The water level in Lake Michigan has varied in recent years, due mainly to evaporation, I have read. But there is always evaporation, what was different about the late 1990's? I guess we had a string of very hot summers, so the evaporation rate exceed the rate of replenishment.

I think The Agreement is a bad idea and agree with the environmental attorney who said the Lakes are a public trust, not an economic commodity. Attempting to regulate the flow of water out of the Lakes will only lead to loosening of those regulations. A pipeline sending the water to another state or country isn't necessary. A bottled water factory will have the same effect.

Here's a link to the Great Lakes Charter Annex.

Here is a link that might be useful: Charter

There are issues in the south as well as the north. I was sure there was a more recent update on the Rio Grande issues, like in the last few weeks, but I couldn't find it.

Local forecast calls for heavy rains soon. In my hyper-paved metropolitan region, that could mean plenty of runoff, straight from heaven. The math is easy enough: figure, say, an area of 300,000 acres (picture a square box about 22 miles on each side), shedding 4 inches of excess...and there we have 100,000 acre-feet, from one storm. It could be harvested and put to good use, instead of just channeled, coped-with as "local flooding," and dumped into the Gulf - if there was the will.

I'd sure be willing to help pay for more capture, retention and diversion systems...if we could get someone to pay for the water...I mean, it's like: "growers, meet the eaters; the eaters have excess water; so growers, you were saying you need water? Well, looky here: the eaters need for you to get the water you need." DUH! Are any Houston or Texas political leaders reading here?

Heck, those systems might even enable all those vital roads everybody in fly-in country parks and creeps on for so many hours of their lives to last longer, be safer, and transport more effectively, more of the time. Funny, how wills never seem to keep up with even modest, realistic "visions"...oops there I go again, ranting, sorry!

Here is a link that might be useful: Mexico sending water

Stitches,

I'm reminded of the old proverb, "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. It seems that getting water to the right place at the right time has its problems. My sister winters in "the Valley" and last year it was the same hassle.

Around my area we usually get excellent yearly totals of rain and fairly well spread out through the year ....and yet it sure has gotten soggy and also quite dry inbetween times.

Althea, I apologize for not thanking you earlier for the additional link. I appreciate your view on the Agreement. But I still question whether no agreement at all, no codified, localized or regional accord or consensus, is necessarily better. I believe the precedent of Aral Sea depletion, and depletions elsewhere, are reflections of a combination of no accord, or inadequate accord, and consequent lack of a coordinated plan. I share the locals' nightmare of a Great Lakes system that goes the way of the Aral Sea - and the potential irony that an agreement intended to avoid depletion could aggravate depletion.

I have to take that uncomfortable "middle ground," that resources in public trust are nevertheless economic commodities; to "either-or" the situation creates a faulty dilemma, in my opinion. The trick is to get the public (more specifically, the leaders of the public) to get over "unlimited potential" delusions that foster the "pinhole problem," stated deftly in the Great Lakes article, which in turn fosters self-blinding to impacts and necessity for limitations. But the problem only gets worse when ignoring opportunities to turn obvious impacts into advantages. That's what my rant of yesterday was about.

We must rein-in the cities, the cities, the cities - or rather, they must rein-in themselves. Sure, in the case of the Great Lakes, Asians and western Americans are "threats," "suckers" who must back-off or be forced to back-off. But the threat begins closest to home. Chicago and the several other cities named in the Great Lakes article give us more harbingers than we should need. The past century's history of water issues in the US Southwest has not been instructive enough, apparently and unfortunately. Hollywood tried, with "Chinatown" many years ago. I wish they'd try harder now. (I forgot to check up on what Michael Moore's latest projects are.)

I just wanted to clarify that for the "diversion" I was referring to earlier - and my "MLK Dream" of a continental aqueduct system - I did not mean to stand for exploitation schemes that divert resources in a depleting way, but strictly in a way of managing excesses, recognizing that advantages can be taken of occasional, localized overabundance. Wayne hits the nail: the problem is getting water to the right place at the right time. I think it can be solved. It's within our ability, but we have to want it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Looking Glass Global News - Aral Sea

You're welcome Stitches. There is a 9 state Governors Pact now. This Agreement could strengthen the weak aspects of the Pact (it could likely be found unconstitutional), but I think the agreements shortcoming is the willingness to sell off more of the commons.

The coalition of environmental groups document from the link outlines the strengths & weaknesses of the Agreement.

"The "compact" agreement between the U.S. states

On the plus side, the binding "compact" agreement between the eight Great Lakes states:

For the first time provides environmental standards for judging new water withdrawal proposals
Protects all the waters of the Great Lakes basin, including streams and groundwater
If approved by Congress as well as the states, would be legally binding on the states
Requires most water withdrawals to be registered and some larger withdrawals to be managed, assuring both a means for preventing the worst environmental damage caused by withdrawals and better knowledge of how the region is using its waters
Properly establishes the new environmental standards as a minimum, not a maximum system of protection
Provides good avenues for public participation in permitting decisions
Provides good means for enforcing the provisions of the compact.

On the minus side, the compact:

Would require conservation "plans" and "measures" for various water withdrawers, but provides no definition of those terms, making the effectiveness if this essential component questionable
Allows a ten-year phase in of the new rules, an unnecessarily long waiting period
Defines different standards for judging water withdrawals depending on their size, but defines that size according to 120-day averages that virtually exempt some withdrawers from the rules
Fails to properly evaluate "cumulative" impacts on the local river and local groundwater levels, where the cumulative effect of numerous small projects will do the most environmental damage
Fails to explicitly state that nothing in the agreement will disturb the current authority of the Great Lakes states to veto any proposal to divert water out of the Great Lakes basin."

I think the minues outweigh the plusses. There is too much room for manipulation as the Agreement currently reads. The Nature Consevancy understands how the agreement can be exploited:

"The Nature Conservancy has sought opportunities worldwide to bring sound science to water management because natural patterns of water levels and flows  often disrupted through water management  are critical to freshwater biodiversity. "

Where have we heard the phrase "sound science" before?

Last week, the Governor of CA agreed to studies regarding restoration of Hetch Hetchy.

Here is a link that might be useful: the Bee