Great Lakes

The Climate Change Risk To The Great Lakes

Adam Doster — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:03:03 -0800

The federal Great Lakes Compact, which took effect in December, is a good first step. But according to a new report in the journal Eos, a lot more has to be done to ensure our region’s freshwater supply remains steady and history doesn’t repeat itself.

John King, a geological oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett, told Discovery News that about 8,500 years ago, climate change pushed the lakes 66 feet below current levels, essentially cutting off the bodies of water from each other.

The scientists ascribe the change to a sustained drop-off in rainfall following the relocation of glaciers, which left significantly cooler and dryer weather behind. “We looked at all the evidence we could find, and there’s no other explanation,” King said. “This means that the idea that the lakes are insensitive to climate change is incorrect.”

If they aren’t, the Upper Midwest could be in for a world of hurt. After all, more than 33 million people depend on the Great Lakes for fresh drinking water, hydropower, and the shipment of goods.

(H/T Mick Dumke)

Great Lakes Compact Takes Effect

Angela Caputo — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:21:42 -0800

After four long years of negotiations, the federal Great Lakes Basin Compact -- a plan to protect the world’s largest supply of freshwater from being diverted across the country -- goes into effect today.

It seemed touch and go at times, but all eight states that make up the Great Lakes Region eventually signed on to the federal legislation. Members of Congress then gave their final stamp of approval this fall and President Bush signed it into law in early October. In a guest column for the Grand Rapids Press today, Michigan state Sen. Patty Birkholz (R-Saugatuck) explains the bill’s significance:

The compact provides the greatest certainty that our waters will be safeguarded. It specifically references the protection of private and public water rights and clearly states that it will not alter these rights. It also clarifies that water withdrawals originating within a state are to be regulated solely under state law without intervention from the Great Lakes Council, other states or the federal government. Ultimately, the compact will preserve the Great Lakes and all that they represent for our agriculture and tourism economies and our environment.

As we’ve reported before, some environmentalists aren’t as convinced as Birkholz that the compact in its current form goes far enough to protect lakes.

Under the direction of outspoken attorney Jim Olson, a coalition of environmental groups named Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation launched a campaign last month to pressure Congress to amend the legislation. Specifically, the groups want to see the waters reclassified as a public resource rather than a private commodity to help thwart off potential legal challenges by the bottled water industry.

Environmentalists Set Out To Strengthen Great Lakes Compact

Angela Caputo — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:58:30 -0800

A decade-long effort to prevent the world's largest supply of fresh water from being diverted from the region won a hard-fought victory when the Great Lakes Basin Compact was signed into law in early October. But some environmentalists are concerned that the protective measures don't go far enough and they're launching a new campaign to see the Compact strengthened.

Led by Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (and the group's outspoken attorney Jim Olson), a coalition of environmental groups wants Congress to amend the legislation so that Great Lakes water is classified as a public resource, rather than a private commodity. Doing so would send a clear message to the bottled water industry: Don't even think about it.

Under the current language, corporations could make a strong case for their right to bottle Great Lakes water for sale under international trade law. In an earlier interview with Circle Of Blue, Olson explains:

[A] precedent is being set that water can be privatized for export and sale. It is not subject to the diversion ban and Compact, which could tilt the gradient of Great Lakes water to the West, or to the Southeast, or anywhere in the world if it was in a container. It wasn’t intended to turn water into a private commodity, or to privatize water and there’s a huge risk that the Compact does exactly that.

If Congress won't take up amending the Compact, the activists have a plan B: They'll attempt to write the additional protective measure into the Michigan Constitution.

U.S. House Passes Great Lakes Compact

Angela Caputo — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:50:26 -0700

When United Nations officials cast the dire warning that freshwater shortage would effect two-thirds of the world's population by 2025, people in the Great Lakes Region began looking over their shoulders. The idea that powerful forces could set their sights on tapping into the world's largest freshwater supply was, simply put, frightening.

