Great Lakes Compact Moves Ahead
All eight of the eight states that border the Great Lakes
have approved an agreement that regulates future withdrawals of water
from the lakes’ basin, with Michigan the most recent state to act.
Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, Ohio and
Pennsylvania also have signed the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact,
along with the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario. It will now
need approval from Congress.
Current U.S. federal law does not allow water diversions from
the Great Lakes, which contain 90 percent of the United States’s fresh
surface water.
Yet the compact was prompted in part by concern that states
in the arid Southwest, where populations have been growing, may
eventually try to tap into the Great Lakes.
“People are already looking enviously at this water,”
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle remarked in signing the legislation this
spring.
Lake Notes
 Lake
Superior’s water level has made a dramatic comeback this year after
mostly hovering near historic lows in 2007. In late June, the lake was
14 inches higher than last June (but still 5 inches below average).
Minnesota
Pollution Control Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to
work together on a study of the St. Louis River, St. Louis Bay and
Duluth’s upper harbor that U.S. Representative Jim Oberstar of
Minnesota calls “the first step of an important program to restore the
river’s natural habitat.”
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