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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Environment - Great Lakes compact; EPA libraries destruction update

Great Lakes Compact. Acoording to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times from Nov. 18, 2005 (see this ILB entry):

Fear that fast-growing, thirsty communities -- as far off as China and as close as Wisconsin -- could get their hands on Great Lakes water has driven border-state governors to band together to control the largest single source of fresh surface water on the planet.

The controversial agreement spells out who can and can't draw on this increasingly valuable resource, holding one-fifth of the world's -- and 90 percent of America's -- fresh water.

The governors are to sign the Great Lakes Basin Water Resources Compact on Dec. 13 in Milwaukee. Then begins the arduous task of getting it through eight state legislatures and Congress.

See also a story by NYT environmental writer Felicity Barringer, headlined "Growth Stirs a Battle to Draw More Water From the Great Lakes," quoted in this Aug. 12, 2005 ILB entry.

Today the Minneapolis-St. Paul StarTribune reports:

Minnesota is poised to become the first of eight states to approve a new Great Lakes Compact, a binding interstate and international agreement that would restrict additional large diversions of water out of the watershed emptied by the lakes and the St. Lawrence River.

The state Senate gave preliminary approval to the compact on a voice vote Monday and is expected to vote final approval this week. The House already has approved it, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty was a signatory to the compact proposal in late 2005.

"This gets the ball rolling, and being the first shows that Minnesota wants to have this strong protection through all the Great Lakes," said Allison Wolf, legislative director for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. * * *

Concerns among Great Lakes states about preserving one of the continent's and the world's largest repositories of fresh water are nothing new. Organizations and agreements such as the Great Lakes Commission and the Great Lakes Basin Compact have existed for decades, but their agreements on water use have been nonbinding or found to be unenforceable, according to a Department of Natural Resources summary of the compact.

EPA libraries destruction update. The ILB has posted several entries on reports that EPA was destroying its regional libraries. Start with this one from Dec. 5, 2006. Here is a report dated Feb. 12, 2007, titled "EPA Libraries: Where Do They Stand Now?"

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 13, 2007 01:44 PM
Posted to Environment