Great Lakes Water Quality Board
Summary of Discussion for 162^nd Meeting
Cosmos Club, Washington, DC
Tuesday, April 12, 2005

3.0 Review of Minutes and Action Items of WQB 161^st Meeting

The Board agreed to have two WQB members serve on the panel discussion following the speakers’ presentations in the Ecological Integrity Workshop at the IJC Great Lakes Conference and Biennial Meeting, June 9^th in Kingston, Ontario. The WQB is co-sponsoring this workshop with the Lake Erie Millenium Network and the intent is for the Board members to react to the scientific information presented from resource management and policy perspectives. Dave Ullrich and Craig Mather volunteered.

Action Item: Two Board members to participate in the Ecological Integrity Workshop panel discussion.

4.1 Watershed Approaches Workshop – Impressions and Next Steps

A summary of the WQB Watershed Approaches Workshop that was held March 8-9 in Ypsilanti, Michigan was provided. There were over 50 in attendance and represented U.S. and Canadian Federal government agencies, states, and the Province of Ontario, regional planning entities, and Great Lakes Commission staff. Everyone seemed to really look forward to learning about each other’s watershed planning programs. Although, as anticipated, the linkages are not very strong between jurisdictional watershed planning and lakewide management plans (LaMPs), the three presentations on LaMPs (Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Erie) demonstrated a wide spectrum of actions are underway to communicate and interact with jurisdictional watershed plans within their lake watersheds.

The Board was encouraged to seize this unique opportunity to provide advice to the Commission on watershed issues in the Agreement as some of the boards of control under the Boundary Waters Treaty are undertaking a watershed approach and the Science Advisory Board is undertaking a governance initiative as part of their advice on Agreement review and it was encouraged the WQB should link with the SAB. Gannon noted that George Francis, speaker at our Watershed Approaches Workshop, provided one of 5 contract reports to the SAB that were completed at the end of last month. As soon as the reports are reviewed by the SAB, he will make the reports available to the WQB.

Action Item: Circulate SAB governance contract reports to WQB when available.
See: http://209.216.130.42/boyer/sabgovernancespapers/.

4.2 Document Review

The results of the sub-group teleconference on review of documents pertinent to the Agreement review were reported containing four themes or approaches the Board might take in conducting the review: update current Agreement, Emerging issues, Ecosystem approach and Sustainability.

Upon further discussion, the Board did not feel it was worth their time and attention to update the current text and the sustainability discussion seemed premature without first addressing emerging issues and providing better clarification to the ecosystem approach. Concerning the ecosystem approach, it was determined that the Board could provide valuable input to advice on Agreement review by developing a lexicon of ecosystem approach terminology and clarify what is meant by "ecosystem approach", "ecological integrity", etc. in a resource management and policy context. GLRO staff work was deemed necessary in this regard on behalf of the Board.

Action Item: Develop draft report on ecosystem approach terminology and application.

Action Item: It was also determined to be worthwhile to continue the analysis of pertinent documents, especially in regards to emerging issues, that was begun by the subgroup in review of the SAB Science and the Agreement Workshop Summary.

An even more fundamental question regarding the Agreement and the WQB is what do the Great Lakes really need? The Agreement defines a working relationship on the Great Lakes between the U.S. and Canada. How might the Great Lakes agencies and jurisdictions react to a query about the relevance of the Agreement and what would be lost if the Agreement did not exist? Is the Agreement relevant to agencies and jurisdictional activities? Moreover, the public is probably quite confused the Agreement, the Agreement review, Annex 2001, the U.S. regional collaboration, etc.

Action Item: As an initial step, Gannon will revise questions on Agreement relevance and importance to WQB members and observers and share draft with documents review sub-group.

It was agreed that the Water Quality Board needs to have a retreat and deliberate on what the Great Lakes need and what is the role of the WQB in better addressing those needs. The retreat would mostly look forward on what we would make new to better serve the lakes? Some back-casting would also be relevant by reviewing the WQB’s terms of reference in the current Agreement.

A retreat with nothing else on the agenda was deemed most appropriate to develop high-level advice on the Agreement for the Commission. The retreat should use the service of a facilitator and need not be limited to the WQB with some SAB and CGLRM members invited also.

Action Item: Develop agenda, time and place WQB retreat.

5.0 Annex 2 Work Group

A summary of activities of the Annex 2 work group was provided:

• The GLRO via contractor obtained information for up-dating the matrix table of progress in AOC’s since publication of the 2003 IJC AOC report.
• Montgomery has drafted a report for the work group and the Board on lessons learned during AOCs visits and consultations in 2003 and 2004.
• Also via contract, an expert directory of individuals willing to assist RAP practitioners is being compiled. This is a work plan item for the former Annex 2 Task Force.

The interest among the workgroup members of organizing a future workshop on 5 binational RAPs was also noted and the Board was informed of the upcoming symposium at the Great Lakes Research Conference on restoring beneficial use impairments that is being co-organized by Krantzberg, Gannon, Montgomery and Zarull (NWRI, Environment Canada). The Symposium objectives are to develop scientifically based, quantifiable and measurable delisting criteria and monitoring/evaluation/assessment tools for beneficial use impairments in the AOCs.

Concern was expressed on the importance of distinguishing between the activities of the Annex 2 Work Group and the GLRO. Concern was also expressed regarding the RAP reporting process conducted by contract by the GLRO. Gannon reminded the Board that a GLRO/EC/EPA conference call on AOC/RAP reporting is still outstanding from the January Board meeting.

Action Item: Montgomery arrange for Annex 2 Workgroup conference call to re-focus and identify their priorities. Subsequently, an additional conference call should be developed on AOC reporting between the GLRO/EC/EPA.

GLRO staff was encouraged to keep the WQB informed about activities in the Regional Office pertinent to WQB interests. This should include the activities of the other Agreement boards/council.

Action Item: Provide periodic briefings on other Agreement boards/council activities to WQB.