Here’s an article posted on WOOD-TV8 today that should concern EVERYONE: Dry areas eye Great Lakes water
The Department of the Interior is preparing a 10-year study to determine the nation’s water use, supplies and future needs. The department said the study is necessary because of chronic water shortages, dramatic population growth and the potential for water conflicts. Water diversion is not mentioned in the Interior news release, or even the Great Lakes specifically. But there’s concern the Great Lakes fresh water repository is being eyed by many.
NO ONE should tamper with the environment to this extent. Taking water away from our Great Lakes will do nothing except to disturb the natural balance, and create a chain of events that could become catastrophic!
I can certainly appreciate there are areas of our country that have water shortages, and it is a difficult situation to remedy. However – areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and other Southwest areas have maintain enormous golf courses, countless swimming pools, underground sprinkling for lawns, and other “recreational” uses. If you find yourself migrating to such an area for your retirement, you should not be surprised that there might be shortages of water in the desert! I hardly feel sorry for those who exploit something as precious as water.
Historically, anytime humans have diverted water in order to gain from it – it has caused more harm and grief than good. That’s exactly why so many places in desert-type environments have ended up in trouble. It’s termed “desertification” which is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various climatic variations, but primarily from human activities. Look up the Aral Sea, Lake Mead, Lake Chad and a host of others as examples to what happens to lakes when water is not managed properly.
This is an environmental issue worth taking a stand on! Do you know how LARGE of an area the Great Lakes Watershed area is? Think about what impact lower levels of water will create in this region…
