Wisconsin Water: Midwest Environmental Advocates

No discussion of water is complete without the participation of Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA). An excellent place to start is their report, Realizing the Promise of the Great Lakes Compact: A Policy Guide for State Implementation.

Also important is Protecting Wisconsin's Water: A conservation Report and Toolkit.

A review of MEA's work provides a keen reminder that water is essential not only to health but a vibrant economy. My conclusions are that any reasonable long term solution is going to require:

• Sacrifice: by both rural and urban water users.
• Discipline: careless, wasteful habits must come to an end.
• Higher Cost: for both infrastructure and to protect existing resources. This will undoubtedly be reflected in greater cost for growing, preparing, and distributing food.

In additon, agriculture costs will rise and bottled water will become a thing of the past.

Comments

[Dan Sebald]

"and bottled water will become a thing of the past"

The latter half of Derrick Jackson's latest column is good:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/25/tapped_out/
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/25/2760/

where he mentions the U.S. Conference of Mayors quandry about delivering quality water to constituents who instead drink bottled water.

Also, here's a Cap Times letter I wrote not too long ago about economics and the cost of disposal:

http://www.madison.com/tct/archives/index.php?archAction=arch_read&a_from=search&a_file=%2Ftct%2F2007%2F05%2F01%2F0705010376.php&var_search=Search&keyword_field=Sebald&pub_code_field=tct&from_date_field=&to_date_field=&var_start_pos=10&var_articles_per_page=10