International Joint Commission’s Public Forum
On Great Lakes - St. Lawrence Water Quality
Montreal, Quebec
October 20, 2001

Good Morning. I have had the pleasure of participating at International Joint Commission Biennial Forums in my former position as head of Michigan’s Office of the Great Lakes. This is my first opportunity to speak before the IJC and the public representing one of the parties to Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and representing the US Environmental Protection Agency’s national water program. I thank the Commissioners for the opportunity to be here.

I also want to publicly salute my friend and colleague Tom Baldini, for his outstanding leadership of the US Section these many years. The entire Great Lakes region is grateful for your service to the Lakes and the people who depend on them.

It’s an honor to be here and to join my Canadian colleague Karen Redman in sharing with you some of the policy challenges we continue to face in working to protect the outstanding binational treasure of the Great Lakes.

I love the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence region, having had the good fortune to marry a woman who grew up on Lake Michigan and to actively work on Great Lakes policy for over eight years.

From my new position the challenges facing the Great Lakes look just as formidable, yet so do the talent, resources, and energy that we collectively bring to the challenges. Progress has been substantial - sometimes slower than we’d like - but no less real. It has been a decades-long success story and it is still in the making.

The U.S. and Canada are the closest of partners in many arenas including the protection of our shared environmental treasures. From the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, thru the 1972 signing of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and its subsequent updates, our two nations have successfully addressed phosphorus loadings. We have reduced the input of toxics into the waters of the Great Lakes and are addressing legacy toxic pollutants in sediment. We are moving to stem the loss of vital wetlands and habitat, and we will continue to work to prevent future introductions of exotic species.

Much of our binational cooperation takes place through the Lakewide Management Plans, Remedial Action Plans, the Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network, State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference, and through a variety of other actions called for under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The Agreement continues to be a world model of binational and international cooperation for shared natural resources. We are proud of the progress we have made in protecting and restoring the Great Lakes with our Canadian neighbors.

However, we cannot be and are not complacent. We still have much work to do before we can, without qualification, answer "Yes" to four of the questions that our citizens often ask:

• Are Great Lakes fish safe to eat?
• Are the beaches safe for swimming?
• Do the Lakes provide a healthy natural environment for people and wildlife?
• Do the Lakes continue to provide a safe source of drinking water?

I know these four questions don’t cover the full complexity of the issues facing us, but they are strong general indicators of the overall health and integrity of the Great Lakes and they’re of paramount importance to our citizens.

Later this morning my colleagues Gary Gulezian and John Mills will highlight in some detail the progress that’s being made in these areas. I’d like to discuss with you several programs and initiatives which are broader in scope and implementation than the Great Lakes Basin, but which I believe will have significant benefits for the Lakes as well as other waters. These efforts will help move us closer to our ultimate goals for the Lakes as expressed in the Agreement and closer to answering in the affirmative each of those questions.

Drinking Water - Counter-terrorism

Because of the urgency imposed by recent events, I’m going to address first the question of drinking water safety. Until recently, most public questions about drinking water safety focused on the quality of source water or compliance with standards for microbial or chemical contaminants. The events and aftermath of September 11 have immediately and drastically changed the focus of those questions to one of the fundamental security of our drinking water systems from malign threats.

Building on existing efforts, we are rapidly taking steps to ensure that all drinking water providers and wastewater systems possess tools to assess, minimize and respond to all potential threats to the safety of drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities.

We are working on five specific fronts: tools, training, secure information, an expanded knowledge base, and networking. Let me review these areas of activity very briefly.

• Tools : We are developing tools to safeguard water in concert with numerous partners, public and private. These include:
  • Immediate Notices sent to all utilities and local law enforcement outlining security measures to be put in place expeditiously.
  • Initiating cross–checks of utility employees with the FBI’s watch lists.
  • Vulnerability assessments and Remediation Plans for systems
  • Emergency Operations Plans for drinking water systems.

• Training : We are developing training programs for utilities, including general managers; security officers and consultants; State/EPA Regions/Tribes.

• Secure Information Sharing : We are pursuing rapid information sharing for alerts of threats, notices of vulnerability, and incidents using the FBI’s secure information system to notify all drinking water utilities as well as a Virtual Center to coordinate among utilities, EPA Regions, States, and local emergency and drinking water contacts.

