The international commission that keeps an eye on the environmental health of the Great Lakes will hold public hearings later this month on a report that looks at water use in the basin. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports, the findings are not pleasing to some environmentalists:
Transcript
The international commission that keeps an eye on the environmental health of the Great Lakes
will hold public hearings later this month on a report that looks at water use in the basin. And as
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports, the findings are not pleasing
environmentalists:
The International Joint Commission asked a team of experts to examine water issues including
use and diversion, climate change, and conservation. The report says the problem of water
overuse in the Great Lakes has been overstated in the past three decades, while conservation has
been underestimated. It also calls the prospect of diverting water to arid southwest states “a dead
issue.”
Cameron Davis is with the Lake Michigan Federation. He says the report fails to recognize the
issues that will face the Great Lakes in the long term.
“One of the concerns that I have is that, in saying we’re not using that much water, that the
hidden message is don’t worry. We don’t have a problem.”
But the U.S. chair of the IJC, Dennis Schornack, says recognizing the pitfalls of faulty
projections is important to shaping future water policy.
The Commission will hear public comment on the report before drafting its own plan to present
to the governments of Canada and the U.S.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.