5th Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference

Jul 7: The Healing Our Waters - Great Lakes Coalition 5th Annual Great Lakes Restoration Conference will take place September 10-12, in Duluth, MN at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Downtown Waterfront. The Coalition will reunite with friends, celebrate successes, and develop strategies to achieve the Great Lakes restoration goals for 2010 and beyond. The conference agenda will address critical issues such as linking Great Lakes restoration to economic recovery, working with the Obama administration to fulfill the $5 billion Great Lakes commitment, and securing Congressional funding for on the ground restoration work.

Access details and online registration (click here).

Alliance For The Great Lakes Head Will Be Obama's Great Lakes Chief

Jun 3: Cameron Davis, president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes (Alliance), has been tapped by the Obama administration to serve as special advisor to the U.S. EPA overseeing its Great Lakes restoration plan. Jack Bails, Alliance board chairman said, “Cameron Davis’s work at the Alliance for the Great Lakes during the last 23 years has helped put the Great Lakes on the national radar -- not only with the new administration and Congress, but with states, cities and countless citizens." The Alliance notes that during Davis's 11 years as chief executive, Davis led the organization to receive the American Bar Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Environmental Law & Policy, the first time a not-for-profit citizens organization has won the honor.

Joel Brammeier, the Alliance’s vice president for policy and a staff member at the organization for eight years, will be appointed interim Alliance president and CEO upon Davis’s scheduled June 30 departure. An executive transition team has been appointed to assist Brammeier and help lead the organization through a search for Davis’s successor.

Davis was also the former co-chair of the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition (HOW). HOW campaign manager Jeff Skelding said, “We congratulate Davis in his new post, and applaud the Obama Administration for filling this important position. Davis understands the serious threats facing the Great Lakes and has worked tirelessly during his career to advance solutions that protect the Lakes, safeguard public health and create jobs." HOW indicated that Davis will be responsible for advising the EPA and ensuring and overseeing Great Lakes restoration. During the campaign for President, Obama pledged to provide $5 billion for Great Lakes restoration and a Czar to oversee and coordinate the program. Since becoming President, Obama has set aside $475 million for a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in his FY 2010 budget and made restoration a priority.

Access a release with further details from the Alliance (click here). Access a release from the HOW coalition (click here).

EPA Administrator Jackson Greets Great Lakes Commission

Feb 24: U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson addressed the semiannual meeting of the Great Lakes Commission (GLC) as part of Great Lakes Day on February 24, at the Madison Hotel in Washington, DC. She said, "As the Great Lakes go, so goes the national policy as to water.” Jackson noted that President Barack Obama established his commitment to Great Lakes protection early in his campaign and continues to demonstrate that commitment through such legislative vehicles as the American Recovery Act, the recently passed stimulus bill. She said, “We look at the Act as extremely important to restoring infrastructure." She indicated that, “Removal of persistent toxins is really necessary,” she said. “It is expensive and takes a lot of time but we will continue.” The administrator pledged to work to reverse the previous Administration to increase funding to clean up Areas of Concern.

With an underlying theme at the meeting of environmental restoration of the Great Lakes as an economic development strategy, Commission Chair and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn exhorted the Commission member states and Canadian provinces to maximize the potential of the lakes to lure new business and investment. Among actions taken by the Commission were resolutions endorsing reauthorization of the Coastal Zone Management Act, supporting reform of the Harbor Maintenance Tax and Trust Fund, and supporting the American Wind Energy Association’s upcoming Windpower Conference in Chicago.

Access an announcement from GLC (click here). Access an overview and resolutions from the GLC Semiannual Meeting (click here). Access a summary of GLC recommendations to Congress (click here). Access a two-part video of Jackson's presentation to the GLC on the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition website (click here).

Ending Ocean-Vessel Access Could Increase Jobs & More

Apr 9: In follow up research into transportation costs of ocean-vessel shipping on the Great Lakes [See WIMS 11/7/05], Grand Valley State University (GVSU) researchers have found that ending ocean-vessel access to the lakes would increase transportation sector jobs and have little impact to air quality or highway congestion. John Taylor, lead author from GVSU said, “Our ongoing work has been focused on presenting transportation scenarios that would both facilitate trade and address current problems on the Great Lakes. Such scenarios for moving freight have previously been ignored. Our recent report examines and refutes assertions that transhipment would destroy jobs, increase air pollution, and clog roads and rail lines. We hope this research provides an objective basis for public discourse and additional investigations. While we are not suggesting ocean ships be stopped to create domestic jobs, assertions that an end to ocean shipping on the Great Lakes would cost jobs are just plain wrong.”

