Column: Tell me what sucks about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

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By David Poulson
poulsondavid@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Aug. 7, 2009

I attended a Great Lakes public hearing this week that really wasn’t.

The event at Michigan State University was one of the EPA-sponsored meetings held to solicit feedback for the Obama Administration’s proposed $475 million investment in environmental restoration.

And while the meeting was open to the public, not much of the public was represented.

Instead, this was mostly a Great Lakes love-in.

Much of the crowd consisted of the same people, or the same kinds of people, whom I’ve met during 25 years of covering similar gatherings. All had been significantly engaged in Great Lakes environmental and economic restoration. How could they be opposed to Obama’s downpayment on a promised $5 billion Great Lakes investment?

Here’s who was missing: Anyone with an idea different for spending this money than the proposed 100-odd projects developed by a collaboration of agencies and organizations. You mean absolutely everyone agrees that EPA has the magic distribution formula? I’m surprised you can get such unanimity on the five spending categories and how the money is allocated among them, let alone on the actual projects.

It will be interesting to see after all this public input – you can still send comments to EPA before Aug. 19 – whether the agency’s proposal changes a wit.

Here are two ideas I would have liked to have seen fleshed out at a true public hearing:

  1. Instead of 100 projects, how about 20? Or six? Or one? Long-time Great Lakes watcher Dave Dempsey has raised this issue several times. Why not focus this money in a way that truly demonstrates a significant piece of environmental protection or cleanup? How about completely cleaning up one Area of Concern? What about a full court press on ballast treatment and regulation? What if we invested much of this money in aggressive wetland protection? The diversity and spread of the projects produce a whiff of compromise – of trying to please a lot of constituencies and agencies. Might someone argue that a handful of significant projects demonstrates what can be accomplished with a focused attack? Might that also spur yet more public investments? Would such an issue prompt you to vote here?
  2. Don’t spend the money at all. As Congress debates this expenditure, that issue will certainly be central to many lawmakers already railing about stimulus spending. Why not get it out in the open right now? Democracy is messy. If nothing else, raising that question gives others the opportunity to justify the expense – and perhaps change a few minds.

A lack of wrestling with these kind of questions isn’t the fault of those who organize hearings.  People attracted to a hearing on spending money on environmental protection are likely people who desperately want to see that investment. And a lack of quibbling over spending specifics may represent a reluctance to rock the boat when such a bonanza is in sight.

But we lose when we fail to engage in meaningful debate.

It’s an issue not unlike the struggles journalism faces. As readers in the information age we have the ability to choose the kind of journalism that exactly reflects our beliefs. As journalists in the information age we have the task of engaging diverse readers who may not choose to consume news that challenges their beliefs.

With a scant four months under our belt, the question here at Echo is whether we can attract an audience with diverse enough members that they inform each other in a way that builds greater understanding.

So if you think that the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is mistaken or even poorly focused, I’d like to hear about it in the comments below.

And, of course, you have the opportunity to defend it here as well.

David Poulson edits Echo and is the associate director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.
More Great Lakes Restoration Initiative stories and background here.

13 thoughts on “Column: Tell me what sucks about the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

  1. Pingback: » Poulson’s GLRI Echo is Heard and Returned - Healthy Lakes - Healthy Lives

  2. In Muskegon County we are very fortunate to have our core group of dedicated individuals still around after 3-4 decades. We have seen our Muskegon Lake and White Lake AOC PACs hang in there through many slow progress periods that would break the morale of weaker communities. The hard times are when we make most of limited funding picking away at priority projects and making sure the RAPs, management plans, and research projects are always in focus. The point is this. Conditions can change quickly as has happened in the last few months, and being “planning and shovel ready” can lead to pleasant surprises. When $475M pops up we’ll take as many large or small grants feasible. I came away from the Lansing meeting feeling very good for a change. But, I’m looking beyond the present $475M period to one more good round of funding following and then back to slow mode political reality 3-4 years from now. Enjoy your funding and complete as many projects now while you can. While you’re at it recruit some young dedicated blood into your organizations to carry on through the next slow funding period.

  3. I agree Tim that it is important for people to make their thoughts known directly to the EPA, and would encourage all to do so.

    The Great Lakes Town Hall, The Echo, and many other sites, as well as the media have done a good job at publicizing the EPA events you are hosting.

    And I give you, Cam Davis, and Gary Gulezian high marks for your outreach efforts.

    But a plan of this magnitude is hard to understand and intelligently comment on by the average concerned citizen. I probably pay more attention to Great Lakes Restoration than most citizens and I was reluctant to comment publicly in Chicago for fear of looking stupid.

    And to your point about no plan being perfect, we all get that.

    As I understand it, any chance for future funding rests with the success of how well we spend this $475 million.

