Letters to the Editor
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I'm confused
You say the Great Lakes are at their lowest ebb ever, low enough that tankers have to turn back because their hulls hit bottom. But then you say there's enough water to supply "millions more" people than already live there. So which is it - is there enough water or isn't there?
Not that I'm going. Sorry, but "a little cold weather"? Yeah, right. Having to break my back shoveling a ton of snow every day and scraping ice off my car just to see the road, not to mention risking my neck trying to drive in those snowstorms or yours - no, thanks. I'd rather have a cactus garden and bathe only once a week than endure that kind of hell.
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Wow
Usually its southerners who are tagged with the stereotype of being small-minded and provincial. Good to see so many northern letter-writers doing their part to even things out.
Mind you I'm not saying that water transfer is a good idea. I'm just surprised at the levels of vitriol and schadenfreude in this "discussion".
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Once you start piping water in-state from one aquifer to another, there is no legal justification for not sending it all the way to Georgia...
Another file under "rampant hypocrisy." Those bombastic Michigander congressmen don't seem to mind moving the water around to suit their own interests, or taking campaign contributions from Nestle to site bottled water factories to truck it elsewhere but with much much more plastic. Where were all those "(R)-Michigan" heroes when it came time to protect Michigan's waterways from itself?
Yes, yes, as duly noted, the great lakes are in considerable peril across the board already, a circumstance that may exist in no small part due to the feds' last great engineering schemes/debacles along Lake St. Clair, that forgotten little spigot lake, and the St. Lawrence seaway. Drip drip drip. Yes, we're losing water significantly as measured by mean water levels. We've already got huge invasive species problems (thanks for the carp, South!) and long term pollution control issues.
And so, with that backdrop it would be mighty easy for me to say "Fuck the South" here as so many of my fellow big ten country-teers seem wont to do, but from the perspective of a true cheesehead, a couple of important items are worth pointing out -- items that quite frankly Mr. McClelland would have done well to discuss has this been a better researched piece.
(1.) Sconnie is no steward of its water, historically speaking. We cruise on an environmental reputation that is largely based on tourists from out of state who marvel that their lakes up north are, on the surface anyway, not as fucked up as their urban waterways and local pond scumlets. Just 50 years ago, our "working rivers" chummed up effluent so thick from paper mills and the like that a skipped stone wouldn't sink. The Fox River? Backhoes of contaminated PCB sediment trucked out daily for your benefit. You can count on your hands the number of public lakes south of Hwy 29 -- our own North/South dividing line -- you'd find me swimming in with an open scrape. Wisconsin River? Wouldn't recommend eating the fish if you've a youngin'.
This isn't old history. Were it not for the Potawatomi and Sokaogan Chippewa's long fights against and eventual purchase of the proposed Exxon/Nicolet copper mine sites, our last relatively pristine waterway the Wolf River would have a series of cyanide-fueled mines at its headwaters. Yeah for casino cash, b/c the state and feds weren't going to get it done.
I can't speak for my Michigander brethren, but let's just assume that the River Rouge isn't quite fixed up yet either.
And all of a sudden you're going to give us stewardship over the southeast's water supply?
(2.) Madison, Wisconsin, that glorious city that sits on the Isthmus, surrounded by lakes and rivers of all sorts? Yeah, our water quality is terrible. Name the mineral, we've got it. Carcinogen spikes? Sorry, the water utility mgr can't be bothered, please enjoy this pamphlet. This is the only town I've ever lived in where my local hardware store would run out of CLR when it came time to attempt a cleaning of coffee makers and pots. Part of this has to do with well issues. Part of it has to do with legacies of urban pollution. Insofar as local lakes our concerned, a lot of it has to do with current inabilities to do anything substantive to control ag runoff, and good luck improving that with the latest spike in big dairy prices and ethanol plantings.
Our fair city's lakes stink all summer long. Wisconsin: Life's So Good.
And the author is saying, hey, move to the midwest, you can go back to washing your car on your driveway and water your lawns? Come ON, get a clue -- where do you think these algae blooms come from?
(3.) Waukesha, Wisconsin, one of those small towns-cum-metropolitan exurb all to it's own, has really truly awful water. Madison's at least doesn't *taste* that bad. Waukesha's is a total mess. Not that anyone bothered to care. Thanks to unchecked growth that would make Atlanta blush, the region has utterly depleted its wells. And guess where they want to divert their next water supply from? Lake Michigan.
Why is this a problem? Because...
(4.) Most of Wisconsin actually sits on the Mississippi River aquifer, not the Great Lakes. That is to say, most of our return water doesn't actually flow to Lakes Michigan and Superior. (Yes, Virginia, there is more than one continental divide!) Waukesha may sit only a few dozen miles from Lake Michigan, but as far as the hydrology of the Great Lakes is concerned, it might as well be in Arizona. My flushes in Madison trickle to the same Gulf of Mexico as Atlanta's, hydrologically-speaking.
How Mr. McClelland neglected to mention this simple fact of science as it relates to his policy piece is mind boggling. He makes the "basin" sound like the whole state. It's not.
Anyway, this brings us to:
(5.) Bill Richardson may be a bit of an ass on this issue, but he's on to something in that there is no legal justification for diverting water out of aquifers but limiting it on the basis of distance, much less artificial state boundaries. Once you cross that precipice, it's only a matter of scale, not law. I don't want the feds pipelining water out to the f'ing desert either, but right now that's the least of my concerns. (And really, no way the feds could pull it off, if you've followed their keystone kop management of dams and levees. But in-state, backed by private money? Piece of cake. And that's the real trouble point.) If the practices leading to water crises are as bad if not worse in Wisconsin, what possible justification should preference its state residents over other American citizens when it comes to pumping water away from the Great Lakes? Rooting for the Packers?
If Wisconsinites don't understand basic hydrological principles of groundwater and the explosive ramifications of water diversions, we shouldn't be so damn smug and provincial about shipping it elsewhere.