Drilling for water is not the answer, either...just ask people in Florida and other places where sinkholes have gobbled up whole neighborhoods! The water table falls...the support for what's under our homes dries up and collapses...you get a sinkhole. You just can't suck out what's under us and create a void without something else happening. It's going to affect whatever is on top of the void, and if humans are living/working there, it's not going to be nice or pretty, either.

That would be terrible and must depend on the underground you have, drilling for water was just an example. The main point I tried to make is that you would most likely start a big ecological problem if not disaster if the water level in the great lakes is diminished and that there are engineers who have the knowledge what to do, different solutions for different areas and problems. E.g. in the rainforest in SA they chop down the trees like crazy and not only destroying the life of the people and animals living there but also causing an ecological problem for the whole world. The same in Southeast Asia. Only politics can solve that the more countries join in a contract to stop the misuse the better the chances are to get at least some things stopped.
Hopefully the new man in Washington will put that on his agenda and I am absolutely sure that there would be results for the draught problem.
The government right now is no help.

Yeah, government won't save us...and what people in So. America forget is where oxygen that we breathe comes from...