Legacy Act to the Rescue

The Great Lakes Legacy Act is coming to the Grand Calumet’s rescue with a $33 million plan to cleanup 91,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment. The mile long clean up on the river will become the seventh project to be administered by the Great Lakes Legacy Act.

The Great Lakes Congressional Delegation tried very hard to get the act reauthorized at triple the funding this past September but with the collapse of the financial market weighing heavily on the US Senate’s minds they decided to provide the current $50 million for the next two years and then revisit the program.

Indiana’s Governor Mitch Daniels, flanked by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the state level equivalent announced the effort yesterday. The river bottom is stocked with heavy metals, PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and pesticides. It drains into Lake Michigan at a rate of one billion gallons of water a day. The clean up should have a profound effect on the health of the lake and the region’s drinking water.

Lower Water Levels = Bad Economy

Climate change scientists predict that Great Lakes water levels will continue to dive as the Earth’s atmosphere heats up. That’s not only bad news for shippers it is bad news for our national economy too.

A recent Toledo Blade story, “Warming Likely to Affect Great Lakes Shipping,” by Tom Henry says that the shipping industry could be “devastated” since every inch a lake falls affects the industry and its economy by millions of dollars. The reporter quotes a Corps of Engineers Chief saying he doesn’t understand why the Government isn’t taking the problem more seriously given what is at stake.

The Lakes provide transportation for much commerce, but declining lake levels mean that ships leave the docks with much less cargo than in years past. Not moving that cargo affects 70 percent of this nation’s steelmaking needs, 70 percent of our automobile production and more than half of all this country’s heavy manufacturing. This region makes what the rest of this nation and the world takes – doesn’t that make us just as important as those fancy bankers on Wall Street?

Coalition Welcomes Business Support for Great Lakes

Statement by Jeff Skelding, campaign director, Healing Our Waters® -Great Lakes Coalition

Today, more than 25 prominent regional chambers of commerce in the Great Lakes region—led by the Detroit Regional Chamber—released an agenda to grow the economy. Restoring the Great Lakes is one of the five pillars of the federal legislative agenda.

“The Healing our Waters – Great Lakes Coalition applauds these regional chambers of commerce around the Great Lakes for recognizing that the economic health of this region is inextricably tied to the health of our lakes.

“Today’s announcement by business leaders sends a clear message to Congress and the Presidential candidates: act now to restore the world’s largest source of fresh water before the problems get worse and more costly.

“The Brookings Institution estimates that a $26 billion investment to restore the Great Lakes to stop sewage contamination, halt invasive species, and clean up toxic pollution will produce more than $80 billion from increases in property values, tourism, fishing industry and recreation.

“That’s an investment well worth making and underscores why families, businesses, farmers and industry leaders have supported the restoration and protection of the lakes—because the health of the Great Lakes will determine the health and prosperity of our communities now and for generations to come.”

For a list of all of the chambers that have endorsed the investment of $26 billion to restore the Great Lakes, see the following resources:

Press Release: http://www.detroitchamber.com/about_us/press_releases.asp?cid=27

Chamber Federal Economic Agenda: http://www.detroitchamber.com/docs/BizAgenda.pdf

Brookings Institution Economic Paper: http://www.healthylakes.org/news-events/events/2007/09/05/new-report-restoring-great-lakes-would-bring-region-50-billion-in-economic-gain

For Immediate Release:
October 15, 2008

Contact:
Jordan Lubetkin, Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, (734) 904-1589, lubetkin@nwf.org

A Real Economic Recovery Package

If Boston is the cradle of American liberty then the Great Lakes region is surely the cradle of American ingenuity and it just happens to hold twenty percent of the world’s freshwater, and it is the second largest economy in the world (as long as we include Canada’s two largest Provinces in our rendition). That is pretty impressive and so is this – our region is responsible for a third of our nation’s GDP and 90 percent of our country’s fresh water – we have the resources and power and now a plan to turn this recent economic downturn around.

The Great Lakes Region Coalition – a group of more than 30 chambers of commerce and nearly 100,000 employers – has launched an aggressive plan to attract investment and create employment that will reverberate throughout the national and global economies. “What is good for the Midwest is good for the United States,” said Mark A. V’Soske, president of the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The timing of the unveiling has not been lost on most – yes, it was meant to take advantage of the frequent visits being made to the swing districts and states in this region as they attempt to woo our vital votes.

“As the presidential candidates vigorously campaign for votes in these swing states, they need to hear from the employers creating jobs and growing businesses on how best to strengthen the region’s economy,” said Andrew J. Rudnick, president and CEO for the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

Last February a summit of Metropolitan Chambers of Commerce in the Great Lakes was held and the result has been this shared agenda. A report, A Business Agenda for Economic Transformation in the Great Lakes Region, has been releasedby the Great Lakes Region Coalition and the Brookings Institute that details what is needed and what the federal government can do to help along our economic recovery. The focus of these efforts is to promote the Great Lakes and the fresh water within them as the economic engine that they have been in the past and can be again in the future. The lakes can easily be leveraged to support business development and research in the areas of fresh water technology, water-based development, improving supply and quality of fresh water, but none of this can be done without a significant investment in the Great Lakes Restoration plan that is now pending before Congress. We need a president who will drive home that legislative and fiscal package to harness the potential of the lakes and unleash a new, powerful, economic recovery in the heart of this nation. If our leadership can bail out the banking industry to a tune of $250 billion (and a potential cost of $2.25 trillion) then they can surely spare the $20 billion needed to fulfill this agenda.
“Midwestern states are leading exporters for the U.S. and improving the region’s economic standing will strengthen the nation’s role in the global economy,” said Michael Langley, CEO for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development based in Pittsburgh.