• Improving Knowledge : We are pushing new and ongoing research and analysis for a better understanding of the range of potential contaminants and how to respond to them, including the nature of the contaminants; detection of the contaminants; how the contaminants respond to treatment; and the fate and transport of the contaminants – within the environment and within the treatment system.

• Networking : EPA realizes that the safeguarding of the nation’s drinking water is not entirely in our hands, although we play a critical role. We will continue to improve coordination, dialogue, and information dissemination with other Federal Agencies, with the EPA Regions and States, and with the principal water organizations responsible for frontline defense.

Recently, EPA Administrator Whitman announced the formation of a Water Protection Task Force to help federal, state and local partners to expand their tools to safeguard the nation’s drinking water supply and wastewater treatment facilities from terrorist attack. While EPA already has a strong coordinated partnership program for protecting our drinking water, this task force will expand EPA’s service to the community water systems and wastewater treatment systems, while intensifying our security efforts.

And in this vital area of protecting citizens from terrorist threats, the US and Canada are working closely together on many fronts. We are increasing our consultations and coordination by federal agencies such as EPA and Environment Canada, and are intensifying cooperation to protect people in both countries related to potential threats of hazardous and toxic chemicals that could contaminate fresh water supplies and air.

Nevertheless, I hasten to add that physical destruction, not exotic biological or chemical threats, remain the biggest threat to reservoirs, aqueducts, chlorine tanks, and the like. So physical security must remain the responsibility of the private and public sectors.

But let’s return to our more traditional concerns in the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence ecosystem.

Toxics Reduction

Toxic contaminants in the Lakes pose hazards to fish and wildlife and can pose a health threat to people who consume fish, especially young children or women who are or may become pregnant. Major sources of toxics to the Lakes are air deposition and contaminated sediments.

In order to continue to reduce the levels of persistent bioaccumulative toxic chemicals in the environment, the U.S. and Canada signed the Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy (BNS) in April of 1997, which set specific reduction goals for the most troublesome, persistent chemicals including mercury, PCBs, and dioxins. We are continuing vigorous implementation of the Strategy. Stakeholder involvement is the cornerstone of the Strategy, and I am pleased to say that we continue to secure commitments from additional stakeholders for phasing out use or reducing emissions of these persistent pollutants.

Here are some indicators of progress in reducing toxics in the Basin:

PCBs and DDT : Over the last decade, net deposition of DDT to the 5 Great Lakes has decreased by 85%, and atmospheric inputs of PCBs to the Lakes have decreased by half. We are on track to achieve the BNS goal of a 90% reduction of high-level PCBs (> 500 ppm) used in electrical equipment.

Dioxins : Dioxin emissions decreased an estimated 77 percent between 1987 and 1995, and are expected to decline an additional 66 percent between 1995 and 2006, primarily as the result of controls on emissions from incineration and copper smelting.

Mercury : BNS sets a goal of reducing mercury use and emissions nationally 50 percent by 2006. While high quality data are difficult to acquire on mercury use, best available data indicates that mercury use decreased approximately 50 percent between 1995 and 2001.

Preliminary data indicates that mercury emissions declined by close to 40 percent between 1990 and 2001, largely as the result of decreasing emissions from incineration of municipal and medical wastes. Further reductions from this sector will occur as regulations affecting these facilities are fully implemented over the next few years.

But mercury continues to be a problem in Great Lakes fish and many other waters across the continent. EPA will take additional steps to substantially reduce airborne mercury emissions from the single largest remaining emission source - coal-fired utility plants.

• In December 2000 the Agency determined that mercury emissions from coal-fired electric power plants warrant further control. These plants emit about 43 tons of mercury each year. By 2003 EPA will propose a Maximum Achievable Control Technology regulation under the Clean Air Act to control mercury emissions from coal-fired utilities. The rule will be finalized by 2004.

• An alternative means of emissions control is being actively explored within the Administration: a so-called Multipollutant Strategy for coal-fired power plants. This approach recognizes that utilities are likely to be further regulated in upcoming years for three pollutants: mercury and nitrogen and sulfur oxides. This approach would set an overall cap on emissions for each of the three pollutants and allow utilities to trade emissions among facilities to achieve and maintain the cap.

