Great Stakes
Great Lakes on the Verge of Collapse
The signs are plain to see:
3,000 beach closures every summer
100% of Great Lakes fish have consumption restrictions
2/3 of wetlands have disappeared
The commercial fishery is less than 15% its original size
160 alien species threaten natural plants and wildlife
Pharmaceuticals in human sewage are mutating fish and frogs
Diporeia – shrimp-like amphipod that serves as the bedrock of the Great Lakes food chain – are extinct in some lakes and disappearing rapidly from the rest
Six million people drink water contaminated with tritium from nuclear plants
300 different toxic contaminants have been found in the Great Lakes
And new threats are emerging:
New and increasingly toxic contaminants are discovered in the food chain every year
Ontario is negotiating to build at least one new nuclear plant on Lake Ontario
Hundreds of thousands of people from dozens of towns just outside the Great Lakes Basin are eyeing water as local supplies dry up

Each one of these problems is enough to signal the need for Canada and the United States to immediately increase protections for the Great Lakes: more money to bring back lost resources, more officers to enforce our environmental laws and more willingness to stand up to polluters who threaten the few natural assets we have left.

We are proud of the work of Waterkeepers and our peers, but citizens alone cannot stop the collapse of the Great Lakes. We need vision in government and commitment to law and order. The stakes are enormous.

Waterkeeper Alliance Calls For More Stringent Great Lakes Protections
Annex 2001 Opens Spigot to Water Bottlers

By Lauren Brown, Waterkeeper Alliance

On December 13, 2005, a council of the eight Great Lakes U.S. governors and two Canadian Premiers signed agreements with some important safeguards to discourage new water diversions out of the Great Lakes watershed. Unfortunately, they also opened several dangerous loopholes that will allow bottlers to remove Great Lakes water.

The agreements, called “Annex 2001,” were the culmination of a four-year process involving various stakeholders from around the U.S. and Canada. The goal was to strengthen protections for the aquatic integrity of the entire Great Lakes Basin.

The Great Lakes Basin is the watershed of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River upstream from the Trois-Rivieres Quebec. It includes the geographic areas surrounding each body of water where water drains towards the lakes and the river. The lakes are vital for the well-being of Americans and Canadians alike – 40 million people on both sides of the border use these waters for drinking, food production, work and recreation.

Waterkeeper Alliance and others in the environmental community commented on the draft agreements this past summer. The Alliance noted then that the council did not go far enough to protect the basin and urged a stronger agreement. Unfortunately, with its final agreements, the council chose to ignore almost all of these recommendations.

The Council of Great Lakes Governors missed out on an important opportunity to provide proper, effective safeguards for this vital watershed. Among the more serious shortcomings of Annex 2001 is its failure to adequately control diversions of water to “straddling” counties. Water that is diverted from the basin is not replenished by nature. The agreement sets up a slippery slope whereby communities outside of the basin – with no hydrological connection to the Great Lakes – are free to divert water in much the same way that Basin communities can. The mining of underground water by counties outside the basin could prove the death of this important watershed.

Another major concern is the exemption of bottled water from the definition of diversion. The Public Trust Doctrine states that water resources are held in trust by the government for all people. The agreements pay lip service to this doctrine, while creating loopholes that allow bottled water companies to freely withdraw public water for private sale.

Waterkeeper Alliance and its Great Lakes member programs remain committed to ensuring the future integrity of the Great Lakes Basin. To that end, we will continue to advocate for strict limitations on all types of diversions and a more protective Annex agreement. Though Annex 2001 is final, we are now urging legislators to adopt stronger implementing laws with regard to conservation, bottled water regulations and diversion proposals. We are also pushing states to recognize hydrological boundaries, rather than political boundaries, and ban shipping bottled water out of the basin.

Despite disappointment in the final agreements, Waterkeeper Alliance remains cautiously hopeful that future steps will be taken to ensure the ecological health of the Great Lakes.