Great Lakes Blogger

mercury control bill to President

Stockpiles of toxic mercury kept by industry soon will be stored safely in the United States instead of ending up on the world market where it might pollute the environment.

Under bipartisan legislation Congress sent to President George W. Bush Monday for his expected signature, mercury exports would be banned in 2013 and the Energy Department would be required to store the heavy metal permanently.

The bill's chief sponsor, Sen. Barack Obama, introduced the bill in response to a 2005 Tribune series about mercury contamination in fish.

rescue package 2.0

Let's try $500 billion in spending -- on cleanups, sewage and drinking water projects, school buildings, kids themselves. That's the kind of recapitalization that would help.

draining Michigan's future

What? The Michigan Chamber of Commerce actively supports giving away Michigan water to international giants? It's thinking like this that has helped plunge Michigan's economy into peril. From the Washington Post.

"How do we decide when water is a product?" she asked. "Under the WTO and NAFTA, there is no obligation for a state to extract its natural resources. The difference comes when it makes the decision to allow an entity to commercialize it and they do commercialize it. Then it is a product and you can't ban the export." (emphasis added)

Doug Roberts Jr., director of environmental and energy policy at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, agrees.

"We think it's critical that you are able to make products and ship them all over the world," Roberts said. "That's what you do in a free-market economy. We were very concerned groups would target one product and say that product can't be shipped. What's the difference between bottled water and beer or cherry juice? Those all have water in them."

This gentleman's reasoning has sprung a leak.

Water is an ingredient in beer and juice, not a product. There is a long-standing right to use water to make things, but there is no right to sell water.  Water itself belongs to the public, and there was no law condoning its commercialization in the Great Lakes Basin in 2006, when Michigan blundered into passing such a law. Now the Compact has done so for the region.

Maybe someday the simple point will become clear to more people: once you convert water in law from a public to a commercial resource, you risk losing public control of it -- and in this case, of the Great Lakes.

the bailout, the economic crisis and the outdoors

But the fiscal crisis will become an excuse by politicians to justify reduced funding for efforts to keep more exotic species from entering our waters, fields and woodlands, even though the damage they do will continue long after our financial ship is back on an even keel.

The buyout will mean less money for federal environmental projects, such as fixing problems in the Great Lakes and the Everglades, and less trickle-down to state governments for projects that use matching grants.

We'll be so focused on the short-term problem of keeping the economy from collapsing that people who want to do things that will harm the environment will have a field day. The economic mess will become an excuse to open more public lands and offshore waters to oil drilling, even though that won't do anything to lower the cost of the gasoline we buy for our cars.

Some thinkers say only wealthy societies can afford environmental protection. Actually, it's societies who plan to be around a while, and believe they must provide for those who will come after. What's happening to that belief?

TC newspaper: plug the GL Compact loophole

Even as advocates were celebrating its passage, however, at least two people were warning that the compact, as welcome as it has been, has a potentially fatal flaw and must be fixed.

Eight Great Lakes states spent four years in talks to hammer out the compact, starting some 50 years after Congress created the Great Lakes Commission to deal with such issues. Negotiations included testimony and input from businesses, scientists and environmentalists; after all that work, the compact must be fixed so it does what it was intended to do.

in the blink of an eye

Doesn't the whole experience of watching the Great Lakes compact pass through Congress (and I use the words 'pass through' as liberally as water through a spigot here) seem just a tad surreal?

not all headlines are created equal

This one says: Senate cuts funding to Great Lakes Legacy Act.

Reality #1: the House-passed bill with a higher funding limit didn't make an extra dime available to the Great Lakes. It was an authorization, not an appropriation.

Reality #2: Great Lakes leaders in both houses of Congress are trying to extend the act before Congress adjourns. We can fight about details of the Act in January.

why 2 Minnesotans voted 'no' on compact

“It was a protest vote,” U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, DFL-Minneapolis, said Wednesday. “I wanted to send a signal.”

Rep. Betty McCollum, DFL-St. Paul, said she voted against the legislation because it’s too weak.

Details here.

mysteries of the Great Lakes (film)

It's showing in Saint Paul, and has been slowly getting around the region. Any reviews?

Lake Superior surfing

And now for something completely different --

But, for an increasingly larger amount of local skiers and snowboarders, the fall season also means that it's time to surf Lake Superior.



Tuesday night, 40 NMU students and community members did just that, when they headed to Sunset Point on Presque Isle, manned with surfboards and wetsuits, for an event co-sponsored by the NMU Skate and Snowboard club and Casualties.