Respect

I live on the border. And I honor and respect my good neighbors right across the lake. For what it’s worth I must say to any Canadian reading this many Americans are horrified by the behavior of the convicted felon and his mob associates recently elected and given admittance to the power center of the US federal government.

Canada shares Lake Ontario ( and three other Great Lakes) with the US. I have visited southern Ontario many times both as a tourist and when visiting my older brother’s home in eastern Ontario. The first time I visited the northern shore of Lake Ontario as a cruiser I was surprised and delighted by the beauty and diversity I found there. Canada certainly got the better deal on geography when it comes to cruising Lake Ontario. I feel very lucky to have been able to visit there for so many years.

Sara B anchored in South Bay a few years ago

Recently I saw a reference to Trump’s ambition to gain total control over the Great Lakes. The motive appears to be using water for making money. We are now seeing a rapid increase in interest by speculators in the stock market in the growth of data centers (aka server farms). These collections of computers are essential for both AI and Crypto and they use a lot of water. Canadian Maud Barlow, long time activist and former UN advisor for the just and fair use of water takes this threat of water diversions seriously. It looks like the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent to a lot of people. Including me.

South Shore of Main Duck- no cormorants yet

We all should take the threat seriously. In 2008 the US Great Lakes states plus Ontario and Quebec signed an agreement called the Great Lakes Compact. They did so because of calls by powerful American interests to divert water from the lakes south in response to droughts. This compact was supposed to prevent the diversion of water out of the Great Lakes Watershed. Unfortunately, this goal has already been violated. Recently Chicago proposed to sell more drinking water to the city of Joliet outside the watershed. The Compact does have protocols for this sort of thing but the current US president with his long history of fraud and illegal business activity is now breaking contracts and long standing agreements between countries right and left. He would have no hesitation to trash The Compact. No doubt his advisors will point to these “precedents” to back him up.

So what’s the problem? Is this all just conspiracy paranoia? This is the biggest freshwater ecosystem in the world. There’s zillions of gallons of water. But. Only about one percent of that water is renewed each year. If more than that is diverted out of the watershed lake levels go down permanently.

The Aral Sea in the Soviet Union was once comparable in volume to Lake Erie. By surface area it was the world’s fourth largest lake. In 50 years the Soviets sucked it dry for cotton irrigation. Think it can’t happen here? Think again. Just last summer (before Trump was elected!), the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River mayors organization announced an initiative to transform the Great Lakes St. Lawrence basin into a blue-green economic development corridor. One where they declared the basin’s freshwater would catalyze increased economic opportunities for innovative businesses. (?Like Crypto? Give me a break!) Much of that water, no doubt enhanced by a few chemicals and heavy metals, would be returned to the system. But not all of it will make it back into the watershed.

And there will almost certainly be more bright ideas to make money with Great Lakes water coming soon from a president with lots of Beautiful Big Ideas and who has made fraud a successful business strategy for his whole life.

We must unite with our Canadian neighbors to protect this priceless resource. I am writing to ask my elected officials to deliver my message to Trump. Mr. President. Go sit on a stalagmite! Leave our Lakes Alone!

Little Bluff June 2022 cruise with Tringa

Today the Financial Post is running a story on water diversions south. https://financialpost.com/feature/canada-water-next-front-battle-with-u-s

More on the complex system that keeps the lakes full is detailed in my soon to be published book “Downstream”