The United States and Canada have amended a 40-year-old environmental accord on the Great Lakes, expanding its goals to tackle problems like invasive species, pollution and climate change.
Forty years after the imminent ?death? of Lake Erie prompted the Nixon administration to sign a landmark environmental accord, the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, and Canada?s environment minister, Peter Kent, approved the text of a revised Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement on Friday in Washington.
Swaths of green scum regularly choked Lake Erie?s shallow western basin during the 1950?s and 60?s as phosphorus from farms, sewage and industry along the Rust Belt?s shoreline fertilized algal blooms. Regulations limiting phosphorus improved the situation steadily starting in the 1970?s, but 2011 saw perhaps the worst bloom yet.
Researchers blame record-setting spring rainfall and invasive mussels for last year?s explosive algal blooms. Zebra and quagga mussels, now abundant throughout the Great Lakes, foster a bacterial environmental hospitable to the primary species of algae found in the blooms.
?The challenges are even bigger today than they were then,? said Dereth Glance, one of three Americans on the International Joint Commission, a bilateral group that monitors environmental agreements between the United States and Canada. ?It?s a matter of ongoing stewardship and collaboration with as many people as possible.?
The updates are aimed at invigorating cleanup efforts that are already under way but also refocusing the nations? commitments on new issues.
In addition to tightening goals for phosphorus reductions in Lake Erie, the amendments call for action on ships? ballast water, which introduces invasive species into the lake system, and climate change, which is expected to make heavy precipitation like that of 2011 more common.
The new plan requires progress reports every three years on the efforts, which can involve dozens of parties and agencies across all levels of government as well as the private sector. It also expands the commission?s advisory board to include representatives of traditional indigenous peoples and local governments.
The accord also integrates regional scale climate models. A five-year study that began in 2007 has adjusted global climate models to address local conditions, mining data from newly installed evaporation gauges rather than relying on theoretical predictions. Great Lakes water levels are near historic lows, approaching the low point of a natural cycle that Ted Yuzyk, a study director for Canada, is still not yet well understood. Climate change could nonetheless be at work, he said, as mild winters with low ice cover encourage evaporation and push water levels lower.
He said that while both sides were optimistic, ?it really depends on the resources the governments are prepared to commit to some of these issues.?
Even when the science is clear, the ideal management solution can be murky. While homeowners on Ontario?s Georgian Bay, on the eastern side of Lake Huron, would welcome higher water levels, such a rise could threaten cottages on the same lake?s Michigan shores.
On Monday, the stakeholders gathered in Cleveland for their annual Great Lakes Week conference. ?We have a good foundation,? Ms. Glance said, ?and the renewed agreement allows us to take on some incredibly big challenges.?
Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/an-updated-great-lakes-accord/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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