Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
Renewed hope for the lakes in the 21st century?

By Geoff Peach
The Lake Huron Centre for Coastal Conservation

The Canadian and US governments are currently reviewing the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, first penned in 1972 as a measure for the two nations to control pollution in the Great Lakes.

The agreement helped to stem the flow of nutrients, particularly phosphorous, from getting into the lakes. Phosphorous was one of the culprits that led to the infamous declaration that Lake Erie was a "dead lake".

Since 1972, other pollutants were revealed and 43 Areas of Concern, or AOCs, (toxic "hot spots" where high levels of pollution occurred) were identified. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent trying to clean up these hot spots, but to date, only two AOC's have been de-listed (cleaned up).

Meanwhile, to avoid the problem of other AOCs from appearing in other areas of the Great Lakes, each lake was to develop a Lakewide Area Management Plan (LaMP). All of the lakes except Lake Huron have completed a LaMP.

In its place, the two national governments have set up what has been called the “Lake Huron Bi-national Partnership.”

Its accomplishments to date have been pretty modest. Its intent is to develop a common strategy for addressing environmental issues on both sides of the lake, in a consistent fashion. Makes sense, but it has taken years to get to the stage it is currently. Ironically, the State of Michigan showed great leadership as far back as 1998 when it started the "Lake Huron Initiative."

The Initiative was the state's attempt to develop a co-ordinated approach to dealing with pollution and other environment related issues. They invited the two federal governments and representatives from the Province of Ontario to be involved in the process.

Staff from the Coastal Centre attended those meetings and were sometimes the only Canadian representatives present. The frustration was and to a large degree, continues to be a lack of commitment on the part of the two federal governments to provide resources to Lake Huron to develop and implement an effective management plan, designed to prevent further degradation of the lake's ecosystems.

Ten years ago Lake Huron was described as "The Forgotten Lake" because of this lack of attention, relative to the other lakes.

The current Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement review is an opportunity to let our governments know that, yes, there is a Lake Huron, and it has environmental issues that need to be addressed. The Coastal Centre has submitted its concerns during this review process. Some of the Centre's recommendations included:
* Making greater investments in a prevention approach (preventing environmental degradation in the first place), rather than reacting to each crisis as they emerge.
* Greater efforts at protecting endangered species.
* Greater efforts at controlling invasive species, and preventing additional unwanted exotic species from entering the Great Lakes system.
* Greater, meaningful involvement of First Nations in Great Lakes environmental issues.
* Address the emergence of new toxins entering the lakes, like pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupting chemicals, and brominated flame retardants.
* Include the protection of water quality and ecosystems in the context of climate change.

The review process runs until February 18, 2007. Comments should be made under the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights Registry (EBR Registry Number: PA07E0001 ).

For more about the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, see:
Environment Canada website and International Joint Commission

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Just thought you ought to know...

Over a tonne of CO2 is emitted when you:

* Drive 1600 kilometres in a large Sport Utility Vehicle.
* Drive 3040 kilometres in a mid-sized car.
* Drive 9600 kilometres in a hybrid gas-electric car.
* Run an average household for 60 days.
* Have your computer on for 10,600 hours.
(Source: Clean Air, Cool Planet)

Now, here's what you can do: http://www.earthday.net/resources/2006materials/Top10.aspx

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