Seen from space, the Great Lakes appear as sparkling sapphire jewels strung across the center of North America. The Great Lakes ecosystem is one of the great natural wonders of the world. Nearly one-fifth of the planet’s surface fresh water is stored in and flows through the lakes. One out of every three Canadians and one of every ten United States residents takes her or his drinking water from the Great Lakes.

 

Great Lakes like these deserve great accords, and in 1972 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Richard Nixon signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement making commitments to restore and maintain the health of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem on behalf of future generations. The progress made since 1972 is evidenced by the documentation by scientists early in the 21st century of the presence of spawning lake whitefish and eggs in the once heavily polluted Detroit River, the resurgence of cormorant populations on several Great Lakes, the revival of the charismatic lake sturgeon in a number of key areas, and the return of nesting and fledging bald eagles throughout the Basin.

To date there has been no detailed analysis of what in the 40-year-old Agreement works, what does not work, and why.  In the absence of this analysis, negotiations to amend the Agreement were formally initiated in January 2010 by Canada and the U.S. After 21 months of backroom drafting, officials finally reached out for public input on superficial concepts, with the actual proposed wording of this hallmark Agreement kept exclusively within federal hands. The webinars and public forums used to consult the Great Lakes community were perfunctory and surprisingly vague.  And the current draft of the revised document has suffered accordingly. For example, important imperatives such as enabling resource managers to adapt to a changing climate is absent, as are the details on what process will be used to control chemicals that are now entering the system and could cause serious harm to our unborn children. The draft agreement also does not provide enough flexibility in preventing exotic species from entering our waters and destroying economic and ecological wealth in the region.

 

The Great Lakes have a long and successful binational history of citizen engagement, and relying exclusively on national governments for compliance ignores the powerful role that citizens have repeatedly played in environmental law and policy in the Great Lakes.  The lack of a valid public engagement on a binational agreement of this import is astonishing. At a minimum, for the countries to be held accountable for their as yet undisclosed commitments requires regular reporting on progress in achieving the objectives of the Agreement with indicators directly related to specific commitments. Essential are methods for sub-national governments, industry, citizens, and academics to share responsibility for the implementation of the Agreement

 

Thanks to the original Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, huge strides have been made in restoring the health of one of the globe’s most precious freshwater ecosystems. Now Canada and the United States need a new agreement that not only meets the more complex ecological challenges of this century, but also embraces the tradition of public input that has been a hallmark of so many important Great Lakes agreements in recent years. If the negotiators listen, together we can collectively make the Lakes Great.