Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - NACWA in the News
Report Says Ecosystem of Lakes Imperiled, In Need of Immediate Federal Support
The Great Lakes' ecosystem is in danger of collapsing from new
and existing human-induced stresses like pollution, invasive species, and
climate change, requiring immediate and significant federal investment and
action, according to a report released Dec. 8 by a coalition of environmental
and civic groups.
"The major cause of ecosystem breakdown is the severe damage that has been done
to the Great Lakes' self-regulating mechanisms," according to the Prescription
for Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection and Restoration report, which was
commissioned by the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.
"Over time, the combined effects of a whole suite of stresses from a variety of
human-induced sources have overwhelmed the ecosystem's self-regulating
mechanism," the report continued.
The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition is a coalition of 60 civic,
environmental, and conservation groups led by the National Wildlife Federation
and National Parks Conservation Association; it was formed in 2005 to address
the environmental problems faced in the region.
The Great Lakes report, penned by eight U.S. and Canadian scientists and
endorsed by 61 scientists in both countries, emphasized the need for a
comprehensive rather than a piecemeal approach to restoring the Great Lakes
watersheds.
"We need a coherent comprehensive approach," said Alfred Beeton, one of the
report's authors. Beeton is an adjunct professor with the University of Michigan
and a former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.
Steps taken in the 1960s to solve the problem of excessive nutrient runoff in
Lake Erie did work, Beeton told reporters Dec. 8.
Low-Oxygen Areas Increase Each Year
Since then, however, the Great Lakes have been overtaken by a host of other
polluting sources, notably invasive species, which are devouring the food and
oxygen levels of native species, leading to "irreversible" damage to the
ecosystem, Beeton said.
The impacts of excessive nitrogen in Lake Erie were visible in the 1960s
"because you could see green algae floating around," said Donald Scavia, a
University of Michigan professor and co-author of the report. But today the
environmental impacts are invisible; one "cannot see the impacts of invasive
species on fish populations" or the drops of oxygen levels and their impacts on
aquatic species, Scavia said.
Although scientists have been observing and reporting low oxygen levels in Lake
Erie since the early 1930s, Beeton said, the areas encompassing low-oxygen
levels are growing each year.
"The Great Lakes are in far worse condition today," Scavia said.
The scientists called for "significant new federal funding" to at least begin
efforts to restore shoreline "buffer zones," such as removing dams, restoring
lakes and streams to their natural flows, restoring wetlands and lake
tributaries, and restricting land use in critical watersheds.
No New Money for Lakes
The Dec. 8 Great Lakes report comes just as EPA prepares to deliver Dec. 12 a
final version of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy that President
Bush requested in 2004. The strategy, which would spell out timetables and
identify programs and funding for approaches to restore the Great Lakes, has
been developed in collaboration with a federal agency task force, with EPA as
the lead agency, members of Congress, local government officials, regional
Indian tribes, and environmental and civic groups. A draft of this strategy was
issued in July 2005 (130 DEN A-9, 07/8/05 ).
This strategy, however, identifies no new sources of money; rather, it leans
toward adopting the task force's proposal, which urges use of existing programs
and money to clean up the Great Lakes, according to a Democratic aide on Capitol
Hill. The federal interagency task force review was completed on Oct. 28, 2005
(209 DEN A-1, 10/31/05 ).
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), who was briefed Dec. 7 by EPA Administrator Stephen
Johnson about the upcoming Dec. 12 Great Lakes strategy, said he was "outraged"
that EPA has chosen to adopt the interagency reports.
In a statement issued Dec. 7, Dingell said: "The bottom line is that we have had
enough study and wasted enough time; what we need is for the federal government
to invest in the Lakes. We need to restore and protect this precious resource
and it's going to take money to do this."
EPA spokesman Dale Kemery declined to comment on Dingell's statement.
Congress Unable to Find New Money
The draft strategy called for a $13 billion investment in sewage treatment plant
infrastructure to minimize polluted wastewater from entering the Great Lakes.
The National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) has been pushing
Congress to establish a clean water trust fund, which would be similar to the
highway trust fund and be made up of grants and loans. At present, states have
to rely on funds Congress appropriates for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund
Program to upgrade aging sewer and stormwater infrastructure in localities,
according to Adam Krantz, managing director of NACWA's government and public
affairs office.
The House Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee held a hearing on the
trust fund in June 2005. According to Krantz, many subcommittee members did
express an interest in the legislation, and NACWA hopes a bill will be
introduced soon.
"The consistent cuts to the CWSRF demonstrate the need for an innovative
approach, and we believe there will broad support for the trust fund concept on
the Hill," Krantz said.
However, other efforts in Congress to reinstate a federal grants program for
assisting upgrades of municipal sewage treatment plants and to increase funding
for the Clean Water revolving fund program have not been successful, according
to the Democratic aide.
Krantz told BNA Dec. 8 that he agreed with the authors of the coalition report
as well as Dingell that more federal funding is needed to improve water quality
in the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and Gulf of Mexico.
In each one of these watersheds, "everyone is finding that funding need is
absolutely enormous," Krantz said. The "we'll regulate you, but not provide any
funding" approach just cannot work any longer. Absent federal funding, Krantz
said, "we are only going to see a growing water quality problem."
The report, Prescription for Great Lakes Ecosystem Protection and Restoration,
can be obtained online at
http://www.restorethelakes.org/PrescriptionforGreatLakes.pdf.