Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/garywilson/page/9/)
Let’s invest a significant amount of Great Lakes restoration funding in Detroit and the Detroit River. The whole region suffers if Detroit languishes.
It’s an investment that makes more sense than pouring yet more funds into the region’s most economically advantaged cities.
The ever growing corporate interest in the Great Lakes has been influential in public policy, and may prove dangerous for the Basin’s natural resources.
Examples include companies that bottle and export water, and legislation in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan that benefit industries over the environment.
Great Lakes advocates should focus less on federal funding and more on state issues, such as mining threats, groundwater conservation and risky oil shipments.
We play a lot of defense on environmental problems. Maybe it’s time to get out ahead of one. Groundwater threats are underground in more ways than one. It’s time to really shine a spotight on them.
Lake Superior faces environmental threats as diverse as crude oil tankers and mining.
Cities on other Great Lakes should care.
We aren’t immune from each others’ problems.
Can pollution be a revenue stream?
Taxing externalities can appeal to both ends of the political spectrum.
And it brings the focus on prevention – the cheapest way to protect the Great Lakes.
Ohio and Lake Erie have been in the spotlight for the last few years as the most vulnerable of the Great Lakes.
Michigan will always be the center of Great Lakes attention because of geography.
But now the spotlight shifts to Wisconsin. Here’s why.
Sewage and algae get a lot of the attention along the near shore ecosystem of the Great Lakes.
But nuclear power and waste policies are gaining renewed attention in the region.
They should. The consequences of getting them wrong demand an international spotlight.
Federal officials have poured a billion dollars into Great Lakes restoration.
Local mayors are pushing water conservation and storm water control.
Can Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder lead the region’s governors to greater involvement?
Latino voters showing their political clout in the presidential election have implications for Great Lakes environmental policy. The challenge for the environmental establishment is finding the best way to engage this growing political force.