Guest Speaker

Peter Annin

Keynote Speaker – SOLEC 2008
Niagara Falls, Ontario
October 23rd, 2008

Peter Annin is the author of The Great Lakes Water Wars, which recently was awarded the 2007 Great Lakes Book Award from the Great Lakes Booksellers Association. The award is given to only three books each year, and The Great Lakes Water Wars took top honours in the general/non-fiction category.

The Great Lakes Water Wars has often been called the definitive book on the Great Lakes water diversion controversy. It delves into the long history of political maneuvers and water diversion schemes that have proposed sending Great Lakes water everywhere from Akron to Asia. Annin provides a behind-the-scene account of the struggle over Great Lakes water, as the eight Great Lake states and two Canadian provinces try to implement an unprecedented accord designed to protect the lakes from unwarranted water diversions. The Great Lakes Water Wars tells the colorful story of the on-going effort to conserve this invaluable freshwater resource, and the book serves as an important warning about what could happen if the lakes are left unprotected.

Mr. Annin has a bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia. Since January 2000, he has worked as Associate Director of the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources, a non-partisan national non-profit that organizes educational fellowships for mid-career environmental journalists.

Mr. Annin is a veteran conflict and environmental journalist who spent more than a decade reporting on a wide variety of issues for Newsweek. For many years he specialized in coverage of domestic terrorism. He also covered droughts in the Southwest, hurricanes in the Southeast, wind power on the Great Plains, forest fires in the mountain West, as well as the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Annin’s knowledge and understanding of the water diversion issues impacting the Great Lakes Basin will provide the SOLEC with a timely and relevant update on this critical and vital subject and provide valuable insight for water and international policy makers, academics, and public officials.

Mr. Annin can be reached by e-mail at Peter.Annin@)IJNR.org. Additional information on the issues addressed in The Great Lakes Water Wars can be found at http://www.greatlakeswaterwars.com/.