Back to WUP Center

The Great Lakes Water Wars
by Peter Annin

7 pm, Monday, March 24 - Great Lakes Water Wars - Peter Annin *(all ages; no charge) at Rosza Center, MTU. View author Peter Annin's biography

Author Peter Annin, a former /Newsweek /correspondent, delves into the long history of political maneuvers and water diversion schemes that have proposed sending Great Lakes water everywhere from Akron to Arizona.

“This is the definitive book about the fight over Great Lakes water,” said Noah Hall, law professor at Wayne State University. “The book …shows the world what a precious and irreplaceable resource the Great Lakes are, and why it is so important that they be protected.”

Through the prism of the past Annin analyzes the future of Great Lakes water diversion schemes, which now rests on a December 2005 Compact signed by the eight Great Lakes governors. The Compact, which lays out how much water can be taken and who can take it, is in the hands of the eight state legislatures in the Great Lakes region and must eventually be passed by the U.S. Congress. A similar agreement is moving through the political process in Ontario and Quebec.

Annin logged thousands of miles during his three years of research for this definitive book. The author visited every major remaining inter-Basin Great Lakes diversion—from the massive Ogoki diversion in the bush country of Northwestern Ontario to the reversed waters of the Chicago River. He also traveled to Central Asia’s Aral Sea, which has lost 90 percent of its volume and 75 percent of its surface area and is often used as an anti-diversion poster child by environmental advocates in the Great Lakes region.

*About the Author*:

A veteran conflict and environmental journalist, Peter Annin spent more than a decade reporting on a wide variety of issues for Newsweek. Since January 2000 he has worked as Associate Director of the Institutes for Journalism & Natural Resources, a nonpartisan national nonprofit that organizes educational fellowships for mid-career environmental journalists. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, and a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University. In September 2006 he published his first book, The Great Lakes Water Wars, which has been called the definitive book on the Great Lakes water diversion controversy.