Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement: Governance

To contribute to the discussion about the governance section of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, post your thoughts below. If you want the U.S. and Canadian governments to consider your input, send it to the official website.

Given that the GLWQA was last amended in 1987, both Canada and the United States recognize the importance of examining governance aspects outlined in the GLWQA.

1. Participation in Binational Management Process

Article X of the GLWQA specifies the commitments of the Parties to consultation and Review, including: “The Parties, in cooperation with State and Provincial Governments, shall meet twice a year to coordinate their respective work plans with regard to the implementation of this Agreement and to evaluate progress made”.

In response to this commitment, the Parties have established the Binational Executive Committee (BEC). The BEC is a discussion forum composed of senior-level representatives of Canadian and U.S. federal, state, and provincial agencies who are accountable for delivering major programs and activities that respond to the terms of the GLWQA. Decision-making in BEC is based on consensus. BEC meets twice a year or as required to:

* set priorities and strategic direction for binational programming in the basin;

* coordinate binational programs and activities;

* respond to new and emerging issues on the Great Lakes including tasking existing or creating new working groups to undertake designated activities;

* provide input to the Parties’ evaluation of progress under the GLWQA; and,

* provide advice, comment or other input for the preparation of various binational reports and presentations.

During the GLWQA Review, a number of people suggested that the BEC should be expanded to include municipalities, Tribes, First Nations and Métis on the grounds that they too were responsible for delivery of programs which contribute to the achievement of GLWQA objectives. It was therefore suggested that they should have a more prominent role in the decision-making process. However, increasing the membership of BEC to include all Great Lakes basin municipalities, Tribes, First Nations and Métis could increase the BEC membership into the hundreds.

The following are, for consideration, some potential binational mechanisms to oversee the implementation of the GLWQA.

* Currently, federal, provincial and state agencies responsible for implementing programs relevant to achieving the goals of the GLWQA participate in the Binational Executive Committee, which is an information sharing and coordination forum.

* Federal, provincial and state agencies responsible for decision-making and for implementing programs relevant to achieving the goals of the GLWQA could continue to participate in a Binational Executive Committee, but the committee’s role could be strengthened to include responsibility for setting priorities for science and action and agreeing on strategies and targets to address Great Lakes issues.

* The focus of the Binational Executive Committee could be maintained, but its membership expanded to include others who are responsible for decision-making and implementing programs relevant to achieving the goals of the GLWQA. These include municipalities and local governments, Tribes, First Nations and Métis.

* Membership of the Binational Executive Committee could be expanded to include others responsible for decision-making and implementing programs relevant to achieving the goals of the GLWQA, including municipalities and local governments, Tribes, First Nations and Métis. The committee’s role could be strengthened to include responsibility for setting priorities for science and action and agreeing on strategies and targets to address Great Lakes issues.

2. Principles, Governing Concepts, and Tools Applicable to Implementing the GLWQA

During the GLWQA Review, many people suggested including principles or concepts, implicitly or explicitly, to govern the implementation of the GLWQA.

Among the list of principles, governing concepts, and tools, the following have been suggested for consideration (please note that the suggested definitions used below are for informing and guiding discussions only; they do not represent definitions accepted by, or agreed to by, the governments of Canada or the United States):

1. Accountability – remain accountable to citizens by establishing clear goals, results, and commitments for this Agreement, and reporting regularly on progress in relation to environmental conditions.

2. Adaptive Management — incorporate systematic processes for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of previously employed policies and practices.

3. Binational cooperation — equal participation of nations and free exchange of information.

4. Collaboration, Cooperation, and Engagement — acknowledge the important role of public engagement by ensuring that decision-making processes incorporate consideration of public opinions and advice, and provide the Great Lakes-St Lawrence River basin community with meaningful opportunities to consult, to advise, and to participate directly in activities that support the Agreement.

5. Cumulative impacts — strategies that consider stresses acting on water quality and the health of the aquatic ecosystem individually and in combination should be developed.

6. Ecosystem Approach – make decisions that recognize the interdependence of land, air, water and living organisms, including humans, and that seek to maximize benefits to the entire Great Lakes ecosystem without degrading the downstream ecosystem of the St Lawrence River in the Province of Quebec.

7. Pollution Prevention – use processes, practices, materials, products, substances or energy that avoid or minimize the creation of pollutants and waste in order to reduce the overall risk to the environment or human health.

8. Prevention (protection from degradation) — seek to restore environmental quality which has become degraded and to prevent degradation of environmental quality in areas which have not been degraded.

9. Restoration — develop strategies and actions which contribute to initiation or acceleration of the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity and sustainability.

10. Science-Based Management — decision-making will be based on best available science, research and knowledge including traditional ecological knowledge.

