FAYETTE, Ohio — It was just a momentary pause.
But the deliberate manner in which Amy Jo Klei took a moment to gather her thoughts before answering what was arguably the most important question revealed a lot about the times we’re in now and how there may be no going back.
The question, one of dozens submitted to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s meeting facilitator during the agency’s three-hour marathon session inside the Fayette High School gymnasium, was this: “Is there the potential for water wars?”
Ms. Klei, the Ohio EPA’s drinking and ground waters division chief, knew the 800 or so people sitting in the gym’s bleachers on a recent weeknight had — after waiting months to meet with a key regulatory agency on the matter — grown weary of pat, choreographed answers.
Agency officials picked up on the strong vibe inside the gym. They expressed a bit of frustration themselves as the meeting wore on, admitting they are almost equally in the dark about Artesian of Pioneer’s highly controversial plan to tap into the Michindoh Aquifer.
The controversy erupted last June when representatives from the Toledo-area suburbs of Maumee, Sylvania, and Perrysburg met quietly with the company, a move many residents living over the aquifer have said caught them off-guard.
It has remained hot since.
“Is there the potential for water wars?”
Apparently so.
“Ohio is a water-rich state and we have not had a lot of discussion about water wars,” Ms. Klei told people, after giving a long thought to how best she could answer the question. “But it is clearly an issue in Ohio now.”
Experts have said since at least the mid-1990s that water could become more valuable than oil this century, given acute and intensifying shortages anywhere from the American Southwest to the Middle East, China, Africa, and especially India, which has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and has been consuming water much faster than what gets replenished for years.
And major climate change reports predict the world’s drier areas will likely get drier, and wetter areas wetter. Effects are not expected to be equally distributed.
But northwest Ohio’s emerging water war is not about water shortages, climate change, or human suffering — at least not yet.
To Williams County Alliance members and the growing number of citizen activists from northeast Indiana and south central Michigan who are working with them, it makes no sense.
“That’s what is so frightening for our area,” Sherry Fleming, Williams County Alliance chairman, said. “This just seems like it’s opening a Pandora’s Box.”
They see the situation as a longstanding feud that Maumee, Sylvania, and Perrysburg have had with Toledo over water rates. They don’t want outsiders eyeing what they consider to be “their” water.
The Toledo-area suburbs, on the other hand, have grown weary of paying higher rates for water that — as Toledo’s 2014 algal-driven water crisis showed — may not always be dependable. A lot of their frustration lies in a lack of power over the city’s aging Collins Park Water Treatment Plant, which they believe — until the water crisis hit — had a series of improvements delayed by Toledo politicians kicking the proverbial can down the road and passing along inevitable rate increases to future office-holders.
“It is an odd situation in a number of ways,” said Ken Kilbert, a University of Toledo law professor who runs UT’s Legal Institute of the Great Lakes.
Nobody actually owns the Michindoh Aquifer’s water. Or, depending on your point of view, everyone does, he said.
Ohio and other Great Lakes states are often seen as neophytes when it comes to water law, at least in comparison to parched Western states, because access to water generally hasn’t been an issue in this part of the country.
Ohio courts basically allow farmers and other landowners to withdraw what is deemed a “reasonable” amount of water, without defining a firm limit. Large withdrawals require Ohio Department of Natural Resources permits. But even those remain somewhat flexible, as long as no proof of harm can be attributed to a single operation.
“I hate to say this, but it’s not ‘their’ water more than it is anybody else’s water,” Mr. Kilbert said.
To the Ohio EPA, there isn’t much precedent for a village mayor — in this case, Pioneer Village Mayor Ed Kidston — trying to get rich by having his for-profit business sell water to municipalities far outside of an aquifer. Mr. Kidston owns Artesian of Pioneer.
The state agency stresses that the sole application before it — literally, all of the information it has right now beyond what it’s read or heard about in the media — is focused on Mr. Kidston’s plans for a production well at 24668 Fulton County Road S, near U.S. 127 in Fulton County’s Gorham Township a few miles west of Fayette.
The Ohio EPA said it is not known how much water Artesian of Pioneer wants to extract from that well, but said that application would undoubtedly have to be the first of multiple wells if Mr. Kidston follows through with his project.
Mr. Kidston has given sporadic interviews since his idea was revealed last June, but has declined to respond to several requests in recent weeks. He also has spoken about it at several Pioneer village meetings until stating a few months ago he was ending discussion from his mayor’s seat until further notice.
He and most of his fellow councilmen have said they are not responding to emotion and are waiting for the “facts to come in.” The one exception has been Councilman Al Kwader, a lifelong Pioneer resident, who on multiple occasions has asked for the mayor’s resignation and for a vote to block his water-withdrawal plan. He has never received a second to his motions.
