World running dry

[gerrit]

Elections are coming up in both Canada and the U.S. Ask your regional candidates where they stand on the Great Lakes Pact. Be sure to mention that the pact has failed to put a cap on the size or the amount of containers of water that it will allow to be extracted from the Great Lakes.

[gerrit]

It boggles my mind that no one seems to get that the Great Lakes Pact greatly threatens the Great Lakes system.

James Olson, a top U.S. environmental lawyer from Michigan, has warned Canadians that the Great Lakes Pact makes no restrictions on the size or amount of containers of water, removed from the Great Lakes, that enterprises can sell (Metro - Profession:Épicier - Recettes et conseils des experts Metro).

Once Congress passes this resolution and President Bush signs it, and Detroit News has reported that he has indicated that he will; then the agreement will be extremely difficult to overturn.

[Richard]

Isn't there some restriction stating that they can't sell it outside the Great Lakes region though?

[gerrit]

Originally Posted by Richard

Isn't there some restriction stating that they can't sell it outside the Great Lakes region though?

Small containers (i.e. bottled water) are allowed outside the basin area. An interview with James Olson was published on July 8/2008 and can be read at circle of blue.

I strongly recommend that Canadians and Americans acknowledge his criticisms on the Great Lakes Compact.

[screener]

thanks for the circle of blue reference.

[gerrit]

Originally Posted by screener

thanks for the circle of blue reference.

You're welcome.

I was unaware that a 5.7 gallon cap had been implemented in the compact at the last minute because of some outcries.

This makes little difference however.

Soda pop and bottled water plants extract billions of gallons of water.

If small containers of water are allowed to be sold outside the basin, an enormous amount of water will taken from the Great Lakes system.

[gerrit]

[quote=Cricket Tragic;249951]gerrit, use of water for bottled products is the least of the concerns about fresh water on the Earth. QUOTE]


Global water shortages and no diversion limitations on small containers make the waters of the Great Lakes basin a magnet for corporate water thieves.

Coca-Cola alone annually uses 280 billion liters of water to manufacture all of their beverages worldwide (Blue Covenant.)

With no laws preventing these enterprises from selling outside the basin...
well, just do the math.

Americans should be as outraged by this as they were at the Boston Tea Party; and Canadians should be just as angry.

[Cricket Tragic]

Originally Posted by gerrit

Coca-Cola alone annually uses 280 billion liters of water to manufacture all of their beverages worldwide (Blue Covenant.)

With no laws preventing these enterprises from selling outside the basin...
well, just do the math.

But they don’t get all that water from the Great Lakes Basin. Coca Cola manufactures drinks around the world and would use local water wherever possible. Water is heavy and expensive to transport.

Worldwide Coca Cola uses 290 billion litres of water. Coca-Cola - Press Center - Press Release Only 114 billion of that ends up in bottle product. The rest is used for rinsing bottles, etc. and would stay in the basin where the manufacturing process is.

The US arm of the company accounts for only 18% of total volume (This covers sales in the US, Canada and Western Europe). Home Page They have 3 bottling plants that could be described as being in the Great Lakes Basin and 7 plants outside this region.

So ‘doing the math’ suggests that about 6 billion litres per year goes into bottles in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of this is going to get sold back into that region.

Lake Erie contains 480 trillion litres of water. Even if all the water Coca Cola bottled were transported out of the region, it would take 80,000 years to empty the smallest of the lakes.

I still think you should be worrying about water pollution and diversion of water for irrigation. Livestock and irrigation in Illinois alone use 300 billion litres per year (although a lot of this does get returned through run-off).

[gerrit]

[quote=Cricket Tragic;252308]But they don’t get all that water from the Great Lakes Basin. Coca Cola manufactures drinks around the world and would use local water wherever possible. Water is heavy and expensive to transport.



.

So ‘doing the math’ suggests that about 6 billion litres per year goes into bottles in the Great Lakes Basin. Most of this is going to get sold back into that region.



QUOTE]


Water resources are drying up all over the world. Western societies haven't noticed the consequences of this yet because it really hasn't affected us that much so far. If giant corporations can get away with it then yes they will be diverting billions of gallons of Great Lakes water away from the basin. Nestle (Perrier) is a Swiss company and they are aggressively trying to get a piece of the Great Lakes. Nestle, by the way, uses even more fresh water than Coca-Cola does.

[gerrit]

[quote=Cricket Tragic;252308]







Lake Erie contains 480 trillion litres of water. Even if all the water Coca Cola bottled were transported out of the region, it would take 80,000 years to empty the smallest of the lakes.

QUOTE]



Those are famous last words. There were those that said that the cod stocks would never disappear from the Grand Banks either.

According to Detroit News, four trillion liters of water are taken from the Great Lakes Basin every day. Lake Michigan alone loses 2.5 billion gallons of water every day (New York Times.)

The premise that it would take 80,000 years to empty Lake Erie is a myth.

It seems to me that many of the participants on this site are either misinformed or purposely sabotaging what needs to be said.