Someone once said “Making laws is like making sausage.” In another words the process can be very ugly. I spent Friday Morning in Lansing, Michigan (our State Capital) discussing “Annex 2001″ legislation. This is an annex to The Great Lakes Compact between the eight States the are in the Great Lakes Basin, the Province of Ontario, Canada and the Government of Quebec, Canada.
(Can you name the eight States without scrolling down to the bottom of this page?)
The compact was formed in 1985 to look out for the natural resource that we all share -the largest fresh water source in the world. Many States outside the Basin have inquired about tapping into this source for their water consumption. Obviously this is an important issue for our region, but setting up regulation can be a complex process. Diversion seems to be the biggest issue, and getting ten parties to agree can be challenging.
Personally, there is a line in the draft that concerns me. It reads “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.” I could be wrong, but in lay mans terms this normally is interpreted to mean “Don’t let the facts get in the way.”
As I sat in a room full of twenty to thirty municipal water people (all had more experience and ran much larger water systems than in Davison) who had serious questions of the numbers being used that above sentence kept jumping out at me “Do not let the facts get in the way.”
The legislation has other issues (like exempting the State of Illinois from the agreement and they divert probably as much water than all other States combined). This is a complex issue that we will keep our eye on. It may seem minor for our little water system, but depending on what gets implemented could affect not only the cost of water in Davison, but the amount we are allowed to use.
If you are interested in the Language you can find it at http://www.michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3313_3677_3704_5808-121083–,00.html.
By the way the seven other States are: Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. You may notice that Michigan is the only State that totally surrounded by the Great Lakes Basin.