News from the American-based citizens group Alliance
(A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large – With the unfortunate demise a few years ago of the binational citizens group Great Lakes United, The Alliance for the Great Lakes, although based in the U.S., is the only real group we have left with a reach across the basin that includes working with Canadian citizen groups when possible. For the sake of these Great Lakes – the largest reservoir of life-sustaining fresh water on this earth – do what you can to support this group.)
A look at the world’s largest basin of fresh water from space
Support for Great Lakes restoration funding and protection against Asian carp are key Great Lakes priorities for the new Congress, with algae-promoting nutrient pollution topping a list of issues to watch with wary eye.
The Alliance reached out to congressional members this week with a lineup of Great Lakes priorities needing their attention in 2015.
Among these priorities is reprising critical legislation from 2014. This includes Ohio Rep. David Joyce’s bipartisan bill to formally authorize the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative at $300 million for the next five years — legislation that furthered a regional priority of the Great Lakes-Healing Our Waters Coalition. The measure passed the House in December but time ran out before similar legislation introduced by Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk could pass the finish line in the Senate. We’re pleased to see Rep. Joyce has already reintroduced the legislation this session and that it continues to enjoy bipartisan support.
Another priority: Reduce the risk of Asian carp reaching the Great Lakes. This can be achieved in the near–term by congressional funding of tangible risk-reduction measures planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but the corps must also make progress toward a long-term solution that prevents the movement of all invasive species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.
The need to stem the flow of excess nutrient pollution into the Great Lakes is yet another priority, one underscored last summer when more than a half million people in communities around western Lake Erie experienced drinking water bans as a result of massive nutrient-fed harmful algal blooms. Much of the action needed on this issue is at the state level, yet members of the Great Lakes delegation should keep an ear to the ground because of this problem’s potential to seriously impact their constituents, particularly those living in areas rich in agriculture.
Other Great Lakes priorities for the new Congress include:
* Outdated and failing wastewater infrastructure
* Great Lakes youth education
* Crude oil transportation on the lakes
There is much work to be done in 2015, and we’re confident that the spirit of bipartisan cooperation on issues relating to Great Lakes protection that marked 2014 will guide the Congress on this and other Great Lakes issues in this session.
Alliance is the oldest Great Lakes organization devoted 100 percent to the lakes. Our professional staff works with scientists, policymakers, businesses, community groups and everyday citizens to protect and restore the world’s largest surface freshwater resource.
From forging forward-looking Great Lakes policies to promoting Great Lakes education to on-the-ground efforts to improve thousands of miles of Great Lakes shoreline, we’ve been out front and behind the scenes caring for the lakes since 1970.
Learn more about the Alliance and how you can support it by clicking on http://www.greatlakes.org/ .
(Now Niagara At Large invites all of you who care and dare to place your real name on the line in the name of transparency and accountability, to share your views below.)
Niagara At Large 
The past performance of the Republican led Government leaves many with the fear that they will back away from maintaining the health of the Great Lakes due to their total allegiance with the corporate sector and agenda of profit and more profit and to hell with the results.
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