Great Lakes top priority.

[DPoulson]

The U.S./Canadian International Joint Commission meets Wednesday and Thursday in Windsor to discuss advice on Great Lakes environmental issues that it will give to those governments. That happens only once every two years. Six reports are on the commission's agenda. Details are here.
Some more background here
Which of these issues should be the top priority for Great Lakes policymakers and scientists?
Vote in the poll above this post. You may explain your vote by posting a reply.
Return to Great Lakes Echo

[James Lang]

Completely close the doors that remain open to invasive species, first and foremost contaminated ballast water.

[Kathleen Hibbard]

97% of the shipping traffic on the Great Lakes is "lakers" that never leave the system. That leaves only 3% being foreign vessles. To prevent further contamination from invasive species, they should not be permitted to enter the system. They should have to bear the cost of off-loading their cargo on to truck, trains or "lakers" as a cost of doing business here. Top priority should be given to closing the door on the Seaway.
Kathleen Hibbard
PO Box 112
Honor, MI 49640

[MI resident/MSU student]

Close the door to invasive species! Find a way to exterminate and contain those that exist here now.

[jack.scholl@gmail.com]

Close doors to all invasive species through offloading of oceanic cargo.

[Bruce D. Jones]

I am a member of the Grosse Ile Nature and Land Conservancy and the International Wildlife Refuge Alliance. Over the past several months, we have receive many aerial photos of Lake St. Clair, the lower Detroit River and western Lake Erie. These photos show massive plumes of erosion and pollutants flowing into the Lake from the rivers that flow into the lake such as the Raisin, the Maumee, the Huron,and, from Canada, the Thames and other rivers, etc.
The photos also show huge areas of green from algae blooms and we have been notified that a toxic algae has been discovered in Maumee Bay.
In walking beaches north of Maumee Bay, the shorelines were covered with dead fish and zebra muscle shells.
The quiet noting with these photos is the potential death of Lake Erie if something is not done quickly.
Bruce D. Jones

[Gary Wilson]

If the EPA were emergency rooms physicians performing triage, Lake Erie would be moved to the head of the line and receive most of the resources,ie. GLRI $$. But that's not the way it works- $400+ million will be spread over eight states, 16 agencies, and 100 or so line item projects. gw

[Lin Kaatz Chary]

The reality is that both toxic chemicals - and not just the so-called "emerging ones" which have in fact been around for years - and the threat of invasive species are equally important, and it is a mistake to elevate species over toxics. Toxics in the Great Lakes have always been the more difficult issue, the poor cousin, to some extent, because there is no elegant solution and certainly no quick fix. The threat from invasives can be dealt with if there is the political will to do so, by getting serious with how ballast water is dealt with in ocean-going vessels. It's not as if we don't know what to do about it. But dealing with the invasive species already here, and coping with both the legacy toxics and the continuing influx of new chemicals into the lakes have a lot in common, and intersect at the junction of using chemicals in the lake to control invasives.

Addressing legacy PCBs and other contaminants in thousands of cubic feet of sediments still in the lakes and their tributaries is a critical issue - right now even when we dredge the materials we warehouse them in perpetuity virtually at the lakeshore. We continue to load new chemicals into the lakes through consumer products and pharmaceuticals, on top of the existing contaminants which remain in undredged sediments.

We encourage everyone to visit our website at http://www.glgc.org to learn more about the Great Lakes Green Chemistry Network and to help it grow by contributing your input into how these issues can be addressed by supporting the development and use of Green Chemistry throughout the binational Great Lakes basin. Green Chemistry has the potential to be a major tool in addressing both of these critical issues affecting the Great Lakes.