Water exports involve
export
An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...
ing
freshwater from one country to another. Large increases in human
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
and
economic growth throughout the world during the twentieth century placed a huge stress on the world’s freshwater resources. Combined with
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
, they are expected to place an even greater demand on water resources in this century. Water shortages have become an international concern, and freshwater has been described as “blue gold”
[Barlow, Maude, and Clarke, Tony, 2003, ''Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World’s Water'', James & James/Earthscan, .] and “the oil of the 21st Century.”
[Lawrence, 1996, cited in Anderson, Terry L., and Landry, Clay J., ''Exporting Water To The World]
Water exports from Canada to the US
![North America satellite orthographic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/North_America_satellite_orthographic.jpg)
Canada has 7% of the world’s renewable supply of freshwater.
[Environment Canad]
Freshwater export between Canada and the US currently takes place at a small scale, mostly as bottled water exports. The
bottled water
Bottled water is drinking water (e.g., well water, distilled water, mineral water, or spring water) packaged in plastic or glass water bottles. Bottled water may be carbonated or not. Sizes range from small single serving bottles to lar ...
industry exports water in containers usually no larger than twenty litres.
But even that can be controversial - the multinational food giant
Nestle was accused of attempting to “drain” the town of
Hillsburgh, Ontario, of its water in 2012 and 2013, during a drought.
Since 1850, Americans have been diverting much of the water of the
Chicago River
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for ...
, which would naturally flow into
Lake Michigan, into the
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
basin over
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. In that case, though, the goal was not taking possession of the water that would otherwise end up in the Great Lakes, but directing Chicago's effluent away from Lake Michigan, Chicago's source of water.
Needs
Many states in the US have experienced water shortages in the past few decades, creating a market for freshwater that could be profitable for Canada. In the south-western US, growing populations and lifestyles that consume large amounts of water have caused most of the
aquifer
An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...
s and rivers in the region to be overused. The water in the
Oglala Aquifer, which serves much of the west-central US, was used eight times faster in 2001 than the replenishment rate. Demands for this freshwater are expected to increase as the climate warms.
[Schindler, D.W., The cumulative effects of climate warming and other stresses on Canadian freshwaters in the new millennium, in Bendell-Young, Leah and Gallaugher, Patricia, 2001, ''Waters in Peril'', Springer Science, .]
As human populations and industries grow and the climate change takes place, greater pressure will be placed on water-rich countries like Canada to export their water to countries that have a water shortage.
In early 2014,
Gary Doer
Gary Albert Doer (born 31 March 1948) is a former Canadian politician and diplomat from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He served as Canada's ambassador to the United States from 19 October 2009, to 3 March 2016. Doer previously served as the 20th p ...
, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, said that by 2020 the pressure on water quality and quantity would be immense. He predicted that water debates and disputes between the two countries would make the clash over the
Keystone XL pipeline
The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC Energy and as of 31 March 2020 the Government of Alberta. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta ...
“look silly” by comparison.
Proposals
Numerous proposals about transferring large amounts of freshwater from the
Great Lakes Basin
The Great Lakes Basin consists of the Great Lakes and the surrounding lands of the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in the United States, and the province of Ontario in Canada, whose dir ...
into the US have been made. This would involve
inter-basin transport of water across the international boundary between Canada and the US using an artificial
reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
. None of these proposals have as yet been implemented, mainly due to environmental and financial obstacles.
Schemes to export water from Canada to the US on a large scale have been proposed in the past. These schemes include:
* The
Great Recycling and Northern Development (GRAND) Canal scheme to dam
James Bay
James Bay (french: Baie James; cr, ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, Wînipekw, dirty water) is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean, of which James Bay is the southernmost pa ...
, on the southern end of Hudson Bay, to create a freshwater reservoir and divert the water from the 20 rivers that flow into it to
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay (french: Baie Georgienne) is a large bay of Lake Huron, in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To ...
. The water would then be flushed through the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
into pipelines to the south-western US.
* The North American Water and Power Alliance (
NAWAPA) project proposed to divert the
Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
,
Liard, and
Peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
rivers into the
Rocky Mountain Trench to create an 800 km long reservoir that would transfer water into the US.
* During the 1990s, exporting water by ocean-going tankers was proposed to three Canadian provinces.
