Progress Illinois

When United Nations officials cast the dire warning that freshwater shortage would effect two-thirds of the world's population by 2025, people in the Great Lakes Region began looking over their shoulders. The idea that powerful forces could set their sights on tapping into the world's largest freshwater supply was, simply put, frightening.

Four years ago, politicians, scientists, and business leaders from the eight-state region decided it was time to put their heads together and come up with a plan for protecting the Great Lakes from diversions beyond the region.

What they came up with is the Great Lakes Compact, which cleared it's final legislative hurdle today after approval by all eight statehouses. Now that the U.S. House has signed off on the measure -- which sailed through the Senate in August -- it'll make its way to President Bush, who has signaled he'll sign it into law.

Until the end, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) joined some environmentalists in opposing the agreement, which he sees as too weak to thwart off future legal challenges aimed at draining the lake.

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Barack Obama made headlines today with a proposal to dump $5 billion worth of oil and gas company profits into Great Lakes conservation and restoration efforts over the next decade.

While the will has been there, securing federal money has been an ongoing challenge for both conservationists and elected officials who have been pushing to advance Great Lakes restoration efforts. They created the Great Lakes Regional Collaborative (GLRC) in 2004, drawing scientists, business leaders and policy makers together in support of a $20 billion, five-year plan for restoring the world's single largest source of fresh water.

"The problem is that we haven't gotten the kind of investment that we need to get the plan off the ground," said Joel Brammeier, vice president of policy with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. A lack of federal money has been key, he said, because it would help to attract other local and private sources of money.

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Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee approved the Great Lakes Compact, an eight state agreement designed to protect water from the lakes from being diverted outside the region. Lawmakers have been trying to fast-track approval of the compact, which has bipartisan support, including from President Bush. There had been some concern that legislators from drought-prone regions of the country would find fault with the conservation agreement, but so far that does not appear to be the case:

House and Senate leaders from the region have said they are not aware of any significant opposition to the plan, which is common among states. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia currently belong to at least one interstate water compact, and many states belong to more than one.

The question that remains is just how effective the compact will be. With confidence high over its prospects, some environmentalists and lawmakers are questioning whether it will do enough to prohibit the "commercialization" of Great Lakes water:

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak [D-MI] has spoken out with concerns that the compact's failure to regulate the export of water in containers smaller than 5.7 gallons is a loophole that could open up vast tracts of Michigan water to commercialization.

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On Friday, Ohio became the latest state to approve the Great Lakes Compact, joining Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, and New York. This leaves only two of the eight Great Lakes states -- Michigan and Pennsylvania -- that are yet to sign the agreement, which would ensure that the water from the lakes remains in the region. Michigan's bill just passed the state legislature and is currently awaiting Gov. Jennifer Granholm's signature. Pennsylvania's House has signed off on a measure joining the interstate compact, but it is yet to be taken up by the Senate.

With the compact so close to reaching ratification in all eight states, its supporters are now turning their sights on the final step: approval by Congress and President Bush. The AP reports:

[B]ackers have been conducting briefings for congressional staffers from the Great Lakes states in hopes of gaining quick approval.

But crucial questions remain unanswered, such as who will be the primary House and Senate sponsors, which committees will consider the compact and whether it will be structured as a bill, a resolution or an amendment to other legislation. Also unclear is when the pact would be introduced and whether it can get through Congress before the next president takes office.

"This has moved so much quicker than any of us thought," said Cameron Davis, president of the Chicago-based Great Lakes Alliance. "We're putting finishing touches on some of these strategic points but don't have our final thoughts quite ready yet."

With an accord reached Tuesday between Democratic and Republican state lawmakers, Ohio will become the sixth state to ratify the Great Lakes Compact:

Ohio had been a major obstacle to the pact because of a disagreement over whether the plan would inadvertently violate property rights for groundwater on privately owned land. House Speaker Jon Husted, a Republican, and Democratic Minority Leader Joyce Beatty, reached a deal Monday to affirm private property rights and set the stage for Tuesday's vote.

The Great Lakes hold about 90 percent of our nation's fresh surface water and 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water. As water resources become more scarce, the compact is viewed by supporters as a means of protecting the environment, and as a way for people in the region to protect their water rights. But some environmentalists say that the compact itself gives states too many options to continue the wholesale privatization of surface water.

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Today the Healing Our Waters coalition released a report on the threat posed to the Great Lakes by global warming. According to the press release, the report "synthesizes current climate change science and presents the likely impacts warming temperatures will have on the lakes, including lower lake levels, more sewage overflows, and increased pressure to divert Great Lakes water."

