Handful of Lawmakers Threaten Regional Compact

While the Midwest is bailing itself out from floods and awaiting more winter storms, it is hard to remember that just months ago US Presidential hopeful Bill Richardson was hinting at diverting water from the Great Lakes. But it won’t be long before spring gives way to summer droughts and stricken Southern states and ever-thirsty western ones will start eyeballing the Great Lakes region once again.

The threat of water diversion is real and is making national headlines and that means that if the states don’t act in their own interest soon, the Feds may just take over whether we like it or not. “This is something we should be expecting the presidential candidates to address,” Wayne State University Law Professor Noah Hall told Congressional Quarterly. “The next Secretary of Interior is going to have tremendous water issues. The president better come into office ready to deal with a national water crisis. Interstate water disputes are coming to a head right now in the Southeast and Great Lakes, and those are issues that the president is going to have to face the first year in office.” Fortunately, all three of the top candidates have promised not to divert water by signing a pledge to make the Great Lakes a priority once in office. Of course, a pledge is just a pledge though and promises abound during heated presidential races.

Political promises aside, so far four of the eight states have been sufficiently motivated to pass the Great Lakes Compact – they have been joined by Ohio’s house, but the Senate vote is being held up by the dissenting voice of Senator Tim Grendell.

The former military prosecutor has a reputation for upholding the rights of private property owners –he has staked his political career on the issue. His argument with the Compact is that words in the preamble declare waters in the basin “precious public natural resources shared and held in trust by the states.” Grendell fears that property owners may lose control of their groundwater. But others in his party alongside legal scholars contend that nothing in a preamble can subvert Ohio law.

“He is trying to make an issue where none exists,” Noah Hall says. “It is a manufactured legal argument based on scaring people who don’t know how statutes and compacts are structured.”

So, why would Grendell make such a fuss and hold up a regional agreement? Most likely, politics and perhaps sour grapes. Grendell traveled to Traverse City, MI last summer to present his concerns on the Compact to a group of state legislators from around the Great Lakes,. But he was unable to sway anyone. Recently, the feisty lawmaker lost his bid for Ohio’s Attorney General. Some Buckeye’s think he aspires to higher office and is trying to build a name for himself.

“I don’t want to be too short about this but, frankly there are hundreds if not thousands of very informed legal people who have worked on this around the region and Senator Grendell and maybe two others are the only people trying to make an argument out of this,” Hall said. To mollify Grendell the sponsor of Ohio’s ratification bill added clarifying language to ensure the Compact doesn’t convert private groundwater into public ownership. However, Grendell wants to reword the Compact itself and that would affect the entire regional ratification process and send the Compact back to the drawing board.

In Wisconsin a handful of lawmakers are uncomfortable with the idea that all eight states would have to vote unanimously to allow for water diversions once the Compact is in place. They would prefer a majority rule instead.

Governor Jim Doyle told the Travers City Record Eagle that the few Republicans opposing the Compact on this basis “know this is a fake issue.” Apparently, current Federal law allows any of the governors to veto diversions. http://www.record-eagle.com/statenews/local_story_047094623.html

Because of the actions of leaders in the Ohio Senate and Wisconsin Assembly, it may have been easier to get the eight colonies to agree to the Declaration of Independence than to get Ohio and now Wisconsin to overcome parochial arguments that threaten a compact that took five years to draw up and includes plenty of compromise among the bipartisan group of politicians, business leaders and environmentalists who developed it. There were 60 public meetings and more than 13,000 public comments that contributed to an agreement that has overwhelming regional support.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Compact is needed now more than ever. A recent GAO report estimates that a majority of states – 36 – are expected to experience significant water shortages over the next decade – due to climate change, migration patterns, more demand for energy (power plants run on water) and the production of ethanol. Once the national water situation becomes dire, it will be harder for a President to keep promises not to drain away Great Lakes water – there needs to be something in place to give pause. At the same time, come 2010 when the new census is taken the Great Lakes region will lose more clout in Washington as our number of representative diminish.

The argument stalling the Compact really boils down to whether lawmakers are for water diversion or against it. Perhaps these few dissenters would like to see our water sent to Nevada and Georgia because that is what could very easily happen if the Compact fails. So, if they cringe at what they deem to be government regulation, then fine, oppose the Compact but be honest about it. These lawmakers should go home and tell their constituents they want to make sure Great Lakes water can be diverted. Let’s just see how many of them get re-elected.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Wanted: Uniform Information

After the BP controversy alerted everyone to the fact that companies and municipalities are still polluting the Great Lakes, U.S. Sen. Richard Durban (D-Ill.) asked how much pollution is making its way into Lake Michigan on any given day, month or year. Weeks later, the Environmental Protection Agency responded with an astonishing 43-page document that essentially said: “We don’t know.”

