An agreement between two sovereign nations that sets forth their goals, priorities and intentions for the care and management of one-fifth of the world’s surface fresh water is an important thing. To succeed in achieving its goals, this agreement needs not just the diplomatic polish of skilled wordsmiths, but enthusiastic buy-in from constituencies who love and depend upon the Great Lakes and work in countless ways to care for them. We’re not there yet.

 

The public input process for the renegotiation of the new Agreement has been stilted and inadequate. Nearly all of the input over the last several years was about the current Agreement, not what’s pending in a new Agreement. It’s a bit like being asked to buy a new car based on what you know about the performance of your 1987 Chevy. It is useful at one level, but insufficient to make another big commitment. Last year’s Webinar series focused on pre-selected conceptual topics and not specific language, and the input was highly constrained by the technology you had at your disposal, and your ability to carve out large blocks of time on short notice during the work day if you wanted to participate in the various Webinars. If you provided written comments, once you pushed “send” there was no feedback as to whether your comments had merit, were considered off the wall, or were filed into a black hole called “obligatory public input.”

 

A year later, we’re back to PowerPoint “decks” and Webinars and a short comment period on language we can only speculate about based on general hints in the slides. The forums, at which the public role is not yet entirely clear, will be held during the day, which means many interested people will have to choose between work, or classes, or participating in the forums. The comment period will close on September 20, although it also isn’t clear what we’ll be commenting on and what will happen with the information on September 21. 

 

I want a meaningful dialogue, but that will be difficult if only one side of the table knows the details about the topic we’re discussing. I want to be able to ask questions about the rationale for decisions, and probe the specifics on things like climate strategies in the Agreement (which from the deck appear to be pretty tepid), but how will we know what they really are? I’d like to know what the next phases of dealing with air toxics will look like, which isn’t even mentioned in the deck. Perhaps most importantly, I want to know what specific mechanisms the Parties are considering that will inspire and strengthen public will to protect the lakes, and what steps they are going to take to ensure that public resources will be available to get the job done. Then, I want to know what accountability measures they will provide to ensure effective implementation and a meaningful role for the public.

 

It appears that the current negotiation process isn’t treating a re-write of the Agreement as an action that requires careful public scrutiny or buy-in. Instead, the public role feels like a grudging concession—an “I guess we have to do something, because we promised, but let’s get this over with as quickly as possible” effort on behalf of the Parties. At least Canada has made the effort of establishing an advisory stakeholder group. In the United States this seems to be too much of a bother. 

 

I understand that diplomatic processes are sensitive, and at a certain point the negotiations move behind closed doors where carefully chosen words, face-saving phrases, and other artful tools of diplomacy are employed to create a whole document that captures the support of both parties. Still, can’t we talk frankly and thoughtfully about the substance and language of the Agreement at this stage without provoking an international incident?

 

So, if our governments want to make sure the Agreement doesn’t rise to its former role as a standard bearer to galvanize binational constituencies around Great Lakes protection, then all they have to do is brush off those who do care deeply, and continue to send the signal that the specific content isn’t important enough to get all worked up about. Do the governments hope that, if there isn’t much ability for people to invest in the substance of the Agreement, then lackluster implementation won’t get people riled up down the road? By design, or neglect, that appears to be the game plan, which is a crashing disappointment.

 

In a time of scarce resources and staggering environmental challenges, the lakes need all the friends they can get. They also need a bold and visionary strategy to guide our endeavors that transcends our international border. I hope we don’t have to wait another two decades to get the chance to frame that strategy.