"Great Lakes Water Wars" Lecture

3.36.09

On March 26, I went to a lecture hosted by Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper at Buffalo State College. Peter Annin, the author of Great Lakes Water Wars, spoke about his journalistic specialty: the Great Lakes. Before the lecture started, Krissy and I answered questions about Riverkeeper's rain barrels as well as other upcoming Riverkeeper events. At around 7pm, Mr. Annin began his lecture to a group of about 50 Buffalonians, including myself. The audience was quite diverse in terms of age and background knowledge of the Great Lakes. There were several interesting points that Mr. Annin made throughout the lecture and I have tried my best to summarize these points below.

Surprisingly enough, only one percent of the water on earth is drinkable. With this in mind, many communities introduce diversion projects to redirect freshwater to other sources that may need it. Farming/irrigation is one of the largest uses of freshwater in many countries. Mr. Annin pointed out what he called the "poster child" of all diversion projects. The Aral Sea watershed (a watershed is defined as an area of land that drains into a body of water) located near Muynak, Uzbekistan was diverted for irrigation and other human needs. The diversion project allowed Uzbekistani farmers and community members to draw water from the Aral Sea with very few limitations. While the immediate consequences of this draw were favorable, the region now witnesses terrible long term issues such as drought. Fishing ships once bobbing about the sea in search of fish are now grounded on an endless sea of desert sand. Mr. Annin explained this to us and also pointed out some pictures he collected from his visit to the area. The purpose of his visit was to witness these realities first hand. In his opinion, primary accounts will allow us to decide whether or not this will be the destiny of our Great Lake's ecosystem.

Revisiting a previous comment that was stated above: only one percent of the water on earth is drinkable. The Great Lakes represent twenty percent of that one percent, or in other words, they are make up one fifth of our planets freshwater reserves where most of this one percent is frozen. It's also interesting that ninety-nine percent of the water in the Great Lakes is non-renewable. Once we use it up, it will be gone forever. How much are we cutting into this non-renewable resource? Currently, we do not have enough information to say for sure. To quote Mr. Annin, "we are entering a century of water, leaving the century of oil".

In a graduate study, 2.1 billion gallons of water per day was being diverted from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River. After a quick calculation, I determined that that was equivalent to about 3,500 Olympic swimming sized pools worth of water each day(each pool holds about 600,000 gallons of water)! Mr. Annin argued that this water cannot be used by us or our ecosystems.

Besides shipping water from the Great Lakes to other areas of the United States, this resource has also been shipped internationally. In 1998, The Nova Group* shipped Great Lakes water to Asia. This set a precedent, and many people may argue, may have initiated many of the water projection policies we have today. Mr. Annin spoke in great length about the Great Lakes Compact of 2005. According to Wikipedia, the Great Lakes states of Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada's Ontario Province formed this compact to save the Great Lakes. It is an international policy "concerning water rights that protects the Great Lakes from distance states exploiting it." Basically, areas within the Great Lakes water basin can use its resource as long as certain limitations are followed. All others, as Mr. Annin said, "don't have a ticket to the dance". It should be noted that there are exceptions for straddling cities/communities and straddling counties. These areas must apply for permission and be accepted.

Mr. Annin spent some time talking about how climate change would impact the Great Lakes. He explained that diversity of studies. Some predicted that the Great Lakes would rise while most predicted a drop in water level; 6 feet and potentially 11 feet. With this, he said tensions over Great Lakes water would surly increase.

I learned quite a few interesting things during this lecture but one of the most important to me was the difference between surface water and ground water. The boundaries for the Great Lakes Compact are based on surface water. More specifically, the Great Lakes "soup bowl" is unchanging because it's based on landforms. Ground water boundaries (aquifers), on the other hand, can change.

Despite the enormity of work left to be done to protect the Great Lakes, Mr. Annin praise the Great Lakes Compact because the "environment had a seat at the table". This policy was "forward thinking and sustainable".

*When Mr. Annin mentioned this company, I could have sworn the name sounded familiar. It turns out that The Nova Group, also known as Nova, had operated many English teaching schools in Japan. While I was living in Japan, the collapse of this company was all over the news. Evidently, the CEO had embezzled quite a bit of money among other things. A few of my friends that had worked for Nova, lost there job and their last few paychecks.