Four years ago, politicians, scientists, and business leaders from the eight-state region decided it was time to put their heads together and come up with a plan for protecting the Great Lakes from diversions beyond the region.

What they came up with is the Great Lakes Compact, which cleared it's final legislative hurdle today after approval by all eight statehouses. Now that the U.S. House has signed off on the measure -- which sailed through the Senate in August -- it'll make its way to President Bush, who has signaled he'll sign it into law.

Until the end, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) joined some environmentalists in opposing the agreement, which he sees as too weak to thwart off future legal challenges aimed at draining the lake. From the Tribune article on the bill's passage:

Stupak said Congress spent little time examining the compact and warned that courts might declare the waters an economic commodity, opening the way for shipments to thirsty U.S. states or foreign countries.

"I do not know how any member in good conscience could vote to approve legislation that may unintentionally open the Great Lakes water to diversions," Stupak said.

As we noted in an earlier post, environmental lawyer Jim Olson has expressed similar concerns. He has argued that higher conservation standards within the Great Lakes states should have been worked into the legislation, particularly considering that water levels are already receding.

That reality has prompted regional planners from the Chicago metropolitan area to form the Southern Lake Michigan Water Supply Consortium, which is charged with developing a sustainable water management plan in a region that's become over reliant on Lake Michigan.

Members of the consortium maintain that imposing summer watering bans and creating stricter town-by-town usage guidelines won't conserve enough water to make up for the region's sprawl. In as few as 20 years, demand for Lake Michigan water could outpace supply, the Metropolitan Planning Council's Scott Goldstein told the Daily Southtown. "We simply don't have enough water to keep digging wells and not understand where that water is coming from."

Obama Bolsters Hope For Great Lakes Cleanup

Angela Caputo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:12:22 -0700

Barack Obama made headlines today with a proposal to dump $5 billion worth of oil and gas company profits into Great Lakes conservation and restoration efforts over the next decade.

While the will has been there, securing federal money has been an ongoing challenge for both conservationists and elected officials who have been pushing to advance Great Lakes restoration efforts. They created the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative (GLRC) in 2004, drawing scientists, business leaders and policy makers together in support of a $20 billion, five-year plan for restoring the world's single largest source of fresh water.

"The problem is that we haven't gotten the kind of investment that we need to get the plan off the ground," said Joel Brammeier, vice president of policy with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. A lack of federal money has been key, he said, because it would help to attract other local and private sources of money.

Not surprisingly, Illinois GOP leaders aren't impressed with the proposal. In a statement today, they joined party leaders from across the region to argue that Obama's initiative merely "throws taxpayer money at the problem."

Obama's proposes to further the GLRC plan by naming a federal coordinator for the project through the Environmental Protection Agency. That person would take responsibility for coordinating existing federal, state and local programs to deal with sewer overflows, invasive species, and toxic hotspots.

Many of those objectives were established in a piece of legislation that Obama co-sponsored, along with Sen. Dick Durbin, last year, known as the Great Lakes Collaboration Implementation Act [S. 791]. That bill has been stuck in committee since last March.

But the Brookings Institution (BI) has repeatedly recommended that lawmakers give it a good hard look as a way to advance conservation and bolster the Midwestern economy. Brookings released a study last year that demonstrated how a Great Lakes cleanup would give the regional economy a $50 billion jolt through increased tourism, commercial and recreational fishing, and property values. A supplemental report found that the economic boon would be greatest for Chicago, which could see an infusion of $7.4 to $13 billion through increased property values alone.

Smooth Ride So Far For Compact, But Questions Remain

Mose Buchele — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:41:18 -0700

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee approved the Great Lakes Compact, an eight state agreement designed to protect water from the lakes from being diverted outside the region. Lawmakers have been trying to fast-track approval of the compact, which has bipartisan support, including from President Bush. There had been some concern that legislators from drought-prone regions of the country would find fault with the conservation agreement, but so far that does not appear to be the case:

House and Senate leaders from the region have said they are not aware of any significant opposition to the plan, which is common among states. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia currently belong to at least one interstate water compact, and many states belong to more than one.

