Healing Our Waters Coalition » Areas of Concern

Don’t Let Asian Carp Eat Our Funding

tpache — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:21:26 +0000

The last thing we want to happen is for the Asian carp to continue to eat up dollars meant to develop projects and provide jobs that will restore the Great Lakes and revive the region’s economy, but so far, the only budget government has used to fight the fish is ours.

Last year, when the Asian carp invasion reached Cuban Missile Crisis proportions, the government moved $78 million out of the $475 million approved for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to fight back the invasive species.

“The Asian carp issue came to us very fast and furiously, thank goodness for the restoration initiative we were able to put it to use, but we don’t want the Asian carp initiative to cannibalize the GLRI,” said Great Lakes Czar Cam Davis before adding, “We are going to try and move it into agency base budgets.”

On top of that, we have to aggressively fight the fish or else the restoration work we use GLRI dollars to do will be for naught.

Hot off the Press, the EPA Issues Outline for GLRI Work & Spending

tpache — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:41:21 +0000

Zebra Mussel Encrusted Meter, Michigan City Ind.

President Obama’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative still has to be approved by the US Senate, but the EPA isn’t wasting any time framing a five-year strategy to address the most pressing problems affecting the health of the Great Lakes. More importantly, the EPA is coming to a city near you in the coming weeks to find out how to prioritize the work in your area based on the local context.

The EPA’s Great Lakes Multi-Year Restoration Plan outline is based on the 2005 Great Lakes Restoration Strategic Plan. The document is a framework for discussion at the 8 public meetings that starttoday, July 21 in Milwaukee and run through August 4.

The four focus areas in the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative include: toxic substances and the Areas of Concern, invasive species, near shore health and nonpoint source pollution, and habitat restoration. The EPA will be holding public meetings to learn about the local context -what issues need to be prioritized in a given area - as well as the best methods for addressing these problems.

Please attend if you can because the EPA needs your feedback. This is an opportunity to affect the priorities, goals, even actions taken to meet the goals. HOW is also collecting comments from Coalition members on the draft action plan. If you would like to take part in this please email them to CLORD@NPCA.ORG by July 29.

For those who can’t attend Milwaukee’s meeting tonight you can view it on webcast: : http://epa.gov/greatlakes/live.

Buffalo: The Come Back Kid

tpache — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:28:31 +0000

Lake Erie Harbor

Buffalo's Erie Harbor

Buffalo, NY – Buffalo, the second poorest city in the nation has a plan to stimulate a long depressed local economy by making Buffalo and the Great Lakes one and the same in people’s minds. That is right, the Queen City has rediscovered her historical link to the Great Lakes and expects this revival to lead to more jobs and transform the quality of life for those already living -in or relocating -to Buffalo.

“For the last few years, the city of Buffalo has been trying to rebrand itself as a Great Lakes City,” said Jill Spisiak Jedlicka of the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper.

“Re” brand is the key because Buffalo is, and has always been a Great Lakes city through-and-through. Buffalo was built at the nexus of the nation’s original trade route. There was a time when every product made in the Midwest sailed first to Buffalo and then to the world from the mouth of the Buffalo River and on through the Erie Canal. But that past has been buried and abandoned and Buffalo has still to recover from the “recession” of the 1970s that sent so many residents into a southern Diaspora.

The Mayor and the City’s leadership have been touting a strategic plan to revitalize the downtown area, develop a tantalizing waterfront and bring back Olmsted Park.

“There is a widespread belief that the revitalization of Buffalo’s waterfront is key to the revitalization of the city and the region as a whole,” says Craig Turner, director of Public Policy for the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership. “It’s not difficult to see in many cities – such as Baltimore or New York’s Battery Park – that strategically utilizing the natural resource of a waterfront can be an economic stimulus on its own. In addition to the obvious job creation in tourism, retail, etc., we believe our region’s connection to the waterfront will offer opportunities and new technologies related to fresh water that will further enable Buffalo Niagara to shed some of its old “rust belt” renown.”

Buffalo's Haborfront

The City is on the right track, according to a Brookings Institute report that found that by investing in Great Lakes restoration the entire region would experience 2-1 economic dividend. Now, sometimes with and other times without help from the Feds or Albany, Buffalo is moving forward with its Queen City Hub strategy. Recasting Buffalo with a direct connection to the Great Lakes, the City is convinced, will be good for the economy.

