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COUNT 687
DECEMBER 15, 2004
SPARE US THE RHETORIC;
CLEAN UP THE LAKES – by Joyce Braithwaite-Brickley
If wishes were horses,
beggars might ride. And if conferences were clean-ups, the
Great Lakes
would be absolutely untainted. So what are we to make of the December 3
Great Lakes summit
gathering, convened in Chicago by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
chief Michael Leavitt? One of the latest in a long series of such summits
organized since the mid-1980s, this one attracted attention from “The New
York Times” and other national news media. But that doesn't necessarily
distinguish it from any of its mostly ineffective conference predecessors.
On the good side, the
December 3 meeting attracted five governors, including
Michigan's
Jennifer Granholm, important local leaders like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley,
and key representatives of the business, environmental, and scientific
communities.
Ostensibly, the purpose
of uniting all these high-powered people in one room was to address the
problem of sprawl. Not urban sprawl, but the sprawl of federal and state
programs dealing with the Lakes. The U.S. Government Accounting Office found
last year that 33 federal and 17 state programs have spent more than $1.7
billion on the environmental restoration of the
Great Lakes in the last
decade.
The efforts were
uncoordinated, however, and the results were difficult to measure, according
to the GAO.
On the bad side, more
than half the day's time was devoted to ceremonies, complete with a bagpipe
and drum corps, rather than action. Even worse, the main product of the day
was a “declaration” signed by many of the leaders who should have been
challenged to do a lot more -- like commit real money and real action to
Great Lakes
clean-up. The declaration included such controversial statements as the fact
that the Lakes are “an international treasure” and pledged the signers to
work toward “the development of a widely understood and broadly supported
strategy.”
Let's see: How many
strategies can the
Great Lakes float?
There's the 1985 Great
Lakes Charter that governors and Canadian premiers signed, the 1986 Great
Lakes Toxic Substances Control Agreement, the 1991 Lake Superior Bi-National
Plan, the 1995 Great Lakes Bi-National Toxics Strategy, and the 2001 Great
Lakes Annex. And still the Lakes are, at best, holding their own against an
onslaught of invasive alien species, alarming levels of new toxic chemicals,
sewage overflows, coastal wetland losses, and threats of water exports.
As one skeptical observer
who has worked on these issues for decades observed, "It is a top-down
process laid out by persons with no real understanding of the issues or past
experience in dealing with Great Lakes protection.”
That the summit was in
Chicago and not a
city on the border with Canada, and the fact that the agenda included almost
no Canadian speaking-role, suggests one problem with the EPA approach. Has
the U.S.
government forgotten that it was a joint U.S.-Canada agreement (between
Richard Nixon and Pierre Trudeau, yet) that started the recovery of the
Great Lakes
in 1972? How can you have a summit designed to get everyone signing from the
same hymnbook when you forget to invite half the choir?
One sure result of the
event is more delay. The December 3 meeting will lead to yet another
yearlong planning process to figure out what to do about the Lakes. And,
alarmingly, EPA chief Leavitt at the summit dismissed suggestions that more
money is needed to restore the Lakes, saying, "This is not simply about
money, it's about using resources better."
No one can disagree with
using resources efficiently – but is even $1.7 billion over the last decade
enough to protect "an international treasure," one-fifth of the world's
surface fresh water?
If the region's governors
want to get something actually done for the Lakes, they will need to seize
the initiative back from
Washington.
That means putting
Great Lakes
clean-up money on the table – cold, hard, state cash – and demanding a
federal match. It means opening the states' arms and offering a spirit of
cooperation to our Canadian partners.
Most of all, it means
making hard choices that take into account future generations, not photo
opportunities calculated to attract the eye of “The New York Times.”
--
Joyce
Braithwaite-Brickley was assistant to the Michigan Republican Party chairman
and political advisor and campaign manager for former Gov. William G.
Milliken. Her essays have appeared widely in the state.
priorities@charter.net -- A
photo of Joyce Braithwaite-Brickley is available
CLICK HERE
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