THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Great Lakes United supports the following policies:

1. Each government jurisdiction shall set up programmes to remove household and commercial/industrial hazardous wastes, as well as infectious wastes, from the municipal solid waste stream.

2a. The governments within the Great Lakes Basin shall set a minimum 50% target for removal of household and commercia1 industria1 materials from the municipal solid waste stream through reduction, reuse and recycling methods, including composting, within the next ten years.

2b. State and provincial governments shall establish programs to assist in the development of markets for used oil, glass, paper, metal tires and other materials.  Procurement of products made from these materials shall be encouraged wherever possible.

2c. The local, state/provincial and federal governments shall train appropriate personnel to oversee, implement and coordinate the above programs.

3. Within the next three years, each Province and State within the Great Lakes Basin shall ass legislation requiring re cling of household and industrial / commercial wastes in order to achieve the targets in Section 2.

4a. The appropriate government jurisdictions shall pass packaging legislation so as to reduce excess and non-reusable and non-recyclable packaging and to promote recyclable packaging.

4b. Plastic packagin material shall be labelled as to composition so as to enhance recyclability.

5a. A programme to develop, institute and reach the minimum 50% target for reduction, reuse and recycling of wastes must be attained before new landfills and incinerators are considered for wastes.

5b. Recyclable materials shall be exempt from any flow control restrictions.

6. The government jurisdictions shall provide adequate funding through the budgetary process to ensure that the above actions can be implemented.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Great Lakes United supports the inclusion of strong antidegradation procedures as part of the U.S. EPA's Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative. The antidegradation policies and procedures should be used to move expeditiously to zero discharge of persistent toxic substances. Such policies should be implemented in conjunction with efforts such as Lakewide Management Plans and Remedial Action Plans that set clear targets for reducing total loadings of persistent toxic chemicals in regular, enforceable steps to zero. Antidegradation review should triggered not only by proposed or actual increases above current discharges, but should be also triggered by increases above target load allocations derived from load reduction plans thereby assuring steady progress to zero discharge; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Great Lakes United proposes that Great Lakes antidegradation policy be implemented in such a way that:

1. any exception to antidegradation prohibitions be treated as "variances" so that decisions about proposed exceptions are made in a public forum,
2. such exceptions be allowed only after the discharger requesting exception satisfies the following hierarchy of legally enforceable requirements:
a) that the discharger has implemented a waste reduction program using the best available waste reduction/pollution prevention techniques,
b) that the discharger can prove that no environmental damage will occur and that the proof is corroborated by independent experts.
c) that economic and social factors shall not be considered reasons for variances.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Great Lakes United urges the government of Ontario to substantially revise and immediately implement the draft Provincial Wetlands Planning Policy Statement; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the Ontario government must immediately develop effective wetlands protection legislation and expedite its implementation and enforcement to provide effective protection for wetlands; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the Ontario government must undergo a full review of the municipal land use planning and review process to ensure that it provides adequate protection for wetlands; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that in the meantime, all existing statutes and regulations that provide for the protection of all wetlands must be used and enforced, including the Conservation Authorities Act, the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act, the Public Lands Act, and the Federal Fisheries Act.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Great Lakes United urges the United States Congress to expand the current right to know reporting requirements to include more facilities and more chemicals, to close the recycling loophole, to require reporting on the use and production of toxic chemicals, to expand reporting on hazardous waste, and to require companies to develop toxic use reduction plans, by passing H.R. 2880 and equivalent Senate legislation; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Great Lakes United urges the Canadian Federal Government to develop a strong, comprehensive right to know program that will require reporting on the use, production, and release of toxic chemicals, as well as information on the storage and handling of toxic chemicals that can be used to asslst in emergency preparedness and accident prevention programmes.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that in such areas dredging activities be regulated as point sources of contamination, with permits required to ensure that environmental safeguards are in place and that best available dredging technology is used; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that, where the dredgin activities of one nation may adversely affect the ecosystem of another, or where d redging activities are carried out in international waters, a binational committee, including citizens as well as government representatives, be appointed by the two federal governments; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that, until such standards are developed, state of the art technologies minimizing environmental impacts for dredging equipment should be used on a site-specific basis; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that new federal appropriations be sought to develop new advanced dredging technologies; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that until comprehensive environmental impact and assessment processes are in place for contaminated sediments, a moratorium on open-water dumping should be instituted.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that regulations with uniform numerical criteria common to both federal jurisdictions be established to determine the extent of contamination in sediment and therefore the options for disposal and treatment of that sediment; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that such criteria not only measure concentrations of contaminants in sediment, but that they also take into account the cumulative effects of multiple contaminant(s), the organic content and sediment size distribution, the movement (partitioning) of contaminants between sediment and water column, and chronic as well as acute effects on biota (bioaccummulation); AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that citizens be included in the decision-making process for developing said criteria as well as in reviewing all drafts of regulations including the final criteria.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that there be an immediate ban on the construction of all and any new in water diked disposal facilities in the Great Lakes; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that all existing confined disposal facilities undergo a detailed review and evaluation to determine the current integrity of their barriers, such review to be carried out by appropriate government agencies in each country; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that a protocol for ongoing monitoring for leaking, discharges, and progress impacts on the surrounding ecosystem be established by December, 1988 for all currently existing confined disposal facilities and that monitoring be implemented at all sites immediately, even as the protocals are being established; AND

