New National Policy Gives Hope for the Future of the Great Lakes

Today, President Obama is establishing a landmark new national policy to protect our Great Lakes and oceans. This is an unprecedented, comprehensive effort to better coordinate federal decision-making for these valuable resources. 

In recent months, our nation has been riveted by the oil spill in the Gulf – an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportions.  While most of the attention to today’s announcement will likely focus on how it could help prevent another offshore drilling disaster, this is also great news for all of us who live, work and play in the Great Lakes region.   In recent years, the Great Lakes community has come together through the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration to create a blueprint for Great Lakes restoration, created a unprecedentedly robust legal structure for regulating Great Lakes diversions through the Great Lakes Compact, and received a long-overdue infusion of federal resources to restore and protect the Lakes through the Obama Administration’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.  President Obama’s creation of a national ocean and Great Lakes policy is another big win for the Great Lakes, because the policy is designed to ensure that the federal government tackles the challenges facing the Great Lakes with the same level of urgency and importance as those facing our oceans and other coastal watersheds.   This new policy will help our children and our grandchildren boat, swim, and fish in the Great Lakes like we do for generations to come.

We need a more efficient and effective federal government if we are to come together as a Great Lakes community to tackle the problems that we all know we have.  For decades we have watched as sewage and industrial pollution degrade the waters that 40 million people rely on to drink, and that are so important to our life and heritage in the upper Midwest. We’ve seen the costs wrought by invasive species, like zebra mussels and the “fish ebola” virus known as VHS, which were brought into the Lakes in the ballast tanks of oceangoing vessels and have wreaked havoc on water quality and fish stocks.  And now, we are facing a brewing invasion of the voracious Asian carp, which threatens the $16 billion Great Lakes fishery and tourism industries.  If we’d had a national policy – like the one announced today – in place from Day One to ensure that the federal government was focused on the risk that the Asian carp pose to the Great Lakes and the urgent need to act aggressively to stop it, the current Asian carp crisis might have been avoided.

The Great Lakes are economic engines – and much of their industry, like fishing and boating, relies on healthy waters to survive. In 2006, 1.4 million people fished 18 million days on the Great Lakes, contributing $1.5 billion to the economy. In these times, we cannot afford to leave the fate of these industries at risk. They need this support the President has announced today – because we know the longer we wait to address these problems, the harder and more expensive they will be to fix. And the sooner we protect and restore our ecosystems, the sooner we will see the benefits.

For years, we’ve lacked the appropriate set of resources and help to fix and improve the Lakes. This new policy encourages the federal government to better coordinate its actions, and to work with the states and stakeholders to clean our waters and ensure that our Great Lakes industries – including fishing, tourism, and recreation – remain strong. With this help at the federal level, we can finally get the job done that we in the Great Lakes have struggled to achieve: a vibrant, swimmable, fishable, drinkable inland sea.

The national Great Lakes and ocean policy will help minimize the conflicts that we see today between the various human uses of the Great Lakes and their impacts. It creates a unified and transparent planning process that will enhance coordination and allow us to work together to achieve the vision we have for the future of the Great Lakes. It will ensure all levels of government, business interests, fisheries managers, and conservation groups have input into the decision-making process.

This policy holds promise of a new legacy for the Great Lakes – one we might be proud to pass on.