Available for pick-up or shipping from Horizon Books in Traverse City. Price includes tax.

“Lake Michigan may be coming to Idaho.”

That’s what an Idaho radio commentator said in June 2021. Holding approximately 20% of the world’s surface freshwater, the Great Lakes are once again a target for the drought-ridden West, which is facing climate change, massive fires, and shrinking water supplies. And in a potentially far bigger threat, Wall Street is creating markets that could lead to the trading of freshwaters as a commodity like corn or oil. The Great Lakes are in danger of being privately exploited on a large scale by those with priorities other than stewardship.

In Great Lakes for Sale, Dave Dempsey offers surprising, even controversial, ideas on how to prevent the fulfillment of this nightmare scenario. They include an attack on water commercialization, curbing abuse of the Great Lakes Compact, and devising plans for limited sharing of the Great Lakes to forestall humanitarian disasters. If the Great Lakes are to remain great, new thinking and action will be required.

Praise for Great Lakes for Sale: 

“This is an excellent narrative history of the faltering fight to protect the Great Lakes from the international water bottling industry; the rising failure of the Great Lakes Compact to prevent nonessential water diversions to communities outside the basin; and a provocative consideration of what it means to treat water as a human right.” —Lana Pollack, former U.S. section chair, International Joint Commission

“The Great Lakes sustain us, and Dave Dempsey is our most important voice for their protection. In this important update to Great Lakes for Sale, Dempsey shows us why we need to prevent our public trust from being sold for profit.” —Nancy Langston, author of Climate Ghosts