Unprotected Great Lakes

Here's a important issue that we tend to ignore until it's too late -- namely our Unprotected Great Lakes . Water diversion from the Lakes is sure to become a political issue in the future. This editorial summarizes the current inadequate protections currently in place.

Michigan's worst nightmare has always been that water-profligate states in the Southwest would want to siphon off Great Lakes water. Five years into a drought that has that region arguing fiercely about who gets what, that's still an unlikely scenario.

But Michigan is unprepared for any scenario -- if not a major pipeline, then the more real possibility of drainage by a thousand pinpricks. It is inexcusable that the state's elected officials keep posturing about water instead of actually doing something.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm promised action when she campaigned. Nothing happened. ... Meantime, national and global water supply issues grow more critical almost daily. The people of Michigan must demand that their leaders think beyond themselves and get this state a decent water protection law.