A Guide to the GLWQA >

Summary

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is a formal international agreement, first signed in 1972 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Richard Nixon, that reflects the two countries' commitment to resolve a wide range of water quality issues facing the Great Lakes and the international section of the St. Lawrence River.

The governments recognized that for the Agreement to be successful, it needed to be adaptable to new challenges. Changes to the Agreement would be made as existing issues were more thoroughly understood and as new issues emerged. Consequently, the Agreement provides for consultation between the federal governments and periodic reviews of the operation and effectiveness of the Agreement as a whole.

The two governments will formally begin their next Agreement review in spring 2006.

In June 2005, the governments asked the Commission to hold a series of public meetings throughout the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin with a view to their upcoming review of the Agreement. Through these meetings, the IJC will develop a comprehensive set of the issues, questions and suggestions raised by the public for the governments to take into account when they begin their work in the spring of 2006.

This Guide to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is designed to assist the public throughout the review process.

The 1972 Agreement set general and specific water quality objectives and mandated programs to meet them. It gave priority to point-source pollution from industrial sources and sewage plants. Point-source pollution was dramatically reduced and many visible and noxious pollution problems were alleviated.

A new Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed in 1978. It undertook to seek the restoration and maintenance of the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem. The new Agreement adopted an ecosystem approach (one which considers the interaction of air, land, water and living things, including humans) and called for a broad range of pollution-reduction programs. It called for the virtual elimination of the input of persistent toxic substances following a zero discharge philosophy. The levels of various persistent toxic substances in the fish and wildlife declined significantly.

The Agreement was amended in 1987 and called for programs to restore both the quality of open waters and beneficial water uses in 43 of the most contaminated local areas in the basin. Conditions have improved significantly in a number of these local "Areas of Concern", although only two have been delisted.

The Agreement has not been revised for nearly 20 years and now, despite considerable progress, new challenges are emerging while some old ones persist. What does this mean for the Agreement? Should it - or how should it - address issues like alien invasive species, population growth and urbanization, new chemical pollutants, climate change and human health?

The Agreement is a lengthy document, describing in great detail the programs and other activities the governments intend to carry out to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem. Policy goals, major commitments, and organizational and procedural matters are contained in the body of the Agreement. Most detailed program descriptions, schedules and reporting arrangements are contained in Agreement annexes.

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