Sludge Watch ==> Great Lakes Water -Precious commodity - wave of woes

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

A wave of woes.

Not only are sewage treatment plant discharges one of the major pollution 
sources on these precious lakes...but the water squandering practices of the 
Great Lakes US communities  are also a problem.   Great Lakes overpumping 
groundwater is pulling lake water out of the lake to water golfcourses and 
serve new subdivisions.  Communities outside the basin, principly on the US 
side, since the Canadian side is well served with water supplies inside the 
basin,  want to suck the water out of the Great Lakes but discharge their 
sewage effluents into the Mississippi basin.   Water would leave the Great 
Lakes never to return.

With global warming the water is no longer as well protected by its icy 
blanket in the winter, so greater evaporation is a problem.  And most Great 
Lakes American cities do not have water conservation programs.

If we love these lakes, we need to protect them.  Thirsty cities in the 
American midwest and southwest are keen to drain the Great Lakes to refill 
their emptied aquifers and float their casinos...

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http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/oh/110105_great_lakes.htm

Great Lakes Water Becomes Precious Commodity
By Kari Lydersen
The Washington Post
Posted on the Canton Repository on November 2, 2005

CHICAGO--As clean, fresh water becomes an increasingly scarce commodity in 
many parts of the world, the fear is that thirsty eyes are turning toward 
the Great Lakes.

In 1998, a group of entrepreneurs won approval from Ontario to export Lake 
Superior water to Asia. And others discussed pumping Great Lakes water to 
the depleted Oglala aquifer in the Great Plains. Neither effort went 
anywhere.

But given that the dry southwestern United States is developing at a rapid 
clip and gaining congressional seats while the Great Lakes region is losing 
them, Great Lakes governors and Canadian premiers decided in 2001 to prevent 
any future large-scale water sales.

Final drafts of two agreements that would attempt to limit water diversions 
are to be finished by the end of the year.

Though no large-scale diversions are currently on the table, smaller battles 
over water diversion are raging.

The groundwater in Waukesha, Wis., is contaminated with radium so local 
officials have said they want to tap Lake Michigan. But because the town is 
outside the Great Lakes basin, it cannot access the water without approval 
from all eight governors of the states bordering the lakes. A legal fight is 
expected.

In Michigan, activists are furious that Nestli Waters North America is 
pumping water for its Ice Mountain brand from an aquifer that feeds Lake 
Michigan. A judge ordered Nestli to stop pumping, but an appeals court sided 
with Nestli. Then in May, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D, used the rules process 
to require permits for pumping bottled water, and to mandate that water 
pumped in Michigan cannot be sold outside the Great Lakes basin.

``The Great Lakes are a gift left over from the glaciers that melted over 
10,000 years ago,'' said Cameron Davis, executive director of the Alliance 
for the Great Lakes. ``Less than 1 percent of their water is replenished 
each year through rain and melting snow. The myth was that the Great Lakes 
go on forever, we know now that's not true.''




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A wave of woes for Great Lakes
Scientists gather here to assess multiple threats to complex ecosystem

By DAN EGAN
degan at journalsentinel.com
Posted: Nov. 1, 2006

More than 300 Great Lakes experts are gathered in Milwaukee this week for 
what is essentially a two-year checkup on the health of the world's largest 
freshwater ecosystem.

Advertisement

Ecosystem Conference
Quotable
As much as I love the Everglades, I have to acknowledge that I look at that 
(restoration program) with a little jealousy.

- Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee

Special Report
Troubled Waters: An ongoing series of reports on the Great Lakes

The diagnosis: not good.

The three-day gathering of Great Lakes decision-makers from federal, state 
and tribal governments, academia, industry and recreational groups, as well 
as sport and commercial fishers and health professionals, on Wednesday 
kicked off with an overview of some of the major issues facing the Great 
Lakes basin, which holds about 20% of the world's surface freshwater and is 
a source of drinking water for about 40 million people.

>From the rise of invasive species to the prospect of falling water levels to 
the paving of coastal habitats and the apparent - and perplexing - meltdown 
of the bottom of the food chain in Lake Huron, most all the news was grim.

Val Klump, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's 
Great Lakes WATER Institute, confessed to feeling a little punk after the 
first session.

"If I was a patient, and this was my doctor giving me my prognosis, it 
wouldn't be too encouraging," Klump said.

But the biennial State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference, hosted by the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada, isn't supposed to be 
a cheerleading camp for researchers who have devoted their careers to 
understanding one of the world's largest and most complex ecosystems. It's a 
chance for scientists to share their most recent work and to take a hard 
look at where the lakes are headed.

And in a way the assessment made Wednesday is old news; the lakes have been 
suffering for more than a century for a number of reasons, including 
historic overfishing, the industrialization of their shorelines and massive 
engineering projects to open the previously isolated waters to oceangoing 
vessels - and invasive species.

Among the most alarming of the problems detailed Wednesday is the 
disappearance in many areas of Lake Huron of tiny species that are a 
critical source of nutrition that most every fish in the lake directly or 
indirectly depends on.

The drop is likely tied to the arrival of invasive mussels, though the 
direct link has yet to be established. The result, however, is a dramatic 
loss in biomass from the bottom of the food web. Lake Huron is, according to 
a presentation by Carri Lohse-Hanson of the Minnesota Pollution Control 
Agency, beginning to resemble the much less productive waters of Lake 
Superior, the biggest and coldest of the Great Lakes.

Similar declines have been documented in Lake Michigan, though they are not 
as dramatic.

The news isn't all bad for the lakes. The latest studies show that 
concentrations of some of the nastiest chemical pollutants have dropped 
substantially since the 1970s. And, thanks largely to water treatment 
facilities, the lakes remain a healthy source of drinking water.

Projects to remove toxic sediments are also under way.

In the United States, for example, from 1997 to 2004 more than 4.5 million 
tons of contaminated sludge was treated. The downside: More than 75 million 
cubic yards remain, and the cost to take care of the problem could be as 
high as $4.4 billion, according to Lohse-Hanson.

That's a lot of money. But it's not nearly as much as has been committed to 
restoring another U.S. treasure - the Florida Everglades. That fact was not 
lost on Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who spoke at the conference opening.

"As much as I love the Everglades, I have to acknowledge that I look at that 
(restoration program) with a little jealousy," Barrett said.

"I'm a fan of the Everglades, too," said UWM's Klump. "But I'm more than 
just jealous. I'm irritated. We need to pay more attention to this 
ecosystem."

>From the Nov. 2, 2006 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel