LANSING - With Minnesota's passage of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, Michigan lawmakers are moving one step closer to approving the international agreement.

Sen. Patricia Birkholz, R-Saugatuck Township, along with the majority of the Senate, is sponsoring a bill to have Michigan sign on too.

In total, 26 of the 38 senators have given their support to the bill that failed to pass last year.

"There was a concern for a number of years that if another state or country or someone came in and wanted to do a large-scale water diversion, there was not a legally binding way for the Great Lakes states to stop it," said Robert McCann, press secretary for the Department of Environmental Quality.

In 2005, governors from eight states and two Canadian provinces signed the compact. To become law, the legislatures of each state and province must pass it and it must be approved by the U.S. Congress, he said.

The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and officials from Ontario and Quebec signed the compact on Dec. 13, 2005.

Minnesota became the first state to approve it on Feb. 15.

"It's looking to get done this year," said McCann. "That's the target by all the states right now."

As of today, if one state or country wants to divert water from one of the Great Lakes and another state says okay, other states would have few ways to stop it, he said.

However, if the compact is approved, that will change.

"Hypothetically, say if Arizona wanted to run a pipe from Lake Michigan to Phoenix, if one state said okay and other states didn't like it, the governors of other states could veto and it couldn't happen," said McCann.

Current law authorizes governors to veto the diversion of water, but the legality and process of doing so is "fuzzy at best," he said.

"It's never been particularly clear if that law would provide protections from those diversions. It necessitates the process for something we know will work."

Tim Eder, executive director of the Great Lakes Commission, explained the role of the pact among the states and provinces surrounding the lakes.

"The agreement was developed by the states to control and manage how they use water," he said.

States have been slow to act on the agreement because they want to get it right, said Eder.

"It's a matter of time," he said. "It's just taking time for state legislators to consider this and adopt this. This is extremely important to the Great Lakes states and they want to do it right."

McCann added, "The reason it took a lot of time to get done is because there are a lot of interests involved. The really good news is once ratified, hopefully soon in all the states, it is going to give protection against diversion."

Michigan recently took action for the first time on large-scale diversions under a 20-year-old law.

Some environmental advocates argue there are not enough protections in the compact.

For example, it doesn't address diverting water from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, McCann said.

"All the Great Lakes water is connected - underground is basically one big lake all interconnected."

The state currently allows diversions that will not affect fish populations.

"If a company wants to withdraw water, we look at the watershed and using an analysis, we determine how much can be removed each day," McCann said.