with and
then we looked at the science of global warming and its impacts on the Great
Lakes it kinda froze us in our tracks. Now we’ve got global warming to
contend with.”

So, what do the advocates want from Congress?

There’s a $20-billion price tag on Great Lakes restoration.

Bits and pieces of it have gone before Congress. And there’s been some
progress on money for things like restoring wetlands. But for the most
part, most of the time, the Great Lakes just haven’t been a priority in
Washington.

Rahm Emanuel is a Congressman from Illinois. He holds a leadership position
among the House Democrats. He says he hopes the money will be approved by
Congress sometime soon.

“I don’t want another study, I don’t want to pay for another analysis, I’m
over studied, over analysis-ed. We know what it takes to fix it, we know
what the pollutants are, now we’ve got to put our money where our mouth is.”

Politically, the time might not get any better for Great Lakes advocates.
There’s a Census coming up and new Congressional district lines will be
drawn. The Great Lakes region will lose representation in the US House.
That means the Great Lakes states will lose clout in Congress.

So, the region’s members of Congress need to get a Great Lakes restoration
package to the next President before that happens. Great Lakes advocates
are hoping the next President – whether it’s McCain, Obama or Clinton – will
give the Great Lakes more attention, and money.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Hemingway’s Paradise Lost

  • Students do 'the Hemingway thing' (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)

A good book has the ability to transport
you to different times and places. You can travel
to far off exotic countries or cities nearby. You
can also visit places that aren’t so easy to get
to – mostly because they don’t really exist anymore.
Places like Hemingway’s wild north woods. Jennifer
Guerra reports:

Transcript

A good book has the ability to transport
you to different times and places. You can travel
to far off exotic countries or cities nearby. You
can also visit places that aren’t so easy to get
to – mostly because they don’t really exist anymore.
Places like Hemingway’s wild north woods. Jennifer
Guerra reports:

Say what you want about Ernest Hemingway’s writing, the man loved his North Woods.
Up until his early twenties, he spent almost every summer up north at his family’s cottage
in Michigan.

And it’s there where most of The Nick Adams Stories take place.

“They were walking on the brown forest floor now and it was springy and cool under
their feet. There was no underbrush and the trunks of the trees rose sixty feet high
before there were any branches. It was cool in the shade of the trees and high up in
them Nick could hear the breeze that was rising.”

This is Nick Adams country in the early 1900s. The Last Good Country, Hemingway
called it. Filled with cathedral-like forests and streams swimming with big fat trout.

Now, it’s said that some of The Nick Adams Stories are based on Hemingway’s own
experiences in the north woods. Especially the parts in the book about hunting and
fishing.

“That was one of his favorite things to do.”

Valerie Hemingway was with the author when he wrote The Nick Adams Stories. Before
she married into the family, she was Hemingway’s secretary and occasional fishing
buddy. She says Hemingway used to go on and on about the good old days back in
northern Michigan.

“He taught me how to shoot a gun, told me about the river fishing – and these were
things that were initially associated with Michigan. And I think Michigan
represented the freedom in his life.”

But if Hemingway went up north today, he probably wouldn’t recognize the place.

“I think we’ve done our share of damaging it. And I’m sure there are areas where we
can still find something that he found, but it would be few and far between.”

Mary Crockett just finished The Nick Adams Stories. She read it as part of a state-wide
reading project put on by the local chapter of the National Endowment for the
Humanities. The reason The Nick Adams Stories was chosen for the great state read was
because of its obvious ties to Michigan and the north woods.

But Adam and Eva Colas
just read the book in a high school writing class. They’ve lived in Michigan their entire
lives, and they can’t relate to Hemingway’s North Woods at all.

“It doesn’t feel really representative of Michigan to me, cause it’s not the Michigan I know.”

“Cause even if you go to
Lake Michigan now for camping, there are specific pits for bonfires and specific cabins and all
these designated areas that make sure you don’t get lost or hurt, and you don’t have
to do anything for yourself.”

Their teachers thought that might happen, so they came up with the next best thing. An
outdoor classroom where the students can talk about the stories while doing what Adam
and Eva Colas call ‘the Hemingway thing’.

“The nature, hiking, canoeing. We can’t do the hunting/fishing thing, but just sort
of experiencing nature as nature.”

“Michigan as it was back in the day when this takes
place.”

See, that’s the beauty of a good book. Virginia Murphy teaches a class on Environmental
Literature at the University of Michigan. She says just because the students can’t
experience Hemingway’s world as it was back in the day, doesn’t mean they can’t learn
from his words.

