Can large quantities of water be removed from the Great Lakes?
Another issue that has galvanized governments and groups around the Great Lakes is the issue of large-scale removals of water. Although the Great Lakes are large, only one per cent is renewed every year by rain, snow and runoff. The volume of freshwater in the Great Lakes, however, has attracted proposals from private companies that would like to export it for sale to water-poor areas of the world. In the spring of 1998 the Ontario Ministry of the Environment granted a water-taking permit to the Nova Group in Sault Ste. Marie. This permit would have allowed the company to take by tanker more than 600 million litres of freshwater per year for export to Asia. A public outcry and concern from the governors of the Great Lakes’ states prompted the Ontario government to rescind the permit. However, the granting of this permit underscored the vulnerability of the lakes to private proposals. Consequently, the governments of Canada and the United States asked the International Joint Commission