The question that remains is just how effective the compact will be. With confidence high over its prospects, some environmentalists and lawmakers are questioning whether it will do enough to prohibit the "commercialization" of Great Lakes water:

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak [D-MI] has spoken out with concerns that the compact's failure to regulate the export of water in containers smaller than 5.7 gallons is a loophole that could open up vast tracts of Michigan water to commercialization.

In a recent interview with Circle of Blue, environmental lawyer Jim Olson outlined his main complaints with the compact:

There are three major concerns that I have with the Compact. One is that there is a huge product exemption; a precedent is being set that water can be privatized for export and sale. It is not subject to the diversion ban and Compact, which could tilt the gradient of Great Lakes water to the West, or to the Southeast, or anywhere in the world if it was in a container. It wasn’t intended to turn water into a private commodity, or to privatize water and there’s a huge risk that the Compact does exactly that. [...]

The other big issue is that the Great Lakes and all navigable water are by U.S. and State Supreme Court decision since the late 1800’s subject to public ownership in a public trust, which demands that governments not dispose of water for private gain and purposes. [...] It’s strange that the Compact does not include a public trust standard, which is the most basic, and the highest ethical standard, or stewardship standard recognized by law, by the US Supreme Court, and by the states of the Great Lakes.

The last problem is that some of the states are adopting the Compact’s diversion ban, but they’re not enacting conservation standards that are very strict...

Proponents of the compact have responded to such concerns by arguing that any water protection agreement is better than an absolute lack of regulation.

(H/T Michigan Messenger)

Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user swanksalot.

Great Lakes Compact Inches Closer To Congress

Josh Kalven — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:03:14 -0700

On Friday, Ohio became the latest state to approve the Great Lakes Compact, joining Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, and New York. This leaves only two of the eight Great Lakes states -- Michigan and Pennsylvania -- that are yet to sign the agreement, which would ensure that the water from the lakes remains in the region. Michigan's bill just passed the state legislature and is currently awaiting Gov. Jennifer Granholm's signature. Pennsylvania's House has signed off on a measure joining the interstate compact, but it is yet to be taken up by the Senate.

With the compact so close to reaching ratification in all eight states, its supporters are now turning their sights on the final step: approval by Congress and President Bush. The AP reports:

[B]ackers have been conducting briefings for congressional staffers from the Great Lakes states in hopes of gaining quick approval.

But crucial questions remain unanswered, such as who will be the primary House and Senate sponsors, which committees will consider the compact and whether it will be structured as a bill, a resolution or an amendment to other legislation. Also unclear is when the pact would be introduced and whether it can get through Congress before the next president takes office.

"This has moved so much quicker than any of us thought," said Cameron Davis, president of the Chicago-based Great Lakes Alliance. "We're putting finishing touches on some of these strategic points but don't have our final thoughts quite ready yet."

As Ohio Approves Great Lakes Compact, Some Question Its Worth

Mose Buchele — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:51:15 -0700

With an accord reached Tuesday between Democratic and Republican state lawmakers, Ohio will become the sixth state to ratify the Great Lakes Compact:

Ohio had been a major obstacle to the pact because of a disagreement over whether the plan would inadvertently violate property rights for groundwater on privately owned land. House Speaker Jon Husted, a Republican, and Democratic Minority Leader Joyce Beatty, reached a deal Monday to affirm private property rights and set the stage for Tuesday's vote.

The Great Lakes hold about 90 percent of our nation's fresh surface water and 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water. As water resources become more scarce, the compact is viewed by supporters as a means of protecting the environment, and as a way for people in the region to protect their water rights. But some environmentalists say that the compact itself gives states too many options to continue the wholesale privatization of surface water.

