Hearings

They Asked For It and They Got It!

Visibly frustrated Members of Congress held a hearing today to discuss ways to improve the Great Lakes Legacy Act. They are frustrated because of the snail-like pace of progress being made cleaning up the remaining toxic sediments lining the Great Lakes and her tributaries after decades of industrialization and farming.

The Members greedily sought out impediments in the Legacy Act to cleaning up the 30 US Areas of Concern from panelists. What will it take to accelerate the process? Do you need more money? How about $150 million a year? That sounded good to Rep. John Hall (D-NY) who wasn’t shocked Read More » »

Where were you?

Yesterday, the US Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee held a hearing on the Clean Water Restoration Act and not a single Great Lakes Senator attended the hearing. Noticeably absent were the three Great Lakes Senators that sit on the Committee: Hillary R. Clinton (D-NY), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and George Voinovich (R-OH). Way to go Senators.

If any of the Great Lakes Senators have an excuse for not attending the hearing, it is probably Sen. Clinton who is busy campaigning for the democratic nomination for President. Having said that, this bill certainly jives with Clinton’s policy goals, Read More » »

HOW is Naming Names

How many times have we heard our Washington politicians wax on about the Great Lakes being a “national treasure” that must be protected for future generations? Countless. That is why it is mindboggling that there are still a significant number of Great Lakes Members of Congress who have yet to co-sponsor the Clean Water Restoration Act.

Michigan’s Candice Miller has oft cited the need for sustained federal action to deal with the challenges the lakes face – challenges that in her words hamper the protection and preservation of “our precious Great Lakes” and “our magnificent Great Lakes.” Read More » »

Our Lakes and Rivers are Becoming Toxic: Vote For CWRA

This month both the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold hearings on the Clean Water Restoration Act. Thirty-five years after the landmark Clean Water Act was put into motion our water quality has improved somewhat but our goals continue to elude us. This isn’t helped by the fact that too many industrial and municipal facilities surrounding the Great Lakes and lining the rivers that flow into the lakes have violated EPA permit limits. Records show them dumping way more sewage, E.coli, mercury, PCBs, cancer-causing chemicals such as benzo(a)pyrene, suspended solids, and Read More » »

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 Read More » »

EPA Feels the Heat at Senate Hearing

The distinct scent of a tasty roast shrouded the Capitol this morning as EPA Administrator Steve Johnson was grilled by the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee over the environmentally unfriendly 2009 budget. The Great Lakes, in particular, did not fare well in this proposed budget –but they were not forgotten by Great Lakes Senators attending the hearing.

Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) registered his disappointment with the administration’s decision to cut funding for the Great Lakes Legacy Act from $49.6 million (proposed two years ago) to $35 million. “This program shows results – Read More » »

Who Cares If The Water Isn’t Safe?

Defiance, Ohio recently lost nearly 1000 auto industry jobs. The loss takes a deep bite out of the local economy of a relatively small city of 17,000. Like many towns, villages and cities in the Great Lakes region, Defiance has an antiquated waste water treatment system – a deteriorating infrastructure plagued with combined overflow problems. Defiance needs to find $60 million to pay for these problems over the next two decades at a time when jobs are increasingly harder to find.

“Community after community can’t afford to pay the rates,” Ohio Senator George Voinovich (R) told EPA Administrator Steve Johnson in Read More » »

Are We Ready For The Water Wars?

Below the surface of Wednesday’s hearing on water quality in the Great Lakes, was an undercurrent easily perceived by those who follow the issue, but otherwise submerged shying from its emotive nature – water diversion. The idea that other states and countries lustily thirst for our fresh water isn’t lost on any member of the U.S. House panel.

Erie predictions of future water wars emerged with World Bank citations such as: 3 billion of the world’s people will be suffering a water shortage by 2025. The Great Lakes constitute 95 percent of the US Read More » »

They Asked For It

When the first public meeting in nearly two years of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration opens in Chicago today, conveners will get an earful from representatives of the Healing Our Waters Coalition. The litany of grievances is long, but it can be boiled down to an indictment of the Environmental Protection Agency’s miserable leadership.

Let’s start with the meeting – thanks for calling it, but why wait two years? Did a recent letter signed by over 30 members of Congress and directed Read More » »