Water pact will deplete Great Lakes, expert fears

A pact designed to preserve the Great Lakes is in reality a "slippery slope" that threatens severe harm to the world's largest body of fresh water, a top U.S. environmental lawyer has warned Canadians.

"In effect, a precedent is being set, in that it allows for the commercialization of water. You are privatizing it," James Olson said yesterday of an agreement among eight Great Lakes states now before the U.S. Congress and linked to Ontario and Quebec through a side deal.

Among other concerns, Olson criticizes an exemption in the Great Lakes Compact allowing water to be removed by private industry as long as it's not "bulk diversion" – in other words, restricted to containers no more than 20 litres in Canada or 5.7 gallons in the U.S., with no limit on the number of containers a business, such as a bottler, can sell.

While Olson is worried about the gradual loss of water levels through the activities of, say, bottling companies, under current limitations, he predicts these quantitative restrictions will turn out to be mere formalities destined to be overturned in court challenges.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/464750