EPA believes that greater reductions of each pollutant can be achieved at lower cost if a Multipollutant approach is followed. This approach requires enabling legislation and EPA will work with Congress to see if we can make this approach a reality. If implemented, it would replace the 2004 rule on mercury emissions for coal-fired power plants as well as several other regulatory programs for nitrogen and sulfur dioxide.

Either way, through a MACT regulation for coal-fired power plant mercury emissions or a Multipollutant program, the US aims to achieve substantial additional reductions over the next decade.

Broad based international attention is beginning to focus on mercury as well, through the United Nations Environment Program Mercury Assessment.

Also on the international level, in May of this year, the U.S. joined with Canada, the European Commission, and 90 other countries in signing a global treaty to reduce Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). In order to reduce long range transport of POPs to sensitive ecosystems in the U.S., including the Great Lakes, the U.S. is also assisting developing countries in reducing their releases of POPs as will be required by the treaty.

One of the most intractable problems in the Great Lakes is contaminated bottom sediments. Contaminated sediments impact virtually all the Areas of Concern, and are a source of continuing pollutant loadings to near shore areas and to the lakes as a whole. Cycling of contaminants from bottom sediments is a leading source of contamination of the Great Lakes food chain.

Contaminated sediments problems have been addressed at many sites throughout the Great Lakes Basin; remediation activities have been completed at 20 sites since l997. Over that 4-year time frame, we have remediated more than 1.5 million cubic yards of contaminated sediments in Great Lakes Rivers and Harbors.

We will continue apace to address these sites, though it must be admitted that some of the largest, most challenging, and most expensive sites remain. We’re working towards an objective of initiating three remedial actions per year beginning in 2002.

Through these efforts and many others we will steadily continue to reduce levels of toxics in fish . Someday we will answer the question - albeit for our great grandchildren - that, yes, Great Lakes fish are safe to eat by anyone, anywhere.

Clean and Healthy Beaches

The citizens of the basin love to visit the Great Lakes for recreation and this includes spending a day at the beach. Clean and healthy beaches are at the top of our list of priorities for the Great Lakes and throughout the country.

Most Great Lakes beaches provide a safe and enjoyable location for outdoor recreation and swimming. Monitoring studies show that beach pollution is usually confined to areas near pollution sources after heavy rainfall or where a sewage treatment plant malfunctions. Nonetheless, there have been a number of closings in recent swimming seasons and these have a direct effect on the enjoyment of the resource.

Of more concern, we may not have enough monitoring information to know when beaches should be posted or closed and this lack of data could pose a potential health threat to swimmers through exposure to harmful microorganisms.

We are working hard to make beaches safer for swimming nationwide. In 2000 Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment & Coastal Health Act (BEACH Act). EPA is working with state and local agencies to implement the Act, which requires all states with coastal waters (including Great Lakes) to review current water quality standards for pathogens recreation waters and to adopt more protective standards where necessary.

The Act also requires EPA to develop guidance for beach monitoring and public notification of closings, and provides for some funding of state efforts to implement monitoring and notification programs. Key objectives we’ve identified for Great Lakes beaches are that by 2005, 95% of high-use Great Lakes beaches will have monitoring and public notification programs that comply with EPA guidance. And by 2007, we’re aiming for 90% of these beaches to meet bacteria standards for more than 95% of the swimming season.

Meeting that objective will not be easy. Many of the sources affecting beaches - such as discharges from sanitary sewers and stormwater - are difficult and expensive to fix.

Do the Great Lakes provide a healthy natural environment for people and wildlife?

Our citizens want to know that the diverse landscapes, waterways, and wildlife of the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence ecosystem are protected and free from harm.

Of the various environmental threats we must manage, few are more potentially damaging than invasive species, which pose a growing and potentially devastating threat to the region's economy and environment. There are now 160 such pests in the Great Lakes system, and it’s likely that more are on the way. We must do more to close out invasive species entirely from the Great Lakes system.

