When she returns to service next spring the Denis Sullivan will celebrate her 10th year with a trip to all of the Great Lakes. As the signature ship in the Great Lakes United TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE®, she will visit several ports during the race across the Great Lakes. Port cities will be Toronto, Cleveland, Bay City, Duluth, Green Bay, Milwaukee and Chicago.

As the signature ship and a dedicated science vessel, she’ll be helping to carry Great Lakes United’s message of freshwater conservation and protection to millions of individuals.

“We’re really excited to be sailing with Great Lakes United and being a part of this program,” said Tiffany Krihwan, Senior Captain of the Denis Sullivan. She added, “Anyone who comes aboard has the opportunity to learn about their individual impact on the natural resources and to validate this in their own life. The water that helps the Great Lakes survive is the same water that sustains the world.”

The Denis Sullivan will be joined by a fleet of over 15 others, some coming from as far away as the Netherlands and Germany to compete. Great Lakes United has partnered with the American Sail Training Association to help bring these ships to the lakes, and to promote a message of freshwater conservation.

“There is no better opportunity to energize people about the Great Lakes, than with a tall ship at your back and the water at your toes,” said Derek Stack, Executive Director of Great Lakes United.

For Great Lakes United, this is more than a simple race; it’s a race to protect the Great Lakes. By the end of 2010, the Great Lakes states and provinces are required to put in place water conservation plans. Part of the same agreements that shut the door to long-range diversions, the plans are intended to address an even greater threat: the wasteful water practices of those in the basin.

“Canadians and Americans are the worst wasters of water in the world” said Stack. “We’re seeing enormous energy being put into cleaning up these vital waters, but without a concerted effort on using water more wisely, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.”

The message of conservation is one that rings true with the crew of the Denis Sullivan.

The Denis Sullivan represents a microcosm of the planet. At just under 3000 square feet of space, the schooner carries all the food, supplies and fresh water that the crew and students need to survive. While surrounded by water, the amount that is essential to survive is limited to the confines of the schooner. The difference available in your life is no more than 100 feet from you. The 2 gallons (7.5 litres) of water per person per day on board the ship is a sharp contrast to those on land where individual water use averages about 66 gallons (250 litres) per day.

“There is something special about seeing a student ‘getting it’,” said education officer Joe Ewing. “When a participant realizes that his or her actions either helps or hurts the situation. It is not just the mega-corporations or the community organizations that affect our environment. It is each and every one of us in our daily lives. That’s when what we are trying to do pays off.”

“On every one of our education voyages, whether it is a 90 minute Dockside Discovery with first graders, a 3 hour LakeWatch Expedition with middle or high school students, or a two week Science Under Sail adventure with high school and college age students or adults college, we emphasize the quality of water that we are in, why it is in the condition it is, what would be the ideal, and what it would take to get it to that level,” Ewing continued.

“If we can have our participants, whether they are 5 or 85 years old, leave the S/V Denis Sullivan, energized to go home and make a difference, we’ve been successful,” said Ewing. “If we can get a few of these people interested in doing some follow up investigation, we’ve been successful. If we can get one or two who might even consider a career in marine studies and the care of our planet, we’ve been successful.”

About the Denis Sullivan

The S/V Denis Sullivan is a 137-ft three-masted recreation of a 19th century Great Lakes cargo schooner. Celebrating its 10th year of operation in 2010, the Denis Sullivan sails the Great Lakes as well as into the Atlantic and Caribbean.

The ship offers an intensive, adventure-based, academic program designed to provide high school students, as well as college age and older, an opportunity to live and work aboard the Denis Sullivan. Students participate actively in all ship’s operations while investigating the different features of the marine environment. It is also an experiential study of history and culture viewed through the maritime lens.

Sailing on a tall ship provides a rare opportunity for students to live and work as real explorers in the spirit of the 19th century voyagers they otherwise can only read about. They can take aspects from over a century ago and apply them to the 21st century.

Many residents of Great Lakes communities lack the resources to make informed decisions about environmental issues that directly affect their quality of life. The integrity of the Great Lakes and freshwater resources around the globe are threatened by loss and degradation of habitat, urban growth, the invasion of exotic species, and the cycling of toxic chemicals and pollutants. Sailing on the Great Lakes links these communities together and fosters the sense of pride that is crucial to overcoming these ecological challenges.

To learn more about the Denis Sullivan contact:
Discovery World
Milwaukee, WI
414.765.8622 | www.discoveryworld.org

The themes of water and health are the starting points for environmental learning activities. Among a number of environmental issues, these themes are central to the stewardship of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Through the Network, students are invited to explore regional watershed management as well as the broader Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River watershed.

