Sewage Contamination and Beach Closings

The Day after Tomorrow: The Great Lakes in Crisis

Close your eyes and think of the worst disaster movie you’ve ever seen, OK, do you have it set in your mind’s eye? The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition is releasing a report that shows the expected impacts of global warming on the Great Lakes – nearly 95 percent of this nation’s fresh surface water – are much more devastating than anything you could have imagined.

Great Lakes Restoration and the Threat of Global Warming makes it clear that the Great Lakes are poised to reach an irrevocable crisis Read More » »

If You Aren’t Part of the Solution…

Tomorrow is the last day that the Great Lakes Senators can sign onto the Great Lakes Legacy Act as original co-sponsors. It is time for reauthorization of the law that is the best tool in our carpenter’s box to clean up the toxic legacy of the industrial age. US Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and George Voinovich (R-OH) are actively seeking co-sponsors and will introduce the bill this week.

Cosponsors send a strong signal to the guys with the money on the Hill, according to Joy Mulinex, the Great Lakes Task Force Director. “If only a couple of Members sign onto 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 » »

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 » »

Surprise, Surprise, Cities Outspend Feds On Great Lakes Issues

Great Lakes mayors and state officials joined forces in Washington today touting a report that estimates cities, towns and villages are ponying up $15 billion to protect the lakes and keep them clean. Great Lakes residents were disillusioned to say the least when Bush revealed his Budget plan. The President sliced funding for the Great Lakes and scalped local governments efforts to update waste water treatment compounding the shortages for which they will have to make up. But there is still time for Congress to recognize the neglect and authorize spending increases to support ailing sewage systems and conservations plans.

The Read More » »

Talking Turkey and Giving Thanks

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, take a moment this week to call your elected officials in the U.S. Congress and thank them for standing up for the Great Lakes.
 
While a lot of work remains to be done in the effort to restore the Great Lakes, we have made some significant gains this year:
 
The Daddy of them all would be the Asian carp barrier that just passed into law. We will finally have a permanent barrier to prevent the insidious invasive fish from destorying the Great Lakes ecosystem and sport fishery.
 
The U.S. House also went to bat in the effort to 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 » »

Sewage and Beach Closings

During one week in May 2004, more than ten billion gallons of raw sewage and stormwater were dumped into the Great Lakes by the cities of Milwaukee and Detroit through Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs). Heavy rains overwhelmed the sewer systems, exceeding the capacity of the treatment plants and requiring the operators to bypass the treatment systems and send the stormwater and sewage mixture directly into the lakes.

Sewage overflows put bacteria like e. coli and cryptosporidium directly into the lakes, resulting in closed beaches and potential drinking water contamination. In 1993, Milwaukee suffered the Read More » »

Sewage Report Card: Not Looking Good for Great Lakes

The Sierra Legal Defence Fund based in Canada released a new report today that details how Great Lakes cities are fouling the lakes with sewage.

Here’s an eye-opening (and nose-pinching) clip from the press release:

“The Great Lakes basin is one of the most important freshwater ecosystems on the planet – holding one fifth of the world’s freshwater,” said report author Dr. Elaine MacDonald. “Yet, the twenty cities we evaluated are dumping the equivalent of more than 100 Olympic swimming pools full of raw sewage directly into the Great Lakes every single day.”

The report grades municipalities on their efforts to Read More » »

Water Quality

Despite much progress since the Clean Water Act was passed more than thirty years ago, the Great Lakes still suffer from water pollution. The Great Lakes are virtually a closed system, with less than one percent of the water in the lakes renewed each year. This means that what we put in the lakes generally stays in the lakes and certain types of pollutants have been building up in the Great Lakes ecosystem for many years. Major water quality problems in the lakes include toxic pollution, polluted runoff, and sewage overflows and beach closings.