Sep 9: The Annual Meeting of the Great Lakes Commission (GLC), which kicked off Great Lakes Week 2013, in Milwaukee, featured spirited dialogue on water levels, the growing dredging backlog on the Great Lakes, which is impeding commercial and recreational navigation, and an action item to tackle the potential benefits and risks of oil transportation in the region. The GLC passed resolutions concerning:
- Priorities for the Great Lakes navigation system in the federal Water Resources Development Act to ensure new WRDA legislation includes provisions that restore, maintain and strengthen the economic vitality of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Navigation System for commercial and recreational transportation
- Support for Great Lakes offshore wind demonstration (pilot) projects, recognizing that small-scale demonstration (pilot) projects are the most direct means of assessing potential environmental impacts, and evaluating economic viability and opportunities for job creation involving offshore wind projects
- Preventing pollution from persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals in the Great Lakes ecosystem, which urges the U.S. Congress to adopt comprehensive national legislation aimed at minimizing human and ecosystem exposure to PBTs through reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act
- Recognizing rivermouths: Places vital to the Great Lakes basin that deserve focused restoration and conservation, which urges the U.S. Congress and U.S and Canadian federal agencies to explicitly recognize the ecological importance of rivermouths
Access a release with additional details (click here). Access the GLC meetings archive where additional details will be posted soon (click here). [GLakes]
