Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Update

I just attended the 2012 Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Cities Initiative annual conference where I represented our Honorable Mayor Nancy Rotering as I had represented our two previous Mayors since 2003.

The United States and Canadian representatives have joined on a mission to advance the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence waterways. Some of the big issues discussed were invasive species, Asian Carp barriers, shale gas, runoff, and water diversion.

Asian Carp is considered a major threat to the Great Lakes and movement has grown from temporary electric barriers to permanent land barriers of the water ways. Several options have been floated and discussions are occurring.

Water diversion was discussed as a request of the City of Waukesha of Wisconsin is ripening and the GLSLCI will have to weigh in on the facts of the case producing more concrete standards for this and future judgements. The Compact, passed by the US Congress and signed on by all Great Lake States prohibits New water diversions outside of the watershed. There are exceptions like the US Supreme Court ruling that allows 2.1 Billion gallons per day for Illinois. Recently allotted Lake County water diversions, I assume, fall within this Supreme Court Case allocation.  Questions arose like do we allow diversions to increase sprawl or just in the case of health concerns of existing inland water supplies? Much more to come.......

Many people look out over Lake Michigan and just don't understand the need for a comprehensive and restrictive plan for the future. With Billions of folks on our planet and over 40 million currently depending on this water supply (Great Lakes= 21% of fresh water), we better look hard at the water quality and existence. Bottom line is that preserving our waters, restoring our waters, and ensuring those efforts in a sustainable fashion forever is the mission here and we need to keep our eyes wide open to continue to develop an action plan to fit the mission and support human life.


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