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Sunday, January 20, 2008
Environment - "The variety of threats Lake Michigan faces"
Heather Augustyn of the NWI Times reports:
VALPARAISO | Members of the League of Women Voters listened to a guest speaker on a freezing Saturday morning talk about the variety of threats Lake Michigan faces.Jeanette Neagu, co-president of the Lake Michigan Interleague Organization, which is part of the league, presented slides and facts about legislation, economics and the health of the Great Lakes Basin. * * *
The Great Lakes comprise 20 percent of the world's freshwater supply, she said.
"But the Great Lakes are a nonrenewable resource. You can't just drain it indefinitely," Neagu said. "They were formed by our glaciers, and you have to think in terms of future generations. We don't have a right to steal such a treasure."
Among the threats to the Great Lakes are new export and diversion schemes, such as shipping Great Lakes water to other countries and bottling water, as well as building pipelines to the South and Southwest and refilling the Ogallala Aquifer, she said. The Ogallala Aquifer extends northward from western Texas to South Dakota.
Other threats include toxic pesticides, invasive species that ballast water from the shipping industry brings, raw sewage and wetland losses.
"We're not against industry, because we know jobs are hard here, but the (Environmental Protection Agency) needs to look at all of the permits given when they consider a single permit. Consider the cumulative impact of every permit," Neagu said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 20, 2008 01:21 PM
Posted to Environment