The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. —Native American proverb The Fate of the Great Lakes Sustaining or Draining the Sweetwater Seas? by Claire Farid, John Jackson and Karen Clark Published by the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Great Lakes United on the twelfth anniversary of the signing of the Great Lakes Charter February 10, 1997 1 Acknowledgements THE PROJECT TEAM consultant working in Sarnia, Ontario. Marie Sanderson is a professor with the Department of The Sustainable Water Resources Task Force of Great Environmental and Resource Studies, University of Lakes United had the original vision for this report. Waterloo, Ontario. Its purpose is to focus efforts throughout the Great The contents of this report do not necessarily Lakes Basin on preventive measures to achieve long- reflect the views of the Advisory Committee. overdue water conservation actions. This report will serve as the platform for the task force’s public THE PRODUCTION TEAM campaign to achieve this goal. Sarah MillerMiller, co-chair of the task force and Paper cut illustrations by Canadian artist and coordinator of the Canadian Environmental Law environmentalist Barbara Klunder. Design by Kathleen Association, coordinated the project. Doody Design of Toronto. Produced by Reg GilbertGilbert, communications coordinator, Great Lakes United. THE AUTHORS SUPPORTERS Claire Farid is completing a joint masters degree in Environmental Studies and Law at Osgoode Hall at The Canadian Environmental Law Association and York University in Toronto. Her studies have focused Great Lakes United gratefully acknowledge the on women and the environment. John JacksonJackson, support of the Laidlaw Foundation and the Ontario president of Great Lakes United, is an environmental Ministry of Environment and Energy’s Environmental activist and consultant living in Kitchener, Ontario. Youth Corps 1995 Program for grants toward the Karen Clark is an environmental lawyer and a member research and production of this report. of the Board of Directors of the Canadian The views and ideas expressed in this report are Environmental Law Association. those of the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Great Lakes United and do not necessarily reflect THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE the views and policies of the Laidlaw Foundation or the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy. Lois Corbett is executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance and is Lake Ontario regional PRINTING director of Great Lakes United. Tim Eder is regional director of the Great Lakes Natural Resource Center Cover printed by Partner’s Press on Cross Pointe of the National Wildlife Federation in Ann Arbor, Genesis, 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. Michigan. A. Lino Grima is associate professor at the Text set in Albertus MT and MT Light, printed by Institute of Environmental Studies at the University Buffalo NewsPress on Hammermill Unity DP, of Toronto. Alden Lind is director of the 50 percent post-consumer, 50 percent post-industrial Conservation Legacy Alliance in Duluth, Minnesota. recycled paper, not rebleached with chlorine. Jim MacLaren is a professional engineer and 2 Contents Introduction 5 Summary 7 THE INS AND OUTS OF THE LAKES Chapter 1 The Sweetwater Seas 15 Chapter 2 Water Uses 19 Chapter 3 Diversions 24 WHO’S IN CHARGE? THE PATCHWORK OF PROTECTIONS Chapter 4 The Great Lakes Charter 35 Chapter 5 Federal, Provincial and State Water Quantity Management 40 Chapter 6 The Role of the International Joint Commission 46 Chapter 7 The Rights of the First Peoples 50 STRESSES BUILDING INTO THE NEXT MILLENNIUM Chapter 8 Growth: Are There Limits? 57 Chapter 9 The Economics of Water 63 Chapter 10 Trading Away the Lakes 70 Chapter 11 The Warming Warning: Climate Change 73 Chapter 12 Sustaining the Great Lakes 78 Glossary 82 Endnotes 83 Index 93 3 To the future generations that will inhabit the Great Lakes Basin 4 Introduction Belying Our Bounty The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. The Great Lakes community must move from —Native American proverb event-driven and short-term crisis management to long-term preventive ecosystem actions. Our For many years, Great Lakes United and the Canadian community has successfully played a proactive role in Environmental Law Association, the publishers of this response to contamination of our water. We must do report, have advocated wise use of the “sweetwater the same for the integrity and sustainability of the seas.” The agenda for this work has been developed Great Lakes water resource as a whole. together with the community of the Great Lakes–St. In this report we give background on the Lawrence River ecosystem through several task forces challenges that face us. The first section of the report, of Great Lakes United. Each year since 1982, citizens “The Ins and Outs of the Great Lakes,” documents have brought their concerns to Great