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Water from the Great Lakes cannot leave the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Compact prevents construction of any water withdrawal that will move water outside of
by engineer_22 4y ago
Water from the Great Lakes cannot leave the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes Compact prevents construction of any water withdrawal that will move water outside of the watershed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact
- alanbernstein 4y ago...According to current US law. Reading your comment, I wasn't sure if "compact" was a legal term or a geological one. Laws change much more quickly than geology.
- selectodude 4y agoAnd Canadian law. The Great Lakes Compact is an international treaty.
- ceejayoz 4y agoBy act of Congress, not Constitutional amendment. It could be repealed in a matter of weeks if Congress saw fit.
- ham-sandwich 4y agoI know many people who would oppose removal of water from the region with weaponry. People deeply care about them, more than outsiders know
- pc86 4y agoAnd that's all well and good so long as the law backs you up. When it doesn't, that then falls somewhere on a spectrum from felony to treason.
- bilbo0s 4y agoYeah. I was just thinking that. I mean if the rest of the country decides that georgia and florida need our water, which is one of the more serious current proposals, then that's democracy. I'm from Wisconsin. Born and raised right on the shores of Lake Michigan. But the law is the law. Our best bet is to do our utmost to ensure that the law stays the way it is despite whatever pressures there are from other areas of the country.
- ianai 4y agoIt’s not really worth it nor likely. Plenty of places in the US with excess water closer to the dry regions. Ie desalination in California makes more sense.
- aurizon 4y agoDo they also fight the Atlantic Alliance - a network of global seas whose task is to suck the land dry? In jest. A large part of runoff leads to the Arctic oceans = warm water = melts ice. Southern diversion would help the southwest. Since it is political, it will be delayed ad infinitum until there is only dry dust to pump.
- renewiltord 4y agoWe will desalinate in CA before we’ll come for the Great Lakes but if we came (and the United States must have ended) then that would be a petty resistance. Pipelines can’t be defended but canals are harder to break and then, once the pipeline is over friendly soil, breaking it will still only shed water into the West.
- Aeronwen 4y agoIf you want to build the midwest a new sewer system, go ahead.
- ARandomerDude 4y agoOr sell a poop-derivative from your midwest sewer for $17 a bag. Honestly, it's amazing fertilizer. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milorganite-32-lbs-Slow-Release-Nitrogen-Fertilizer-100539618/308888983 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milorganite-32-lbs-Slow-Release-...
- mywittyname 4y agoThere's a "I drank your milkshake" situation with this. Find the area with people willing to sell out, and build there.
- bell-cot 4y agoPolitically brighter Congressmen might see such a repeal not as a one-off special event, but instead as a precedent for further "inter-state resource raids". Some of which raids could target their own states. So - support for that repeal might prove scarcer than you'd think, from just looking at a map of drought-plagued areas of the U.S. Also - burning needs for water tend to be sudden & immediate things. Vs. designing, approving, funding, and building the infrastructure to actually move large quantities of water long distances is more of a "decade-plus time scale" thing.
- aurizon 4y agoThe great lakes water is simply channelled to the Atlantic. It would take an engineering project to divert 10-20% to the west. No hard tasks, just the creation of a sloped canal. In desert areas you could cover it with solar cells - also land based ones, to provide the pump energy over hills/mountains etc. Tunnels can be drilled where mounts are high. This water added to the west would revive it from the death spiral it is now in,
- Kon-Peki 4y agoWhen you say "No hard tasks" I assume you mean that the engineering is relatively straightforward. The surface of Lake Michigan is around 650 feet above sea level. Go 50 miles due west and you are at 800-900 feet elevation. The average elevation in Kansas is around 2000 feet above sea level! If you go southwest, it is naturally downhill - the existing rivers prove that - but you run into the problem that the water is heading south more than it is heading west. It's a serious uphill climb to get that water out west. You don't need a sloped canal, you need a sloped tunnel thousands of feet below the surface!
- aurizon 4y agoWe are familiar with pipes, pumps, siphons, canals. etc. It is engineering of a routine, but massive scale to perform a major shift like this. The question is cost? Water can be pumped with solar/wind energy. With major area on their way to become parched deserts - except for water. What is the Value of all California crops every year - that can go to zero every year versus the one time cost of a major water project = a spend once, plus maintain = get a permanent 'annual California crop every year' Water project, by their nature are long lived and low maintenance.
- duped 4y agoMinnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and New York have 97 votes in the house and 12 votes in the Senate. Good luck passing any legislation that sees major diversion of water out of these states.
- itslennysfault 4y agoIt could certainly be changed, but it's actually an international treaty with Canada so it's a bit more complicated than that.
- paulcole 4y agoThings are going to get desperate enough that any legislation today will be but a distant and comical memory.
- duped 4y agoThe attempted construction of that Foxconn factory in Wisconsin would have permanently diverted water out of Lake Michigan. It wasn't stopped by the Compact, just the horrible mismanagement of the project and political corruption.
- sidewndr46 4y agoWhile cute, interstate anything is the realm of the federal government. The moment water from the Great Lakes is needed elsewhere, it'll be sent there. If you follow the case of the Parker dam, the conclusion of the Supreme Court was that it required congressional approval. It did not have that, but Arizona eventually allowed it anyways. The full text of the decision is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/295/174 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/295/174
- asdff 4y agoYou can get around this and export it from the great lakes if your business is called Nestle and your pipeline from the lake to the bottling facility is called the groundwater table. Its still lake water they are drawing and selling.
- Retric 4y agoNot really a deal breaker. Due to the United States Supreme Court ruling in Wisconsin v. Illinois, the State of Illinois is not subject to certain provisions of the compact pertaining to new or increased withdrawals or diversions from the Great Lakes.[4]