The invasive species problem manifests itself locally, but the solution must be regional, national and international in scope. The ultimate response must be fully coordinated across agencies and international boundaries, and many have a role to play. For this reason, I applaud the IJC’s recent report Alien Invasive Species and Biological Pollution of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem . [www.ijc.org/php/publications/html/ais01may.html]

Many aquatic nuisance species (ANS) have been introduced over the last four decades as a result of increased shipping and international trade, with ballast water being the primary, though not only, vector for aquatic invasion.

EPA just issued a report that considers the Agency’s role in better control of ballast water introductions, and presents Agency options for addressing invasive species. This report, titled Aquatic Nuisance Species in Ballast Water Discharges: Issues and Options , is out in draft for public comment until January 11, 2002. I urge you to review it and provide comments if desired. [www.socp.org/ballast/papers/EPA%2026Sept01.pdf]

This draft report finds that the greatest impediment to effectively controlling ANS introductions from ballast water discharges is the current lack of technical solutions to remove ANS from discharges. [While mid-ocean ballast water exchange may offer some relief from ANS introductions, it has significant shortcomings including possible safety risks to vessels during adverse weather].

Among other findings, the EPA report proposes:

• a more active agenda for research, outreach, and technology development through established task forces and Councils on Invasive Species;

• supporting U.S. Coast Guard's efforts to maximize compliance with its regulations, evaluate their effectiveness, and to revise them if necessary; and

• continuing EPA's participation on the U.S. delegation to the Ballast Water Working group of the Marine Environmental Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization, which is working toward an international ballast water agreement and standards.

• While recommending the EPA defer consideration of applying National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits to ballast water discharges pending these other actions, it acknowledges that NPDES permitting of ballast is one option, along with others provided by the Clean Water Act.

Coastal wetlands are one of the Lakes’ greatest treasures. Only a fraction of the region's wetlands and coastal marshes have survived to date, and their restoration and protection is essential. In addition to providing a tremendous recreational value to the region, they provide critical fish and wildlife habitat, prevent shoreline erosion, and help store and cycle nutrients.

Over the last several years, the quantity and quality of Great Lakes coastal wetlands have received increasing attention among Canadian and United States scientists and resource managers. The Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium has been convened to monitor the size and ecological health of Great Lakes coastal wetlands in order to guide their protection and restoration. EPA has been pleased to support this effort through its Great Lakes National Program Office.

Over the next two years the Consortium will (1) design and validate indicators to assess the ecological integrity of Great Lakes coastal wetlands; (2) design an implementable, long-term program to monitor Great Lakes coastal wetlands; and, (3) to make this data accessible to scientists, decision-makers, and the public.

Clarifying our Objectives and Better Measuring Our Progress

Coastal wetlands represent just one of many important areas where we need better data and indicators of how well the Great Lakes resource is doing and how well we’re progressing in our protection and cleanup efforts. I would like to close by commending two efforts to bring more clarity to near-term objectives for action to improve the Lakes and consistency to the measurement of our progress in the Great Lakes.

The first of these is the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC). The SOLEC process and indicators development reflect the commitment of the U.S. and Canada to regular reporting on progress toward the goals of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and development of a consistent and appropriate set of indicators for the ecosystem.

The second effort is the Great Lakes Strategy, nearing completion by the US Policy Committee, a forum of senior-level representatives from federal, state, and tribal natural resource management/environmental protection agencies. The Strategy includes long term goals consistent with the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, measurable mid-term objectives and key actions that will be taken over the next several years by Great Lakes states, tribes, and several federal agencies. Where appropriate, progress towards the objectives are measured using SOLEC indicators. A draft Strategy was made available for public comment this past summer and the final Strategy is expected late this fall.

In the Great Lakes we’re working towards ambitious long-term goals that will only be achieved by sustained and concerted action over many years. To chart a path and gauge our progress towards these goals, it’s critical that we agree on mid- term objectives, identify actions geared to those objectives, and continue to gauge our success.

I think we’re doing a much better job of that and that as a result, the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence success story will continue. If we persevere, we will be able to proudly answer those four questions: yes, the Great Lakes provide a safe source of drinking water; Great Lakes fish are safe to eat anywhere, anytime; the beaches are open and healthy for swimming; and the Great Lakes is a natural environment where people and wildlife thrive.

Thanks to each one of you for your continued efforts for the Lakes. And special thanks to the IJC for helping Canada and the United States advance our common goals.