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A monthly podcast in which Stuart Carlton (a native New Orleanian) asks smart people to teach him about the Great Lakes. Co-hosted by the awesome staff at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.
Stuart Carlton 0:00
teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. John. Welcome back to teach me about the Great Lakes a twice monthly ish podcast in which I A Great Lakes novice as people who are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes. My name is Stuart Carlton, I work with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. And I know a lot about how much slush is enough slush to get your feet extremely uncomfortably wet when you ride your bike to work. But I don't know a lot about the Great Lakes. And that's the point of this your show. So lucky today to be joined by Rene miles. It's that few times a year tradition makes me so happy strategic communicator with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Rene. How are you today? I'm pretty good. You know, me too, slogging through the winter, but not on a bicycle. Just mostly, you know, peering out the window stuff. Yeah, but you have less Chicago winters. So much worse than, you know.
Like ours is not super fun. I'm not pretending that it is but but we don't get what you get. That's for sure. It's Yeah, well, it's a little I will say that. Okay.
I will let you live with that. I know it's a lot worse. But it's all relative. Right? how full is your cup of misery? Yes, that really determines how you interpret the winter. But that's not why we're here today. Rene, we're here today, because we're here to talk to an author of a book that I read over the winter holiday. And it was one of my top two or three favorite Great Lakes books that I've read. And so when I emailed the author, I was super excited that he said yes. And so we're gonna just jump right into it. Does that work for you? Yep, I'm really happy to be a part of this. Alright, well, let's dive in.
Our guest today is Peter Annan. He is the director of the Mary Griggs Burke center for freshwater innovation. First one our innovation Rini at Northland college. And he's the author of the Great Lakes water wars, which was revised and expanded five years ago, but it remains vital and important today. I'm not going to I'm just gonna, I'm gonna lead, I'm gonna not bury the lead. This book is among the best grade like books that I've read. And this revised version, I didn't read the original, it tells what I call the origin story of the Great Lakes compact, and we're gonna kind of get into that, but it's accessible. It's even handle even handed you know, some books tend to be kind of like Enviro alarmist, I would say this does not have that tone. It features an extraordinary array of primary and secondary research. It has interviews and quotes from key players, over decades of Great Lakes, water management, including some politicians. It's hard to get them to talk sometimes. But Peter was able to do it. I really, really recommend this book. And I'm so pumped to get to talk here. So Peter, how are you today? Thank you for coming on.
Unknown Speaker 2:46
I'm doing well, Stuart, thanks for having me.
Stuart Carlton 2:48
Yeah, no, it's great.
Let's start big picture. So this book in my reading is primarily about water quantity in the Great Lakes, and how it varies over time, and how the states and nations deal with the fact that here we have the world's largest freshwater research resource, excuse me, but we still have to be mindful, that's not unlimited. Why did you decide to use water availability as your focus for the book?
Speaker 1 3:10
Yeah, so in 1998, I was a correspondent in Chicago, or Newsweek magazine. And there was a super controversial proposal out of Ontario to ship tankers and Lake Superior water to Asia, and it became a binational controversy, both the United States and Canada about a concern that the international precedent that this send to ship Great Lakes water out all around the world. And there was the key concern was indeed a water quantity concern. And the idea that this system is large, it is, is actually still vulnerable, that we have to be really careful about managing it and monitoring it. And that seed planted in my head back in 1998. And I followed the issue after I left Newsweek, and, and moved on. And, and by the time the Great Lakes compact was proposed as an idea, I decided that somebody really needed to write a book about this, because it's really complicated. It's really important and somebody needs to help simplify it for the general public. So that's, that's how I got into it.
Renie Miles 4:15
So so I'd like to ask just looking at the title of your book, who is at war, and what are the battles being fought?
