The document discusses Ohio's recent legislation regarding water withdrawals from Lake Erie and its watershed. It argues the legislation [1] violates both the spirit and letter of the Great Lakes Compact by weakening environmental protections, [2] sets the weakest standards of all Great Lakes states, and [3] could threaten the long-term health of Lake Erie and its ecosystem through massive, uncontrolled withdrawals. It urges the governor to reject this approach and uphold Ohio's commitment to the Compact by ensuring a balanced plan that protects both current and future water supplies and uses.

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Implementation of the Great Lakes Compact
Statement by Kristy Meyer, Director of Agricultural & Clean Water Programs
Last month the Ohio General Assembly jammed through a partisan decision to open the
spigot to massive, uncontrolled water withdrawals in Lake Erie and Ohio’s inland lakes,
rivers, and aquifers that drain into Lake Erie. The industry backed legislation that they
passed gives Ohio the dubious honor of having the weakest standard, while also violating
the spirit and the letter of the Compact.
Particularly the industry groups’ legislation tries to re-write the Compact through the
backdoor by:
 only considering physical impacts, ignoring chemical and biological impacts
 considering only individual impacts, ignoring cumulative impacts;
 only considering impacts from consumptive uses, water withdrawn and not returned,
ignoring impacts from withdraws;
 ignoring the role of the ODNR to approve which environmentally sound and
economically feasible water conservation measures may be used, enabling, instead,
the industry user to determine which best management practice is best for them;
 deleting the reasonable use provision that ODNR is required to use when determining
whether or not a new or increased withdrawal or consumptive use should be
permitted, rather leaves it to the courts to determine whether or not a new project is
reasonable; and
 ignoring impacts from water withdrawals and consumptive uses on inland lakes,
rivers, and groundwater, focusing, instead, only on impacts to Lake Erie as a whole,
meaning a consumptive use must draw down IN’s, MI’s, NY’s, Ontario’s, and PA’s
waters before a use is deemed a significant individual impact.
Now, when the Ohio General Assembly first debated ratification of the Compact in 2006, a
coalition of Ohio-based industry groups joined state regulators and environmental-
conservation groups in support of controlling withdrawals from Lake Erie, as well as the
source watershed, such as the Cuyahoga, Maumee, Grand, or Sandusky Rivers, and local
impacts to river segments.
Accepting this consensus interpretation, lawmakers included a key provision in the Compact
ratification legislation adopted in 2008 (Ohio House Bill 416) to codify this fundamental
protection.
That was the official policy of the State of the Ohio. Until this year when a new legislature
and new administration fell hook, line, and sinker for the industry coalition’s flip flop in
positions, which gave the heave ho to considering impacts from water withdrawals on inland
waterways.

2. Scientists warn that without protection of Ohio’s inland lakes, rivers, and aquifers as the
Compact requires, Lake Erie will be significantly impacted, as well as the wildlife and users
that depend on its waters.
Couple this with the highest thresholds of all of the Great Lakes states and provinces and it
is a recipe for disaster. Under the bill, a water user would only have to seek a state permit
when a factory, mining operation, or other water user tapped more than 5 million gallons of
water a day from Lake Erie, 2 million gallons from a river or groundwater source, or 300,000
gallons of water a day averaged from a designated high-quality stream that is less than 100
square miles.
Even the industry coalition acknowledged that no business has ever faced regulation at 2
million gallons of water per a day. According to Brian Barger, spokesperson for the industry
coalition representing the Ohio Aggregates and Industrial Mineral Resources Association,
who was quoted in the Toledo Blade article titled Ohio House to vote on lake-water
withdrawal, which ran on June 22, 2011, “…no business has ever faced regulation in Ohio for
consuming more than 2 million gallons a day”.
Furthermore, a withdrawal of 300,000 gallons of water a day would completely dry up those
high-quality, small streams, yet potentially would not be considered a significant individual
impact large enough to impact the whole Lake Erie watershed. This would, however, impact
local communities that depend on these small streams.
These massive, uncontrolled withdraws and consumptive uses, scientists warn, could be a
long-term threat to our Great Lake Erie’s fragile ecosystem and the people, wildlife, and
tourism industry that depend on the health of Lake Erie. Particularly this legislation could
lead to:
 increased harmful algal blooms;
 a reduction in critical habitat for sport fish, such as walleye, yellow perch, and
steelhead;
 a loss of recreational opportunities;
 increased costs for drinking and waste water treatment;
 a decrease in property values; and
 a loss of jobs, income, and related tax revenue from travel and tourism.
In Ohio, nearly 3 million people rely on Lake Erie for drinking water. In addition, each year
more than 7 billion people flock to Ohio’s portion of Lake Erie, generating more than $10
billion in revenue annually from fishing, wildlife watching, boating, and other tourism
related activities, while supporting 1 out of every 10 jobs. As a result the state of Ohio
receives more than $400 million in state taxes, which is not a laughing matter when Ohio is
trying to fill a $8 billion dollar deficit.
We know that Ohio benefits more than any other Lake Erie state from a healthy Lake Erie
ecosystem and yet the General Assembly still proceeded to hang the open for business sign
at all costs on Lake Erie. It isn’t a secret mission of the environmental-conservation

3. community or scientists to lock up all of Ohio’s Lake Erie waters, we too live here and
depend on these water ways and the economy of Ohio. Therefore, we urge the Governor to
reject this unbalanced approach to implementing the Compact and uphold our binding
agreement to the other 8 Great Lakes states by insisting on a balanced plan that will ensure
adequate supplies of clean water for productive use, both now and in the future, for all Lake
Erie water users. There is still time to get this right for the people of Ohio and for Lake Erie.