11. Sustainability – social, economic and environmental factors will be taken into consideration to ensure that actions taken to meet the needs of the present generation do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

12. Transparency – relevant information, activities, decisions, and issues that arise are shared with participants and the public in a timely way.

Other principles, governing concepts, and tools may be suggested and discussed during the webinar.

3. Review of the GLWQA

Article X of the GLWQA states that: “The Parties shall conduct a comprehensive review of the operation and effectiveness of this Agreement following every third biennial report of the Commission required under Article VII of this Agreement. “ However, since the GLWQA was last amended in 1987, stakeholders have often urged the Parties to focus on implementing rather than reviewing the GLWQA. In the current Review cycle that was not the case. Stakeholders, including the International Joint Commission (IJC), municipalities, industry, non-government organizations and the public, urged the Parties to conduct a comprehensive review of the GLWQA.

The following are potential frequencies for review of the GLWQA for consideration:

* Maintain the current six-year review cycle.

* Maintain the review of GLWQA on a six-year basis, but allow for scope of review to be determined by the Parties based on public input.

* Decrease the frequency of reviews to once every 9 or 12 years.

4. Lakewide Management Plans

Annex 2 commits the Governments to the development of Lakewide Management Plans: “The Parties, in consultation with State and Provincial Governments, shall develop and implement Lakewide Management Plans for open lake waters… Such Plans shall be designed to reduce loadings of Critical Pollutants in order to restore beneficial uses…”

Since the GLWQA was last amended in 1987, the role of Lakewide Management Plans has expanded to include issues other than loadings of critical pollutants, and areas other than the open waters of the lakes.

The following are potential roles for the Lakewide Management Plans in relation to the implementation of the GLWQA for consideration:

* Continue to use Lakewide Management Plans to address all stresses on the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes, where these are best addressed on a lake-specific basis.

* Continue to use Lakewide Management Plans to address all stresses on the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes, where these are best addressed on a lake-specific basis, and extend this same approach to include nearshore zones and the connecting channels.

5. Areas of Concern

Binationally, there has been a strong commitment to restore Areas of Concern (AOCs). To date, four AOCs have been de-listed and one area is in recovery. Much progress has been made to address Beneficial Use Impairments in the remaining AOCs.

The following are, for consideration, potential changes to the goals and approaches to restore environmental quality in designated Areas of Concern:

* Retain the current focus on restoring “beneficial uses” of the environment as defined by the GLWQA and complete the job started in 1987 in the remaining Areas of Concern. This would involve no changes to the GLWQA.

* Retain the current focus on restoring “beneficial uses” of the environment and complete the job started in 1987 in the remaining Areas of Concern, but make process changes to streamline reporting and better recognize progress in restoring Areas of Concern. Examples of process changes include: relaxing the requirement for separate report preparation for problem identification, assessment of potential solutions, and verification of restoration of beneficial uses; allowing delisting of individual use impairments as they are restored; and recognizing as “Areas in Recovery” those areas where all remedial actions have been completed and monitoring is in progress to assess restoration of beneficial uses through natural recovery processes.

6. Addressing the Nearshore Zone

Governments at all levels are taking action to address environmental threats in the Great Lakes basin, but despite these actions, the nearshore zone of the Great Lakes has been identified as being under particular ecological stress. Key stressors include:

* Biological (e.g. waterborne pathogens, fecal micro-organisms, cladophora, non-native mussels and other invasive species, harmful algae blooms and fish and wildlife diseases);

* Physical (e.g. sediment resuspension/transport, climate change, water levels);

* Chemical (e.g. toxics); and,

* Human Activities (e.g. nutrients, population growth, land use change, shoreline development, shoreline hardening, shoreline structures, beach mining).

Definitions of the nearshore zone differ, but generally it is the area of bays, inlets and shallow waters where we get our drinking water, send our wastewater and that we use for recreation.

The following are potential approaches for assessing the health of the nearshore zone and establishing priorities for action for consideration:

* The current GLWQA contains a framework of 14 “beneficial use impairments” that were used to identify the most severely degraded areas in the Great Lakes. These areas were then designated as Areas of Concern and addressed through the development and implementation of Remedial Action Plans. The GLWQA could apply the beneficial use impairment model to other nearshore areas to determine priorities for remedial action.

* Around the globe, progress is being made in relation to development of methodologies and tools for cumulative effects assessment that integrate the effects of multiple stresses on the environment. Some people point to this work as a major step forward in application of the “ecosystem” approach to environmental management. The GLWQA could adopt a cumulative effects assessment approach to addressing the nearshore zone.

* The focus of the GLWQA is by and large on restoration of environmental quality. However, some people think that the focus should be expanded to address both restoration of degraded areas and protection of areas of particular value. The GLWQA could adopt an approach to addressing the nearshore that addresses both restoration and protection.

* Nearshore issues could be addressed on an individual, issue specific basis, with no framework for assessing nearshore health on a comprehensive basis.