The problem is one of data collection. Under the Clean Water Act, companies get permits limiting the amount of pollution they can spew into the lakes. The permit information is in a database that monitors reports of pollution permit excesses from major facilities, including public water treatment plants. The EPA letter explains that the database is limited to collecting permits and reports of excess or abuses and cannot be used to calculate how much of each pollutant is going into Lake Michigan overall.

This past Fall, USPIRG released a report that catalogues permit excesses for every freshwater body in the United States. Their report uncovered concerning generalities, such as, more than 60 percent of the nation’s biggest factories and water treatment plants have violated the CWA between July 2003 and December 2004, the most current year information is available.

Healing Our Waters sifted through USPIRG’s data on the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes and came to a similar realization –you cannot create even a rough estimate of the pollution going into the Great Lakes or their well known tributaries because of the lack of uniformity in data. It is comparing apples and oranges. This isn’t just a state-by-state problem; it is from permit-to-permit and from pollutant-to- pollutant. The measurements are all over the place.

So, there are two big problems here: one, the states and the EPA have failed to collect the kind of information that would allow it to enforce the CWA and overtime the pollution limits have not been re-evaluated and constricted by state and federal regulators as instructed in the law. It would behoove the Great Lakes States to agree to a uniform way to collect pollution information and create a workable database that provides us with an answer to this very simple question…how much pollution is going into each of the Great Lakes on an annual basis.

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War Game Proves: Saving the Great Lakes is a National Security Issue

Imagine it is the year 2030 and China has invaded Siberia while its allies India and Pakistan point nuclear missiles at the populous Western Russia. The Russians have positioned themselves to invade Canada while China has lined the U.S. West Coast with warships. Meanwhile, Mexico and Central America have invaded Brazil. And after years of civil war, African countries have disintegrated into political chaos and violence. What brought all this about? Fresh water.

Nations need fresh water resources to feed their people and crops as well as make the economic engines run, but our fresh water is threatened by pollution, diversion, unwise use, and climate change. Just like oil, water is a strategic resource – just look at how China is preparing to divert water from Tibet via a massive pipeline. The United Nations finds the threat to fresh water so immenent that they deemed yesterday World Water Day, to raise awareness around the globe that our fresh water resources are in danger.

So, how did we arrive at the brink of an imaginary World War III?

Let’s start with China- by 2030, more than 80 percent of the Himalayas will have melted away. These glaciers feed China’s main rivers. Most of the water is diverted from the increasingly less lush South to the North, where 45 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people live – it is also home to nearly 60 percent of her farms. Since 2006, China has been experiencing a worsening drought leaving her largest lakes at record low levels and 18 million Chinese thirsty while crops wilt in 15 provinces. Add to this the last 25 years of economic expansion that has left a wake of pollution in China’s dwindling waters. According to the Chinese government, 300 million rural Chinese lack clean drinking water and pollution has left 40 percent of the water in 1,300 rivers fit only for agriculture and industry. Poor stewardship and increasing resource consumption have birthed a sustained water crisis. So, why not just take the water from a neighboring nation?

In our scenario the populous India uses its nuclear weapon to broker a strategic alliance with China because five years before the outbreak of our war (2025) India fell victim to current projections and became the most populous nation with the least amount of fresh water. The World Bank projects India will be the worst affected by a fresh water scarcity – the main source of her fresh water is ground water which is expected to be depleted by half in 17 years while the population is anticipated to soar by the billions–an unsustainable equation.

But Russia is awash in fresh water – second only to Brazil in the resource making it a real water power. Russia’s Lake Baikal boasts 21 percent of the world’s fresh water. Siberia and the East are home to 80 percent of the nation’s fresh water. It didn’t take the former Cold War enemy long to figure out that water holdings would soon drive international power the way oil had in the 20th century. So, in our war game, the Russian giant invades Canada to secure a monopoly on all the world’s water by taking the Great Lakes along with Canada’s other bodies of fresh water. China, also eyeing our Great Lakes and wanting to deny Russia world domination has positioned her ships along our West Coast.