In 1991,
Sun Belt Water Inc. of Santa Barbara, California, in partnership with Snowcap Waters Ltd., of Fanny Bay, British Columbia, was selected by the Goleta Water District, of California, to enter a contract to supply bulk water by marine tanker but the government of British Columbia reversed its water export policy and introduced a prohibition on the issuance of water export licences leading to an arbitration claim against Canada under Chapter 11 of the
North American Free Trade Agreement filed by
Sun Belt Water Inc. in 1999. The arbitration remains unresolved.
* In 1999 Nova Group Ltd. obtained a permit from the
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
government to export 600 million litres of water annually from
Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...
to Asia. Political controversy in Canada and the US caused the government to cancel the permit.
[Anderson, Terry L., and Landry, Clay J., ''Exporting Water To The World]
Concerns
In
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
there have been concerns about exporting water to the United States since the 1960s, when states in the south-western US experienced their first water shortages and began to seek water sources to augment their overstretched supplies.
[Heinmiller, B. Timothy, Harmonization Through Emulation: Canadian Federalism and Water Export Polic]
Large-scale removal of water from lakes would negatively affect their
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
s, increasing pollution concentrations and harming plant and animal
communities.
Legal issues
Water has been classed as a commodity under the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) since the 1980s. This has increased tensions in the debate about exporting water. Although none of the NAFTA rules force Canada to begin to export its water in bulk, if Canada voluntarily decides to begin exports it would be very difficult to later halt them.
In 2002 the Federal government of Canada passed the
International Boundary Waters Treaty Act. This banned the removal of more than 50 million cubic meters of water from a water basin in the Great Lakes in one day. The Boundary Waters Treaty is limited to waters on the Canadian-US border and does not apply to freshwater in other parts of Canada. This means the about 85 percent of Canada’s water is susceptible to export.
[Fischhendler, Itay, 2003, Can Basin Management Be Successfully Ignored: The Case Of The US-Canada Transboundary Water, SOAS Water Issues Study Grou]
Alaska
Since Canada has taken a strong position against water exports, some companies have shifted their focus to
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
.
Alaska was the first jurisdiction in the world to permit the commercial export of bulk water, and has a large potential for water exports.
One scheme proposes transporting water from Alaska to
China by tanker. This water would be used to assemble
computer wafers by China’s relatively cheap labour force. Computer wafers require extremely pure freshwater. This makes the cost of
desalination of saltwater prohibitively expensive, making schemes like this, that would not be profitable for domestic purposes, profitable for industrial purposes.
[Figuères, Caroline M., Tortaiada, Cecilia, and Rockström, Johan, 2003, ''Rethinking Water Management: Innovative Approaches to Contemporary Issues'', James & James/Earthscan, , page 57-60.]
Water exports within States in the United States
On June 13, 2013, the
Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upheld lower court rulings in Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, holding that
Oklahoma state water laws validly barred state entities from selling water for out-of-state use, via the Red River Compact among Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Water export in Germany
While the
Rhine–Main–Danube Canal
The Rhine–Main–Danube Canal (German: ''Rhein-Main-Donau-Kanal''; also called Main-Danube Canal, RMD Canal or Europa Canal), is a canal in Bavaria, Germany. Connecting the Main and the Danube riv ...
was primarily built as a freight link across the European Main Watershed (linking North Sea and Black Sea via inland waterways), it is also used to transport water from the Danube to the less water-rich rivers of
Franconia
Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian languages, Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch'').
The three Regierungsbezirk, administrative ...
and adjacent regions. To this end several artificial lakes like the
Großer Brombachsee
Großer Brombachsee is a reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created ...
were created.