The Phase II report addresses many of the questions raised by their first report, which found that a cessation of ocean-shipping on the Great Lakes would incur a $55 million cost increase by the use of alternative modes of transportation. The report marked a turning point in the public debate on what action to take to combat the introduction of aquatic invasive species to the Great Lakes by suggesting the use of alternative transportation modes as a solution. Ocean-vessel transportation is the main vector by which aquatic invaders like the zebra mussel have entered the Great Lakes in recent years. The researchers estimate of the costs of existing invasives range from $200 million to as high as $5 billion per year.

James Roach, president of the transportation consulting firm JLRoach Inc. said, “Critics argued that stopping ocean-vessels would cost jobs and drastically increase the number of trucks on the region’s highways -- we wanted to see if that was indeed the case. In fact our research found that over 1,300 new domestic jobs would be created in the U.S. and Canada, and the impact on our highways negligible.” The research finds many of these jobs would stay in the Great Lakes region, employing workers on lake vessels, barges, trains and trucks. Some jobs would re-locate to Canadian ports on the St. Lawrence River, and some to the east coast and Gulf of Mexico.

According to the study, truck traffic would increase by less than 1 per cent, and would only approach that on Highway 401 west of Montreal, where there would be an additional 89 trucks per day. The number of trucks would be far less on other routes. Shipping interests have stated that transhipment and the use of truck and rail to move the cargo currently transported on ocean-vessels would have a significant impact on air quality. Air emissions were compared across all three modes. But according to the study, for tonnage that does not move by alternative waterborne modes, the likely rail alternative is comparable to waterborne transportation on three pollutant categories, and the rail mode is actually significantly better than ocean on two pollutants.

As a result of the study, conservation and organized labor organizations issued a release saying they are reaffirming that, in the absence of stringent ballast water regulations, the cessation of ocean-vessel shipping on the Great Lakes can protect the Great Lakes ecosystem. Jennifer Nalbone, Campaign Director for Great Lakes United said, “Until the problem of aquatic hitchhikers is solved, ocean vessels do not belong on the world’s largest fresh water ecosystem. We will continue to work diligently in support of federal regulations, but research continues to emerge that shows the use of transportation alternatives and a cessation of ocean-shipping on the Great Lakes is a viable option.” The various interest groups issuing the release included: Great Lakes United; Canadian Auto Workers Local 1520; and the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.

Access an announcement of the recent study (click here). Access links to both reports and related information (click here). Access a release from the interest groups (click here).

HOW Coalition Looks At Great Lakes Funding

Feb 6: The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition (HOW) has released a preliminary review of the President's proposed budget released on February 4, and how it relates to Great Lakes programs. They said the White House budget "leaves the Great Lakes on thin ice and underscores the need for Congress and the next President of the United States to do more to restore a national resource that millions of people depend on for their jobs, public health and quality of life.” HOW said the biggest single cut is to a program to help communities modernize old wastewater treatment facilities to prevent sewage contamination.

Jeff Skelding, National Campaign Director for HOW said, “Absent leadership from this President, we urge the U.S. Congress to fund the manageable solutions we have at our disposal to restore the Great Lakes now, because every day we wait, the problems get worse and the solutions more costly. We need strong federal leadership to partner with the region’s states and cities to restore the largest source of surface freshwater in the world. Instead, the White House budget cuts programs to stop sewage contamination and confront the threat of aquatic invasive species. Most of the leading presidential candidates have signed a pledge to restore the Great Lakes. We can’t wait until January. Now is the time to increase funding to restore the Great Lakes as called for in the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Strategy. Congress must act to restore the cuts in this short sighted budget.”

Access a release from HOW (click here). Access a table comparing FY08 & FY09 funding levels (click here). Access a table comparing funding levels by individual Great Lakes states (click here). Access the HOW Coalition website for additional information (click here). Access a detailed, 78-page FY09 EPA Budget summary (click here, search Great Lakes for detailed information).

Great Lakes Commission’s Semiannual Meeting & Lobby Day

Jan 14: The Great Lakes Commission (GLC) announce that Great Lakes Day 2008 will be held in Washington DC on February 28, 2008. This year, Great Lakes Day will be preceded by the Great Lakes Commission’s Semiannual meeting, which will be held in Washington on February 26, beginning at 1 PM through Noon on February 27 at the Palomar Hotel. Lunch and an afternoon session on February 27 will be held in conjunction with the Healing Our Waters Coalition to brief Great Lakes Day participants on legislative priorities and to prepare for visits to Congressional offices the next day.

Great Lakes Day is an annual event hosted by GLC and its partners to carry a unified expression of the Great Lakes region’s priorities for legislation and appropriations to assist in protecting the Great Lakes region’s environment and sustaining our economy. Last year, the Commission, in partnership with the Northeast Midwest Institute, the Council of Great Lakes Governors, the Healing Our Waters® - Great Lakes Coalition, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, the Mayors of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Cities Initiative and tribal representatives brought more than 150 people from the region to Washington. Access an announcement, program and registration information (click here).