Stuart Carlton 4:25
Yeah, it's a really great question, though. The the battle is actually twofold. One is there's concern about long range large scale water diversions, taking water from the Great Lakes and sending it to water parts regions of the United States, or the world so they're sort of the region is ready for battle against those who might come take Great Lakes water. Then there's also a battle within the region about water quantity issues, different states, different constituencies, arguing and back peddling with each other about Great Lakes Water Management and the need to protect the Great Lakes from large scale long range water diversions.
It's interesting, I was thinking about that battle metaphor. Let's let's dig in on that a minute. So, because one thing that I an impression I got is that, yes, it was a lot of battles and fighting, but it was more of a Cold War. And I've we're just going to torture this. I apologize. But it's more of a cold war than a hot war, right. There weren't that many. It didn't seem like there were just tons of lawsuits and, and people sabotage and all that there was a little bit of that. But it seemed like it was really a lot of negotiation. Is that a fair way to characterize it?
That's right. There were a few lawsuits and threats of lawsuits. And there's one really, really big lawsuit. It's more than five years old now. But But generally speaking, the region has been able to negotiate itself out of these really, really big head on battles. That's exactly right.
And so what that led to I want to get into this later, actually, one question I want to ask later, just FYI, is I wonder if this could happen today, with the way the politics are now thinking about it, that we can just look into it now. And then we'll move around. So you tell the story of the Great Lakes compact, which was just forever in in development, right? It was, I mean, decades and lots of negotiations at all level of state government, international, national international government, and compromise between people who do not see eye to eye on very many issues. Do you think that could still happen today? Do you think that given how fractured our politics seems to be, and we're recording this several days after the New Hampshire primary? Do you think that something like the Great Lakes compact could happen today?
Absolutely not. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. I mean, that as you as you know, you said it was a multi year process. So was the 1998 Nova proposal that was the trigger the final trigger for the negotiation, the Great Lakes compact, those negotiations dragged on, depending on what uses start date, either five years or seven years. And then finally, they create this document, which is the Great Lakes compact, which is just a piece of paper, then it has to be adopted by all a Great Lakes legislatures, then it has to be adopted by Congress and then signed by the president United States before it becomes a force of law. And then they don't have compacts in Canada, but to protect us by national water resource, you haven't have go through a similar but different process, and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec on the other side of the international boundary. So yeah, things have just completely gone downhill since then. And yeah, I do not believe that this would ever be able to be possible in today's political environment.
So the flip side, is it is it super fragile? Do you think the compact as it is? Or is there something that you worry about?
I don't worry about it. Some people do. compacts have never been overruled. In the history of the country, there are a lot of compacts from the Colorado River and the southwest of the Susquehanna River in the in the northeast, it's a long standing water management tool, the United States. And because of those various layers of approval, there's also various layers to unwind these kinds of things, and no compact according to sources I've talked to, has ever been on wound without the agreement of the signatory parties who are ready to unwind it on their own. And so, in fact, law has been challenged all the way up to the US Supreme Court of Appeals. So we haven't gotten all the way to the Supreme Court. But we've gotten almost all the way there. And so it is about as rock solid as you can get these days. And so I didn't I don't worry about it. I think things are looking really good in terms of protecting Great Lakes water, but there are some who, who still are concerned about it.
Renie Miles 8:56
Yeah. So in terms of the the history of divergence, which you talked about, in your book, as a Chicago and I would love to hear you share the story of the reversal of the Chicago River, and how these sorts of diversions have taken their toll or not.
