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A less fantastical but mgre.politicaIly feasible threat. of the diversion of Great Lakes water emerged in 1982 following the passage of Public Law 94-587, which directed the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to "examine the feasibility of Various alterna..tives to provide adequate water supplies in the [High Plains] area including, but not limited to, the transfer of wafer frorr7 adjacent areas," The resulting 1982 study; commissioned and.funded by the U.S. Department:of Commerce, generated a lengthy report. evaluating the feasibility of moving water from. "adjacent areas" to. six states reliant upon groundwater from the. depleted.:Ogallala aquifer.34 one of the six states, South Dakota, is adjaceritto Minnesota, a Great.Lakes state. Ultimately the study focused on diversions from rivers, not: Lake Superior, and concluded that even these diversions would.. be prohibitively expensive. Yet. the mere fact that the federal. government had funded the study of large-scale interbasin diversions in...reach of the Great Lakes elevated concern among governors .of the eight Great Lake states, who had long harbored suspicions about federal schemes to export Great Lakes water.ss The governors' fear was compounded by a Supreme. Court decision the.same year, sporhase v. Nebraska,36 which struck down:a.Nebras ka. law restricting the withdrawal of Nebraska groundwater for use in another state. "States' interests in conserving and preserving scarce water resources in the arid Western States -clearly have an interstate.dimenslon;"the Court held., rand uding that Nebraska's law violated the Constitutiori's commerce clause by imposing an impermissible burden on interstate commerce, The Great Lakes gave mars, .reaIizingthat the. Supreme .Court's precedent in sporhase meant state laws prohibiting the.export of Great Lakes water could well be struck down if challenged, resolved. to work :together to find other.means of stopping diversions from the Great LakeS.37 This effort eventually resulted in the 2005 Great Lakes -St: Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. The compact is hors. The states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hereby solemnly covenant and agree with each other... -- Great. Lakes -St. Lawrence River Basin dilater Resources Compact, §1 The various steps undertaken between the early 1.980s.and the Great Lakes.governors' eventual endorsement of the. compact in 2005 have been well documented elsewhere.38 But two key legal predecessors in the quest to protect the.Great Lakes. deserve mention here. The first: is the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the-U.S,. and Canada, designed. to address "boundary waters" anal prevent disputes between the two countries over their use. The treaty created the International Joint Commission (IJC) to manage issues arising under the treaty.39 important as the treaty is,. it has limitations. for regulating..dNersions from the Great Lakes. For one thing, although four of the five Great Lakes are boundary waters, Lake Michigan -located wholly in the U.S.-is not. In addition, the treaty requires the IJC`s approval only for diversions "affecting the natural Level ❑r flow of boundary waters.. '40 Many large diversions, taken by thernselves, are unIikeiy to ,change the level or flow of the. Great Lakes. For most other boundary waters issues, the treaty Only ern powers the IJC to hear matters referred to it by a country, and the IJC is limited to providing recommendations., not enforceable orders:41 The second key legal predecessor to th.ecompact was. section 1109 of the Water Resources Development Act (WRaA),.which Congress adopted in 1:986. It provides: "No water shall he diverted.or exported. from. any portion. of the Great Lakes within the. United States, or from any tributary within the United States of any.of the Great Lakes, for use. outside the:Great Lakes.basin unless such diversion or export is approved by the Governor of each of the Great Lake States: `42 Although this. law provided a robust `federaI bulwark against the. threatened diversions that kept Great Lakes.govern ars up at night in the. early 1984s,.it provided no standards or process to be used to. determine when a diversion should or should not be granted. This led to governors wielding what is effectively a. veto power ---section 1.1,09 requires the governors' unanimous consent ---that could be used for reasons more political thart. ecologicai.43