Margaret Wooster, the former director of the citizens' group Great Lakes United and now active in the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper organization, has an exquisite new book coming out just after the turn of the year. Watch for more on it here soon.
This story is chiefly of note because as you move around the Great Lakes region, you hear people wondering aloud about the potential for an attack on a public water supply. My answer is that I trust and hope all necessary precautions have been taken by Great Lakes municipal utilities.
A long and illuminating opinion piece on Canadian water policy includes this interesting passage:
The Mulroney government introduced the last national water policy and made a weak attempt to legislate a ban on water exports. A bill was introduced, but died on the order paper when an election was called.
Then came the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, followed by the North American free-trade agreement. Water was not explicitly excluded from NAFTA. Instead, a side statement by the leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico said that water in its natural state was not considered a tradable good.
However, after NAFTA was signed, the federal government received legal advice that it could no longer ban water exports without breaking the treaty.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the State Department and trade authorities keep ducking a similar question -- do the provisions of NAFTA open up fresh water resources like the Great Lakes to investor claims once a trade in water begins (as some would say it has through water bottling) -- thereby negating a ban on exports?
The issue of Waukesha, Wisconsin's desire to tap Lake Michigan water is as major test of the meaning of the newly-ratified Great Lakes Compact. Jim Rowen's excellent economy/environment/humanity blog from Milwaukee posted the following words a week ago -- and much more needs to be said.
The key point is this: if anything less than the strictest standards are applied to this unnecessary diversion, how can anything tougher be applied when New Mexico comes for its share of the national treasure?
There are claims that Waukesha's water diversion scheme is a hit with environmentalists, but is that correct?
[snip]
An admonition, as we move forward towards a
Waukesha diversion application that will finally disclose just what and
where and why Waukesha is planning on doing what it intends:
Former
Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist used to say there were two stages to
every transportation plan, and the formula applies to this water scheme
as well.
Stage One: It's too soon to know.
Stage Two: It's too late to do anything about it.
So
every time you hear stage one echoing from Waukesha, or the Wisconsin
DNR, just remember that stage two is right around the corner.
The goal is to be prepared.
Michigan, symbolically and substantively, is on the ropes. Last week's toppling of Congressman John Dingell as head of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee marked further weakening for the state, headquarters of the domestic auto industry. Here's a great piece in Salon that analyzes the industry's woes sympathetically and wisely. The industry has made huge mistakes, but some of its problems are beyond its control. Letting it die makes sense only to those who don't care about the ripple effect across the economy -- or who don't care if there's still an American middle class.
The strongest opposition to an auto industry bailout isn't coming from environmentalists. It's coming from free-market conservatives who see burying Detroit as an opportunity to bury the United Auto Workers and the entire union movement. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama called the auto industry a "dinosaur" and suggested government aid would only delay its well-deserved demise. "Companies fail every day and others take their place," Shelby said. "I think this is a road we should not go down."
The companies that would take GM's place -- Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda -- all have plants in Alabama, where they benefit from a hostility to organized labor. None of Alabama's automakers are unionized. Do we want to go down Shelby's road? Alabama ranks 46th in household income. Not coincidentally, Shelby has consistently opposed universal healthcare. In 1993, he denounced Bill Clinton's health plan as "ill-conceived, unworkable and unwanted by the American people."
If one Congress member has forever seen that universal healthcare could have been a boon to the U.S. auto industry, it is Michigan Rep. John Dingell. Rooted in the New Deal and the industrial heartland, Dingell embodies the auto industry's traditions. Stocky, block-headed, with safety-glass eyewear, he looks like he should be inspecting the paint job on a Buick. And every year since he came to Congress in 1955, Dingell has introduced a bill for a single-payer national health insurance system. It's the same bill his father began promoting in 1933.
But the political tide has clearly turned against the old Detroit champion. Last week, he was unhorsed as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee by Rep. Henry Waxman. Waxman is a Watergate Baby.
The 60-year-old fisherman set
out in a wooden skiff that morning in 1958 to search for 26-year-old
Carl Hammer, who hadn’t returned from picking his father’s herring nets. What
happened next made Aakvik, who died in 1987 at age 90, a North Shore
legend, though it brought years of sadness and loss to the Hammer
family. Aakvik spent the next 28 hours battling 50 mph winds and
25-foot waves on the lake as ice built up on his skiff and froze his
legs into place. His boat began to come apart, and Aakvik fought frozen
gas lines and battering waves as the hours dragged on.
Gov. Jim Doyle announced Wednesday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) approved the nomination of the St. Louis River as
a National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR).
So what's a NERR?
The National Estuarine Research Reserves System is a network of 27 areas representing different biogeographic regions of the United States that are protected for long-term research, water-quality monitoring, education and coastal stewardship. Established by the Coastal
Zone Management Act of 1972, as amended, the reserve system is a
partnership program between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the coastal states. NOAA provides funding, national guidance and technical assistance. Each reserve is managed on daily basis by a lead state agency or university, with input from local partners.
This would be the second in the Great Lakes; the other is Old Woman Creek in Ohio.
Here's one estimate of the cost of 'ship-borne' invasive species to the Great Lakes:
The results of my interviews with Roger, Mark and many other experts showed that ship-borne invasive species were responsible for more than $200 million in losses to benefits from ecosystem services in 2006.
What's the benefit of ship-borne commerce from ocean-going vessels entering the Great Lakes? The industry will probably say billions and billions, but this needs to be settled.
Here it is.
"In November, Americans made their preference clear that the federal government has a critical role to play in unleashing homegrown, innovative energy solutions that would create new jobs, reduce global warming pollution and cut our nation's dependence on oil," the groups said in a joint statement. "We welcome this opportunity to collaborate with the transition team, and to work with President-elect Obama to move America forward and re-engage with the international community to reverse eight years of environmental neglect."
It's organized by agency -- good if you're working to effect change in Washington, bad if you're trying to reach the public. But this is clearly a (391-page) memo to the President-Elect's people. The EPA section begins on page 321.
Page 325: The new Administration should support the creation of a dedicated funding source for the restoration and enhancement of the watersheds of America’s Great Waters such as the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River and similar important waters. This initiative should also include adequate funding for monitoring restoration effectiveness.
Glad to see the Great Lakes so clearly made a priority on this list. And glad to see a realistic recommendation for funding of their cleanup. It's going to be part of a multi-watershed package if it happens.
He didn't start out planning to specialize in the Lake and the land around it, but Superior had other ideas for him.
Blacklock said Lake Superior has always been his passion, but he didn’t make the lake and the lands around it his primary focus until he had produced the highly acclaimed book “Minnesota Wild” with his father in 1984. He said he thought he’d make Lake Superior his personal project “for one or two years.”
He has circumnavigated its 1,200 miles by kayak and has continued to explore its geologically diverse environment ever since. His kayak trip produced “The Lake Superior Images,” which won a Minnesota Book Award.
His decision to focus on the Lake Superior region reflects his love for the land, an appreciation for its surprising diversity, and a professional drive to do the best. “You do best with things you know best,” he said. “To me, (Lake Superior) is my native language.”