A parched Central America finds it easier to attack within its hemisphere and joins forces to invade Brazil and conquer the Amazon. This also buys them international political pull – something denied them in recent centuries. Meanwhile, Africa has descended into total chaos and political violence. What started decades previous in Darfur as a spar between nomadic herders and farmers when climate change precipitated a change in rainfall limiting water resources expanded from civil strife into conflict between countries, first over quickly drying shared rivers and then through a massive refugee crisis spinning things out-of-control.

Now, back to reality, conflict over water shortages already exist in many parts of the world, but the United Nations fears they will become more commonplace if we don’t prepare, use water more efficiently and share it well.

A week ago, the U.N. released a report finding that more than 100 million Europeans still lack access to safe drinking water. As a result nearly 40 European children die from diarrhea every day. In addition, more than half the world, 102 countries and 3.9 billion people are at risk of political instability and violent conflict because of water-related issues, according to advocacy organization International Alert. ((((Can we link to this?))))

The United States shares the Great Lakes with Canada. The Lakes provide 90 percent of our nation’s supply of fresh surface water. Thus, restoring and preserving the lakes is not a regional issue; it is clearly a national and international concern. Yet, leadership eludes us. President Bush’s budget makes it clear he has little interest in fixing aging waste water infrastructure which threatens the lakes on a daily basis. Legislation that will diminish the significant impact ballast water has on our fresh water’s ecology and industry is close to adoption but remains pending. The recent BP scandal illuminated the depth of the ineptitude of our EPA and illustrated that the agency can’t even determine how much pollution is entering the lakes. And most egregious to our nation’s future security, our request for the $26 billion that would finally restore the lakes and help our economy by jump starting a region responsible for 30 percent of the GDP sits idle.

With 90 percent of our nation’s fresh water at stake, the parching of the earth from climate change, an impending world water crisis in overpopulated Asia it is more than fair to argue that preserving and restoring the Great Lakes is an issue of national security. Let’s take this a step further, we currently spend $10 billion a month in Iraq and another $2 billion every 31 days in Afghanistan – so is it really unreasonable to consider a one-time investment of $26 billion to secure the future of this nation’s largest source of fresh water?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Forget the Alamo: Remember Love Canal

Think KGB tactics under the cloak of a thick Dickensian smog playing out in the Great Lakes region. A Center for Disease Control report was allegedly kept from the public because its “alarming” findings show significant health risks for those living in and around Areas of Concern. Can you say bureaucratic SNAFU? To make matters worse, as bureaucracies often do, the author of the report was demoted. And the CDC would have gotten away with burying the whole thing if it weren’t for those pesky kids at the Center for Public Integrity who daringly shed light on the conspiracy.

At the same time the report was not released, President Bush was trying to eek out small increases for the Great Lakes Legacy Act–the only law on the books to clean up AOC’s. While any increase is appreciated, the President’s budget does not get the job done. Combine a bad budget with the recent brouhaha over the buried CDC report, and, well, it’s enought to make someone down right mad.

And some of our Congressmen are outraged. U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins, who represents Western New York where the study describes increased cancer and infant mortality rates, has asked the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to call on the Whistleblowers to testify and investigate the allegations that the report was withheld and author demoted.

“There are many questions that need to be answered,” said Higgins, a member of the Government Reform Committee. “Why was this report suppressed and who is responsible? What are the consequences of the research contained in the report? The information contained within this report, while certainly not providing a silver bullet explaining health problems of citizens living in or near the affected area, could still be used as an important reference for local governments, researchers, and the healthcare community who continue to explore disturbing health trends in Western New York.”

Congressmen John Dingell (Mich-D) and Bart Stupak (Mich-D) recently penned a letter to the CDC asking that they please publish the “public” report. The Congressmen would like the opportunity to read and evaluate the research themselves. The letter also asks the agency to fess up on why it suppressed the report and why it demoted the chief author, Dr. Christopher De Rosa who tried to get the “government” report to the public.

Who is serving who here? Isn’t the CDC a public agency? Doesn’t it exist at the will of the people? The same nine million people who live in 26 of the Great Lakes AOC’s? The same people who have experienced more cancer than the rest of the country? People who know people who have died of breast, colon and lung cancer much younger than they should have and who happen to have grown up in or near the AOC’s.

