Liquid Gold

The Atlantic Cities looks at a long-term development plan for the Great Lakes region:

The Great Lakes Century is a proposal to create a 100-year plan for the region focusing specifically on improving water quality, and harnessing its abundance to fuel industrial and economic rebirth. It’s intended to serve as a comprehensive vision for the region.
“We’ve found that there are a tremendous amount of organizations focused on the health of the Great Lakes. But there aren’t really any groups focusing on industry and agriculture and the overall sustainability of the lakes,” says Enquist.
He and his team have written up a vision document for what this 100-year plan would entail, which includes addressing the widespread infrastructure issues that lead to sewage overflows into the lakes, improving mobility across the region, and reducing agricultural runoff. While it has broad goals, the plan’s two central issues are the environmental and economic sustainability of the region.
“There’s a real need for new economic activity in the Great Lakes to strengthen these communities,” says Enquist.
While the lakes themselves make up a third of the region, only 4 percent is urban, according to the report. But it’s a region supporting around 50 million people. Water, Enquist says, can play a huge role in industry, and the region needs to focus on ways to bring water-based manufacturing back to the Great Lakes, but using new water technologies that will enable more sustainable use of the resource.
“I think many of the cities in the Great Lakes are interested in how to look at water as a developing industry. Taking water out, using it for industry, filtering it, then returning it. That’s different from now, where we use it, treat it like waste, and dump it into the Mississippi River,” says Enquist.
He cautions that environmental protection should be the guiding principle.
“China is a great example of where economic growth has outpaced environmental health,” says Enquist.

Other than Chicago, I can't think of any cities which take water out of the Great Lakes then dump it into the Mississippi River.  Nobody else is close enough to the watershed divide to do otherwise.  I think the proposal is a good concept, but it might not hurt to realize that every major city other than Chicago already recycles their water back into the Great Lakes.  When discussing a regional plan, try knowing a bit about the rest of the region.

Another thing to note is that at least they realize that economic development without environmental protection isn't a good idea.  The man must not be a Republican, or he actually has a functioning brain.  On the whole, the region sits in a much better place than Georgia, Texas, Arizona and California when it comes to water resources.  In the future, that will be significant.  Further development in areas which don't have much rain seems like a bad idea to this guy.