International Joint Commission Hails Progress by Governments in Protecting Great Lakes from Interbasin Transfers and Large-Scale Water Export
The International Joint Commission (IJC) today commended federal, state and provincial governments in the Great Lakes Basin for making enormous strides toward protecting the Great Lakes from water diversions and managing consumptive uses. In 2000 the IJC called for strengthening defenses against harmful water transfers out of the Great Lakes basin and the current report reviews progress since that time.
The IJC report calls developments since then "for the most part a good news story". The policy gaps identified by the IJC in 2000 have been largely filled. But both ongoing management vigilance and additional scientific advances will be required to maintain that positive momentum.
The most significant accomplishment since the IJC’s 2000 report was the signing in 2008 of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Compact among the eight Great Lakes states and a parallel agreement among the states, Ontario and Quebec to ban most diversions and exports. The states and provinces have taken other important steps to protect Great Lakes waters from diversion and export.
"The citizens of the Great Lakes region have been well served by their governments, who have taken a reasoned and effective approach to stopping water transfers out of the basin," said Canadian Commissioner Benoît Bouchard. "This is really a model for watersheds all over the world, emphasizing water conservation and stewardship."
"There is no surplus Great Lakes water, as only one percent of the Great Lakes water supply is renewed each year by rainfall and snowmelt," said U.S. Commissioner Dereth Glance. "The IJC applauds the leadership exercised by the Great Lakes states and provinces, and recommends further strengthening of key measures, including water conservation, accuracy of water use data, and using adaptive management to promote resilience under future climate scenarios."
To strengthen the region’s defenses further from large scale water transfers, the IJC recommends that:
- The states, provinces and federal governments develop methodologies for improving the accuracy of Great Lakes water use and consumptive use estimates;
- In addition to continuing to take an adaptive management approach to decision-making for diversions, consumptive uses, and lake level management, the federal, provincial and state governments incorporate climate resilience into policies and management practices;
- The states and provinces fully factor the adverse ecological and water quality impacts of groundwater withdrawals into water use permitting procedures and decisions regarding consumptive use;
- Federal, state and provincial research continue to improve mapping and understanding groundwater aquifers in the basin, to determine where groundwater supplies may be degraded in the future and identify management methods for avoiding these problems;
- Public and private sectors of society develop broad-based collaboration to enhance water stewardship by fixing leaking public water infrastructure, supporting innovation, and increasing funding to close the region’s water infrastructure deficit; and
- The states and provinces consider a binational public trust framework as a backstop to the 2008 Compact and Agreement.
The IJC observes that there continue to be large voids between our knowledge regarding levels and flows, and the impact they have on the ecosystem of the basin. Due to prevailing uncertainties such as those posed by climate change and the sheer threat of the unexpected, the precautionary principle needs to be continually applied by basin jurisdictions to ensure, to the extent possible, adequate supplies for all socio-economic and ecosystem uses for the long term.
The International Joint Commission was established under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to help the United States and Canada prevent and resolve disputes over the use of the waters the two countries share.
For more information on the Protection of the Waters on the Great Lakes, please see the full report here.
For more information:
Nick Heisler
Ottawa
613-992-8367
Dave Dempsey
Canada et États-Unis
202-674-0054