Stuart Carlton 9:17
Yeah, sure. So that's this is the you know, the most celebrated controversial the big, bad example that everyone likes to talk about. And many people in Chicago don't even know that it exists. And so let's go back to the late 1800s. You have the Great Chicago Fire torches. The downtown area, the city goes on this massive effort to rebuild itself becomes this booming metropolis of a million people on the boat on the prairie, massive stockyards that are hard to imagine today. Outside of the city, anecdotal evidence of blood running into the river the river turning red with blood from the stockyards. dead animals floating down the river out into the open waters of Lake Michigan. This especially after major storm events, so boat captains and fishermen coming into the docks and downtown Chicago complaining about this massive sewage slick, that is, after storm events, it's getting really close to the city's water intake structures, which still are visible today out in Lake Michigan a couple miles offshore. So the city embarks on this massive Panama Canal like engineering effort to lower the graded and upper stretches of the Chicago River and then reverse the flow of the river. So all the sewage and filth would then flow in the opposite direction, not out into Lake Michigan, into the DesPlaines River into the Illinois River. And basically Chicago had decided to flush its toilet to St. Louis, not popular in Missouri, which challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court. In the end, to oversimplify a highly complicated Supreme Court case, the justices heard testimony that all sorts of people dumped sewage into the Mississippi river upstream of St. Louis, and they couldn't tell whose sewage was whose that was causing the problems in St. Louis. And so they let the city of Chicago off the hook that set off a century of subsequent litigation that ultimately rules over the river today, the US Supreme Court and the 1960s set the limit of the Chicago diversion, which had been sued by every other Great Lakes State but Indiana, and they, the Supreme Court of Justice has set a limit of the Chicago diversion at 2.1 billion gallons per day, so 2.1 billion gallons of Lake Michigan water flows through the Chicago metropolitan area on average every day to Gulf of Mexico, it is the largest, most controversial, most litigated water diversion in the Great Lakes region, again, is seen as sort of the poster child of bad behavior, when it turns to when it comes to talking about Great Lakes water diversion. So, Lake Superior where I live is the largest lake by surface area in the world. Lakes, Michigan Huron have two different names. But hydrologically speaking, they are considered by scientists to be one large lake, which happens to be larger by surface area, then Lake Superior. And so this is truly the largest lake in the Great Lakes region and the Chicago diversion. 2.1 billion gallons lowered water levels on lakes Michigan, hereand by 2.1 inches 2.0. What's that 2.1 inches is 2.1 inches. Yeah, so that doesn't sound like a lot, right. But in low periods of low water, which have regularly happened in the Great Lakes region, inches actually do matter. Say for example, for the large or freighters, they're taking iron ore from northern Minnesota in the minds of the Upper Peninsula, Michigan, to the steel plants in northern Indiana or Ohio. In those really low water periods, those inches matter. And they have to remove cargo from their hole just to get through the shallow connecting channels, harbors, etc. So if the Chicago diversion, and this is what really matters, if the Chicago diversion were replicated just a half a dozen times, we would be talking about more than a foot and in low water periods feet really matter. And that is why the Chicago diversion is seen as something with water managers, a Great Lakes region that we don't ever want to see have, you know, happen again. On the other hand, you know, as a journalist, I tried to talk about different sides of the story. One could make the case that given the water issues that have occurred, especially with the groundwater in metropolitan Chicago since the 1960s, that if Chicago were not allowed to have access to this Lake Michigan water beyond the metropolitan area, and they've been, they've been in the now Sand Lake Michigan water outside the Great Lakes watershed to some 200 communities and water departments in suburban Chicago, that the city would not necessarily have been able to reach his global status that it has today because of water issues. So therein lies the water diversion debate, if you will, through the Chicago prison. It's hard to tell in a short, you know, few words there. But hopefully, it's it would have to give you a sense of what we're coming from on that.
