The author of The Great Lakes Water Wars was in Duluth Wednewsday. Rich Kremer reports that the picture is changing as the Great Lakes Compact becomes law.

The battles over water rights have been raging for years but recently the water rich areas surrounding the Great Lakes have taken up the fight to protect their resources from being diverted. Author Peter Annin says the best place to protect the nation’s fresh water lakes is Congress.

“It’s a surprise to many people that even the Great Lakes region itself is entering an era of increased water tension. Those tensions are higher in some areas than they are in others but northeastern Illinois, southeastern Wisconsin places like that the tensions are really high and I call those places the front line of the the great lakes water war. And it’s a surprise to many and will continue to be a surprise to many that they’le be water tensions here even though we have such an abundant water supply.”

Now, a bill known as the Great Lakes Compact passed this week is expected to be signed by President Bush provides protection for these natural resources. There is concern however that possible loopholes will be exploited and the bill will be challenged in court.

“This document has been lawyer’ed to death by literally dozens and dozens of lawyers in all the different jurisdictions so we must be talking about hundreds of lawyers now and they’ve all signed off on it as being able to withstand those kinds of legal challenges.”

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