This article from yesterday's Plain Dealer identifies the need for a whole systems approach to water use solutions. A whole systems approach addresses things from individual and community conservation to adoption of the discipline of collaborative and compassionate leadership.

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The article is posted in full here:

Water is the Great Lakes area's prize
http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/other/1206865989115980.xml&coll=2&thispage=4
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Michael Scott
*Plain Dealer Reporter*

They've been praying for rain in the thirsty American South. Will they
prey upon the Great Lakes next?

Whether diverting Lake Erie or other Great Lakes water to bail out our
dried-up fellow states is preposterous or possible is a matter of
dramatically different opinions.

But when Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and some state lawmakers bowed their
heads last November, they illustrated the continuing desperation as
drought persists in parts of the United States.

"That picture -- the governor of Georgia praying for rain on the
Statehouse steps -- has been burned into my memory, that's for sure,"
said Sean Logan, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
"It was a reminder of an important message: Water issues can bring you
to your knees."

Water grab in future?

Some are worried that the South might soon take matters into its own
hands by petitioning the federal government for help.

"I think a large-scale diversion of water from the Great Lakes is fairly
likely sooner than later," said Noah Hall, an environmental law
professor with Wayne State University in Michigan. "There are a lot of
frightening developments out West and in the Southeast and the climate
change models don't offer much hope."

David Naftzger, executive director of the Council of Great Lakes
Governors, said a water grab is virtually assured.

"Look at a map showing water shortages and population growth and see how
they match up," he said. "Now look at us and you can see a concern that,
as time moves on, those areas will be looking at the Great Lakes to
bring them water -- either through a tanker, pipeline or natural channels."

But others dismiss entirely any idea that Lake Erie water is going
anywhere.

Las Vegas Water Department General Manager Patricia Mulroy, head of a
water department where drought is a constant threat, said it would take
"an Armageddon-like series of events" to force Western states to start
sniffing around the Great Lakes to solve their water crisis.

Julius Ciaccia, until recently her counterpart in the Cleveland Water
Department, agreed.

"In 20 years of discussing and debating water issues at a national
level, I've never once heard a utilities director in the South or West
say one word about tapping Lake Erie for water," said Ciaccia, now head
of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. "Those cities are more
interested in water reclamation, re-use or even desalination than in
coming to get our water."

Mulroy said Las Vegas now recycles all of its waste water, for example.

There are also now more than 13,000 desalination plants worldwide,
producing more than 12 billion gallons of drink- able water daily from
salty ocean water, according to the Inter- national Desalination
Associa- tion.

But as for long-distance water diversions: "It's not technically
impossible, but it's also not economically feasible," Ciaccia said.

*Water quarrels now *

But it is being talked about.

In October 2007, then-presidential candidate Bill Richardson of New
Mexico called for a national water policy to consider redistributing
water to needy areas -- saying the West was suffering needlessly while
places like Wisconsin were "awash in water."

Richardson had a point: We are awash in water compared to the rest of
the nation. The Great Lakes contain 6 quadrillion gallons of surface
water -- about 20 percent of the available fresh water in the world.

A University of Alabama professor, around the same time, unveiled a
detailed plan to pipe Great Lakes water to the arid sun belt, and a
Georgia congressman proposed a federal commission to oversee all water
matters, including those involving the Great Lakes.

Maybe more significantly, a United Nations network of scientists
recently projected that drier conditions in the American Southwest will
probably heighten attempts to divert Great Lakes water.

"There might need to be borrowing of water from one place to another,"
Robert Corell, director of the global change program at the Heinz Center
for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C., told the
Associated Press in the days following the U.N. report by the
International Panel on Climate Change.

But Great Lakes leaders have shot back at their colleagues in arid
states, blaming their lack of planning for their plight.

"Regions of the country that have overbuilt look at our freshwater with
an envious eye," Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said in a January speech in
which he called for that state's legislature to approve the Great Lakes
Compact, an interstate agreement aimed at preventing water diversions
from the lake system.

But even that proposal among eight states and two Canadian provinces is
now in flux as the Ohio Senate and Wisconsin House of Representatives
address some concerns about how the compact might affect exist- ing laws
on property owner- ship.

But even those slowing down the Compact right now have agreed that in
the end it will be the best possible legal protection for the Great Lakes.

*World, U.S. water woes *

Some say that protection may someday be put to the test.

Various sources have repeated variations on this claim: "The wars of the
20th Century were fought over oil, but the wars of the 21st Century will
be over water."

Scientists say there is a finite amount of fresh water in the world but
a growing number of people. The climate-change panel said this year that
by 2050, up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water
shortages.

In fact, in some water-stressed regions, it's already "about survival
and about war," said Gary White of WaterPartners International, which
focuses on solving global water needs.

"In North America, we're talking about conservation and negotiation over
water availability -- things like the Great Lakes Compact," he said.
"It's a much better place to be, in that respect."

It might be better, but not without growing concern -- from increasingly
shallow aquifers nationwide to diminishing snowpack in the West to
depleted reservoirs in the South.

The climate-change panel reported in 2006 that:

The Ogallala aquifer, which supplies water to nearly 2 million people in
an eight-state region from Minnesota to Texas, faces a 20 percent loss
in its reserve from more people and less rainfall.

Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is shrinking -- even after heavy
snows this season. It supplies about 40 percent of the water to densely
populated Southern California.

"That's one of the scariest maps out there -- the one that shows the
diminishing snowpack that L.A. and other areas rely on for water," said
Wayne State's Hall, who also works for the National Wildlife Federation.
"The water supply for millions and millions of people is at risk."

Great Lakes water levels and surrounding underground aquifers could drop
3 to 7 feet if temperatures continue to rise over the next 100 years. A
winter of record or near-record snowfall in the upper Great Lakes this
winter has helped replenish water levels in the lakes, but most
scientists are still expecting a long-term downturn.

And water in the Great Lakes is not inexhaustible. Rainfall and rivers
supply only 1 percent of the system's water. The rest is ancient glacial
deposits -- a finite supply.

Lake Erie is even more vulnerable because it gets 80 percent of its
water from the upper lakes so it is also hurt by any water loss
upstream. Lake Erie is also the shallowest lake, so it doesn't have as
much reserve.

*Great Lakes concerns *

Even so, few outside the Midwest are wringing their hands over the Great
Lakes.

"A water crisis here in the Great Lakes? It would be hard to say with a
straight face when looking at those five bodies of water that we are in
crisis," said Rich Bowman of the Great Lakes office of the Nature
Conservancy, an international conservation group.

But water issues run deeper than the surface.

"It's true, there are more than big lake' issues here," Bowman said. "We
have concerns also about unique features and ecosystems, particularly
marshes and other wetlands, that can be affected very immediately if
water is taken from them."

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said the lakes are under pressure -- internally
from the threat of invasive species and oxygen-depleted dead zones and
externally from other states. That is why he said he would sign the
compact if it is approved by the legislature.

"I do believe climate change is real, affecting every part of our planet
and likely to have an impact on the Great Lakes," Strickland said. "It's
imperative that we do everything we can to protect this resource."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

mscott@plaind.com, 216-999-4148


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