No, that is good. And in this this month, the February edition of the teach me about the Great Lakes newsletter I talk a little bit about the Chicago River diversion because I knew this interview was coming up. And probably if you just heard what Peter said, you don't need to read the newsletter because he said it better than I will. Or I did because I've already written it definitely. But it'll it'll be there including some pictures from the Library of Congress of the thing at the time. So that's cool. Check at altitude at the Great lakes.com/newsletter. But I hear you talking in there and yeah, this blows my mind. You mentioned it almost nobody knows about it. I didn't know when I moved here five years ago, someone made a casual offhanded reference to the reversal of the Chicago room. And I was like the one of the who, it. No idea absolutely blew my mind. We also mentioned some of the other battle lines there, then you hear sort of, it really is a great way to set this. I mean, it was the first big diversion right. But it was a great way to set up the whole book because there are other issues that are in there. Things like economic development, things like shipping water within or without the basement, the basement. You can tell them what's on my mind as we've get the flooding coming from all this melting snow, the basin in and out of the basin. And then whether or not the water is being recycled or you know pushed back down elsewhere outside of the base. And those seem to be the primary battle lines for future diversions. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what it's all about the Great Lakes watershed line in the watershed. You know, the lot of people struggle with the concept of a watershed and when I say is that any lake river but let's use lakes because we're talking about lakes here today. And watershed is like the soup bowl RAM that surrounds a lake and rain and snow and groundwater recharge that falls within that Super Bowl rim is the secret to water sustainability for that lake and great small or medium and rain and snow and groundwater recharge the falls are occurs outside that Super Bowl rim is going to end up either the Mississippi River watershed or the Atlantic Ocean, etc. So it is that watershed line that is the line in the sand for the Great Lakes compact. So the Great Lakes compact you can have is a legal waters surrounding the Great Lakes watershed that's designed to keep Great Lakes water inside the Great Lakes watershed with limited acceptance. It's an anti diversion. It's a ban on water diversions with very limited exceptions, which we can talk about if we have time. I was just gonna say limited exceptions. They seem to be happening with some frequency more and more.
Renie Miles 17:10
Yeah, I know there's some Chicago suburbs that are outside of the watershed that are are getting access or will be getting access to, to the Great Lakes to mid Lake Michigan water. Yeah.
Speaker 1 17:23
Yeah. And so the Illinois is the one state that is a an outlier within the Great Lakes compact in that the Great Lakes compact does not overrule the US Supreme Court decree that I talked about earlier. So under that US Supreme Court decree Illinois can send Lake Michigan water, technically, not necessarily physically, but technically anywhere in the state of Illinois, if it wants to the Supreme Court was not going to get into drawing lines within the state of Illinois, they just deferred to Illinois officials. So Illinois officials had been sending Great Lakes water outside that legal water fence that I talked about. Under the Supreme Court decree that was one of the most controversial things negotiated under the Great Lakes compact was, should the compact overrule the Supreme Court decree or not. And the end, Illinois won that battle and I argued that the Supreme Court decree would hold for the state of Illinois, but all the other states that legal water fences right on the edge of the Great Lakes watershed. And that is what what regulates their versions outside of the watershed? Hope I didn't lose you there.
Stuart Carlton 18:37
No, no, yeah, no, you're good. And essentially Illinois, though, the reason they're able to do that is because they had to sign the compact suit. Right. And so if you want our signature, we're gonna be able to continue to do this. Yeah. But other states have kind of that was another thing to look at sort of consistently, because you'd cover I mean, the whole compact period was, I mean, almost 20 years. Right. And but you see the personalities of the states. Well, for lack of better term, I suppose. come through, like Michigan says no to everything except their own diversions.
Whereas Wisconsin was little more free flowing with diversions are free. They wanted to be more free flowing with the water. Right. I was that based on primarily parochial local interests, or was that just the, the politicians at the time felt about it?
Yeah, it's a really interesting thing. When you think about the each of these Great Lakes states have a different Great Lakes personality 99% of the state of Michigan is inside the Great Lakes watershed. So it's almost difficult for them to have a diversion. You know, because they're so deeply ingrained inside the Great Lakes watershed and they call themselves the Great Lakes State. Take Pennsylvania, not very much shoreline and not very much of the watershed in their in their state, state of Indiana. Same kind of thing that's majority of the people in the state of Indiana, don't necessarily identify as great like citizens like all the citizens in the state of Michigan do. And then you have other states, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota partially and partially out. And so depending on how much of your state is inside the watershed that I've been talking about, it dictates or drives your Great Lakes personality and how much you identify with the Great Lakes as a state as a state legislature and gubernatorial, Lee. And so and so that drove a lot of the different discussions about the Great Lakes compact, and it still drives a lot of the conversation about Great Lakes Water versions today.
