Ohio deal to join Great Lakes water plan stalls
COLUMBUS (AP) — A plan to remove Ohio as the last roadblock to finishing an agreement among the Great Lakes states to protect their water ran into a barrier on Thursday — again.
The Ohio House fell short by two votes of passing a plan to ask voters to approve protections for property owners regarding the use of water on their land. The Senate feels the protections are crucial to joining seven other states and two Canadian provinces in a pact to try to keep arid states from siphoning water from the Great Lakes.
After the deal fell apart in the House, the Senate refused to consider a bill authorizing Ohio to join the coalition.
The House has twice in the last four years voted to OK the deal, only to see it fail in the Senate. Lawmakers left open the possibility of another vote on June 10. Majority Republicans needed 60 votes in the 99 member-House, a three-fifths majority, because the ballot issue would amend the Ohio Constitution. The vote was 58-37.
The Great Lakes Compact is crucial to protect the lakes, its backers say. Without it, the states leave themselves vulnerable to poaching by thirsty states like Arizona and California, they say. The compact would take effect only upon passage of legislation in each of the states and by Congress.
It would prohibit most new water diversion besides natural drainage, require each state to develop a conservation plan and establish a regional council to hear disputes.
Five states have joined the coalition and legislation is pending in Michigan and Pennsylvania. State Rep. Matthew Dolan, the Cleveland-area Republican whose bill is stalled in the Senate, predicted that Ohio eventually will join the others.
“The compact is going to be in place and no one will remember what happened in 2008,” Dolan said in a floor speech.
The House and Senate have feuded for two years over a provision in the multistate agreement declaring waters within the Great Lakes basin “precious public natural resources shared and held in trust by the states.”
Sen. Tim Grendell, another Cleveland-area Republican and the property-rights resolution’s sponsor, contends that would trample private property rights by designating groundwater as publicly owned. The resolution that would go before Ohio voters affirms that property owners have a “property interest” in the use of water on their land.