Upper Great Lakes Law and Policy Symposium in Duluth on March 24

Upper Great Lakes Law and Policy Symposium in
Duluth on March 24

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents has announced a major conference on protecting our lifeblood, water.

The announcement is reproduced below:

Talking about laws and policies affecting the Upper Great Lakes is timely. Within the last six months:

• A community outside the Great Lakes Basin applied for a diversion of Lake Michigan water
• A federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to rewrite its ballast water rules for ships in the Great Lakes
• Natural resource managers scrambled to keep regulations apace with fluctuations in Great Lakes fish populations

Recognizing the need for a deeper conversation, experts from the U.S. and Canada are meeting on March 24 in Duluth, Minnesota, at the Upper Great Lakes Law and Policy Symposium. The symposium will zero in on how recent activities might serve as models for tackling Great Lakes transboundary issues like climate, mining, crude oil/energy movement, and water levels. Presenters include Lana Pollack, Chair of U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission; and Peter Johnson, Deputy Director of the Conference of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers.

The University of Minnesota Sea Grant Program, the University of Minnesota Law School and the Sea Grant Law Center are hosting the event. Continuing legal education credits for practicing attorneys will be offered. More information, including an agenda, is available on the Minnesota Sea Grant website.

Registration is required and includes refreshments, lunch, and an hors d'oeuvres reception. Non-student registration is $60. Students can register for free. Registration is limited to 200. Register online: by email: seagr@d.umn.edu; or by phone: 218-726-8106.

International Joint Commission (IJC)

Any Great Lakes Gov. Can Halt Lake Michigan Water Diversion; Walker Continues Deplete-and-Pollute Policy

"There are approximately 160,000 public drinking water systems
in the United States, (DHS)." In Michigan and Wisconsin,
clean water is under siege by Republican governors as desperate
citizens look to the federal government for relief and protection.
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources
Compact of 2008 offers protection of the Great Lakes water.

Thanks to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact of 2008, one governor of a Great Lakes state can veto the diversion of water to the city of Waukesha, Wisconsin—a racist, white community residing in the Mississippi watershed.

Clean water activists are advising citizens to contact Gov. Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota) by March 3, 2016, (and the governors of the below states), to register objection to the Waukesha application for diversion of water from Lake Michigan. The Minnesota DNR is holding a listening session on March 3 in Duluth.

Clean water activists say the need to protect the waters of the Great Lakes from the dangerously deranged policies on water accelerated by Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) and Gov. Rick Snyder (R-Michigan) has taken on an increased urgency in light of the water poisoning and depletion policies exemplified by Walker and Snyder.

Waukesha needs the support of all the governors of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, under the terms of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact.

The diversion of water from Lake Michigan to Waukesha would set a dangerous precedent that the Great Lakes water is for sale and available for any use by reckless cities such as Waukesha. The diversion would also send the message that genuinely sociopathic policies on water employed by Govs. Scott Walker and Rick Snyder are acceptable.

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact of 2008 was enacted to protect fresh water from the policies employed by Walker, Snyder and corporate America seeking to privatize and pollute fresh water.