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that an action plan for the removal and/or closure and remediation of all confined disposal facilities be developed and that remediation of confined disposal facilities in Areas of Concern be incorporated into the Remedial Action Plan for those Areas, and that this be done with the objective of determining ecosystem-positive methods of final treatment of the contiaminated sediments involved; AND

Et Cetera.

THEREFORE Great Lakes United urges that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Environment Canada reconfirm their commitment to clean up the AOCs, and that the U.S. EPA and Ehvironment Canada commit .the'necessary federal dollars to complete and implement the RAPS;

That the federal governments recognize that the same economic and corporate forces that led to degradation of water quality in the AOCs also caused significant damage to the surrounding communities so that the U.S. EPA and Environment Canada target substantial resouces for clean up and sustainable redevelopment of surrounding communities, including assessment of health impacts and support health services;

That to reassert their commitment to full public participation in all aspects of the RAPS, the U.S. EPA and Environment Canada should provide funding for paid independent facilitators and community organizers, as well as resources tb facilitate public participation, such as travel funding and childcare;

That the U.S. EPA and Environment Canada provide funding for the independent technical advisors and consultants to be selected to be selected by the public advisory committees;

That the U.S. EPA and Environment Canada enter negotiations with Great Lakes United and
other environmental public interest groups to develop a basin-wide strategy to complete and fully implement the Remedial Action Plans.

THEREFORE, BE 1T RESOLVEil, that Great Lakes United's individual members and organizations, demand that the Government of Ontario immedidely institute an electricity eficiency programme aimed at reducing the ratio of electricity used per dollar Gross Provincial Product (GPP) by half; and immediately place an indefinite moratorium on the approval, planning or construciion of new nuclear power stations in the Province.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED TEAT, Great Lakea United in Annual Meeting assembled May 11-13, 1984 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, urges that Federal, State, and Provincial governments, and duly constituted interstate and international bodies, as appropriate, develop biological indicators as early warning monitoring programs and cooperative tumor Registries to determine the incidence and extent of cancerous tumors in fish and of tumor-causing pollutants in the environment, throughout the United States and Canada.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT, State, Provincial and Federal governments and interstate and international bodies, greatly expand their efforts to curtail the pollution of the nation's lakes, rivers and coastal waters by cancer-causing and other toxic chemicals; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT, Congress amend the FDA's existing statutory authority to require the FDA, when establishing "action levels" and tolerances for fish and ehellfish contaminants, to tailor these limits to specific geographic areas and subpopulations, so as to reflect better the veriations in rates of fish and shellfish consumption within the overall population; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT, the various jurisdictions should establish uniform and comprehensive alert and notice system fishermen and other fish and shellfieh consumers of the deleterious pollutant levels and/or tumors in fish and in their waters.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Great Lakes United actively seek to stop overflow dredging.