Clean Water Action and Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation said in March that Michigan needs to put Great Lakes protections in its Constitution to close a loophole created by the water legislation signed by Governor Jennifer Granholm.

David Holtz, Clean Water Action's Michigan director, and Terry Swier, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, called on Michigan lawmakers to place a proposal on the 2006 Michigan ballot to give voters an opportunity to amend the Michigan Constitution to protect Great Lakes waters.

Under the new water rules signed into law in February, water shipped outside the Great Lakes Basin in containers smaller than 5.7 gallons would be classified as a "consumptive use," not a diversion. State permits would be required under limited standards for any new or expanded water bottling plants withdrawing more than 250,000 gallons per day. Permitting, said Holtz, is too weak a system for protecting the Great Lakes.

Holtz pointed out there is no limit on the amount of water that can be exported under Michigan's new permit rules.

"It is clear to many of us that unless we give the Great Lakes our strongest possible protections, it is likely that large corporate interests and their friends in Lansing and Washington, DC will be unable to resist turning our public waters into private wells," said Holtz. "I can't think of a more important resource to protect in the Michigan Constitution than the Great Lakes."

"Only with public control should Michigan consider allowing private sale of water. Only this will ensure long-term jobs and clean, abundant water and lakes, streams and the Great Lakes," said Swier.