And so thinking about that each, the second part of your book, I think, it's called battle lines and skirmishes, continue your war metaphor, your metaphor. And so with that, you talk about a series of basically case studies of water diversions, right, including the Chicago River, including, you know, one in most states, including the one in Indiana, which I hadn't heard of the only one to be tonight, was that Lowell, Indiana.
Speaker 1 21:01
Lowell, right. Yep.
Stuart Carlton 21:02
Yeah, yeah. And which one of those sticks out of your mind is particularly interesting?
Well, and this may be a surprising answer to your to your question, Stuart. But I think the one that was the most interesting was the other really big one, in a really remote part of the watershed, watershed up in northern Ontario. And it's actually two diversions that are from the Great Depression era, that take water for hydropower generation reasons from the hinterlands of the Ontario bush, and then they divert that water down through the hydro facility, they dump that water into the Canadian shoreline of Lake Superior. They capture that height extra water at the hydropower generation facilities at Sioux Sainte Marie, Ontario on the outlet of Lake Superior. But their real goal, ironically, and hard to kind of Fathom is to let that water pass all the way down through Lake Huron through Lake Erie, and then captured on the St. Lawrence River by the massive hydro facilities there. And so there's a treaty, a note between the governments of Canada, the United States that Canada gets that extra water that it dumped in north side of Lake Superior in Ontario, and in what's really fascinating and what the water officials in Illinois are really happy to tell everyone else in the Great Lakes watershed is that roughly that amount of water that the Canadians dumped into the system roughly is equivalent to what the Illinoisans are sending outside the system. And so that history of poking and prodding in the Great Lakes watershed over the last 100 years is kind of balanced out a little bit, give or take a couple million gallons per day. And so it's just really low. So what was fascinating is that I visited both those remote diversions by bush plane when I was reporting the book, and some of the Canadian water officials, who were in charge of those diversions that I interviewed for the book had actually never been there even though they are in charge of moderate regulating those diversions. That's how remote they are. They're literally in roadless areas. And they were built in the winter on ice roads with ice truckers taking the material through to build these dams and diversion works and things like that. So it was a really cool story to tell it's sort of been an untold story. So that's always fun for a journalist to but it's also shows you just how complicated this whole water diversion
issue is in the Great Lakes region. It's by national, you got eight states, two Canadian provinces to federal governments, dozens and dozens of First Nations and tribal governments within that whole system as well. And it was shows you just how complicated it was to negotiate something like the Great Lakes compact and again, how I think difficult it would be to do so again. Yeah. And you mentioned the tribal in the first nations like to what extent were they involved because I'm trying to think back to reading the book, which at this point is about six weeks ago, and it didn't seem like they're a major part of the story, but maybe I'm forgetting something were they involved with and would you say that they evolved sufficiently? Or is that something that maybe is a weakness of the Compact? No, they were they were involved. And so a lot of the involvement with the tribes and First Nations was behind closed doors at the request of the tribes. And, and the reason that I don't have more coverage on that in the book is that I had a real difficult time connecting with the key tribal voice that I needed to connect with and we went back and forth in this mega
phone tag situation. So the next time
mission will definitely make up for that. And but part of the thing too, was also respecting the privacy and the confidentiality that the tribes and First Nations wanted. But in a, in a nutshell, what happened was is that there was a group of tribes and First Nations that regularly were briefed on and consulted during the negotiation process that tribes report directly to their federal governments, whether it's first in the United States and the first sessions directly to the federal government's Canada, the negotiations of the Great Lakes compact, were state and provincially. Driven intentionally, because the federal government, the United States would need to represent the interests of all 50 United States, including the dry states, the potential enemy territory states to the compact drafters. And so they worked really hard to keep the negotiations just between state officials and provincial officials, briefing the tribes, but if they brought in the tribes, then that would then bring in the Feds on both sides of the border, which isn't what they wanted. But there was real delicate, confidential balance of keeping the tribes informed, getting the feedback from the tribes, and then folding that into the negotiation with all the other jurisdictions that were in the negotiating room, super complicated,
unbelievable. Stuff that had I mean, it's just a miracle that this occurred, it just boggles my mind. I think that this happened.