The AP provides more detail:

Evaporation rates are likely to rise, causing already-low water levels to fall 1 foot on Lake Superior, 3 feet on Lakes Michigan and Huron, 2.7 feet on Lake Erie and 1.7 feet on Lake Ontario over the next century, the report says.

Such changes likely would make the Great Lakes more hospitable to invaders that steal food and shelter from native species, it says. Coastal wetlands that filter pollutants and provide fish spawning grounds would shrink. Exposed toxic sediments would endanger people and wildlife.

If predictions of more frequent and severe storms prove accurate, it could mean more sewage overflows that lead to beach closings, the report says. Meanwhile, arid regions could get even less rainfall, making the Great Lakes a more tempting target.

The coalition is seeking federal funding for its $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan.

In related news, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law a bill approving the Great Lakes Compact yesterday. This leaves three state governments -- Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio -- that are yet to approve the agreement.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley greeted the news by ... ridiculing Wisconsin for taking so long. Doyle's spokesman responded: "Maybe Mayor Daley is a little off because he just had so many constituents escape Chicago for a beautiful weekend in Wisconsin."

This week, the U.S. House is considering the reauthorization of the Great Lakes Legacy Act, a federal program that targets 31 pollution sites on the Great Lakes for cleanup. The project has already had an impact, having removed about 800,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment since its inception. The Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment heard testimony yesterday from environmentalists about the progress of cleanup efforts, and pleas from representatives of Great Lakes states for more funding. In fact, the program has never been given the full $150 million in annual funding that Congress initially approved:

At the current pace, figures provided at the hearing suggested, cleanup of the entire 31 toxic areas wouldn't be completed for another 35 years. But if Legacy Act appropriations were to reach $150 million annually, combined with the Superfund money, the job might be completed in seven years.

While federal dollars are increasingly tight, one subcommittee member, Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., noted that Congress is appropriating $12 billion a month for the U.S. military engagement in Iraq.

As the fate of the project is decided in Washington, others closer to home are taking a look at new challenges facing the Great Lakes.

(Click "Read More" to continue ...)

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The state governments of Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, and New York have all ratified the Great Lakes Basin Compact, an environmental agreement aimed at protecting the waters of the five Great Lakes. Earlier this month it looked like Wisconsin was close behind. The compact legislation passed in the state Senate by a 26-6 margin but was tabled in the state Assembly by Republican lawmakers. The state Legislature then adjourned for the summer.

But the fact that lawmakers aren't in session, doesn't mean the debate has ended. Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle has announced that he will call a special session to ratify the agreement if lawmakers can reach a compromise.

At issue is a provision in the compact that allows any governor from one of the eight Great Lake member-states to veto water diversions authorized by another member state. In plain English: if one state wanted to take water and give it to a region outside of the water basin, it would need the approval of all seven other Great Lakes states.

Wisconsin Republicans, however, have voiced their opposition to this provision and their foot-dragging might sink the entire compact:

Not bending on that point might destroy the compact because all eight governors likely would never relinquish their individual veto power, but nobody at this point is saying they want to kill the deal.

Meanwhile, those states that have already approved the agreement -- including Illinois -- are watching Wisconsin with fingers crossed. The governors of all eight states have issued a statement (PDF) decrying the last-minute efforts by Wisconsin Republicans to change the language of the compact. Environmental groups have also condemned the action.

In the end it might be the Wisconsin electorate that pressures their lawmakers into ratifying the contract. A poll conducted in January found that 80 percent of the state population wants to see the compact made into law. Considering it's an election year, that's a lot of voters for Republican lawmakers to cross.

A federal study on environmental health hazards in the Great Lakes Region was finally released last week after months of stalling from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report -- titled "Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern" -- was obtained last month by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), a nonprofit watchdog group, more than half-a-year after its original release date. According to CPI, the report warns that:

More than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen "areas of concern"—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.

CDC's refusal to release the study recently gained the attention of journalists and lawmakers. A report by the Washington Independent found the CDC was possibly blocking the findings for political reasons:

Scientists at the agency told The Washington Independent that political appointees interfere with science that could benefit public health. The Washington Independent looked into this and found evidence of negligence and a lack of scientific approach in four ATSDR public health consultations it investigated. By suppressing health studies, downplaying or avoiding links between industry and environmental hazards and threatening agency whistleblowers’ careers, the agency may be failing to put science first in public health investigations.

To add to the controversy, one co-author of the report, Dr. Christopher T. De Rosa, says he was demoted after he pushed for the report to be made public.