According to one business writer, water sales from our region to Texas and beyond are predictable and calculable.

And separately, the Chief Executive of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange thinks there could soon be a lucrative market in trading futures contracts to deliver bulk water.

With billions of dollars to be made from very willing (parched) buyers, are the pending Great Lakes Compact and existing, but relatively weak US Water Resources Development Act effective enough to prevent such sales?

Will the Wisconsin legislature move forward and ratify the Compact, or will it continue to be cowed by anti-regionalists like State Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), who, along with states' rights allies in Ohio, torpedo the Compact and make bulk water exports away from the Great Lakes even easier?