The new oil - Water
Piece by piece, a 5,500-mile wall around the Great Lakes is going up.
You can't see it, but construction is progressing nicely, along with an implied neon sign that flashes, "Hands off -- it's our water."
Tuesday when Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle finalized his state's approval of the so-called Great Lakes Compact, a multistate agreement designed to protect and restrict access to nearly 20% of the world's supply of fresh water, contained in the five Great Lakes Wisconsin joined the pact to limit access to water; Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania remain
"The Great Lakes are our Grand Canyon. It's our resource to protect; it's the backbone of the region," said Joel Brammeier, vice president for policy at the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
States, cities and countries have been arguing over water rights for decades, but the fights -- often called water wars -- have taken on a heightened sense of national and international urgency in light of prolonged droughts, mounting evidence of climate change and, closer to home, declining lake levels. The drought-stricken Spanish port of Barcelona, for instance, is now shipping in drinking water from large tankers.
In the United States, states in the South and West are hoping for relief from drought conditions that prompted drastic conservation measures last year, as well as renewed talk of water diversions.
In some regards, water is the new oil, and the governors of the states adjacent to the Great Lakes are the new OPEC, jealously guarding a resource that will be a big part of their future.
Congress must OK plan
But this won't end water wars. It merely will redefine them in a heavily industrialized region of the country grappling with the legacy of pollution that has tainted groundwater and drinking wells with radium, arsenic and other toxic materials.
