Life-Sustaining Waters Of Our Great Lakes Environment Are Under Siege – Yet Again!

Our precious and ever-so-fragile Great Lakes from space. Photo courtesy of Kevin McMahon, producer of the 2009 documentary film 'Waterlife'.

A Commentary by Doug Draper

What kind of shape do you think we are going to find our Great Lakes after a couple of decades of Ontario falling behind New York and other states across the binational border in protecting them?

Well, here is one possibility. We could be back to where we were in the 1970s when Lake Erie was on the verge of choking to death from phosphorus and other sewage, and the waters of all five Great Lakes were flush with pollutants from countless effluent pipes and leaking waste dumps.

According to a new report, called ‘Redefining Conservation’ and released this September 22 by Ontario’s independent environment commissioner Gord Miller, the quality of our Great Lakes waters is declining toward 1970 lows because the province and municipalities are falling behind their American neighbours in curbing sewage and other pollutants to the lakes.

Unlike Ontario, “the Americans have been able to accomplish remarkable clean-ups of their lakes and rivers,” concludes Miller, a former provincial Ministry of Environment official, in the 228-page report that can be viewed by visiting <http://www.eco.on.ca/eng/index.php/pubs/eco-publications/2009-10-annual-report.php> and following the links.
Ontario’s environment ministry, by contrast, seems to be “stuck in neutral,” added Miller, when it comes to the “actions on the ground” needed to monitor and control sources of pollution entering rivers and lakes which, in turn, serve as sources of drinking water for many millions of people.

Ontario Environment Commissioner Gord Miller

In short, Miller concluded there are far from enough steps being taken in Ontario to keep up the wastewater treatment facilities required to control the discharge of sewage and other contaminants from rapidly growing communities on the province’s side of the Great Lakes. “Discharges from municipal wastewater plans are among the largest pollution sources for our Great Lakes, especially for Lake Erie and Lake Ontario,” noted Miller.

The province has also failed to keep an up-to-date inventory of landfill sites that could be poisoning groundwater flowing to the lakes.

Then, of course, where are the environmental cops for the ministry we used to have out there in the field, testing, pushing for action from municipal and industrial waste managers, and laying charges, if need be?

As a reporter who was a full-time environment reporter at The St. Catharines Standard in Ontario from 1979 through the mid-1990s, reading Miller’s report is depressing because it appears we have learned so little from past mistakes that we are truly destined to repeat the consequences of them all over again. And those consequences include a diminished quality of environment that encompasses such vitals as health water to drink and air to breath, for the time we have left, and for future generations.

Sadly, you could see the deteriorating trends leading to Miller’s recent report going back as far as the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Ontario NDP government of Bob Rae did little or nothing to build on the progressive environmental legislation passed by the previous Liberal government of David Peterson. Peterson and his environment minister, St. Catharines, Ontario MPP Jim Bradley who (despite all complaints that have been leveled against him for his lack of gutsy-ness these days) remains to this day, and I join the likes of David Suzuki in saying this, the last dynamic environment minister the province has had, with the backing of a premier who joined Bradley in saying that ‘Earth Day should be every day’.

 The Rae government, before it was done, even began making cuts to the province’s Environment and Natural Resources ministries, and the only strike I recall of environment officers took place during the Rae administration. But then, Rae’s walk back on the progress made up to the 1989 was nothing compared to butchering of budgets, programs and regulations for protecting the environment that took place during administration of Conservative premier Mike Harris for a good six or seven years beginning in 1994. Many still argue that the deaths and many illnesses Walkerton, Ontario residents experienced from drinking contaminated water was the worst manifestation of the gutting of environmental regulations by Harris and company, but I always felt that the real impacts for all of us living in the Great Lakes region would show up over a longer period of time, and those are the impacts being discussed in Miller’s report.

As for the current Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty, it has shown no real interest in returning to the progressive actions taken by the Peterson Liberals. When it comes to monitoring and charging, if need be, those who would pollute the air and water we count on for breathing, and drinking, it has done little to nothing to reverse the gutting of those services by the previous Mike Harris/Ernie Eves administration.

About the only thing one can say in fairness to McGuinty is that he has not received any assistance from the federal government either. When it came to the Great Lakes, Environment Canada was once a strong force for protection but one barely ever hears a peep from Environment Canada any more. In comparison, to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (even under the administration of former Republic president George W. Bush), Environment Canada has almost become a national embarrassment as a voice for environmental protection.

And then there is the rest of us. Yes, that is right, I am talking about we the people who, when pollsters call some of us, the majority of us say we want a clean and healthy environment. But when it gets right down to it, a majority have also shown through our votes that we would rather have tax and spending cuts than more money spent on green projects.

We can blame it all on government if we like, and that is an easy enough thing to do in this day and age of talk radio and bumper slogans. But as the old saying goes; ‘we get the government we deserve’, and too many of us who have even bothered to take the time to vote in federal and provincial elections over the past couple of decades have not had much to say about protecting the quality of our air and water for present and future generations.

Maybe enough of us don’t really care. But that won’t stop future generations who will have to live with the fallout from judging us.

(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)