“If focus is placed on the Great Lakes environment, and appropriate investments are made, the Great Lakes themselves have the potential to help stimulate the regional economy. For Buffalo Niagara, we see this is tremendous opportunity for job creation and a draw for private sector investment that is unique to our part of New York State,” said Turner.

Turners group along with 30 chambers of commerce from across the region have joined forces to lobby Washington on behalf of the entire region arguing that restoring the lakes will be a economic boon that will reverberate throughout the nation.

“Obviously, our involvement with the Great Lakes coalition of chambers of commerce and the Great Lakes Business Agenda is an indication of our recognition of the economic development potential of the Great Lakes,” he said.

The Mayor of Buffalo has been to Albany and to Washington to ask for stimulus funds to update the city’s wastewater infrastructure and provide more than 900 jobs with this one project. And Spisiak Jedlicka and the Niagara Riverkeeper have been working with Great Lakes Legacy Act funds that will provide jobs while cleaning up the Buffalo and Niagara Rivers – miles of which are contaminated by dangerous chemicals.

“The companies came here built up their industries and cut and ran and left us with the legacy of contamination in the rivers,” said Spisiak Jedlicka. The Great Lakes Legacy Act -that is up for reauthorization- has provided funds to clean up the Buffalo River for which Spisiak Jedlicka is the RAP Coordinator.

The City’s waterfront is divided into Inner and Outer harbors and it is the inner harbor project that is moving forward. Spisiak Jedlicka expects shovels in the dirt by next year, but there are still nearly 40 miles of the Niagara River that need to be addressed and the GLLA continues to be under-appropriated.

“People in Buffalo are so hungry for revitalization,” she said, “but we have the stigma of a contaminated river and who wants to relocate to an area of concern? We want to eat the fish and swim in the water and I think that is a realistic goal.”

By realizing these seemingly small goals, with the help of a renewed Great Lakes Legacy Act and significant local commitment, the city would make real progress toward this renaissance. “That is how it [cleaning up the Buffalo and Niagara rivers and restoring the ecosystem] contributes to the revitalization of the City as a whole,” explains Spisiak Jedlicka.

Buffalo, the second poorest city in the nation, has a plan – a plan to truly be a Great Lakes city.

Buffalo Waterfront

Mr. Yuck Looms Over Great Lakes

tpache — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:28:35 +0000

President Barack Obama just took the big green Mr. Yuck sticker off Yucca Mountain in Nevada. For years, the US Congress has considered depositing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in the Nevada dessert, but President Obama is calling for more study and a better solution. This move fulfills a campaign promise he made and scratches the powerful Harry Reid’s back. But at the same time, the Great Lakes remain in peril of becoming polluted with leaky toxic waste.

“We are drifting toward a permanent policy of keeping extremely toxic waste next to the Great Lakes, and that cannot stand,” U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) told the Chicago Tribune.

Illinois has seven nuclear plants and more than 7100 tons of spent fuel being stored in Zion near Lake Michigan and also along the Illinois, Rock and Mississippi Rivers. The state has the largest stockpile of spent fuel among the 35 states that have nuclear reactors. What may be even worse, as the power companies run out of storage space they are building above ground casks to take on the waste. At Zion those casks are only a little ways from Lake Michigan, according to the Chicago Tribune.

A better solution needs to be found not just for Nevada but also for our region and our nation. Protecting the majority of this nation’s surface fresh water and her tributaries should be a priority in this century. Lets not go back to the past when we left a legacy of toxic pollutants in our beautiful fresh water – a toxic legacy that we are still struggling to clean up today.

Caution: Great Lakes may be Hazardous to Your Health

tpache — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:37:04 +0000

With her dying breath, Nancy Nichols sister asked her to write a book telling the world that her rare ovarian cancer was the result of years of living near, swimming in and eating fish from Waukegan Harbor on Lake Michigan.

Not only did Nancy write Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town’s Toxic Legacy but she also learned she had pancreatic cancer while researching for the book. Ms. Nichols recently discussed her story with National Public Radio host Diane Rehm–you can listen to the interview here. There is no prior history of cancer in Nancy’s family, but both girls are convinced they acquired the disease via years of Friday night fish fries, and swimming and playing in an area of concern – a very polluted part of the Great Lakes. Their story illustrates that when profits are piling up there is a distinct lack of concern for public health among government and business. It also illustrates why we can’t sit around and wait another ten years to clean up the remaining 28 Areas of Concern (AOC) that harbor these toxic chemicals.