The actions of the CDC are beyond the Pall and a hearing needs to happen to hold those responsible accountable. People living in and around the AOC’s and their public officials finally, as of last week, have an opportunity to see the research and find out what steps should to be taken to make sure they can access the most basic right given to us in our precious national documents: the pursuit of happiness.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Sign a Petition to Congress on the Great Lakes

Freshwater Future (formerly Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund) has initiated an online petition urging Members of Congress to act this year to pass and fully fund legislation to protect and restore the Great Lakes. Healing Our Waters Coalition staff worked closely with Freshwater Future on the development of this petition, and we encourage one and all to sign it and forward to colleagues, friends, and family. Freshwater Future and the HOW Coalition will work to tally signatures from constituents of particular members of Congress in the Great Lakes and deliver the petitions at in-district events during the Memorial Day Congressional break.

View and sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/Restore-the-Great-Lakes

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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Threat Level: Code Red, Severe Risk of Terrorist Attack

Tomorrow the St. Lawrence Seaway will open up for the new season and with it a dangerous threat - Russian born terrorists are poised to take advantage of the event to attack the United States under the watch of President Bush. Where is homeland security when you need it?

The terrorists in question are, of course, aquatic invasive species. The opening of the seaway marks the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the non-native mussel.

The pint-sized terrorists that hale from the Caspian Sea and stow away in the stabilizing ballast water of transatlantic ships first invaded our freshwater shores in the 1988. Since then they have been sending waves of reinforcements every year spreading throughout the Great Lakes and into the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers then to lakes and tributaries in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Everywhere it goes, the zebra mussel devastates the native biodiversity, fouls boat engines, water intakes, dams and power plants. In the most recent attacks, it has employed a biological weapon upon our bird population killing off acres of fowl with a paralyzing botulism.

Ohio Sen. George Voinovich (R) has denounced the invasive species as a “terrorist from abroad” and describes the epic fight to end their scourge as the “second battle of Lake Erie.”

Since the St. Lawrence Seaway opened almost fifty years ago, ballast water discharge from ocean-going vessels is the No. 1 way in which aquatic invasive species enter the Great Lakes. To date, 185 invasive species have made a home in the Great Lakes costing us $5 billion a year. The zebra mussel alone costs regional industry $150 million a year – they have even been blamed for shutting down the Detroit Edison Plant. They came quietly, under the cover of darkness and they multiplied to biblical proportions. But this is one terrorist that John McCain won’t have to follow to the gates of Hell – we know where it is and how it travels - we just need to stop it once and for all.

Federal legislation is pending that would create a national treatment standard for ballast water. Michigan, tired of waiting and paying big annual bills to deal with problems caused by invasive species, passed its own ballast law that went into effect last year. Wisconsin has recently taken steps to become the second Great Lakes state to regulate ballast water, and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland supports a similar move. Absent Congressional leadership the states intend to create a rogue ballast regulation system – the only barrier to hold off the zebra mussel’s reinforcements.

Congress should move to pass strong legislation, and do it quickly – the St. Lawrence is opening up again allowing yet another attack upon our water’s sovereignty. This is a black and white issue – as black and white as totalitarianism versus freedom, communist versus democrat – the zebra mussel and its allies (invasive species) are evil and must be stopped. It is time to don our white hats and be the good guys and save our nation’s most precious resource from a real enemy combatant.

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Coalition Applauds Congress for Improving Great Lakes Funding

Coalition Applauds Congress for Improving Great Lakes Funding

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 14) – The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition today praised the U.S. Senate for passing a budget that increases funding to essential Great Lakes programs to stop invasive species and restore fish and wildlife habitat.

“The U.S. Senate’s budget is a win for the Great Lakes and a win for the millions of people who depend on them for their jobs, health and way of life,” said Jeff Skelding, national campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. “We urge Congress to appropriate the money, because the longer we wait, the problems get worse and the solutions more costly.”

U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) were instrumental in getting the increased funding and getting the budget resolution to reject President Bush’s 16 percent cut in Great Lakes funding and support vital lake programs.

All 16 Great Lakes Senators sent a letter to the Senate Budget Committee asking the Committee to reject the President’s cuts and make room in the Senate’s budget for Great Lakes funding.

“We applaud Sen. Stabenow, Sen. Feingold, and the entire Great Lakes Senate delegation for leading the effort to make sure the Senate’s budget rejects the President’s 16 percent cut in Great Lakes funding and instead recognizes that protecting and restoring the Great Lakes is a priority for the region and nation,” said Skelding. “The Great Lakes are an economic engine for America. Their health is tied to the health of our families and communities.”

