2nd Lake Erie water use plan in the works

COLUMBUS -- Environmental groups are preparing to fire the second volley in Ohio's water wars as they counter a business-backed plan for withdrawals from Lake Erie with one they say will better protect the watershed.

Rep. Dennis Murray (D., Sandusky), sponsor of a more stringent bill to be introduced Tuesday in the House, said Ohio would invite court challenge if it enacts a plan seen as violating the multi-state Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact approved three years ago.

"If we try this stunt, we'll get sued, and we'll lose,'' Mr. Murray said of the business-backed bill. "We'll end up running the risk of not having any standard, so withdrawals would automatically fall to 100,000 (gallons per day). That would shut down power plants. We're playing a very dangerous game.''

Lawmakers will have before them two competing proposals to regulate water withdrawals by businesses, utilities, and drinking water systems as they attempt to balance economic and environmental interests.

A plan proposed by a business coalition and introduced by Republican lawmakers last month represents the least stringent plan of any of the Lake Erie states that signed onto the compact and is rivaled among all eight Great Lakes states only by Indiana's proposals for Lake Michigan.

The Ohio business-backed plan would allow a permit holder to withdraw up to 5 million gallons of water a day directly from the lake before facing restrictions, 2 million if taken from groundwater or other inland sources, and 300,000 if taken from streams deemed to be of high quality.

By comparison, the Murray bill would set thresholds at 2.5 million gallons if taken directly from the lake, 500,000 if taken from groundwater supplies, and between 10,000 gallons to 1 million gallons from river watersheds, depending on their size and quality.

Ohio now requires anyone consuming 2 million gallons or more to register with the state. Michigan allows withdrawals up to 2 million gallons a day, but drops that to 100,000 for streams and groundwater sources for which larger withdrawals may have an adverse impact.

The business-backed bill--sponsored by Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R., Napoleon) in the House and Sen. Tim Grendell (R., Chesterland) in the Senate -- has no mechanism for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to reduce thresholds if water levels drop to certain points.

The Murray bill, however, authorizes ODNR to declare a watershed a "distressed water resource area'' if certain conditions are met and enforce lower thresholds.

Brian Barger, of the business-backed Coalition for Sustainable Water Management, said such emergency measures would be unnecessary because there's been nothing to suggest a 5 million-gallon-per-day threshold would endanger the lake.

The coalition includes the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce, manufacturers, and the chemical, petroleum, mining, and soft drink industries.

"It's hard to imagine having an impact on Lake Erie, whether it's 2.5 million or 5 million (gallons a day),'' he said. "There's a lot of water in the lake, and presently 3 billion is consumed from the Lake Erie watershed.''

He said the 5 million figure came out of an ODNR advisory work group.

The compact--approved by eight states, two Canadian provinces, and Congress--was largely presented as an effort to protect the freshwater resources of the Great Lakes from future raids from other drought-plagued regions of the country as well as other countries.

Critics of the business-backed bill claim that dramatically increased levels of water withdrawals could lead to lower water levels in both the lake and its tributaries and lead to increased incidences of algae bloom.

Ken Kilbert, director of the Legal Institute of the Great Lakes, a research center at the University of Toledo College of Law, said the compact is a fairly well-written legal document.

"This is actually federal law,'' he said. "It isn't up to the state to change it. The idea is for it to be implemented, but there is room for the states to do it in different ways. But the compact is the framework to work under.''

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com, or 614-221-0496.