Document base for the Oral Presentation at the Public Hearings on the Implementing Agreements Draft 2004 of The Great Lakes Water Annex 2001 , Ambassador Resort, Kingston, Ontario, Tuesday, September 28, 2004.

Presented by Armand B. Cote, delegate from the Ottawa Chapter, The Council of Canadians

e-mail: beauco(at)rogers.com
tel.: 613-692-0591
fax: 613-692-4882

The Chapter recognizes that The Great Lakes Charter Annex, A Supplementary Agreement to The Great Lakes Charter and the 2004 Draft Implementing Agreement to the Annex is a step forward by the States and Provinces of the Great Lakes Watershed Basin. The Draft, with its faults is a step forward because it responds to public concern about regulating bulk water transfers out of the basin and trying to secure the water regulating regime inside the basin.

It is deeply regretted that Ontario and Quebec public hearings were abysmally advertised and the hearings limited to 90 days for such a momentous topic. This is a profound disrespect for the well known public interest in the issue of conserving the Great Lakes for now and future generations.

We will not dwell upon the merits and the loopholes of the Implementing Agreement Draft relating to water takings, environmental impacts, and implications such as water as a traded commodity in the context of NAFTA and the WTO, etc.

We wish to make a case that no matter how good or bad the final Implementing Agreement is, unless additional essential action is taken, the new regulatory regime will be eventually overturned. Irresistible future political, social and economic demands are forming in the US to share Great Lakes water, particularly from the arid Western and South Western regions as well as contiguous areas outside the Great Lakes southern watershed.

The future holds no medium or long term hope for purely regional water management solutions in the face of future trends in North America.

Our focus is on what can happen in a likely scenario of geopolitical conflict over the use and sharing of Great Lakes Water if the Governors, the Premiers and the Canadian and US Federal Governments fail to take into account the already emerging effects of water shortage on the continent driven by:

• global warmingi
• a US population increase by mid century of 43% ii
• foolish water and land use policies especially continued settlement and farming in arid areas which are already exhausting aquifersiii.

In the face of the continental effects of global warming and population demands, especially in the US, it is no longer possible to have a valid strategic regional regime of large scale water management in North America which does not take into account these factors and the now bankrupt policies governing land and water use. These variables together comprise an intensifying hammer and anvil process upon the US that can turn conflictual and even violent. Unless, for starters, this Draft of the Implementing Agreements is sent back to be prefaced with a statement of intent and commitment to establish a continental solution to the growing water crisis. It should be sent back because the Draft fails utterly to take into account the developing gigantic and ominous continental stresses and therefore the good intentions of the authors will fail.

Our concern is not a ‘Henney Penney, the sky is falling’ scenario. Here are a few examples of failure to develop valid strategic water management regimes which led to or will lead to catastrophic environmental and/or conflictual outcomes:

• Consider the death of the Aral Sea in Russia which was the 4th largest inland fresh water sea in the world. It was killed by using the water to irrigate crops on lands where no crops could be otherwise grown. The Aral is now 1/3 of its original size, salinating and perhaps beyond recovery. iv
• As are other aquifers in the US, the huge Ogallala Aquifer is approaching depletion due to untenable water and land use policies.
• Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Syria are in extreme tension over who shares the River Jordan, the Sea of Galilee and aquifers. Israeli PM Sharon has said the 6 Day War was started 2 years before a shot was fired when Syria began diversion work on Jordan tributaries. v
• Mexico and the US are at loggerheads over water takings out of the Rio Grande system. vi
• The states and Mexico, sharing the Colorado River system are locked in tension over a now depleting resource and increased demand. vii
• Alberta has recently lost a dispute with Montana over the shrinking glacial fed St. Mary and Milk Rivers system. Montana is taking more water.viii
• Turkey, Iraq and Syria are on a collision course over Turkish dam building plans for the Upper Euphrates River and the Tigris-Euphrates systemix

The Implementation Agreements Draft, by failing to take into account the future likelihood of US internal conflict over water and what has to be done to head off this potential reality also raises the epicenter of likely future conflict between Canada and the US over water taking from the Great Lakes. Why, because Canada shares the Great Lakes and has little power to resist the effects of a future ‘out of control’ water regime in the US.

What factors should the authors of the Draft and the Federal Governments of the US and Canada take into account in a strategic management regime of the Great Lakes?

• First, there can be no valid strategic management regime for the Great Lakes unless there is a valid continental management regime for water and land use. Therefore the solution horizon is truly geopolitical.
• Second, the already present and future impact of global warming on continental water supply must be considered in order to have a valid water takings regime for the Great Lakes system.
• Third, Canada and the United States must open the question of agricultural land use and settlement in arid areas.
• Fourth, the issues over water must also be defined as a threat to national and continental security of the highest order far surpassing the threats of terrorism magnified by the attacks of ‘9/11.’
• Fifth, the two countries must address the thorny question of water use and conservation across all sectors of human activity in the technical and economic dimensions as well as the habits and attitudes toward water usage in all forms.
• Sixth, none of the above will happen unless the Great Lakes States and Provinces, which have the most to lose, declare in a prefatory statement to the Implementation Agreement that their next step is to form an entente that will launch a campaign to persuade their fellow states and provinces and the federal governments to undertake a massive commitment to continental water and land use reform. This commitment must be unrelenting, long term and well funded.

Failure to address these factors will leave the two nations with a Great Lakes water management regime which will be reduced to a sieve because momentous political, social and economic forces will converge to override the regime proposed in the Draft.

Conflict and potential violence are inherent in failure.

First, severe tensions will arise between US populations and interests, state vs. state and within states affected by water shortage. No comment is needed about the propensity among many US citizens to inflict violence in situations of severe social stress, imagine the stresses related to serious water deprivation. How many ‘shootouts’ took place in the US pioneer west between cattlemen, sheepmen and farmer settlers over water access?

Anyone can fill in the blanks about what some Canadians will do if their livelihood and perhaps life needs are compromised by other Canadians or Americans taking more than their fair share of water in a future chronic water crisis.

Second, there is an ugly and foreboding Joker in this deck. That Joker is what happens in a very rapid climatic change driven by global warming?

Fortune magazine, January, 2004,x reveals policy recommendations to the Pentagon about what to do if severe food and water shortages appear due to sudden climate change. This Pentagon generated policy scenario addresses what the US military posture ought to be under these circumstances of dire need in the US. Here is what the Pentagon policy group advises: Identify "no regrets" strategies to ensure reliable access to food and water and to ensure our national security.

A “no regrets” strategy which deploys military forces to obtain water can only mean that Canada becomes a target. Mexico has not enough water to interest an army of invasion. Further Mexico is about 3000 km from north to south mostly well populated, about 100,000,000 people who would and could fight every inch of the way. Canada has a population of 31,000,000 in a thin beady line across about 5000 km, is poorly armed and even if armed to the teeth could be carved up by US military forces in two weeks. Canada has big water prizes.

There is no doubt if things come to blows which way US military forces would move.

Is this a credible scenario? Would the US deploy military force against Canada to obtain water which we resisted giving over because Canadians needed it?

I suggest the US has already deployed military forces to secure oil in Iraq and elsewhere because oil is seen as a non-negotiable need which must be controlled. If the two countries do not jointly implement the five points of action above, water will become a non-negotiable need for the US.

The future wars will be mainly over the key resources of oil and water.xi

Water need not be a war prize in North America if the two countries address the geopolitical framework of the water question and dispense with the belief that the 2004 Draft Implementing Agreement of The Great Lakes Annex, 2001 is valid in the context of this presentation.

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