Bush signs Great Lakes Compact

MILWAUKEE, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A decade-long push to protect the U.S. Great Lakes water supply came to fruition with the signing of the Great Lakes Compact, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle said.

U.S. President George Bush signed legislation enabling the compact Friday, which Doyle said was an "historic accomplishment" in efforts to preserve the world's biggest freshwater resource, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

"Today we mark a historic accomplishment for our region's greatest natural resource," Doyle said in statement. "After years of negotiating and building support for this interstate compact, we now have a defined legal framework to protect the waters that define us."

The governors of the eight Great Lakes states met in Milwaukee in late 2005 after five years of negotiations and agreed on a new set of rules designed to prevent most large-scale diversions from the Great Lakes basin. It took two more years to secure ratification by each state's legislature.

The measure then quickly moved through the U.S. Senate, where it won unanimous approval, and the U.S. House of Representatives approved it by a 390-25 vote last month, the Journal Sentinel said.