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Taft pans Lake Erie bill
A bill to regulate water withdrawal from the Lake Erie basin would violate the Great Lakes Compact and invite litigation against Ohio by private groups and possibly other states, according to former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft.
Taft testified before the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday and urged lawmakers to take the time needed to rework the bill.
Taft, a board member of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, said several provisions of the bill would directly conflict with the compact, which is a multi-state agreement ratified by Ohio in 2008. The compact was negotiated during Taft’s tenure as governor when he served as chairman of the Council of Great Lakes Governors.
Taft said the bill does not address the cumulative impact of withdrawals on the basin.
“If you don’t deal with the cumulative impacts, you may assign the lake to a death by a thousand straws,” he said.
The compact requires states to adopt water management plans by 2013.
House Bill 231, sponsored by state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, R-Napoleon, passed the House on Wednesday along party lines, 60-39, and the Senate began informal hearings on it Thursday.
Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Cliff Hite, R-Findlay, said the bill may get a floor vote next week.
The bill creates a permit for businesses that want to withdraw more than five million gallons a day from the lake, more than two million gallons a day from rivers and streams in the basin and more than 300,000 gallons a day from ‘high quality” streams within the basin.
Ohio withdraws about 3.5 billion gallons from Lake Erie each year, according to data from the Great Lakes Commission.
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