The Importance Of Water In The Great Lakes

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The Great Lakes basin contains 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water supply and 95 percent of the surface fresh water available in North America. The question being brought up is if large quantities of water should be diverted from the Great Lakes watershed? On this note, diversion causes changes in the course and direction to another place. In my opinion, I am in favor of banning large quantities of water being diverted from the Great Lakes. I am in favor because diversion of water from The Great Lakes would drop levels in the Lakes that cannot be replaced and it’s fresh water that is needed badly. Diversion is already taking huge quantities of water throughout the world and changing the distribution of the water resources. It is said in the article, The Battle For Water that “The growing scarcity of potable water stems from a variety of causes Per capita water consumption is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth, which itself is exploding.” Potable water is …show more content…

Fresh water is valuable and reducing the amount of water in the Lakes wouldn’t help keep our basin remain water rich. In the article, Mideast Facing Chocie Between Crops and Water by Andrew Martin, He says “For decades nations in this region have drained aquifers, sucked the salt from seawater and diverted the mighty Nile to make the deserts bloom. But those projects were so costly and used so much water that it remained far more practical to import food than to produce it. Today, some countries import 90 percent or more of their staples.” The nations that Martin is talking about is the Middle East and North Africa where the people there are suffering between growing more crops or preserving water of what they have