Will Ohio’s Elected Officials Pass the Great Lakes Compact?
By: Marnie Urso, Audubon Ohio
The Great Lakes truly are a natural wonder of the world holding one-fifth of the world’s fresh water and 95 percent of our nation’s supply. Here in Ohio, our great Lake Erie has often been taken for granted despite the fact that it is a major economic driver for the entire state as well as the source of drinking water for millions of people. We have more than 300 miles of Lake Erie coastline in Ohio that draw more than seven million people to recreate and reconnect with nature every year. Lake Erie also boasts one of the largest commercial freshwater fisheries in the world resulting is $9.75 billion being generated in revenue for Ohio from the travel, tourism and fishing in Lake Erie. What would Ohio be without Lake Erie?
Many are surprised to hear that our Great Lakes are a one time gift from the glaciers and are 99 percent non-renewable. Despite this, there have already been proposals to ship Great Lakes water in tankers to Asia and in pipelines to the South and Southwest U.S. Additionally, there is growing demand throughout the world for clean drinking water and this demand is only projected to increase as the effects of global warming are more fully realized.
Lake Erie is the shallowest Great Lake and therefore the most vulnerable to proposed water diversions and exports. It receives more than 80 percent of its inflow from the Upper Great Lakes. Currently, Ohio law does not require a permit for water withdrawals and federal law lacks any standards, public process, or enforcement and is politically and legally vulnerable.
Thankfully, the Great Lakes Governors signed an agreement in 2005 that, if implemented, will provide unprecedented protections for the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact provides comprehensive water use protections throughout the Great Lakes basin by controlling new or increased diversions or withdrawals. The Compact must be ratified by all eight Great Lakes states and then approved by the U.S. Congress. It has already been approved in Minnesota and Illinois and is well on its way in Pennsylvania and New York. In Ohio, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to ratify it in 2006 by a vote of 82 to 5.
It was blocked in the Senate before ever getting a vote.
Ohio once again has the chance to approve the Compact. Rep. Matt Dolan (R-14) of Chardon has recently introduced legislation to ratify the Great Lakes Compact in the Ohio House of Representatives. Audubon Ohio applauds Dolan’s leadership on this issue which enjoys tremendous bi-partisan support including Governor Strickland and Senator Voinovich.
There have been efforts to stop the Compact in Ohio by misguided attempts to change a word or two to make “improvements.” These efforts should be seen for what they are—a poison pill. The Compact was crafted and negotiated for more than four years with significant input of the public, experts in all relevant areas of law and science, as well as a wide range of stakeholders from within the Basin. It reflects a number of compromises that, when taken together, represent an agreement that eight states and numerous stakeholders (including industry and conservation groups) are willing to live with. All eight states must ratify the same compact, if Ohio changes the rules of the game it will likely mean “game over” and the losers will be the future generations of our region who will wonder why we didn’t act to protect our greatest asset when we had the chance. You can read the Compact in its entirety at www.cglg.org.
For more information, contact Marnie Urso, Grassroots Coordinator for Audubon Ohio at murso@audubon.org; www.audubonohio.org.
The mission of Audubon Ohio is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats in Ohio by promoting conservation and biodiversity through education and advocacy. We are the Ohio program of the National Audubon Society which just celebrated over 100 years of conservation. Our campaign to protect and restore the Great Lakes stretches across the Great Lakes region and focuses on birds and wildlife habitat restoration and protection of open spaces adjacent to Great Lakes wetlands, particularly in Important Bird Area watersheds. We are preparing citizens with the tools and information they need to take action to influence policy makers to protect the more than 400 bird species that depend on the ecosystem for nesting habitat and migration.