“It allows them to see an environment that they’re not necessarily exposed to on a
daily basis. Most of us live in cities, drive our cars, work in buildings. And so it offers us a
perspective that we don’t have.”

So even if you never got to experience the north woods with all the big open spaces and
virgin forests and clear blue streams, well, there’s always the public library.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

Related Links

Living Downstream From Dow Chemical

  • A Dow Chemical sign on the Tittabawassee River stating 'Enter At Your Own Risk' (Photo by Vincent Duffy)

It’s been more than 50 years since Dow
Chemical Company stopped dumping dioxin into the
river flowing past its plant in Michigan. But the
company and government regulators are still arguing
over how to clean it up. Vincent Duffy reports:

Transcript

It’s been more than 50 years since Dow
Chemical Company stopped dumping dioxin into the
river flowing past its plant in Michigan. But the
company and government regulators are still arguing
over how to clean it up. Vincent Duffy reports:

(sound of backyard)

Kathy Henry’s backyard runs down to the bank of the Tittabawassee River.
It’s a beautiful view, but that’s not what Kathy Henry sees.

“When I look back there now, I see dioxin.”

You can’t really see the dioxin, but it is there. Dow Chemical started
dumping dioxin into the Tittabawasee river in the 1890s. Dioxin is believed
to cause cancer and damage reproductive systems. And, there are high
concentrations of dioxin not only in the Tittabawasee, but in all the water
and floodplains between the chemical plant and Lake Huron 50 miles
downstream.

Kathy Henry first found out about the dioxin seven years ago when a
whistleblower at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
warned local environmentalists about the contamination. She has wanted to
sell her house ever since.

“We’ve lived here for 24 years. We loved living in here. Now I’m afraid to
go out in my own yard. I just, psychologically, couldn’t stand living here
anymore. I had to get out.”

Dow says it will clean up any dioxin that’s proven to be dangerous to human
health, but the company has spent decades fighting with Michigan and the
US Environmental Protection Agency over how much of it is a threat.

Dow spokesman John Musser says there’s no proof anyone has gotten sick
because of the dioxin.

“We’re not seeing any impacts. We’re not seeing any cause for alarm. We’re
not seeing any imminent health threat. If it’s not a problem for humans or
the environment, then maybe the best thing to do is to leave it alone.”

But Michigan environmental officials are not so laissez-faire about the
contamination. They continue to warn residents about eating fish from the
rivers, about eating wild game killed in the region, and about swimming at
some beaches.

Robert McCann is with the state of Michigan. He says science is way past
the point of debating whether dioxin is dangerous.

“Study after study has shown that there are some very serious potential health
effects from being exposed to it, even at some lower levels over a long
period of time and those health effects do include things like cancer and
diabetes as well as some more minor health effects that can be caused from it.”

But Dow does debate whether dioxin is dangerous. John Musser says
Michigan and the EPA are using bad science based on dioxin exposure to lab
animals. He says Dow has human data from employees that show dioxin is
not as dangerous as people think.

“They were exposed at extremely high levels. And we’ve tracked their
health and their death records for 60 years and we’re not finding any ill
health effects.”

Attacking regulatory science is a common defense for industries. David
Michaels is an epidemiologist at George Washington University. He says
just like big tobacco questioned the link between smoking and lung cancer,
big business always questions the science.

“Companies know that by putting off the scientific debate for as many years
as they can they can keep doing the work that they’re doing and not be
disturbed. It works.”

For example, a recent meeting supposed to update residents about clean up
efforts turned into more of a debate between government scientists and scientists
hired by Dow. One member of the audience got sick of it.

“I’m not a geologist, I’m not a toxicologist, I’m just a resident that lives on
the river. And the last I knew dioxin was the most toxic substance known to
man. And what I’m seeing here is you guys trying to find excuses to justify
poisoning us.”

The EPA recently forced Dow to clean up four hot spots along the river,
including one spot with the highest concentration of dioxin ever found in the
United States.

But the last few months have had more set backs than
progress. In January, the EPA gave up trying to negotiate a clean up
agreement separate from Michigan’s. It said Dow’s proposals were going
backward.

Earlier this month the Region 5 director of the EPA was fired. Mary Gade
says it was because of her tough stance against Dow Chemical.

For The Environment Report, I’m Vincent Duffy.

