This is a crucial point about the new Great Lakes water quantity agreement that was released yesterday -- and it's something that must be revised.
Christine Elwell, environmental law specialist with the Sierra Club of Canada, said allowing diversions based on political rather than existing hydrological boundaries also could open the agreement to challenges under trade or commerce laws.
Using this opening, people in Arizona could use trade laws to argue they should be treated the same as residents of counties that qualify for diversions, she said.
This threat can be eliminated by basing diversions solely on hydrological boundaries, Elwell said. "They need to limit diversions to where the watershed is, where the basin is." http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2005/07/01/1112718-sun.html
Posted by Dave at July 1, 2005 10:47 PM