Renie Miles 26:37
So I'm Peter, looking forward, you know, and well actually end in the present, as we, you know, as the pressures and challenges of climate change,
Stuart Carlton 26:47
impacts Great Lakes. And you know, beyond what, what do you see are the challenges in terms of water availability, and the Great Lakes and all of it? Yeah, yeah. And I'll read it's a really, really important question. I mean, the climate change impact here could be a real game changer, right? It could be a real game changer. And if you look at climate change issues, when we well, it's the
I'm going to try to keep this as simple as possible. But the hydrology of the Great Lakes is fascinating. In that the difference, say, for example, between the all time high water level on Lake Michigan, and the all time low water level, is six vertical feet.
So if you are on a cliff, you're talking about six vertical feet. But if you are on a gradual sloping shoreline, like you see it Indiana Dunes, it could be 100 yards difference between where the water level was, quote, unquote, when I was a kid, many people say and where it is today. And what happened in 1998, is we've slipped into this what seemed at the time, like a new normal from 1999 to 2014, we had the longest period of low water levels on the Great Lakes in recorded history. Then in 2014, the polar vortex moves in, puts over this really expansive ice cover throughout the watershed, capping off winter evaporation, and then suddenly the water level is shot up on many lakes faster than they had before. And then we get to this period of from from the into the end of the 20, teens, and 2020s, where we have the five wettest years ever in the Great Lakes watershed. So what's happening under climate change scientists tell me is we're in this kind of whipsaw effect between higher highs, lower lows, things are changing faster than they used to be. And so the climate is really wreaking havoc with water levels more than they have in recorded history and ask, which creates more stress about water use water diversion and water quantity, particularly in these low water periods that I talked about, as well. And the thing we've talked about the different personality water personalities at the Great Lakes states, there's also people who love high water and there's also people who love what low water and there's also the Goldilocks it like it right in the middle, right? And we're kind of a little bit in the middle right now. But man, you want to start a fight in the Great Lakes bar come and talk about water levels, one extreme or the other. And you're going to find somebody who's going to be on the opposite side of that. And so this is a thing humans want to control water levels. We put in a pier, or a marina or a loading dock at a steel mill, you know, in Burns Harbor, Indiana, you want the water levels to be where they were when you build that infrastructure right but
In fact, the environment of the Great Lakes region has thrived on these varying water levels since the glaciers melted more than 10,000 years ago. So it's important to realize as crazy as that is for humans to deal with, the ecosystem in the Great Lakes region thrives on this natural variability that is, as it's called. And, and so you have, let's say you have low water levels, you have vegetation, along the shore, that starts to grow up and you have, you know, insect communities and nesting areas for birds and those kinds of things. And then, every time those low water areas that areas have have drifted away, and the water levels come back up, that sort of terrestrial ecosystem becomes inundated by the lake and those birds and other mammalian sort of nurseries, if you will then become fish nurseries, right. And so that's kind of all part of the Great Lakes ecosystem. And whether it's low water levels, or high water levels, we always have somebody somewhere saying we need to harness these lakes, we need to dam them, we need to control them. And we're talking about billions, if not trillions of dollars of engineering to control these, we already have some structures, we have some structures at the mouth of the outlet of Lake Superior. And of course, I talked about the hydro facilities on the St. Lawrence River, etc. But once you put in these structures, and people have some not all but some capacity to manipulate the water levels, then the debate begins, I want to to demit manipulate the water levels to what my constituency wants. And generally speaking, the environmental voice doesn't have the power of some of these other constituencies. So back to your question, your accent question when you so what's happening is that climate change is really wreaking havoc in extreme ways with these water levels, which is ultimately in many ways what this water diversion controversy is about maintaining, you know, the sanctity of Great Lakes water levels within their natural variability. And like I said, if we could replicate the Chicago rivers and a half a dozen times, we're talking about a foot and that would then add to the feet of other issues in low water, for example, that that, that people are already dealing with. So again, long answer to a really good question. And let me know if I need to go further. By veloce, you already