Related Links

Interview: Great Lakes Compact

  • Map of the Great Lakes, the basin, and the 8 connecting states. (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Compact is an
agreement to stop shipping water out of the Great Lakes
basin. But all eight Great Lakes states and Congress
must approve it first. Lester Graham talked with Peter
Annin, the author of the book “The Great Lakes Water
Wars.” Annin says some of the states have been reluctant
to approve the treaty because Michigan has an image of saying
‘no’ to water requests from other states while putting
almost no water restrictions on its own towns and businesses:

Transcript

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Compact is an
agreement to stop shipping water out of the Great Lakes
basin. But all eight Great Lakes states and Congress
must approve it first. Lester Graham talked with Peter
Annin, the author of the book “The Great Lakes Water
Wars.” Annin says some of the states have been reluctant
to approve the treaty because Michigan has an image of saying
‘no’ to water requests from other states while putting
almost no water restrictions on its own towns and businesses:

Peter Annin: “Michigan has been a laggard in monitoring and regulating its own domestic water
use. And so it’s seen by some other states as being somewhat hypocritical in the water debate.
For example, Minnesota, which is the most progressive domestically, if you’re going to withdraw
water from the Great Lakes at 10,000 gallons a day or more, you have to get a permit. In the state
of Michigan you can go up to 5 million gallons of water withdrawn from Lake Michigan per day
before you have to get a permit. 10,000 gallons in Minnesota, 5 million gallons in Michigan, and
this is what is causing tension between Michigan and some of the other Great Lakes states.”

Lester Graham: “Lets assume that all 8 Great Lakes states do pass this within the next year or
two, Congress then has to pass it – and many of the members of Congress are in those thirsty
Southwestern states. What happens then?”

Annin: “Yeah, that’s a really good point. We have to remember that the compact is just a piece of
paper until it passes all 8 Great Lakes legislatures and then is adopted by Congress. And there
are a lot of concerns among the general public, given that we have these dry-land states that have
a lot of problems with water perhaps opposing the Great Lakes compact. I’m not so certain that
that’s going to be an issue, because those states also have a lot federal water projects that come
up for renewal all the time that require the Great Lakes Congressmen to sign off on. And I’m not
sure they’re in a position, given how precious and important water is for them to survive on a daily
basis down there, that they’re really that interested in getting into a water fight with the Senators
and Congressmen in the Great Lakes basin. But, we’ll see.”

Graham: “I’ve looked at different models for getting Great Lakes water down to the Southwest,
and economically, they just don’t seem feasible. It would be incredibly expensive to try to get
Great Lakes water to the Southwest states, yet, State Legislators say again and again ‘oh no,
they have a plan, they know how it will happen.’ And as water becomes more valuable, they could
make it happen. How likely is it that there would be a canal or pipe and pumping stations built to
divert Great Lakes water, if this compact doesn’t pass?”

Annin: “It looks highly unlikely today, for the reasons that you just mentioned. It takes an
extraordinary amount of money to send water uphill, which is what would be to the West, and we’d
certainly have to cross mountain ranges if you’re even going to send it a shorter distance, to the
Southeast. To the point where it would be cheaper for many of these places to, even though it’s
expensive, to desalinate water from the ocean and then send it to inland places. But, you know, a
lot of water experts in the United States say ‘never say never’, because the value of fresh, potable
water is probably going to skyrocket in this century. We’re leaving the century of oil; we’re entering
the century of water. But, for right now, you’re absolutely right, it is extraordinary cost-prohibitive.
But let me say one other footnote here, it’s hard to find a federal water project in this country that
actually made economic sense.”

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Momentum for Great Lakes Compact?

  • Color satellite photo produced from NOAA-14 AVHRR satellite imagery. (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)

A delay in the approval of the Great Lakes water
diversion compact might be ending. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A delay in the approval of the Great Lakes Water
Diversion Compact might be ending. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

The compact, agreed to by eight Great Lakes Governors and Canadian Provincial Leaders, aims
to discourage other areas from seeking Great Lakes water. Four states have ratified the
agreement. But various disputes in Wisconsin over water conservation and getting water to
communities that straddle the Great Lakes basin delayed the compact there.

A new, bipartisan deal apparently headed to approval in the Wisconsin legislature pleases the
Council of Great Lakes Governors, and its executive director Dave Naftzger.

“This could really be the tipping point that pushes the region over the edge and enables the deal
to finally get done so this region can take the finalized compact to Washington for final approval.’’

Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania are the other states still working on ratifying the Great Lakes
Water Diversion Compact.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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