Water exports from Russia to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Arid but densely populated southern
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
and adjacent
Central Asian
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former S ...
states occupy somewhat similar position with respect to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
's Siberia as the south-western United States do with respect to Canada. Siberian rivers, as well as rivers of northern European Russia flow "uselessly" into the seas of the Arctic Ocean, while that water could be much more profitably used for irrigated agriculture by Russia's southern neighbors. Not surprisingly,
proposals
Proposal(s) or The Proposal may refer to:
* Proposal (business)
* Research proposal
* Proposal (marriage)
* Proposition, a proposal in logic and philosophy
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''The Proposal'' (album)
Films
* ''The Proposal'' ...
for large-scale transfer of water from the
Ob River
}
The Ob ( rus, Обь, p=opʲ: Ob') is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia; and together with Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . It forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins ...
in Siberia to the
Aral Sea basin in Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
have been seriously considered by the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
federal government already in the 1960-80s, when all republics involved were members of the USSR. While welcomed by many in Central Asian republics, the project received severe criticism from many scientists as well as prominent writers and journalists in Russia, such as
Valentin Rasputin
Valentin Grigoriyevich Rasputin (; russian: Валентин Григорьевич Распутин; 15 March 193714 March 2015) was a Russian writer. He was born and lived much of his life in the Irkutsk Oblast in Eastern Siberia. Rasputin's w ...
and
Sergey Zalygin, sometimes known collectively as the "Siberian environmental lobby" Afghanistan is also somewhat included with 9.36% of its rate paying for the water exports
Shelved in 1986 for both economical and environmental reasons,
[Douglas R. Weiner, "A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev". University of California
Press, 1999. ]
On Google Books
p. 415 the idea of international water transfers has been raised again in the 21st century in the ruling circles of the now independent states.
Both the Kazakh President
Nursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev ( kk, Нұрсұлтан Әбішұлы Назарбаев, Nūrsūltan Äbişūlı Nazarbaev, ; born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakh politician and military officer who served as the first President of Kazakhstan, in off ...
and the Uzbek President
Islam Karimov
Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov ( uz, Islom Abdugʻaniyevich Karimov / Ислом Абдуғаниевич Каримов, italics=no; russian: link=no, Ислам Абдуганиевич Каримов; 30 January 1938 – 2 September 2016) was t ...
expressed interest in such a water transfer scheme. While the Russian federal government so far remains non-committal on the issue, the plan met enthusiastic response from Moscow mayor and Russian presidential hopeful,
Yuri Luzhkov Yuri may refer to:
People and fictional characters
Given name
*Yuri (Slavic name), the Slavic masculine form of the given name George, including a list of people with the given name Yuri, Yury, etc.
* Yuri (Japanese name), also Yūri, feminine Ja ...
.
Siberian River Project Revived
08-Sep-06
Alternatives to large-scale water exports
In the short run, better allocation of resources and more efficient water conservation
Water conservation includes all the policies, strategies and activities to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, to protect the hydrosphere, and to meet the current and future human demand (thus avoiding water scarcity). Popula ...
technology may keep demand for water in some countries under control. However, a water crisis may occur in the near future that would make bulk water export a more favourable plan.
The canals that would have to be constructed to transfer water require huge investment and operation costs. This would make the cost for consumers of the water expensive. In contrast, the technology needed to desalinise seawater has improved dramatically and has an acceptable cost for urban markets. Whether or not pressures for large-scale water exports continues to increase depends mostly on future advances in desalination technology. If the cost of desalination drops enough, it will be cheaper to generate freshwater from saltwater than to import freshwater from another country. The cost of desalination is currently less than US$1 per cubic meter. The World Water Commission has suggested that desalination will become the favoured method of procuring drinking and industrial-use waters. However, the need for extremely pure water for particular industrial uses would still require freshwater imports.[
]
See also
* Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas
*Coastal reservoir
Coastal reservoir is a type of reservoir to store fresh water on sea coast area near a river delta. Saemanguem in South Korea, Marina Barrage in Singapore, Qingcaosha and Plover Cove in China, Delta Works in Netherlands, Thanneermukkom Bund in In ...
* Water resources
*Water trading
Water trading is the process of buying and selling water access entitlements, also often called water rights. The terms of the trade can be either permanent or temporary, depending on the legal status of the water rights. Some of the western stat ...
*Water transportation
Water transportation is the international movement of water over large distances. Methods of transportation fall into three categories:
* Aqueducts, which include pipelines, canals, tunnels and bridges
* Container shipment, which includes trans ...
References
{{reflist
water experts and water treatment company in the UAE
/h1>External links
''Great Lakes Commission: Declaration of Partnerships''.
* ttp://www.sunbeltwater.com/ Sun Belt Water Inc., Company website
Water
Water and politics