Lots of activity coming out of the Great Lakes Commission, here are highlights:
Study to assess invasive threats to microbial community:
http://www.glc.org/email/08/newsbriefs02-08.html
The Great Lakes Commission is assisting with a new initiative to probe the sensitivity of the Great Lakes microbial community to newcomers and develop tools and processes to protect it. The arrival of the viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) virus in the Great Lakes, and its subsequent impact on fish populations, raised awareness of the potential hazards presented by nonnative pathogens. The new initiative, headed by the Northeast-Midwest Institute, will look at the potential impacts of such invaders on the Great Lakes microbial community itself, and develop new techniques for monitoring and detecting them. The Great Lakes Commission will assist in coordinating state involvement and developing potential institutional and policy changes. Funding is provided by a $1 million grant from the Great Lakes Protection Fund.
Ballast water, wetlands, clean water among top Congressional priorities:
http://www.glc.org/announce/08/02priorities.html
See www.glc.org/restore for GLC’s FY 2009 legislative priorities factsheet
In unveiling its FY2009 federal legislative priorities today, the Great Lakes Commission is urging Congress and the administration to join Great Lakes states, cities, Tribal governments, industry, environmental organizations and others by increasing federal investment in the Great Lakes.
At the top of the list: legislation to curb the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species and to implement other key recommendations of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration’s Strategy to Restore and Protect the Great Lakes. The Commission’s priorities are consistent with and complement those of the Council of Great Lakes Governors.
“With one-fifth of the Earth’s surface freshwater supply, the Great Lakes are truly a world-class resource and a national treasure without peer,” said Michigan Lt. Gov. John Cherry, chair of the Great Lakes Commission. “State, local, tribal and private interests contribute billions of dollars for Great Lakes protection. It is essential that the federal government step up its support, recognizing that investing in the Great Lakes will protect a national asset and produce a good return for taxpayers’ dollars.”
Acting on behalf of its membership, the Great Lakes states, the Commission will present its annual list of federal legislative priorities to Congress on Feb. 28, Great Lakes Day in Washington. The annual event, held in conjunction with the Northeast-Midwest Institute and the Healing Our Waters® - Great Lakes Coalition, is designed to convey a unified message regarding Great Lakes needs and legislation to address them.
Among the Commission’s highest priority are:
· Enacting legislation to curb the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species by ensuring that commercial vessels visiting Great Lakes ports meet uniform ballast water discharge requirements, providing funding to control invasive sea lamprey and to complete a barrier to prevent Asian carp from migrating into the lakes from the Mississippi drainage.
· Reauthorizing and fully funding the Great Lakes Legacy Act at $150 million a year to clean up contaminated hot spots in Great Lakes rivers and harbors.
· Appropriating $28.5 million to restore 200,000 acres of wetlands, toward the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration strategy’s goal of restoring 550,000 acres.
· Appropriating $1.35 billion nationwide to protect water quality by restoring funding to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which was cut significantly in 2008. The program is essential to updating sewerage systems and improving coastal health in the Great Lakes and nationwide.
The full list of the Commission’s FY2009 legislative priorities is available at www.glc.org/restore.
Federal funding for Great Lakes-St. Lawrence restoration lags far behind local investment, new report finds:
http://www.glc.org/announce/08/02cities.html
Report Estimates $15 billion in Local Spending as Officials Warn Feds That Continued Funding Shortages Will Jeopardize the Future of the Resource
WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 27) -- A report released today by the Great Lakes Commission and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative (Cities Initiative) and funded by the Joyce Foundation, concludes that local governments in the U.S. and Canada invest an estimated $15 billion annually to protect and restore the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, but cannot keep pace with the one-two punch of escalating threats to the resource and ongoing cuts in federal restoration programs.
“This report clearly demonstrates that our cities and other communities are ready and willing partners in the protection and restoration of the Great Lakes – St. Lawrence ecosystem,” said Michigan Lt. Gov. John Cherry, chair of the Great Lakes Commission. “Their contributions at the local level play a key role in the environmental health and well-being of the entire system, and they need and deserve federal support in those efforts.”
“This study makes it clear that there is a growing movement that recognizes the need for long-term funding for Great Lakes protection and restoration, but it also suggests that we need to do more,” said Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago, founding U.S. chair of the Cities Initiative. “All our cities desperately need significant funding for water and wastewater infrastructure, but it’s still not on the radar of the national government and it’s time for them to step up and help protect this precious natural resource.”
Results from the 143 U.S. and Canadian local governments that responded to the survey document 2006 local investment at $2.5 billion on water quality management activities, including wastewater systems operation, maintenance and infrastructure, and $784 million on ecosystem protection activities such as greenspace protection and recycling/reuse programs. By extrapolating to incorporate the entire survey population of 688 local governments, which included cities, towns, villages, counties, regional municipalities and conservation authorities, the estimated local government investment is $15 billion annually, with $12 billion for water quality management and $3 billion for ecosystem protection.
“We embarked on this survey because we knew that in day-to-day operations, local governments invest a great deal in Great Lakes and St. Lawrence protection and restoration, but we did not have hard numbers,” said Mayor David Miller of Toronto, founding Canadian chair of the Cities Initiative. “Now we can make the case to our Federal Governments that they must significantly increase their investment and introduce dedicated funding in Canada for critical protection efforts like wastewater treatment systems in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence region.”
The survey found that in both the United States and Canada, local investment was highest in the area of wastewater systems operation, maintenance and infrastructure. U.S. survey results alone indicate that local government makes capital investments in wastewater infrastructure in the Great Lakes Basin at well over 10 times the U.S. federal government. Federal funding through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) has been cut by 49 percent since 2004 and more cuts are proposed for 2009. When viewed in light of the survey results, these cuts only amplify the need for Congress to restore funding of the CWSRF to $1.35 billion.
“We all share the responsibility for this resource,” said Mayor Gary Becker of Racine, current Cities Initiative chair. “How can it be that U.S. and Canadian local governments spend an estimated $12 billion a year on crucial water and wastewater systems and operations that help keep the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence waters protected and our Federal Governments cannot even fund $1 billion for these critical systems in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Basin? Any future federal cuts for wastewater infrastructure are totally unacceptable.”
The report is expected to build support in the United States for federal legislation to implement recommendations of the 2005 Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy to Restore and Protect the Great Lakes – the product of a year-long initiative among federal, state and local governments, tribes and other stakeholders that was established by a presidential executive order. Among the Strategy’s foremost recommendations to protect and restore the Great Lakes is increased federal investment in storm-and wastewater treatment, to supplement the substantial local investment documented in the report.
“The report underscores the need for the federal government to lend a hand to local communities on the front line in the fight to restore the Great Lakes, because every day we wait the problems get worse and the solutions more costly," said Jeff Skelding, national campaign director for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. "We have solutions. It is time to use them to restore our lakes, our economy and our way of life.”
Another issue brought to light by the report is the need for better accounting of how much other orders of government spend on the resource. “While we know funding for various efforts has been decreasing over the years, there doesn’t seem to be an understanding of the aggregate that is currently being spent on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence by all orders of government, including on the Canadian side,” said Cities Initiative Vice chair Mayor Lynn Peterson of Thunder Bay. “Ideally, Canada would undertake an effort to understand what more needs to be done in Canada to further the protection of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence.”
For more information on the study and its findings, please visit www.glslcities.org or www.glc.org/glinvestment.
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Distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving aquatic invasive species information for research and educational purposes.
