Water exports involve exporting freshwater from one country to another. Large increases in human population and economic growth throughout the world during the twentieth century placed a huge stress on the world’s freshwater resources. Combined with climate change, 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” and “the oil of the 21st Century.”
Water exports from Canada to the US
Canada has 7% of the world’s renewable supply of freshwater. Freshwater export between Canada and the US currently takes place at a small scale, mostly as bottled water exports. The bottled water 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, which would naturally flow into Lake Michigan, into the Mississippi 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 aquifers 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.
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, 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 “look silly” by comparison.
Proposals
Numerous proposals about transferring large amounts of freshwater from the Great Lakes Basin 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. 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, 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. The water would then be flushed through the Great Lakes into pipelines to the south-western US. The North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) project proposed to divert the Yukon, Liard, and Peace 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 government to export 600 million litres of water annually from Lake Superior to Asia. Political controversy in Canada and the US caused the government to cancel the permit.