A bi-national group is advocating for improvements to an environmental agreement between the U.S. and Canada that protects the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes Ecoregion Network says amendments to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement are urgently needed to ensure new or renewed threats to the Great Lakes are addressed. This includes harmful algal blooms, climate change, and new toxic substances.
The coordinator of the Citizens Environment Alliance and member of GLEN, Derek Coronado, said more also needs to be done to resolve issues that have not received adequate attention over the past 50 years.
“The agreement itself has improved the Great Lakes in some respects but in other respects, there are some serious problems that remain,” he said. “One of the big limitations regarding the agreement is enforcement and accountability between the two governments. There’s a big gap there.”
Coronado said the group is looking for more public participation to strengthen the agreement to better protect the Great Lakes.
“This belongs to the public, the lakes are important to everybody who live in the basin and in order to maintain and improve the agreement itself, we need as much public involvement as possible,” he said.
This week, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is celebrating 50 years since it was first signed on April 15, 1972, by President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
The Canadian and American governments are expected to host a public forum in Windsor during the month of September, which will celebrate the agreement’s success over the past 50 years. However, Coronado said the forum will also provide the public with the opportunity to affirm priorities for future action, to ensure the agreement can continue to protect the water quality of the Great Lakes.
GLEN is a group of individual activists and groups that have played significant roles in influencing changes to the agreement and its implementation over the past 50 years. For more information on those involved with the group’s initiative, click here.
