Progress Toward Restoration

Introduction

Governments and stakeholders in the Great Lakes basin have initiated or completed a wide variety of remedial actions in various Areas of Concern in the United States and Canada, representing considerable investment with some well-documented successes, such as:

• The governments no longer consider Collingwood Harbour and Severn Sound (Ontario) to be Areas of Concern because conditions have improved to the point that beneficial uses have been restored (Box 4). The Commission concurred.
• The two governments have recognized Spanish Harbour in Ontario and Presque Isle Bay in Pennsylvania as Areas of Concern that are in a recovery stage (Box 4).
• The U.S. government has reported that at a cost of nearly $130 million (USD), more than 1.27 million cubic meters (1.6 million cubic yards) of sediment contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been removed from the Kalamazoo River, Manistique River, Maumee River, Rouge River, Saginaw River, Saginaw Bay, and the United States side of the St. Lawrence River.
• The Canadian government reports that approximately $270 million (CAD) has been invested by the federal and provincial governments over the last 10 years to improve the condition of wastewater infrastructure in various Canadian Areas of Concern. The United States government reports investing $3.4 billion (USD) to upgrade wastewater infrastructure in two United States Areas of Concern.

The status of activities directed toward remediation of contaminated sediment, wastewater infrastructure, and fish and wildlife habitat and restoration of other beneficial uses are discussed in the following sections of this report.