Policy News - December 1, 2004

Ontario rejects Great Lakes diversion proposal

Canada’s Ontario province has rejected a controversial new proposal to curb Great Lakes water diversions, saying it is too permissive. The proposal was floated by the Council of Great Lakes Governors, made up of officials representing the eight U.S. Great Lakes states and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Québec. It spells out conditions for water diversions to burgeoning communities just outside the basin, while denying long-distance diversions to the arid states and countries that are clamoring for water. Scientists and Canadian policymakers say that the plan may not be protective enough because too little is known about the Great Lakes’ water budget to safely implement it, and what is known suggests that the approach could be risky.

The Draft Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements (www.cglg.org/1projects/water/Annex2001Implementing.asp) carry out the binational Annex 2001 agreement to conserve the Great Lakes in the face of threats to divert massive amounts of water to states in the dry U.S. southwest, such as Arizona and New Mexico, and even to countries as far away as China. The draft plan proposes seven standards that would have to be met before water is consumed or diverted outside the basin boundaries. For instance, the water would have to be returned to the basin, minus an allowance for consumptive use, and there must be no cumulative adverse impacts. The comment period on the proposal ended October 18.

However, on November 15, the Ontario government’s Natural Resources Minister, David Ramsey, announced that his province would not sign the current draft of the Great Lakes Charter Annex agreements unless changes are made to enhance the level of protection for the waters of the Great Lakes Basin. Ontario’s laws already prohibit water transfers out of major water basins. On November 26, the Canadian House of Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development released a report concluding that the agreements are too weak and that the federal government should recommend changes to strengthen them.

The agreement’s defenders say that the return-flow requirement guarantees that long-distance diversions would be economically unfeasible, according to Noah Hall, an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation. He says the draft proposal’s precautionary approach is a big improvement over current weak protections.

But some scientists say that allowing users to subtract consumptive use from the amount required to be returned could cut return flows by 15–90%. The proposal sets no limits on the number of withdrawals or on the quantity, duration, or intended use of the diversions, says Ralph Pentland, a consultant in Ottawa and former director of water planning and management in the Canadian Department of the Environment. Anyone may apply for water diversions, including representatives from the public as well as private sectors.

“We already have a system that’s in a very precarious balance between precipitation and runoff and evaporation, and even fairly small water removals could be vital,” says Dave Schindler, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Alberta. Global climate models predict that increased evaporation could reduce water outflow from the lakes by 30%, dropping lake levels by a meter and boosting the concentration of harmful nutrients and chemical contaminants, he says.

“Much needs to be clarified—as vaguely written as the agreements are, they could be used as an excuse for an American water grab, because there are no Canadian plans for withdrawals from the Great Lakes Basin,” Schindler adds. For example, the agreements appear to be bypassing the International Joint Commission, a binational watchdog that has been the reference point for international agreements in the Great Lakes since the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.

In addition, researchers don’t have a good handle on the groundwater resources for the Great Lakes; this creates serious uncertainties about the effects of management decisions, says James Bruce, an environmental scientist with Global Change Strategies International and former director of the Canada Centre for Inland Waters.

More than 1000 mi³ of water—equal in size to Lake Michigan, the second largest great lake, by volume—is stored beneath the basin. However, little is known about the potential effects of groundwater withdrawals in many areas of the Great Lakes Basin, in particular about potential adverse impacts on aquatic ecosystems, says Norm Grannemann, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Although the draft implementing agreements address groundwater diversions and consumptive uses from within the Great Lakes Basin, they also provide for the inclusion of areas outside the Great Lakes Basin, should science indicate that groundwater in those areas flows toward a Great Lake, Grannemann says. However, because groundwater divides move in response to pumping, the area covered by the Annex could be a moving target, he says.

“Annex 2001 takes a protective approach, but does it go far enough? I'm not sure,” says Frank Quinn, a consulting research hydrologist in Ann Arbor, Mich. If it eventually gains approval—the Canadians have agreed to renew negotiations in 2005—there should be careful monitoring of even small diversions in order to evaluate cumulative effects and the capability to go back and change the agreement on the basis of new findings, he says. —JANET PELLEY