Lakes United’s the natural and human-made influences on the system meetings where issue task forces put these concerns and describes the diversions that have shaped the use into resolutions to form the basis for action plans. of the Lakes. The important interventions of Great In 1994, the Sustainable Water Resources Task Force Lakes United and other public interest groups in the of Great Lakes United voted to research and publish a Basin in diversion proposals have successfully opposed report gathering together chronic and emerging some proposals for diversions and set important issues that will determine the sustainability of the precedents to protect the waters of the Great Lakes. waters of the Great Lakes for future generations. Two Public involvement in the International Joint years later this report is being released on the twelfth Commission’s Reference on Lake Levels has also anniversary of the signing of the Great Lakes Charter, resulted in a strong voice for preventive and adaptive February 10, 1985. measures to avoid further engineered controls of the It is our hope that this report will achieve what the system. This history provides important lessons that charter has failed to accomplish by instilling a long- we can build on in our future campaigns. overdue conservation ethic into all realms of the In 1985, the states and provinces in the Great Lakes Great Lakes. It will become the basis of our citizens’ and St. Lawrence Basin signed the Great Lakes Charter. campaign for a sustainable water strategy for the This charter had the potential to be a framework for Great Lakes, which includes the goal of reducing sustainability by gathering data on use of the waters human use of water by 50 percent by the year 2005. of the Great Lakes, by gauging future demands, by It is time for the public to again take leadership to promoting cooperation, and by preventing diversions. protect the Great Lakes and to create anew the The second part of our report, “Who’s in Charge? political will to protect the treasure we live with—one- Piecing Together the Patchwork of Protections,” fifth of the world’s supply of fresh water. Just as the delineates the many government responsibilities for waters of the Great Lakes rise and fall, so has the water quantity, and analyses provisions of the Great attention of politicians to water quantity and its role Lakes Charter, its implementation, and its failure to in the health and wellbeing of communities so achieve its original intent. We trace the lack of dependent on these waters. ecosystem action and cooperation in sharing our 5 Great Lakes bounty. This section also explores the take public leadership in balancing our Great Lakes role of the International Joint Commission in water budget, and prepare our region for future regulating levels and flows and as a watchdog, and its demands to share our water wealth. potential for future leadership. Section two also Nowhere is our neglect and our mistaken belief discusses exclusion and diminishment of the rights of that we can control our future more evident than in the First Peoples of the Great Lakes to their waters, the impacts of climate change in the Basin. whose practices have much to teach us about the Governments are now gauging impacts manifesting protection path we must take. This calls for immediate themselves in the Great Lakes that they did not remedies. predict a decade ago. The complexity of these impacts While writing this report we constantly had to on the Great Lakes web of life is not well understood. revise section three, “Stresses Building into the Next We document how the diminishment of water levels Millennium.” Impacts we were assigning to the future from climate change, though not yet serious, could are now upon us. The Great Lakes are being subjected have a dramatic effect on the economic, cultural, to rapid social, economic and climate change. social, and natural wellbeing of our region. Our research into growth in the Great Lakes In our recommendations, “Sustaining the Great revealed some disturbing trends. Many of the threats Lakes,” we set out a plan and a plea for residents of for water withdrawals are coming from within the the Great Lakes to campaign for a sustainable water Great Lakes from municipalities projecting growth conservation strategy that addresses all the influences beyond what nature’s water budgets supply. The and stresses on the waters of the Great Lakes and St. demands from these areas could cumulate to have the Lawrence River ecosystem. same impacts as large-scale diversion proposals. We Our strength is in the regional voice our explore watershed planning and other land-use community has fostered. If we do not take up this planning options as tools for true sustainability and concerted campaign now, we will pass on a much appropriate growth in the Great Lakes basin. diminished legacy—full of conflict—to future Some of the changes that threaten the waters of generations who live in the Great Lakes.