It's not as ugly as some of the water rights fights out west, but the sides facing off over Ohio's passage of the Great Lakes Compact don't appear to be getting any friendlier.
The issue, complete with competing bills in both chambers at the Statehouse, was back in the spotlight when lawmakers returned to town recently following their spring break. House Bill 416, sponsored by Cleveland-area Republican Matthew Dolan, overwhelmingly passed that chamber in mid-February. The final vote was 90-3.
Senate Bill 291 was introduced shortly before the House vote by Chesterland Republican Tim Grendell. The two bills are nearly identical. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find much difference in the bill summaries compiled by the state's Legislative Service Commission.
Both ratify the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, prohibiting "with certain exceptions, all new or increased diversions of water resources," according to the analysis. The Compact also creates a governance structure and decision-making process for managing and regulating water resources among its members (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and a couple of Canadian provinces).
But there are a couple of notable differences between the two bills. The Senate version specifically excludes "tributary groundwater and nonnavigable surface waters" -- a move necessary to protect citizens property rights, Grendell told members of the Senate's Environment and Natural Resources Committee recently.
"Well-respected attorneys who specialize in property rights issues have found fault with the existing language," he testified. "I fear that if adopted as it stands today, ownership of waters within the Great Lakes Basin, including tributaries, wells and groundwater, would be in dispute and ultimately left up to costly litigation and the whims of a federal judged in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, individual property owners would have little recourse."
Grendell's version also changes language related to water use in communities straddling the basin. Such uses, in the House version, would have to be unanimously approved by all Compact members; the Senate bill would call for a majority vote on such issues.
But opponents say the Senate version is going to put the kibosh on the entire process.
In a statement released earlier this year, Bill DeMora, executive director of the Ohio League of Conservation Voters, said the Ohio legislation was crafted following about four years of negotiations. Changing it now, via Grendell's bill, would undo all of that work.
"SB 291 is irresponsible and will destroy years of hard work and negotiation by the council of Great Lakes Governors and a myriad of interested parties," DeMora added in his statement. "If the Senate continues to allow one radical member to derail this process and sink a compact that a majority of our lawmakers support, our greatest opportunity to protect Ohio's largest resource will be lost."
Senate President Bill Harris, a Republican from Ashland, supports Grendell's Compact bill. He's taken a few lumps from editorial writers as a result.
"We're very concerned about the rights of Ohioans to protect their property rights and to protect the runoff in our water basin that is not part of the navigable waters of the Great Lakes," he said. "... We're very supportive of a Great Lakes Compact. We want to pass a Great Lakes Compact. ... [But] I think most Ohioans want to make sure they have access to the groundwater/surface water (on their property)."
He added, "You tell any farmer that that water is not his water and the state can tell him how to use it, and you'll get a lot of kickback from that farmer."
Marc Kovac is the Dix Newspapers Capital Bureau chief. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com.