    I remain concerned that the plan as presented and likely implemented, is so unfocused that results will be only at the margins.

    Thanks Tim for the Great Lakes Commission’s role in communicating the GLRI. And yes, I’ll be submitting my thoughts to the EPA.

    gw

  4. Dave:

    Your comments on the Great Lakes Restoration Initaitive and the dialogue in response are interesting and provocative. The Great Lakes Commission, which represents the Great Lakes states, organized and facilitated the public meetings on contract to EPA. We are also tasked with writing a report summarizing all of the comments.

    It’s great that people are sharing their views with you, but if they really want to have their views reflected in the feedback that is presented to EPA and the other federal agenices, they should submit their comments, suggestions, complaints and recommendations, BEFORE August 19, to http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/glri/outreach.html

    No plan of this magnitude is perfect. Nor will $475M solve all of the ills facing the Great Lakes. Maybe some of your ideas and those of your readers can make the plan better.

    – Tim Eder

  5. I agree Dave, not enough of a sampling to draw hard conclusions.

    But if you were to assume that each vote represents a significant number of those who don’t vote, I think it has validity as an indicator of public sentiment, properly contectualized.

    Thanks for yiur work on this.

    gw

  6. Gary,

    If you have voted, you can track the poll results here: http://www.greatlakesecho.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4
    At this point (9:15 a.m. Monday, Aug. 10) we only have had 25 voters.
    Of those, 60 percent (15) favor 10 projects or fewer, 24 Percent (6) favor less than 50 projects, 12 percent (3), like the proposal as is and 4 percent (1).
    But with that kind of voter turnout I don’t think you can draw any significant conclusions. We’ll keep it up for a bit to see if it attracts more voters.

  7. Hey Dave….

    I hope you’ll share the poll results with the EPA execs. (Cam Davis and Gary Gulezian) who conducted the Lansing meeting.

    And if you give me a heads up when you close the poll, I’ll post the results on the Great Lakes Town Hall.

    gw

  8. Individuals near every body of water in the Great Lakes watershed that has problems have been meeting, discussing, and studying those problems for about 35 years. The main reason most of those problems haven’t been resolved has been lack of money. If I could use this new money to end international non-point source pollution, eliminate invasive species, or stop global warming, I would. 35 years of experience, however, has taught me to let everybody who cares take a shot at the possible. They’ve all earned it.

  9. I attended the last function in Duluth and commented concerning the fact that Lake Superior Lake Trout are the most toxic fish in the Great lakes. The “edible flesh” of a trophy sized one will contain 5 ppm of toxaphene, 10X the amount of toxaphene that would cause dirt to be classified as hazardous waste. What sucks?
    + This was news to the 150 or so people in attendance:
    + The plan to reduce toxics does not mention toxaphene:
    +Dredging AOCs will not solve the problem:
    +Dredging AOCs will not improve water quality or reduce fish consumption warnings in any of the lakes:
    + Ontario and the States surrounding Lake Superior have kept us from worrying about toxaphene by no longer measuring and reporting it:
    Two things need to be done ….
    + Globally ban PCBs and the long banned legacy persistent pesticides.
    * Honestly communicate their presence in our food.
    The USEPA cannot do either of these functions.
    Please view the video testimony I left at this meeting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2FT9vgTIAY

  10. Hmmmmm. Last I knew, I was a member of the public. Been a volunteer on our Public Advisory Council on and off since 1993. I was with others with the same background. I guess it’s about who shows up. There are countless opportunities to show up and many of us at the “public hearing” having been showing up for years, when there’s been little to no money to get our little piece of the environment restored. Lots of volunteer hours. Lots of planning. And we do what we can to represent the public that doesn’t want to attend meetings or can’t show up. After years of work, we just want to get things done. Good to have some money to do it with. BTW, we are likely to go a long way with this money to clean up our Area of Concern. That’s been a very strong focus of the folks giving out the money.

  11. The plan doesn’t address fundamental issues of non-point runoff from agriculture in the basin. Conventional agriculture fails to retain water in the soil when compared to the water retention capability of organic farming. Agricultural chemicals (atrazine for example) flow off conventional farms into the Great Lakes. We should offer strong incentives to conventional farms to transition to organic agricultural practices to protect and clean up the lakes. In addition, we need to ban CAFO animal production which produces immense amounts of nutrient pollution which in turn produces nutrification of the lake.

  12. You’re right on the mark Dave. I attended the Chicago version of this event and it was the same story.

    One NGO staffer did (gently) ask how the money could effectively be spent by 16 agencies over eight states.

    However, most of the comments were in line with what you observed and in fact, there were two prominent speakers who gave the plan an almost embarrasing gushing endorsement.

    Thanks for putting the Echo spotlight on this.

    gw

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