The OPEC of the Midwest

By Frederic Golden

A national water war looms over the Great Lakes

They were formed at least 7,000 years ago when the retreating glaciers of the last ice age left behind great pockets of water. So pure and shimmering were they that early Jesuit explorers called them "seas of sweet water." During the War of 1812, they were the scene of a memorable battle in which the young American Navy administered a stinging defeat to the British. In the nearly two centuries since then, the Great Lakes have seen nothing more violent than the nor'westers that occasionally blow down from Canada. Forming an extraordinarily peaceful boundary between eight American states and the Canadian province of Ontario, they are huge catch basins for industry, commerce and recreation.

Now the waters may be roiled again. This time the battle involves not gunfire or frigates, but skillful political and legal maneuvering. The issue, discussed at some length last week during the 21st Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Governors' Conference in Des Moines, is control of the water. Containing some 67 trillion gal. of fresh water, enough to cover all of the U.S. to a depth of 10 ft., the Great Lakes are a priceless asset to those who live and work along their shores. More than 24 million people in the U.S. and Canada depend on them for drinking water. Industries in both countries draw off 55 billion gal. a year.

Forming a necklace across a quarter of the North American continent, the lakes are an important artery for commerce, allowing ships to ferry such products of the American heartland as grain, steel and timber to countries around the world. They also are a major sport fishery for such species as lake trout, salmon and muskellunge and an aquatic playground for vacationers. Environmentalists used to fear that some of the lakes were dead or dying, but the era of mindless dumping has finally ended, and the water's purity seems to be improving from year to year.

Thus it is hardly surprising that this liquid treasure is being eyed covetously by those less richly endowed, who live in what Michigan Governor William Milliken scornfully dubs the "parch-belt": the water-poor states of the West and the Sunbelt. Milliken and other Great Lakes Governors fear that as the need for water grows in these areas during the coming decade, there will develop a prodigious national thirst for Great Lakes water. Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus goes so far as to predict that Great Lakes states, along with Ontario, could become "the OPEC of water."

The bountiful, but not bottomless well soon may be tapped. Texans are talking of pumping water from the Mississippi River, which draws much of its volume out of the states in the Great Lakes watershed. Coal mining interests in Montana have approached Wisconsin for access to Lake Superior. They want to pipe water to the Montana coalfields, where it would be mixed with crushed coal to form a mudlike slurry that would in turn be fed to other parts of the country. uch schemes are not pipe dreams: South Dakota earlier this year agreed to sell 50,000 acre-ft. of Missouri River water to a San Francisco-based consortium, Energy Transport Systems Inc., which plans to pump the water 260 miles to the coalfields of the Powder River Basin near Gillette, Wyo. Coal slurry would then be moved through conduits to power plants in the South.

That deal has stirred up considerable controversy. South Dakota's Sioux Indians, citing old claims to the water, are contemplating a suit against the state to stop the sale. So are two downriver states, Missouri and Nebraska. Others may join in. At the Midwest Governors meeting, which unanimously passed a resolution calling on Congress to leave the region's water riches under control of the states, Iowa Governor Robert Ray denounced South Dakota's action as a neighbor's breach of faith. Said he: "What bothers me most is not the amount [to be] diverted, which is comparatively small, but the precedent. Other concerned states should have a voice when water that would normally flow to us is diverted for projects that do not benefit us and are located outside our area."

South Dakota Governor William Janklow dismissed such criticism as political posturing. Said he: "No more water will be sold than what Missouri probably wastes each year through leaky pipes in Kansas City and St. Louis." But other Midwest Governors, especially those of the Great Lakes states, remain uneasy. They fear increased pressure for their water, not only from other parts of the country but perhaps from Washington, exercising its powers to regulate interstate commerce. At a parley on Mackinac Island, Mich., last month, representatives from the Great Lakes states and two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec) listened to some telling statistics from University of Michigan Civil Engineering Professor Jonathan Bulkeley. He pointed out that even a relatively small diversion from the Great Lakes, say 10,000 cu. ft. per sec.--about the volume of water sought by Montana from Lake Superior--would lower water levels enough throughout the interlocking system to cause the loss of $35 million in navigation revenue and $80 million in electrical generating ability.

The Mackinac Island conferees agreed that rather than sell the water, a far better tactic would be to use it for their own industrial development, perhaps even to lure back some of the firms that have fled to dryer pastures. As Wisconsin's Dreyfus said, "The only water that leaves the Great Lakes basin should be in cans, mixed with hops, barley and malt." But while such a political position may play well in Milwaukee, it raises a far more serious question in what could become an increasingly shrill national debate: Should any single state, or group of states, be able to put a lock on what could be regarded as a national resource? The new water sheiks of the Midwest would probably answer with a resounding yes, but the rest of the country may take another view. --By Frederic Golden. Reported by Lee Griggs/Des Moines

With reporting by Lee Griggs

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