know you clearly have a lot of passion for that issue. Yeah, no. But what I like about this format is and one thing about us being a little loosely edited, the shaggy is like there's plenty of places to get the punchy answers to things, right. Yeah. And so I think just this kind of answer is perfect. And for some people, it's too long, and they're welcome to skip ahead, right. But for everybody else, it's like, you don't get this opportunity to have the long answer very often. And so I really appreciate it. Well, let's transition to your newest book, just out not that long ago called purified how recycled sewage is transforming our water. So you're staying in your water theme here. What is what is purifying about briefly? Yeah, well, let me let me ask, How is recycled sewage transforming our water? Because saying this sentence makes me nervous. I'll be honest about what it is exactly that I'm about to take a sip of as I pull up my own water bottle. Sure. Yeah. Well, and that's the classic initial reaction. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book. And it's not the book. And it's the understandable, understandable reaction. But in an echo where we are in the climate change era, particularly places like the Southwest was in the midst of a 20 year mega drought, the worst drought in 1200 years, water scarcity has become so severe, that we no longer take water for granted anymore, and that includes sewage. And so what we have now is the city of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the country has pledged to turn 100% of its sewage into drinking water by 2035. San Diego around the 50% by 2035. Other communities like El Paso, Texas, are also investing heavily in water recycling Las Vegas has long invested heavily in potable water recycling. So have other places in Texas, and throughout the Sunbelt, all the way up to Virginia, even suburban Washington, DC. And so the book is really trying to connect with lay people, water geeks like me have known about this for a long time, but what we're seeing is that millions of people around the United States are increasingly being asked to drink purified sewage as a last resort, and it is becoming normal in some areas and just emerging in other areas. And so, I decided to sort of try and fill that information gap in a very accessible way, right, why this is happening, that it's safe, and why people should increasingly
expect to hear more and more about it? Well, I will have to check that out. Here's the question though, then this I know you're not you're a water nerd, but you're not necessarily scientists all this. Why isn't the answer just long term? isn't the answer desalination desalination? Like isn't that where we're headed? Is that I don't look at this. Is that on the horizon? Or is that not even on the horizon at this point? Yeah, that's, again, another great question. So one of the key points in the book is that burning sewage into drinking water is actually cheaper and more sustainable than turning ocean water into drinking water. And that's because you would think there's more junk to remove and sewage. But in fact, there's more stuff to remove from the ocean, all that salt needs to get pushed out. And so for every
you know, so basically, it's, it's, it's significantly more expensive, and the carbon footprint is significantly larger for diesel. So there is definitely a role for diesel in the future. But most water managers see this recycled water as a much lower hanging fruit than desalination.
Interesting. Well, Peter, this has been fascinating having you on talking about the Great Lakes, water wars and the Great Lakes compact and, and hearing more detail on the Chicago River. And on the long like, long lockets that were most diversions and the
and your thoughts on climate change and all of that. And of course, your new book and the terrifying realization that I'm going to be drinking recycled
sewage soon. I'm from New Orleans. I've been drinking sewage my whole life. It's fine. But that's actually not why we invited you here on teach me about the Great Lakes this week. The reason we invited you on teach me about the Great Lakes is to ask you two questions. And the first one is this. If you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you choose?
Yeah, I'd, I'd pick the sandwich for lunch.
And here's the here's a real reason I asked you but all over the Great Lakes. You've been to meetings talking about water. You've been to many cities you live now in Ashland, home of the very cool looking Northland College, which I've written down on the list of potential places for my kids to explore.
