Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
The Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, published five times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin.
Volume 15, Number 4 • Winter 2007
Lake Erie
Basin Update - U.S. Side
Great Lakes States Pledge to Protect Water Quantity,
but Ohio continues to let the Lakes bleed
By Kristy Meyer, Ohio Environmental Council
No need to imagine – this is the
reality of our Great Lakes water supply.
The fact is, there are no legallyenforceable,
basin-wide water
management rules governing the use of
Great Lakes water. This leaves the Lakes
vulnerable to export outside the basin
and to wasteful overuse within the basin.
A balanced, bipartisan solution exists –
the Great Lakes Compact. Like a legal contract, the Compact
proposes fair and consistent rules to protect against out-of-basin
diversions and overuse and uncontrolled withdrawals within the
region. But after five years of good-faith negotiations and
thoughtful give and take, the Compact remains bogged down in
the Ohio Senate. There, a handful of lawmakers are frustrating the
wide support that exists for the Compact in Ohio – support
evidenced by a landslide, 87-5 vote by the Ohio House last
December to ratify the Compact.
Instead, these naysayers are attempting to derail the Compact.
They allege that the Compact suffers from inadequate input,
violates private property rights, and gives away state sovereignty.
Their solution? A mere fourteen “technical changes” to the
Compact—anyone of which may topple the delicate balance
reached amongst the competing states and various stakeholders.
Let’s cut through the spin. The reality is that the Compact does
protect established private property rights - Ohio actually will gain,
not lose rights, and that current federal law is not adequate to
protect the Lakes. Here’s a closer look:
Private Property Rights
Underwell established case law,landowners in Ohio enjoy the right
to make reasonable use of the water flowing along their
property (riparian rights)(1)and the groundwater below their
property.(2) The Compact explicitly protects private water rights in
the use of surface and groundwater while reinforcing the
obligation of the state to protect and conserve the resources
within its borders.
State Sovereignty
By ratifying the Compact,Ohio actually will gain – not lose – rights.
In fact, the Compact guarantees Ohio the right to a secure, consistent
set of Great Lakes water use rules that everyone must follow.
Federal Water Resources Development Act
Under the Water Resources Development Act WRDA, a Governor
need not give a reason for vetoing a proposed water diversion.
Under the Compact, each state has authority over water use within
the basin, and is subject to the decision-making standard for diversions
to straddling communities or straddling counties. As such,
the Compact places objective standards over subjective politics.
Bottom line: the Compact will help us to sustain the Great Lakes –
so they can continue to sustain us.
Contact Kristy Meyer, Ohio Environmental Council for more info:
(614) 487-7506 or Kristy@TheOEC.org
(1)See 3 Kent Comm. 439 (3d ed., 1836); see also VI-A Amer. L. of Prop. § 28.55, 1954;
City of Canton v. Shock, 66 OS 19, 1902; 1994 Op. Atty Gen. Ohio 30.
(2)McNamara v. Rittman, 107 Ohio St.3d 243 (2006); Cline v.Am.Aggregates Corp.,
15 Ohio St.3d 384 (1984).
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