Welcome to one of the Great Lakes region's first environmental issues blogs. The North American Great Lakes contain 18% of the world's available surface freshwater and are a source of beauty, spiritual renewal and livelihood. Keep track of Great Lakes news and comment or disagree politely to frequent posts.
Webster said county officials didn't notify the public or the media
about the toxic algae in Mona Lake because that would further
stigmatize the beleaguered lake.
"It's difficult for people on Mona Lake to stomach that," Webster
said. "It's almost like Mona Lake is being held out as the poster child
for poor water quality when, in reality, this is a problem across the
state."
Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today warned Nestle that
California will challenge the environmental plan for a bottled water
plant in Siskiyou county if the company does not revise its contract to
pump water from the McCloud River.
STUPAK ASKS AGENCIES TO WEIGH IN ON GREAT LAKES COMPACT
Requests more information on compact’s ability to prevent commercial export of water
WASHINGTON – U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) has requested comment from two federal agencies and the International Joint Commission (IJC) on the Great Lakes Compact being considered in Congress. In letters sent today to the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Trade Representative and the IJC, Stupak asked for response to concerns that have been raised regarding the commercialization of Great Lakes water and the possible applicability of international trade law if the compact were to be enacted.
“As the largest body of freshwater in the world, it is imperative that legal protection at the state and federal level work to preserve and restore the quality and quantity of Great Lakes water,” Stupak wrote. “While I understand that a dispute of this nature has not occurred historically, I am seeking to clarify if international trade law and obligations will have any jurisdiction should we enact the compact into federal law.”
On July 9, 2008, Michigan became the last of the eight Great Lakes states to ratify the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. The interstate compact now requires the approval of Congress. Resolutions to ratify the compact have been introduced in both the House and Senate. The House Judiciary Committee passed the resolution earlier today.
“Large-scale water withdrawals are the most imminent threat to the Great Lakes,” Stupak said. “Ratifying the compact could allow Great Lakes water to no longer be held within the public trust and instead be defined as a product for commercial use.
“I want to thoroughly understand the lasting impact this compact could have on Great Lakes water for years to come,” Stupak continued. “It took the governors more than three years to get this done, so it is not unreasonable for Congress to take the time necessary to make sure we are not opening the door for the commercialization Great Lakes water.”
Stupak represents Michigan’s 1st Congressional District, which has more shoreline – 1,613 miles – than any other congressional district in the continental United States. It is the only congressional district in the nation that borders three of the five Great Lakes.
Stupak’s letters to the agencies are available at: http://www.house.gov/stupak/GLCLetters.pdf
He won't go unless dragged out, but Stephen Johnson deserves to lose his job.
Three Democratic senators on Tuesday called for the resignation of
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, saying
he has displayed “a dangerous pattern of disregard” for the health and
safety of Americans.
“Johnson’s EPA has shown an extraordinary
disregard for the law,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said. “And by
extension, they’ve shown a disregard for the people that we represent
and for all the American people.”
Boxer, joined by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Amy Klobuchar
(D-Minn.), also called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to
investigate whether Johnson has made false or misleading statements to
Congress.
Klobuchar stated that 889 EPA scientists said they have experienced
political interference in their work over the last five years. She
added that the EPA has purposefully ignored findings of studies
revealing environmental dangers.
“We can no longer pretend
that there was no political interference with the science and facts
when time and time again we see partisan politics prevailing over
professionalism and special-interest spin prevailing over science,”
Klobuchar said.
From all indications Congress is being urged to consent to the Great Lakes Compact, as is, in the next few days or weeks at the most.
This agreement's most important loopholes were negotiated in private in late 2005, and the agreement was given, take it or leave it to the Great Lakes community. There was no substantive debate on the loopholes in any of the eight Great Lakes states. There will be no substantive debate on the loopholes in Congress, it appears.
The most important loophole created was one that provides that withdrawal of water and removal from the Great Lakes Basin in containers of 5.7 gallons or less are a diversion only if a particular state decides to treat it as such. None of the eight Great Lakes States has done so (although a 2001 ruling from the then-Michigan Attorney General held that water exported in bottles is an export that requires approval of all Great Lakes governors under current federal law. The then-Governor of Michigan, John Engler, ignored the ruling, and so has his successor).