The situation is a little odd, too, according to the Ohio EPA, because all affected communities are within the Great Lakes basin, and the Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water. Critics use that to strengthen their argument that this particular water war has nothing to do with access to water. They contend it’s all about getting Toledo and its suburbs to agree on equitable rates and a more reasonable distribution of decision-making power.
The eight Great Lakes states drafted what’s known as the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact — commonly called the Great Lakes compact — in an effort to keep water within the region. It was inspired by a Canadian firm’s 1998 effort to ship Lake Superior water to Asia, and engineering studies dating back to the 1950s that showed how, with enough capital, Great Lakes water could be diverted to the Western states.
Passed by Congress and signed into law in 2008 by then-President George W. Bush, the compact’s top mission doesn’t apply in this case because nobody’s trying to move water outside of the Lake Erie watershed.
But Nick Schroeck, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law’s clinical programs director and the former executive director of Wayne State University’s Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said he would be curious if Mr. Kidston’s project might violate a lesser-known requirement of the compact: For large withdrawals to promote conservation and efficiency, thereby creating as little harm to the environment as possible.
Ms. Klei also said the Ohio DNR, which enforces the Great Lakes compact in Ohio, has limits on how much water can be transferred from one part of the Lake Erie watershed to another — even if it’s not a diversion per se.
Mr. Schroeck said there’s one thing Mr. Kidston’s plan has in common with the Flint water crisis: There was a viable alternative. It was just more than what cash-strapped Flint could afford to pay.
Flint for decades had been getting its tap water from the city of Detroit’s water-treatment system. Its biggest error ultimately was having its emergency manager form of government skip the standard water-treatment practice of corrosion control to save pennies on the dollar, thereby ruining miles of pipeline by allowing them to leach lead. But the crisis began after it switched over to the Flint River and tried to treat water itself. That happened because it couldn’t come to an agreement with Detroit on rates.
A stronger analogy is in West Michigan, where global giant Nestle has for years been extracting aquifer water for its bottled Ice Mountain product. The state of Michigan ultimately required permits to limit withdrawals.
“If [Mr. Kidston’s] proposal was to bottle [Michindoh Aquifer water] and sell it like Nestle, there would be outrage,” Mr. Schroeck said.
Several regulatory hurdles remain, even if this first production well is approved.
Taylor Browning, Ohio EPA permit reviewer, said that although the proposed well site appears to be isolated enough for approval, any water drawn from it will need to be tested for fertilizers and pesticides that were likely used in the field where it’s located.
Ms. Klei agreed, adding that such tests routinely screen for a whole slew of harsh chemicals and contaminants.
She said that regulatory agencies must have the project’s entire plan, including municipal contracts, in place before it is allowed to start using any wells for production. And all agency decisions are subject to being overturned by the Ohio Environmental Review Appeals Commission if challenged, she said.
Mr. Kidston has said he is confident about the aquifer’s water quality, and he is convinced God has put enough there to share for years without impacting local residents.
But all aquifers are not safe from pollution, even that which occurs naturally. In Waukesha, Wis., west of Milwaukee, the city got approval to have Lake Michigan water diverted to it because of natural-occurring radium in its wells.
And the massive Ogallala Aquifer, which lies beneath thousands of square miles in the Great Plains region, including portions of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, is being impacted in both water quality and quantity by rapid depletion.
Mr. Kidston has told people attending Pioneer village council meetings that he doesn’t believe lessons learn from that aquifer — one of the world’s largest — apply to the Michindoh Aquifer, a view that apparently is not shared by the Ohio EPA.
“[The Ogallala] Aquifer has been impacted by unsustainable withdrawals,” Ms. Klei said. “Yes, we are aware of it. We are keeping an eye on it.”
There also are possibilities of legal challenges.
Should Michigan and Indiana object, the case could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court if it can be shown that activities in one state could be impacting resources shared by other states, Mr. Kilbert said.
“If Ohio were to suck the aquifer dry, Michigan and Indiana would have something to say about that,” he said. “That would be an interstate issue that would ultimate go to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Michigan and Indiana state regulatory agencies have told The Blade they are watching the situation, and Ms. Klei told residents the Ohio EPA has been having conversations with its counterparts in those states.
Tom Borck is vice president of the Bowling Green-based Poggemeyer Design Group, which is doing consulting work on the project for several Toledo-area municipalities, as well as the Northwestern Water and Sewer District, which represents about 6,500 water customers in smaller jurisdictions.
He said it all boils down to a simple question: How much water is there and what would be the cost to get it?
There are no firm cost estimates on installing pipeline or a treatment system yet, Mr. Borck said.
Residents who live over the aquifer have said they feel like their fate is being used as political leverage by Toledo’s larger and more powerful suburbs.
“It’s certainly prudent for them to explore other options,” Mr. Kilbert said of Maumee, Sylvania, and Perrysburg. “The one ace the suburban communities have is if they all left, then Toledo would be left holding the bag.”
First Published March 22, 2019, 10:53 a.m.