This family’s tragic story just goes to show that restoring the Great Lakes isn’t only an environmental or economic issue; it is a public health issue. Cleaning up the AOC’s is about cleaning up our drinking water, our dinner plates and the future of our very own health.

This story has been published on the heals of a government cover up over the affect the toxic pollution is causing on public health, as well as a US Senate vote that determined that the Great Lakes Legacy Act (GLLA) will be funded at current levels for two more years. The GLLA is the best resource we have to clean up the AOCs and it has been very effective over the last five years, except that it is moving at a very slow pace. Our congressional delegation from the GL region tripled funding for the act over the next five years after learning such a move would clean up ALL the AOC’s within the next ten years. These hopes have been put on hold by the US Senate’s vote, but we have another opportunity in two years to try and increase funding and the pace of clean up once more. I wonder how many more stories like Nancy’s will be published by that time.

Wanted New Leaders? No Kidding!

tpache — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:51:50 +0000

Grumbles is grumbling again at the moment when the Great Lakes Legacy Act is about to be approved and improved by the US House of Representatives. Would you believe Benjamin Grumbles, Assistant Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency has written to Environment and Public Works Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) to ask her not to give the Legacy Act program more money? What the H-E – double toothpicks is he doing? Just another example of how the Bush Administration has been undermining the Great Lakes and his campaign promise (albeit verbal) to fix them.

The Great Lakes Legacy Act, that is to be voted on this afternoon, triples past authorization levels to speed up the clean-up of 31 Areas of Concern on the American side of the Great Lakes. Areas that are poisoning our drinking water, the fish we eat and well, us. The EPA apparently expects our region to continue to live with dirty water – water that is dirty, btw, because we worked hard supplying the products and services as the economic engine for this entire nation for the last century plus.

There is nothing polite to say to Grumbles and the EPA for this attack. Instead, lets focus on the new guy who will be taking office soon – either one has to be better than this President and his political appointees at the EPA.

Obey’s Scorecard Says it All

tpache — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:12:53 +0000

Wisconsin Rep. David Obey (D) has one of our most historic Areas of Concern in his backyard, the St. Louis River and Bay habitat, which has been eroding since pioneer days with the latest assaults leaving hazardous waste behind in leaky landfills. Even so, Obey is one of two House Members who has not cosponsored the Great Lakes Legacy Act that would provide the funds needed for cleaning up this mess. But Rep. Obey is in a peculiar position as Chair of the very powerful Appropriations Committee and HOW has been assured that a decision not to co-sponsor in no way indicates a lack of support for the Legacy Act.

“You can look at his record. It is not a matter of cosponsoring – it is a matter of votes and actions and as Chairman, and before that as Ranking Member, Obey has supported the Great Lakes massively,” explains Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for Rep. Obey. “The Congressman is much more about action than co-sponsorship.” Thank goodness. HOW is happy to learn that Obey will be supportive of the legislation, especially since it triples the previous funding and an authorization means much more than just agreeing to approve the legislation.

Dennis No Longer a Menace

tpache — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:38:13 +0000

Ohio’s infamous Cuyahoga River that sparked the political firestorm that was quenched with the introduction of the Clean Water Act in the 1970s is in Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) district. HOW has just learned that Rep. Kucinich has become a co-sponsor of the reauthorizatin for the Great Lakes Legacy Act – a bill that has trippled the funding authorization to speed up the clean up of the most devestated areas of pollution around the Great Lakes. HOW is ever thankful for his support and hopeful that the bill will come to the floor when Congress convenes in September. To learn more about this area of concern, click here. To thank Rep. Kucinich for his support, click here.

Display the Great Lakes Areas of Concern Map on Your Site or Blog

Jordan Lubetkin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:18:45 +0000

Help spread the word regarding the Great Lakes Areas of Concern by displaying our map on your Web site or blog. Just copy and paste the text below into a Web page and the map will display.

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And here is how it will appear:

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Waters Consumed By History

tpache — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:32:15 +0000

This is one complicated AOC, but the most important thing to recognize – these waters infected with undesirable algae, deformed fish and wildlife that can’t be eaten and shuttered beaches – flow directly into Lake Michigan. Over the years, man chose to change the shape and flow of these tributaries by straightening them and dredging them to allow for bigger and bigger ships to move more and more products. But that is only one source of the problem, the history of industry has left toxic chemicals in its wake – PCBs, PAHs, heavy metals – all sifting in the sediments and contaminating our fresh water.

To read more about this Area of Concern, click here to go to the EPA’s website.

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