In the end, the Compact has ended up legitimizing the sale of water itself, not fruit juice, but water itself as a product. That's not a slippery slope leading to unforeseen consequences -- it's an open sluice.
This is simply not appropriate for the world's largest freshwater ecosystem.
How do you spell Great Lakes water? Simple: P-R-O-D-U-C-T. Look at the Compact. "Product means something produced in the Basin by human or mechanical effort or through agricultural processes and used in manufacturing, commercial or other processes or intended for intermediate or end use consumers. (i) Water used as part of the packaging of a Product shall be considered to be part of the Product."
Under this definition, removing water from a spring, lake or stream and putting it in containers under 5.7 gallons creates a product. The Compact prohibits most (but not all) diversions. So how is diversion defined?
"Diversion means a transfer of Water from the Basin into another watershed, or from the watershed of one of the Great Lakes into that of another by any means of transfer, including but not limited to a pipeline, canal, tunnel, aqueduct, channel, modification of the direction of a water course, a tanker ship, tanker truck or rail tanker but does not apply to Water that is used in the Basin or a Great Lake watershed to manufacture or produce a Product that is then transferred out of the Basin or watershed."
Congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to a ban on a family of
toxins found in children's products, handing a major victory to parents
and health experts who have been clamoring for the government to remove
harmful chemicals from toys.
[snip]
Daryl Ditz, senior policy adviser at the Center for International
Environmental Law, said industry viewed the ban as a benchmark that
might signal a shift in Congress's willingness to toughen restrictions
on toxins.
"The great fear is that if a big, established chemical like this can be driven from the market, what's next?" he said.
It doesn't get any better than this. The Bush White House is behind the compact.
On the heels of a White House statement Monday night by
President George W. Bush calling for Congress “to provide rapid
approval of the Great Lakes Compact,” the oldest citizens’ Great Lakes
organization will urge quick action in testimony at a Senate committee
hearing on the pact Wednesday.
“This shows that the Great Lakes aren’t just important to us who have
them in our back yard,” said Alliance for the Great Lakes President
Cameron Davis, who is scheduled to testify before the U.S. Senate
Judiciary Committee at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
“They’re important to officials all across the country – they see the
Great Lakes as a national treasure that their constituents care about.”
“This is a historic moment for the Great Lakes,” added Davis, who also
testifies on behalf of the Healing Our Waters®-Great Lakes Coalition
representing more than 100 environmental groups around the region.
“It’s one of only a handful of times the states have all come together
over the past half century to create a binding blueprint for protecting
the water as the lifeblood of the region.”
The states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have enacted the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence
River Basin Water Resources Compact, a regional water agreement to
protect against wasteful water withdrawals in the Great Lakes -- home
to nearly 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater. The bordering
provinces of Ontario and Quebec have signed a companion agreement as
part of a parallel process in Canada.
The compact was introduced in both the House and the Senate last week.
For it to become law, Congress must now give its consent -- as it has
done with more than 40 other water compacts from around the nation.
“I congratulate the governors and legislatures of the eight states that
border the Great Lakes on their conclusion of the Great Lakes-St.
Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact,” read the president’s
statement.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said Tuesday that the
advisory covers the Twin Cities, Rochester, St. Cloud, Duluth and the
Brainerd lakes area.
The campaign to wean consumers away from wasteful, colossally expensive bottled water is gaining momentum. Here's a good, detailed story on the campaign.
And the bottled water industry is the same one Michigan state officials and some lobbyists have bent over backwards to promote for seven years now. Is this sustainable development?
How long before non-Great Lakes members of Congress assert hypocrisy in characterizing the drill there, not here attitude of our politicians? Maybe it would help if our Congressional delegation supported energy efficiency instead. Congress, meanwhile, has not undertaken any serious discussion of
lifting the long-standing ban on oil and gas drilling in the U. S.
waters of the Great Lakes.
“I don’t think the Great Lakes has
ever even been a discussion item,” said Rep. John Peterson, who is
preparing a bipartisan bill to reopen U. S. ocean waters to more
drilling.
A ban on drilling in the lakes “makes no public
policy sense,” given that the Canadians are already doing it, said
Peterson, a Republican from Pennsylvania.
But Peterson is
leaving the idea out of his bipartisan energy bill because proposing
oil and gas drilling in the lakes makes no political sense.
