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Friday, August 29, 2008

Environment- "Great Lakes Compact loophole allows bottled water"

Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post-Tribune has a great story today on the Great Lakes Compact. The story begins:

Lawmakers and concerned environmentalists are sounding the alarm on the Great Lakes Compact just weeks before the historic agreement may be ratified by Congress. They say a loophole would allow businesses to sell bottled Great Lakes water -- exactly what the compact was supposed to prevent. * * *

The compact prevents Great Lakes water in containers 5.7 gallons or larger from being exported outside the natural drainage basin. The agreement exempts water used to produce a product that's transferred out of the watershed -- for instance steel or beer. The problem is, the compact defines a product as intended for "intermediate or end-use consumers" and bottled water could fall under that definition, [U.S. Rep. Dennis] Kucinich said.

Work on the compact intensified after public outrage in 1998 when a Canadian company wanted to sell in Asia the equivalent of 50 tankers per year of Lake Superior water.

"Here we are, 10 years after, with a compact that will allow diversion of water. It significantly limits pipelines and tanker trucks and freighters full of water ... (but) they're allowed to leave the Great Lakes with containers full of water," said Dave Dempsey, spokesman for Conservation Minnesota. "The Great Lakes don't know the difference."

Kucinich, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and some environmentalists want Congress to close the loopholes by adding language and clarifying that the lakes are public property and not for private profit. That could be done without sending the compact back to the states, said Jim Olson, an environmental law attorney.

The P-T story includes a link to the "compact", but it is to the long-time "Great Lakes Basin Compact," NOT the now before Congress "Great Lakes Compact."

More about the possible loophole on p. 2 of this Aug. 26th story by Dave Dempsey himself in Alternet. A quote:

What gives critics concerns are two interlocking provisions of the compact that they say open the gates to large-volume exports of water in packages like bottles. First, the compact defines "product" to include that which is produced "by mechanical or human effort" and intended for "intermediate or end users." Anything meeting this definition -- including, presumably, water packaged in bottles -- is exempt from the export ban. A second clause holds that water exported in containers under 5.7 gallons (20 liters) or less in volume is not treated as a diversion, although individual states can treat such proposals more stringently if they choose.

The result, charge the critics, is a policy that endorses withdrawal and packaging of enormous volumes of Great Lakes water in these containers. Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, says this "establishes a precedent that water can be grabbed by profit-hungry corporations who want to claim it is a product not subject to the compact. This undermines the very purpose of the compact and creates a dangerous precedent for exporting water in the U.S., in this instance from the largest body of freshwater in North America."

In other words, an agreement born in 1998 because of outrage about the sale of Lake Superior water as a product may allow the sale of all Great Lakes Basin water as a product in containers.

Where is this in the Compact? Here is the Great Lakes Compact as passed by the 2008 Indiana General Assembly - SEA 45. See at p. 28: Section 4.12 - Applicability, item 10, "bulk water transfer." See at p. 41: Sec. 13 - definition of "product" and exception.

[More] Re bottled water, the ILB is reminded of this Oct. 22, 2007 entry, headed "Canadian company mining Indiana aquifer."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 29, 2008 08:28 AM
Posted to Environment