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Foxconn Will Drain 7 Million Gallons of Water Per Day From Lake Michigan to Make LCD Screens (gizmodo.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the genuine-concerns dept.

Earlier this week, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources granted permission to Taiwanese tech manufacturer Foxconn, best known for assembling Apple's iPhones, to siphon off seven million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan, despite protests from conservation groups. From a report: The massive diversion of water from the lake will be used to produce LCD screens at the company's planned $10 billion, 20 million square foot manufacturing plant set to be built in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. Nearly 2.7 million gallons of the water -- about 39 percent of the daily intake from the factory -- will be lost in the process, primarily from evaporation. The remaining water will be treated and returned to the lake basin.

Wisconsin's DNR noted in a statement that the requested withdrawal will "only amount to a 0.07 percent increase in the total surface water withdrawals from Lake Michigan." For environmentalists in the region, the issue is not so much the diversion for the Foxconn factory itself but rather the precedent it will set for how the lake water can be used. "If we allow this to happen, it's going to happen all over the basin, with other states and then it's going to be the thirsty states and nations to come," Jennifer Giegerich, the government affairs director for the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, warned during a public hearing about the diversion, according to the Wisconsin Gazette.

11 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. And it will put it back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Polluted. Chinese-style. Madison Will Just Die MORE!

  2. Wow, that's a lot of water. by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh, wait, it's not. Lake Michigan is somewhere around 4500 cubic km of water. And seven million gallons per day means that, even if all the water removed is pumped to Arizona for disposal, it'll be 500,000 years before the lake goes dry.

    And the water taken out won't be pumped to Arizona. Eventually, it'll go right back into the lake....

    Color me unimpressed with the Environmental Catastrophe In The Making....

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    1. Re:Wow, that's a lot of water. by apoc.famine · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While I'm not really on the 'environmental disaster" bandwagon, your argument is stupid. Are you unfamiliar with what lakes are and how they work?

      Lakes have topography. They're not cylinders. If you drain 10' of water from a lake, it gets a LOT smaller. Large amounts of any lake are less than 10' deep. That impacts the rivers that flow out of it, all of the people that live near it, all the boating and shipping that uses it, and the massive amount of wetlands around the lake. It also kills off a ton of shallow-water habitat where lots of things live. Yes, that will eventually come back, but it's not an instant process.

      Once the shallows are gone, there is a lower surface area to volume ratio, which impacts oxygen exchange. If that goes down enough, you get toxic algae blooms, and lots of stuff in the lake dies.

      Saying that there's 500,000 years of water is a ridiculous statement which ignores everything about the lake except for its geometric volume. Pretty much everything you've ignored is more important than the exact volume of water in the lake.

      You can't just expect to remove a lot of water from a lake and nothing to happen. I don't think this particular factory is going to be a huge issue, but the point made in the summary is an important one: This is the first major exemption granted. If it sets the stage for more of them in other states, they could eventually add up to enough to be really significant.

      --
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    2. Re:Wow, that's a lot of water. by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      2.6e-5 km^3 water drained divided by the 58000 km^2 surface area = 4.5e-10 km of depth lost per day = 0.00045 mm/day, which is slightly less than your assumed 10 feet. Plus, this water will return to the lake pretty quickly. The water consumption is the stupidest thing to be worried about. It's not like they're sending it into a black hole for disposal. The contamination of the returning water is the main thing to be concerned about.

  3. Re:Manufacturing by friedmud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just looked through the article - they estimate that ~40% of the water will be evaporated - with 60% going back. So that means this is only going to "drain" 2.8M Gallons per Day... and how much of that evaporated water will fall back into the lake as rain too?

    We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs. As long as they are using the natural resources responsibly and not polluting them or making a long-term impact... we need to allow them to do their thing.

  4. Re:Manufacturing by phantomfive · · Score: 1, Insightful

    We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs.

    A lot of environmentalists are fine if the jobs disappear. People, too.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Re:Manufacturing by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just looked through the article - they estimate that ~40% of the water will be evaporated - with 60% going back. So that means this is only going to "drain" 2.8M Gallons per Day... and how much of that evaporated water will fall back into the lake as rain too?

    We simply can't have it both ways: we have to find some middle ground with manufacturing if we want the jobs. As long as they are using the natural resources responsibly and not polluting them or making a long-term impact... we need to allow them to do their thing.

    No industrial process is going to the 100% clean

    So the big question is what else goes back with the water?

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  6. Not really a lot by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    According to this study, natural evaporative losses can be up to 0.6 inches per day. Assuming it's really just under half an inch (about 12mm), natural evaporation from Lake Michigan can reach 183 billion gallons per day. That 2.7 million gallons lost per day - and as the article says, most of it to evaporation - is about 0.0014% of the current evaporation. Is moving evaporation from the lake surface to a site right next to the lake surface an issue? In other words, relocating around 1 thousandth of 1 percent o the evaporation is the concern?

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  7. Insignificant by pubwvj · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The water is not lost.
    The water is either returned to the lake
    or the water goes into the air and then returns to the environment as rain, snow, etc.
    This is much hubaloo over nothing.

  8. Re:Manufacturing by Ichijo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A lot of environmentalists are fine if the jobs disappear. People, too.

    Environmentalists aren't the only NIMBYs. In my area, ordinary people block development, even things environmentalists want such as density and transit.

    It's amazing how quickly you can turn people who claim to value property rights into raging socialists simply by suggesting change. (Even though the only thing constant is change, as they say.)

    --
    Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
  9. Re: Manufacturing by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1, Insightful

    'Capitalists' need people to sell things to. Environmentalists get by with just their dreams of some sort of 'balance' having been arrived at.