Will Bottled Water Companies Suck the Great Lakes Dry?

By Dave Dempsey, AlterNet. Posted July 6, 2009.

The risk, they say, is that the region could lose control of Great Lakes water management and endanger the health of the ecosystem, which contains 18 percent of the world's available surface fresh water.

Stupak's resolution would express the sense of Congress that "the definition of diversion ... and the exception for 'products' from such definition, did not intend that water itself in any size container or package is a 'product' and exempt from the definition of diversion subject to the compact."

But some say the compact already goes as far as it can in shutting off the commercialization spigot without running afoul of domestic and international trade law. Any uncertainty that might exist, they say, predates the compact and is far outweighed by the benefits the pact brings in water conservation and a legally defensible barrier to most water diversions.

The policy director of the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, a northern Michigan environmental group, said the compact is not the problem when it comes to commercialization.

"The issue of making water a 'commodity' grew out of the globalization of our economy," said Policy Director Grenetta Thomassey. "This was a major problem before the compact was negotiated, and it remains a problem. Nowhere in the compact is bottled water called a product, but it is already viewed that way in many international trade arenas."

"Water is life. NWF strongly advocates that people have a right to water," says Marc Smith, the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes regional representative. "We embrace any effort to prevent water privatization, and we believe the compact does just that."

David Naftzger, executive director of the Council of Great Lakes Governors, declined comment on Stupak's resolution. "Right now, our focus is on implementation of the compact" and a companion agreement among the states and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, he said.

Brian Beauchamp, the coordinator of the Flow: Great Lakes initiative and a policy specialist at the Michigan Land Use Institute, says the overwhelming majority of citizens support Stupak's move.

"In speaking with people from across the state and around the country, it's very apparent that the public is strongly behind banning the private sale of water," Beauchamp says. "The idea that water can be treated as a product to be bought and sold by the highest bidder is at odds with the sentiments of most."

Gary Wilson, a Chicago-based Great Lakes advocate, says at least one compact supporter acknowledges the pact left the door open to commercialization. "I suspect some of the compact's most ardent supporters are suffering from buyer's remorse. One such supporter privately indicated that the compact still leaves the Great Lakes exposed to export via international trade agreements. We gave up too much and got too little," he said.

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