Governments must ‘go beyond lip-service’ on Great Lakes
Lake Erie water should be deemed “impaired” and governments on both sides of the border need to put enforceable measures in place to prevent further contamination.
Those measures were among 30 recommendations intended to enhance protection of the waterways, included in the International Joint Commission’s first Triennial Assessment of Progress, released Tuesday.
The IJC’s U.S. co-chair Lana Pollack, described the massive algae bloom that covered more than 1,813 square kilometres in western Lake Erie during the late summer months as a “tragedy,” adding it’s an indication that “governments at all levels are failing.”
While releasing the report Tuesday, developed with public input garnered at community meetings throughout the Great Lakes basin, including St. Catharines, Pollack called on governments on both sides of the border to follow the recommendations of the IJC report “and declare these waters as impaired … and move forward to identify the hot spots and specific fields that are causing the problems and have impacted so many lives.”
Governments, she added, “have to go beyond the lip-service that they’re paying and go beyond the volunteer programs.”
“They need enforceable standards. They need to hold specific individuals and companies that are doing this to our lakes accountable,” she said. “At the end of the day it’s the public and their elected officials who can make a difference. It will be interesting for those of us who live on or near Lake Erie, or any of the other Great Lakes that are suffering algal blooms, because there are other areas as well that are under severe threat from these algal blooms.”
Niagara Centre MP Vance Badawey said political will seems to be growing to take on issues that are hampering Great Lake water quality.
“The next stage, with respect to being a lot more pragmatic, I’m working with the provinces as well as the municipalities to put enforceable policies in place that of course deal with outflow effluent and things of that nature,” he said.
The IJC report also recommends efforts to stop sewage bypass events that occur when wastewater treatment plants discharge partially treated sewage into waterways. Storm events that hit Niagara earlier this year, for instance, led to the discharge of more than one billion litres of diluted sewage.
“Governments need to close the gap on meeting the human health objectives of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement,” said IJC’s Canadian co-chair, Gord Walker. “We must have sufficient water treatment infrastructure to eliminate the release of untreated and partially treated sewage.”
Badawey said he is encouraging municipalities to “take full advantage” of $180 billion of federal infrastructure funding that can be used towards upgrading sewage treatment plants to help eliminate the need for sewage overflows.
Walker also acknowledged the interest on the Canadian side towards infrastructure investment.
“There have been a lot of investments in infrastructure already, and quite a bit in areas of concern in Canada,” he said.
For instance, Walker said $140-million has been spent on cleaning up the Randle Reef area of Hamilton Harbour.
“Governments are moving, but they’ve also signalled that they’re going to have more funds available for infrastructure on the Canadian side,” he said.
Badawey also hopes to ensure any changes that are put in place now are sustainable well into the future.
He said he has been working for the past few months towards establishing a research and development, education and interpretive centre for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence. He hopes to locate that “binational facility” in Niagara, preferably in Port Colborne.
While it’s the first time he has publicly discussed the initiative, he said it is something he has been working on for quite some time, discussing the idea with various potential partners including postsecondary institutions.
“It will give us the opportunity to sustain best practices well into the future, that we’re establishing today with our partners the municipalities and the province, to then put forward a proper research and development and proper education to establish that research and development.”