On August 5th, the New York Times opinion section published a piece by Arizona State University professor Dr. Jay Famiglietti where he asked Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?
At the Alliance for the Great Lakes, we are compelled to remind those eyeing Great Lakes water that Famiglietti poses a question already answered. No, we can’t pump water from the Great Lakes to California because it would violate federal and state law, specifically the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact that prohibits such acts.
Even if the impossible was possible – far better common-sense strategies than building expensive, thousand-mile-long water pipelines exist, like engaging in proven conservation, water reuse, and land-use planning initiatives. Only 1% of the water in the Great Lakes is renewed each year, underscoring the hard choices and complex planning that goes into keeping sustainable amounts of water available.
Short-sighted Western water law, rampant unchecked growth, and poor agricultural policy is much to blame for Western water shortages. The idea of building a massive, large-scale public works project to move water from one area of the country to another – which the author acknowledges would be wasteful and environmentally harmful – may be easier for some to envision than having difficult conversations about sustainable water and land use management.
Western water users would be better served working together to manage and plan for sustainable water use, like the eight Great Lakes states did, than embracing pipeline-in-the-sky fantasies made impossible by a settled agreement between the U.S. federal government, the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and eight states.