EAST LANSING — The latest draft of a proposal to prevent mass water diversions from the Great Lakes Basin contains flaws that could undermine its good intentions, according to water policy experts from the United States and Canada who met here recently to evaluate the agreement.
Experts said they were surprised that the new draft proposal, known as the Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements, drops all mention of water as a public trust resource. The elimination of the public trust declaration is part of a broader ongoing debate over how best to address water privatization and export.
For instance, while the proposal forbids entrepreneurs from shipping tankers of bulk water from Lake Superior to China, it allows them to ship the same amount of water packaged in small bottles to any Wal-Mart store on the planet.
http://www.mlui.org/landwater/fullarticle.asp?fileid=16907
Posted by Dave at August 8, 2005 07:56 PM