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KEEP THE GREAT LAKES “GREAT”
Learn about protecting the Great Lakes with the Friends of Ryerson Woods and the Lake County Forest Preserves at this year’s 25th Annual Smith Nature Symposium featuring guest speaker Peter Annin, former correspondent for Newsweek, and a veteran conflict and environmental journalist.
In 2006, Annin wrote and published the The Great Lakes Water Wars, which is considered the definitive book on the Great Lakes water diversion controversy.
This year’s Smith Nature Symposium will be held on Saturday, May 10, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. The evening festivities include an opening reception, elegant dinner, live auction and a keynote address by Annin.
Guests can attend the reception, auction and dinner or just the keynote address. Cost to attend the entire evening festivities is $125 per person. Cost to attend just the keynote address, which includes dessert, is $25 ($20 for Friends of Ryerson Woods members). To register, call 847-968-3321 or register online at www.LCFPD.org via the “Upcoming Events” listing.
To write his book The Great Lakes Water Wars, Annin traveled and researched around the world, studying bodies of water that have dwindled due to water diversions. In his book, Annin presents an in-depth analysis of the Aral Sea in the Soviet Union, once the fourth largest inland lake in the world, but which after government regulated water diversions, in less than one generation - 50 years - became a desert.
Water diversions of the Aral Sea in the 1950s and 60s reduced the volume of water by 90 percent and reduced the surface area by 75 percent. The amount of water the Aral Sea ultimately lost would be the equivalent of completely draining Lakes Erie and Ontario.
At part of the Smith Nature Symposium, Annin will discuss his book and current efforts to protect Great Lakes water from new water diversions. His book delves into the long history of political maneuvers and water diversion proposals that include sending Great Lakes water everywhere from Akron to Arizona to Asia.
Annin is one of the strongest proponents of the “Great Lakes Compact,” a bi-nation agreement originally forged in his book. The compact has already passed in Minnesota, New York, Indiana, and Illinois, but remains open for debate in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The compact will ultimately have to be passed in all eight states and the two Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, and will need U.S. congressional approval.
The symposium is the annual fundraising event for the Friends of Ryerson Woods, and is presented by both the Friends of Ryerson Woods and the Lake County Forest Preserves. Lead sponsor for the event is Abbott Laboratories. The Field Museum, Lincolnshire Marriott Resort, and the Village Music Store of Deerfield are also partners in bringing this event to Ryerson Woods.
Members of the Friends of Ryerson Woods promote environmental education and provide quality programs for Ryerson Woods. Ryerson Woods is recognized as one of the best examples of a preserved northern flatwoods forest, a rare northern Illinois landscape, and it supports some of Illinois’ most pristine woodlands and several state threatened and endangered species.
For information on the Lake County Forest Preserves, call 847-367-6640 and request a free copy of the Horizons quarterly newsletter or visit online at www.LCFPD.org. For information on the Friends of Ryerson Woods, visit online at www.ryersonwoods.org.
This program takes place in the Brushwood estate home at Ryerson Woods, 21850 N Riverwoods Rd, Riverwoods. The entrance is located on the west side of Riverwoods Road, north of Deerfield Road and south of Half Day Road (Route 22).