But if I wanted to get a really great sandwich either in Ashland or beyond, where would I go? Where should I go?
Yeah, that is a really, really great question. I mean, I think I you know, I'm going to create all sorts of enemies by picking one
or the other. You know, which wars you think the water wars are bad you should? Sandwich? Yeah, that's exactly right. So ya know that I mean, the, if we're talking about, yeah, the anchor bar and grill and Superior, Wisconsin is definitely one that is on a lot of lists. I'm writing that down right now. Anchor Bar and Grill in Superior, Wisconsin. Has that anchor spelled like the ship component? Yep. Okay, I
really do want to go over to certainly what is a special place in the Great Lakes that you'd like to share with our audience and what makes it special? Because it's a binational ecosystem. I'm going to cheat and maybe give you two but I have to tell you, I'm not going to tell you my most special place because I'm going to selfishly preserve that. But I have a lot of first
I have a more public one, which is that people who love the Great Lakes should put Isle Royale National Park and Lake Superior on their on their life list is a really, really cool place. It's a major backpacking destination. But it also has options for people who aren't backpackers. And it is just a really, really special place in the Great Lakes region then on the Canadian side, so that's on the US side, technically in the Michigan waters but it's physically closer to the state of Michigan State of Minnesota and easier to get through from Minnesota and or Ontario, actually. But on the Canadian side, the Wii there's in northern Georgian Bay. There are 30,000 islands that's northern Lake Huron. There's a Georgian Bay Area, northern Lake Huron, there are 30,000 islands there. And so any of those islands are really amazing place amazing ecosystem so obviously have an island and Dubai in my in my recommendations here. But yeah, out of Killarney, Ontario, places like that. Georgian Bay is extraordinary tube and Mori, Ontario, same thing. So those that is a super special piece as well for Canadians but also Americans and vice versa for both of those recommendations. Peter Hannon is the director of the Mary Griggs Burke center for freshwater innovation in Northland college and he's the author of Great Lakes water wars and more recently, purified how recycled sewage is transforming our water but go check out if you Great Lakes water wars, I would argue should be the first Great Lakes book you read. I think a lot of people would say definitely for the Great Lakes and it's fine. It's a good book, but
I think this one to me to my way of seeing does it is a is what their companion pieces it's fine. Why pick one read them both. But start with Great Lakes water wars. And I'm not just saying that because Peter returns my calls. Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes. You're welcome. Yeah, it's been great, thank you.
Our guest today, Peter Annan, he is the director of the Mary Griggs Burke center for freshwater innovation at Northland college. And he's the author of the Great Lakes water wars, which was revised and expanded five years ago, but it remains vital and important today. It's a great book. I mean, I think it's a great place to start to learn about the Great Lakes because it's primarily about the water. I mean, in some ways, that's the key issue, right? And it's all about these water diversions, but you'll hear a lot about different states and he touches on things like invasive species and water levels and stuff like that. Because you know, fundamentally having the water is what this is all about having the water for the people and for the ecosystem. Yeah, yeah. And it's it's really great to hear how solid is the compact is so we said yeah, we got that.
Teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people at Illinois-Indiana. Sea Grant, we encourage you to check out the cool stuff we do at AI sea grant.org and i l i m Sea Grant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media are senior producers Carolyn Foley and teach me about the Great Lakes is produced by hope charters, Meghan Gunn and Rini miles. You can shitty as our associate producer and our fixer are super fun podcast artwork is done by Joel Davenport incomparable Joel
Renie Miles 41:39
the show was reluctantly edited by me still always find someone to replace the irreplaceable cleanrooms if you have a question or comment about to show these email it to teach me about the great lakes@gmail.com or leave a message on our hotline 765496 i s g which is 4474. You can also follow the show on Twitter at Teach Great Lakes but like the Chicago River, it might be time to look for another diversion.
Thanks for listening and keep grinding those lights.
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