By Doug Draper
On June 13, 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood in the middle of the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls and announced that officials from her country and Canada were finally going to get together in earnest and negotiate a new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. It would be one that is more responsive to the environmental threats facing the Great Lakes today, she promised.
U.S. Secrectary of State announces plans to negotiate new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement three years ago in Niagara Falls. Photo by Doug Draper
Clinton’s announcement made for something else to celebrate aside from the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Canada-U.S. Boundary Waters Treaty, which she had also come to the greater Niagara region to recognize. Environmentalists cheered the announcement that may only have been possible because the then-new U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, which Clinton is working for, punched through years of lethargy on the part of the former U.S. Bush administration, and federal and provincial Liberal and Conservative governments federally and provincially when it comes to addressing Great Lakes environmental concerns.
And now here we are. It has taken more than three years, but this September 7 in Washington, D.C., Canadian and American officials signed a revised Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and environmental groups on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border are applauding, with a strong message of caution. “While we praise the signing of this new agreement,” said John Jackson, interim executive director of the two-country public interest group Great Lakes United based in Buffalo, New York, “this is only the first step. No matter what the words on the pages say, this agreement will only be effective if the U.S. and Canadian governments act to implement it.”
Indeed, this new agreement, which places more emphasis than any of its predecessors over the past four decades on addressing the threat of Asian carp and other invasive species in and around the Great Lakes, a growing nutrient/algae pollution problem in Lake Ontario that could ultimately destroy a billion-dollar commercial and recreational fishery in that lake if it is not arrested, the abandoned toxic waste dumps still leaking poisons to the waters, and the washing into the lakes of contaminants from both urban and rural lands, requires a commitment of regulatory support and money.
The problem is that over the past couple of decades, there has been a general weakening of regulations in both countries, along with front-line staff cuts to provincial, state and federal agencies responsible for enforcing them. An apathetic public, if not an increasingly uncaring one (especially aging baby boomers who seem more into their immediate interests than they are into the mess they are passing on to younger generation, has also made it easy for governments everywhere to cut funding to Great Lakes protection programs.
The waters of the Great Lakes, as seen in this satellite photo, are vital to the health and prosperity of our greater Niagara region and all who live here.
The Obama administration has at least countered the Bush cuts to environmental programs with an infusion of more than $1 billion into Great Lakes programs over the past three years, although that is a mere drop in the bucket compared to how much the U.S. has been spending over the past decade on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. By comparison, the Harper administration in Canada has spent less than $100 million on Great Lakes cleanup programs, even while it is willing to spend billions of dollars on new fighter jets.
One may make a strong case that protecting and preserving the world’s largest supply of fresh water and all of the life they support is at least as important to the present and future security of Canada and the United States as investing countless billions of dollars on weapons of war.
“We hope that this revised (Great Lakes) agreement will revitalize the binational focus on protecting the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River ecosystem,” added Jackson this September 7. “This agreement is the main way in which the governments work internationally across the basin on water quality issues. For the well-being of the millions of people who live in the basin, we must ensure that this new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is implemented fully and effectively.”
Niagara At Large will have more on Great Lakes environmental issues in the days and weeks to come. What is also vital is coverage from a mainstream media that has eliminated environmental reporting beats and devotes only a small fraction of the space it did a couple of decades ago on environmental issues. The mainstream media, which has resources for news coverage that tiny independents like NAL can only dream of at this point, has a very important role to play in raising public awareness about what needs to be done to address threats to the natural resources we need to sustain our health and prosperity as individuals and communities.
We should all be asking when the corporate media chains are going to show some responsibility on the news side when it comes to stories as important as the welfare of the greatest reservoir of fresh water on this planet.
You can review a copy of the revised Canada/U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement by clicking on the site for the International Joint Commission and follow the links at http://www.ijc.org/en/home/main_accueil.htm .
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