Right now Michigan lawmakers are hashing out a compromise between House- and Senate-passed versions of a Great Lakes Compact tie-in that will allow private interests to reduce the state's cool and warm rivers and streams by as much as 25 percent and legally allow for the reduction of fish populations from 1 percent to 20 percent depending on the character of the stream or river. And wait, there's more: The bill would also require no permit for water withdrawals until the proposal reaches a level of an eye-popping two million gallons a day. Those companies with proposals for less than that simply register and take state water unsupervised.

Regardless of whether states are going far enough in protecting the lakes, the compact remains the region's most comprehensive attempt to regulate access to the country's main supply of fresh water. With Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's promise to sign the agreement into law, Michigan and Pennsylvania are the two Great Lakes states yet to reach an agreement on the compact.

Great Lakes In The News

Josh Kalven — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:47:46 -0700

Today the Healing Our Waters coalition released a report on the threat posed to the Great Lakes by global warming. According to the press release, the report "synthesizes current climate change science and presents the likely impacts warming temperatures will have on the lakes, including lower lake levels, more sewage overflows, and increased pressure to divert Great Lakes water."

The AP provides more detail:

Evaporation rates are likely to rise, causing already-low water levels to fall 1 foot on Lake Superior, 3 feet on Lakes Michigan and Huron, 2.7 feet on Lake Erie and 1.7 feet on Lake Ontario over the next century, the report says.

Such changes likely would make the Great Lakes more hospitable to invaders that steal food and shelter from native species, it says. Coastal wetlands that filter pollutants and provide fish spawning grounds would shrink. Exposed toxic sediments would endanger people and wildlife.

If predictions of more frequent and severe storms prove accurate, it could mean more sewage overflows that lead to beach closings, the report says. Meanwhile, arid regions could get even less rainfall, making the Great Lakes a more tempting target.

The coalition is seeking federal funding for its $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan.

In related news, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law a bill approving the Great Lakes Compact yesterday. This leaves three state governments -- Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio -- that are yet to approve the agreement.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley greeted the news by ... ridiculing Wisconsin for taking so long. Doyle's spokesman responded: "Maybe Mayor Daley is a little off because he just had so many constituents escape Chicago for a beautiful weekend in Wisconsin."

Congress Takes Stock Of Great Lakes Cleanup Effort

Mose Buchele — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:38:15 -0700

This week, the U.S. House is considering the reauthorization of the Great Lakes Legacy Act, a federal program that targets 31 pollution sites on the Great Lakes for cleanup. The project has already had an impact, having removed about 800,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment since its inception. The Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment heard testimony yesterday from environmentalists about the progress of cleanup efforts, and pleas from representatives of Great Lakes states for more funding. In fact, the program has never been given the full $150 million in annual funding that Congress initially approved:

At the current pace, figures provided at the hearing suggested, cleanup of the entire 31 toxic areas wouldn't be completed for another 35 years. But if Legacy Act appropriations were to reach $150 million annually, combined with the Superfund money, the job might be completed in seven years.

While federal dollars are increasingly tight, one subcommittee member, Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., noted that Congress is appropriating $12 billion a month for the U.S. military engagement in Iraq.

As the fate of the project is decided in Washington, others closer to home are taking a look at new challenges facing the Great Lakes.

(Click "Read More" to continue ...)

An article today in the Post-Tribune (of Northwest Indiana) offers a glimmer of hope to those who want to see a fully-restored Lake Michigan:

A comparison of 1994-1995 data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with more recent data from Michigan showed that levels of PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, have declined, said Gary Kohlhepp with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

Most of the PCBs that still enter the lake come from the air, especially in the Chicago area. PCBs seem to be evaporating out of the lake at a faster pace than it's coming in, he said.

But the Post-Tribune points to new threats on the horizon in the form of invasive species like "quagga mussels and zebra mussels and Asian carp." In fact, the threat of invasive species has led advocates of the Legacy Act to ask Congress to allow federal dollars to be spent not only on cleaning pollution but also on restoring native fish to the lakes.

As we've previously reported, the cleanup of the Great Lakes would not only benefit the environment but could also pump billions of dollars into Illinois' state economy in increased property values and tourism spending.