The Senate’s budget targets $175 million dollars for Great Lakes programs, including those designed to clean up toxic pollution (Great Lakes Legacy Act), and restore fish and wildlife habitat (Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act and Great Lakes fishery and Ecosystem Restoration), a $77 million increase over the President’s fiscal year 2009 budget request.

For similar programs, the Healing Our Waters Coalition requested a budget of $180 million.

“We look forward to working with the Senate to make sure that the money budgeted for these essential programs is appropriated,” said Skelding. “We have solutions to restore our Great Lakes, our economy, our drinking water and our way of life. It’s time that we use them.”

For more information, visit: http://www.healthylakes.org

Immediate Release:
March 14, 2008

Contact:
Jeff Skelding, Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, 202-797-6893, jskelding@nwf.org
Tracey McIntire, National Parks Conservation Association, 202-454-3311, tmcintire@npca.org
Jordan Lubetkin, National Wildlife Federation, 734-904-1589, lubetkin@nwf.org

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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You Did It!

Something unprecedented happened this week – all sixteen of the Great Lakes US Senators joined forces to tell the Budget Committee that the Great Lakes deserve more money. Can anyone remember a time when all sixteen Senators have come together, across party lines, to sign such a letter before?

“The longer we wait to meet the problems facing the Great Lakes, the more expensive and difficult they will be to solve. To meet just a small demand of problems identified by the Strategy and challenges, we recommend significant funding increases for all Great Lakes specific programs,” the letter states.

Could it be that the Senators were influenced by you? The National Campaign Director of the Healing Our Waters – Great Lakes Coalition, Jeff Skelding thinks so, “It’s not a coincidence that every Great Lake Senator joined in unison to urge for increased federal funding to restore the lakes at the same time the Healing Our Waters Coalition brought more than 150 dedicated Great Lakes advocates to Washington DC. It demonstrates and reaffirms how organized grassroots pressure can still make a difference.”

Past funding has been paltry; still every cent is vital to the region which ultimately needs $26 billion to deal with the problems plaguing the lakes. You told the Senators that the budget was unacceptable and they listened. “The President’s proposed budget cuts come at the worst possible time as the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative Strategy has recently been approved by local stakeholders – a strategy ordered by the President’s own executive order,” according to the Letter spearheaded by Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.), Carl Levin (D -Mich.) and George Voinovich (R-OH).

What a testament to the great effort you went to, leaving job and family to come to Washington and show these same Senators how much the lakes mean to you - their constituents. If you have a moment to thank the Senators for working together on the goals you asked them to focus on it would assure them of your appreciation and keep them aware that you are closely watching this issue.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Nowhere To Go But Up

For those who have dedicated themselves to tirelessly advocating for the Great Lakes, the President’s budget was disheartening to say the least. It became clear to most of us that the restoration of the Lakes and possibly the inspiration for a new vibrant economy in our region won’t happen until we have a Commander-in-Chief who is fully committed to our cause.

“This is not going to happen until we have a candidate for President committed to putting it in the budget,” Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) told us at the US Capitol last week. Just moments before Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D) made the same pronouncement.

Fortunately, due to the tireless work of some of the Great Lakes Congressional Delegation, all the major candidates for president have signed a pledge promising to make restoration a priority during their administration. Both democratic front runners, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are from Great Lakes states and recognized the legitimacy of this ask and quickly signed on.

Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk (R) - keeper of the Great Lakes Pledge – called Senator John McCain – now the Republican nominee for President to get him on board. He signed up as soon as Kirk asked him too, which may have had something to do with his victory in Ohio last night.

“Regardless of who takes the oath of office we’re in!” Kirk said.

But that doesn’t mean we can rest until Election Day. As Levin so eloquently tutored us – we must remind those candidates when they come campaigning in our town during the primary and the general elections that this matters to us. Our vote depends on this commitment. “They must be reminded every chance we get,” Levin said.

Yesterday’s vote in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont leaves the democrats battling each other for the nomination. Obama leads in delegates, but Clinton had enough support to revive her campaign and halt Obama’s momentum. President George Bush is expected to endorse McCain today. Pennsylvania and Indiana are the next Great Lakes states to hold primaries. Let’s make sure to thank the candidates for promising to make the Great Lakes a priority and remind them we will be vigilant about following up on restoration.

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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