A Guide to the GLWQA >

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States of America and Canada

The United States and Canada share a long history of working together to address significant issues facing waters that cross the shared boundary. The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 started this formal process of cooperation, and created the International Joint Commission (IJC) to help them. The two governments extended this approach to issues facing the Great Lakes when they signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972.

The Agreement is a formal international agreement that reflects the two countries' commitment to resolve a wide range of water quality issues facing the Great Lakes basin and international section of the St. Lawrence River. These issues were, and in many cases still are, critical to the economic and social health of not only the Great Lakes region, but to the entire United States and Canada.

The governments' approach in the Agreement was farsighted. While respecting the different ways each country deals with water quality issues and building on many existing programs, the two governments adopted shared goals and objectives and created joint activities and institutions to help them achieve their goals.

The governments also 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. Thus, many detailed programs are included in Agreement annexes with relatively simple procedures for amendment. The Agreement also 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 keeping with the advisory role the governments gave to the IJC in the 1972 Agreement, they asked the Commission to hold a series of public meetings throughout the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River basin. 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 in their review.

This Guide to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is provided to assist the public throughout the review process. It includes a brief history of the Agreement, a summary of its current provisions, a discussion of accomplishments and remaining work, and a short section on some issues the governments may consider during their review. Readers are encouraged to use this as a basis for organizing their comments and advice to the Commission and the governments on their vision for the future of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

The Agreement over Time: 1972 to 1987

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement has been the cornerstone of U.S.-Canadian cooperative efforts on Great Lakes water quality issues since it was first signed in 1972. Over the years, several significant amendments to the Agreement and shifts in its implementation have reflected an evolving understanding of the many complex issues involved.

The 1972 Agreement
The 1978 Agreement
Amendments in 1983
The 1987 Protocol Amending the 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

The 1972 Agreement

In the early 1960s, as conditions in the Great Lakes deteriorated and concerns grew for both ecosystem and human health, the governments of Canada and the U.S. asked the IJC to determine whether Lakes Erie and Ontario and the international section of the St. Lawrence River were being polluted on either side of the boundary to the injury of health and property on the other, contrary to the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty. If so, the IJC was to identify the causes and recommend remedial or other measures to address the problem.

The Commission's advisory boards reported excessive levels of phosphorus at several locations in the Great Lakes, and the Commission's final report in 1970 concluded that municipal and industrial pollution indeed was occurring on both sides of the boundary to the injury of health and property on the other side. The report recommended several actions to the governments to improve water quality in the basin including programs that would control phosphorus inputs into the lakes, new water quality objectives, and the establishment of new institutions to coordinate the overall cleanup effort.

The Commission's findings and recommendations were used by the governments as the basis of the negotiations that resulted in the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which was signed on April 15, s1972 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Richard sNixon.

Russell Train, then Chairman of the U.S. Council of Environmental Quality, stated that the Agreement was "unprecedented in scope" and should serve as an international model. Mitchell Sharp, then Canada's Minister of External Affairs, noted that the Agreement was the most far reaching of its kind "ever signed by two governments in the environmental field."

The 1972 Agreement set basinwide water quality objectives and included a binational commitment to design, implement and monitor municipal and industrial pollution control programs. The governments also included a requirement to comprehensively review the Agreement's operation and effectiveness after five years.

It made the Commission responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating water quality data, monitoring water quality and related programs, and providing advice and recommendations to attain water quality objectives.

To advise the Commission, the Agreement established the Great Lakes Water Quality Board (composed of senior representatives of the federal, state and provincial governments) and the Research Advisory Board (composed of research managers). The governments also gave the Commission two new assignments: to examine the water quality impacts of land use activities and to examine water quality specifically in Lakes Superior and Huron. Finally, through the Agreement, the governments required the establishment of a regional office in the Great Lakes basin, which the IJC would administer, to assist the IJC with its new responsibilities.

• The International Joint Commission
  
  
• The IJC's Advisory Boards

The 1978 Agreement

In 1978, the two governments replaced the 1972 Agreement with a new agreement. The 1978 Agreement built upon the foundation established in the earlier Agreement, as well as new information from scientists both in and out of government. It shifted the focus from conventional pollutants, such as phosphorus and bacteria, to toxic and hazardous polluting substances. Persistent toxic substances remain in the environment for very long periods, can accumulate in living organisms, and can have serious impacts on the health of wildlife and humans. Through the 1978 Agreement, the two countries adopted a policy that the discharge of any or all persistent toxic substances be virtually eliminated in the Great Lakes and international section of the St. Lawrence River. Timelines were then established for municipal and industrial pollution abatement and control programs.

Perhaps the most significant change in the 1978 Agreement was the inclusion of a more holistic view through the use of the term "Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem" which it defined as the interacting components of air, land, water and living organisms, including humans, within the drainage basin of the Great Lakes and the international section of the St. Lawrence River. Thus the entire ecosystem was incorporated into the Agreement's goal "to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem."

The 1978 Agreement continued the practice of assigning certain advisory responsibilities to the Commission. Terms of reference were included for the Great Lakes Water Quality Board, a new Science Advisory Board, and the Great Lakes Regional Office. It also provided for the amendment of specific annexes as needed, and specified a review of the Agreement following every third Commission biennial report on Great Lakes water quality.

Amendments in 1983

The 1978 Agreement was amended in 1983 to enhance efforts to reduce phosphorus inputs into the lakes. Scientists from both countries worked together to set the target loads for each lake that would need to be met to achieve the water quality objectives in the Agreement. On October 16, 1983, a Phosphorus Load Reduction Supplement to Annex 3 of the 1978 Agreement was signed that outlined measures to reduce phosphorus loading throughout the basin. As a result, detailed plans to reduce phosphorus loading to receiving waters were developed and adopted by each jurisdiction in the basin.

The 1987 Protocol Amending the 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

After an extensive review of the Agreement, which included considerable public input and involvement, the governments signed the 1987 Protocol. The Protocol added several new programs and initiatives through comprehensive new annexes. For example, a new annex identified specific Areas of Concern (AOCs), or the most seriously polluted areas in the basin, and procedures for cleanup through the development and implementation of Remedial Action Plans (RAPs). This annex also prescribed principles and procedures to address critical pollutants in the open waters of the lakes by developing and implementing Lakewide Management Plans.

• Annex 2: Great Lakes Areas of Concern and Remedial Action Plans

Other new or revised annexes addressed pollution from land runoff, contaminated sediments, surveillance and monitoring programs, specific objectives for persistent toxic substances, contaminated groundwater, airborne toxic substances, and research coordination.

The 1987 Protocol also transferred major data collection and reporting responsibilities from the Water Quality Board to the governments. For example, most of the new or revised annexes required biennial progress reports by the governments to the Commission in order for the IJC to effectively evaluate Agreement progress. The Protocol also included enhanced requirements for bilateral consultation, and specifically called upon the governments -- in cooperation with the states and provinces -- to meet twice a year to coordinate their respective Agreement work plans and to evaluate progress. The governments established the Binational Executive Committee to implement this Agreement provision.

The 1978 Agreement's provision for formal review after every third biennial report by the IJC, or approximately every six years, remained in the Protocol. The Agreement has been reviewed twice since the 1987 Protocol, but it has not been modified since then; it will be reviewed again by the governments in 2006.

Next section >

Last update: