Special Report

IV. POLICY PROGRESS

Michigan and other Great Lakes governments took a major step forward in water policy when they completed negotiations in 2001 on a common policy for preserving and protecting the region’s unique and vital supplies of fresh water. On June 18, 2001, governors from the basin’s eight states, along with the premiers of Ontario and Quebec, signed Annex 2001. The agreement commits Great Lakes governments to promoting water conservation, obtaining better information about Great Lakes hydrology for supply management, and developing a common policy for handling proposals to export and sell the region’s water.

The challenge now is for Michigan and the other governments involved to put the regional policy goals into practice at home. Michigan’s unwillingness to do so when faced with the Perrier Group’s proposal demonstrates the need for the Legislature to resolve the water ownership and management issues that the water bottler has prompted.

Michigan’s Engler administration has worked hard to encourage the Perrier Group to set up its bottling operation. Before the DEQ approved the Perrier Group’s two well permits on Aug. 15, 2001, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation offered the company $9.6 million in tax abatements and other assistance.

The state’s warm welcome for the Perrier Group conflicts, however, with the tough public posture Gov. Engler has taken on overall Great Lakes water security as a leader in the basin-wide Annex 2001 initiative to protect the region’s water supply.

ìToday we need to guard that water like gold,” Gov. Engler told a group of voters during the summer of 2001 in Muskegon. But issuing a blanket well drilling permit to the Perrier Group ó giving the company free commercial use of the state’s groundwater with virtually no regulatory oversight after the well is drilled ó is not the way Mr. Engler agreed to do it under Annex 2001.

Under the agreement, no state or province will allow a new or increased withdrawal unless the proposal:

ï Includes implementation of all reasonable and appropriate water conservation measures.

ï Does not, individually or cumulatively, cause significant adverse impact to the quantity or quality of the waters and water-dependent natural resources of the Great Lakes basin.

ï Results in an improvement to the waters and water-dependent natural resources of the Great Lakes basin.

ï Complies with all applicable laws.

Michigan has not demonstrated that the Perrier Group would meet this ìnet improvement” standard or that the company’s wells, together with other users, would not harm the region’s aquatic resources. That’s because the state’s permitting process and knowledge about its groundwater supplies are inadequate to prove that the Perrier Group’s operation is a reasonable use of public waters that will cause no harm to surrounding property owners and the local ecology.

Annex 2001 sets a high standard against degradation and diminishment of Great Lakes waters. It also extends protection to all water users, including ecological resources, such as fish, wildlife, and wetlands. Great Lakes governments will judge proposed withdrawals not simply by their potential to cause harm to the water resources and the living creatures that depend on water, but also by their ability to show improvement to the related aquatic environment. The agreement modernizes the region’s water policy by moving beyond the benefits of water for individual land parcels to allocating a water right to the broader, interconnected environment.