Tap Into the Great Lakes

When former Presidential Hopeful Bill Richards made his silly comment about Wisconsin being “awash in water,” during a time of drought in the American South and West, no one could have imagined the significant of those three words to our region. Just a year later, the momentum unleashed during Richards speech, has been translated into the Great Lakes Compact and now, a new chamber of commerce campaign called “tap into Erie.”

Erie, PA has recognized the powerful allure of the Lakes with an aggressive campaign to draw business to their area from water hungry parts of the country. The Chamber of Commerce is actively coaxing business in Atlanta that need fresh water to function such as breweries, small steel mills and data centers. Milwaukee has embarked on a similar national campaign using the Lakes as the incentive. These very clever moves could have similar consequences to the invention of air conditioning but in our direction– a reverse migration from the dry Southeast and West to the new improved northern coast. What a great idea. This is just another example that drives home the point made by Brookings Institution’s economic study that found that for every dollar invested in the Great Lakes the region will see a $2 profit.

Caution: Great Lakes may be Hazardous to Your Health

With her dying breath, Nancy Nichols sister asked her to write a book telling the world that her rare ovarian cancer was the result of years of living near, swimming in and eating fish from Waukegan Harbor on Lake Michigan.

Not only did Nancy write Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town’s Toxic Legacy but she also learned she had pancreatic cancer while researching for the book. Ms. Nichols recently discussed her story with National Public Radio host Diane Rehm–you can listen to the interview here. There is no prior history of cancer in Nancy’s family, but both girls are convinced they acquired the disease via years of Friday night fish fries, and swimming and playing in an area of concern - a very polluted part of the Great Lakes. Their story illustrates that when profits are piling up there is a distinct lack of concern for public health among government and business. It also illustrates why we can’t sit around and wait another ten years to clean up the remaining 28 Areas of Concern (AOC) that harbor these toxic chemicals.

This family’s tragic story just goes to show that restoring the Great Lakes isn’t only an environmental or economic issue; it is a public health issue. Cleaning up the AOC’s is about cleaning up our drinking water, our dinner plates and the future of our very own health.

This story has been published on the heals of a government cover up over the affect the toxic pollution is causing on public health, as well as a US Senate vote that determined that the Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA) will be funded at current levels for two more years. The GLLA is the best resource we have to clean up the AOCs and it has been very effective over the last five years, except that it is moving at a very slow pace. Our congressional delegation from the GL region tripled funding for the act over the next five years after learning such a move would clean up ALL the AOC’s within the next ten years. These hopes have been put on hold by the US Senate’s vote, but we have another opportunity in two years to try and increase funding and the pace of clean up once more. I wonder how many more stories like Nancy’s will be published by that time.

Don’t Let The Door Hit You

Even in the waning days of his administration, President George W. Bush is promoting business over restoration in our region. In stark contrast to the heady days of his presidential campaign when he stood on our northern coast and promised restoration, Bush has instructed his lackeys at the Environmental Protection Agency to exempt water transfers from the Clean Water Act and lobby Congressional leadership to give us less money to clean up the stinky, hazardous areas of concern.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is suing the EPA for creating a loophole in the CWA that would allow lots of pollution to go right into our lakes. This careless act would allow polluted sediments to get into our drinking water; it would mix warm water with cold waters and salt water with fresh destroying habitats and bringing more invasive species into the Lakes; it would even free up chemicals to make their way into the irrigation waters that produce our food – yuck!

“The Bush EPA continues to create environmental loopholes that will degrade New York’s waterways, prevent fishermen and others from enjoying our streams, and put the Great Lakes at risk,” Attorney General Cuomo told the Hudson Valley Press. “Some of New York’s most prized water bodies – including the Long Island Sound, Lake Champlain, and the Hudson River – could be harmed by the EPA’s illegal rule. As long as the actions of the Bush EPA break the law and threaten our environment, we will continue to fight back.”

In fact, this EPA took incredulous to new heights when the Assistant Administrator for Water, Ben Grumbles wrote to the leadership on the Hill begging them not to increase the funding in the Great Lakes Legacy Act! The House approved tripling the funding of the GLLA in order to finish off the clean-up of the 31 AOC’s in the next ten years, so that we could have clean, healthy drinking water as well as make the lakes swimmable and fishable again. Astonishingly, Toledo Blade Commentator Tom Henry points out, Bush directed Grumbles to lobby against the increased funding. With the recent crash of all things financial, the US Senate did reduce the funding to the current rate for the next two years. We’ll never know if Grumbles had anything to do with the change of heart.

All this goes to show that no matter who wins the White House in November we need to loudly promote an EPA that is going to be Great Lakes friendly. The candidates can promise all they want on the road to the White House but until they appoint a Great Lakes Czar to take our fresh water into the next century it is all talk

Signed, Sealed and Delivered

Hear ye, hear ye, the Great Lakes Compact is law. With one fell swoop of his pen, President George Bush sealed the deal on our eight-state-two-nation compact.

While some argued that the Compact moved to swiftly through the ratification process, Gov. Jim Doyle pointed out that it took years to forge the pact – ten to be exact. “After years of negotiating and building support for this interstate compact, we now have a defined legal framework to protect the waters that define us,” Doyle stated.

The whole thing started ten years ago when our region was outraged that a Canadian businessman would try to ship Lake Superior’s water to fresh water starved Asia. Five years of negotiation followed and culminated in the great Milwaukee summit of 2005 when new rules were set to prevent large scale water diversions from the Great Lakes, reports Dan Egan in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Finally, there is a legal framework – a Christmas Tree upon which to hang our restoration ornaments –so let’s hope that we can finally finish the work of restoration while protecting our drinking water at the same time.