Because the Great Lakes Cannot Vote—We Must Vote for the Lakes
I pull into Traverse City just as the last sunlight of the day dips into the shadowy bay. To my right, the freshwater throbs as waves hush to the shoreline and lull back to the lake. Some call this town the heart of the Great Lakes, and no name could be more fitting than tonight, as water advocates from around the country converge for the “Saving the Great Lakes Forever” Conference. Put on by FLOW, a coalition of concerned citizens, non-profit organizations and environmental lawyers, this conference is more than a delineation of the issues threatening our beloved Lakes, but a call to establish a new narrative--a shared language--to protect that which gives us life, and the source of all things.
As I settle into Traverse City’s historic State Theater for a viewing of the movie Tapped, I find myself sitting two seats away from Wenonah Hauter, president of the national group Food and Water Watch. This weekend, she joins Chair of the Council of Canadians, and past senior advisor on water to the UN, Maude Barlow, among other leading water activists. Amidst the global leaders in this movement, I am buzzing to hear their words that continue to galvanize this movement.
The theater darkens and a petite woman steps out behind the curtains. Maude Barlow. She is a gentle looking woman, in fact a grandmother. But her words are whips, criticizing the greed that uses the Lakes solely for economic purposes, with no respect to how the water shall sustain the people who live within the Great Lakes Basin. She starts with the facts: water shortages, leaking oil pipelines, failed protections when drilling for oil and natural gas, and climate change. These are the realities we audience members know far too well, and her list becomes a litany of the issues that shape the course of our day, our year, our life’s work.
After her introduction, she pauses, and asks this question. “What if we had a common set of values that connects all the people of the Great Lakes Basin, and that value says that our water cannot be owned, or privatized, or simply used for profit; but that it belongs to us all, and we all have the responsibility to protect it.”
The idea is simple, yet abstract enough to wonder how exactly we get there. The way I see it, the action is both a personal commitment to water protection, and an engagement in the policy that changes the way we as a nation relate to water.
The next day at the conference I join sessions on hydraulic fracturing, Asian Carp, sulfide mining and water privatization. One by one these community activists, fishermen, policy experts and lawyers explain their decades long battles with the courts and the legislature to protect rivers from pollution and groundwater from being bottled. But though each of these issues is unique, there is one theme that unites them all: Our water is protected—and consequently ourselves as citizens of the Great Lakes Basin—only when we elect and hold accountable the people who will create the smart laws, make the right court decisions, and enforce the proper regulations to protect it.
There is no mention of Republicans or Democrats in this argument because protecting our water is not a partisan issue; instead it is a responsibility that every citizen of the Great Lakes Basin has been given. This responsibility starts with an understanding of the many threats to our Great Lakes, but it cannot stop there. It must continue into our own use of water, and continue even further by electing the policy makers who will shape smart water policies, and continue beyond that to hold them accountable for their decisions.
This cycle can be compared to the water cycle—both demand an energy to keep the cycle moving. The diverse people at the “Saving the Great Lake Forever” conference had this energy. Michigan LCV, an organization that works to educate, elect and hold accountable policy makers, has this energy too. It’s why what we do matters.
Now, it’s up to the people of the Great Lakes Basin to recognize their own energy and take the commitment to use water wisely AND elect the people who will protect our water.
At the end of the conference Wenonah Hauter stood on the stage and said, “we need to organize the future we want.” Indeed, this future demands all of our engagement with a commitment to take personal action to protect our Great Lakes. We must commit to electing the people who are willing to make the policy decisions that reflects the notion that water is not owned by anyone, but shared by everyone.
--Erica Bloom, Program Manager, MLCV