The primary goal of this project is to promote awareness and civic engagement among young people. By addressing local environmental issues within their school programs, students explore, discover, understand and engage with their community and local environment. They develop the skills and analytical tools which enhance their capacity to intervene for positive change.

“A society faced with a radical imperative to achieve a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable basis within a historically short time needs to reappraise most aspects of its organization; education –as the main means of social reproduction–has to be the center of this task…” (Sterling, 1996, p. 18)

Last year, 10 schools participated in the program, and more partners have joined the network this fall. Unlike traditional ‘out-of-the-box’ learning projects where a single, over-arching topic is integrated into the learning process, the River College Network works closely with teachers to develop a suite of interdisciplinary strategies, tools, and community and hands-on activities that are adapted to the school’s environmental mission, the course’s objectives and the student’s competencies.

For example, at College Saint-Hyacinthe the “Biology – Life Evolution and Diversity” classes studied the health of a nearby stream, the Plein Champ. The analysis of a number of physicochemical parameters showed the poor condition of the creek. To counter the deterioration and soil erosion, a student committee now plans to restore the banks with vegetation and is preparing to seek the assistance of farmers, land-owners, community members, and the municipality in the continued rehabilitation of the creek.

In this way the college management, teachers and local stakeholders (from community, social and environmental groups to researchers and policy makers) work in close collaboration to foster a sense of place and culture of civic engagement.

Currently the Network operates in Québec, but there are strong prospects to connect with other Great Lakes initiatives, and extending the program across the region. The Great Lakes Innovative Stewardship Through Education Network (GLISTEN) is a promising future partner.

The River College Network is funded by the generous support of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the EJLB Foundation and a new grant from the RBC Blue Print program. Institutions and teachers interested in submitting their ideas and proposals are welcome.

“While hard-won new laws and new programs will be helpful in protecting the future of the Great Lakes system, the ultimate protection of the lakes will not begin there. It will begin in the appreciation of millions of individuals who fondly call the lakes home or who visit and revere this singularly spectacular spot on the globe… When this respect comes to pass, the basin’s inhabitants and visitors can collectively enact a reform more sweeping than any statute.”
(Dempsey, 2004, p.4)

helene@glu.org and valerie@glu.org

Renegotiation of the GLWQA
In a June ceremony, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon announced the two countries would update this important pact to protect water quality.

Court victory over mining pollution
A Canadian federal court judge ruled in favour of Great Lakes United and its allies, finding that Environment Canada must direct the mining industry to report the toxics being released into tailings ponds and waste rock piles.

$475 million funding boost for Great Lakes protection
U.S. Congress and President Obama approved nearly half a billion dollars in new funding for Great Lakes clean up. The boost will help clean up toxic contamination, fight invasive species, and improve nearshore ecosystem health.

U.S. Coast Guard proposes stringent final ballast standard
The proposed rulemaking is designed to ramp up ballast discharge standards to the highest in the world, making significant gains in the protection against invasive species. However, an extended timeline and potential loopholes may delay or undermine the effort; vocal public comment is needed to prevent this.

Great Lakes United launches conservation initiative
Building on the framework set by the Great Lakes Compact and Agreement, Great Lakes United launched a three-year conservation initiative this past summer. The plan is a mix of high level policy action and public outreach through the Great Lakes United TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE® 2010.

Improved exhaust emissions from ships curtailed
In a short-sighted maneuver, Great Lakes politicians managed to exempt up to 26 lakers from new EPA exhaust emission standards. After the shipping industry lobbied for the exemption with overblown claims of economic calamity, the dirtiest ships on the lakes will continue to emit a black smoke of pollutants.

Report outlines principles to guide a 21st century shipping industry
As the St. Lawrence Seaway celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, Great Lakes United released a report that identified 7 principles necessary to guide the industry into a century of sustainability and prosperity.

Those are some tough words, but they reflect what a lot of people are wondering after key politicians brokered a deal with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will allow 26 ships to sail through a loophole and avoid complying with new progressive air pollution standards. The agreement could set a dangerous precedent when it comes time for these same ships to comply with new ballast treatment standards in our effort to fight against invasive species.

To protect human health, the EPA proposed more stringent exhaust emission standards for the largest marine diesel engines—called C3s—that sail within 200 miles of any U.S. coastline; this includes all vessel operations within the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. The clean air act standards are part of a coordinated U.S.–Canada strategy to address the most egregious offenders when it comes to polluted emissions from large commercial marine vessels.

Sounds great right? Sure, unless you are in the shipping industry. Once the industry got wind of the new regulations they called their (and our) Great Lakes Congressional delegation for help. The shippers argued the regulations would force them out of business and that the public health concern wasn’t great enough to trump economics. Gee, we haven’t heard that before!

Representative David Obey (D-Wisconsin), James Oberstar (D-Minnesota) and other Great Lakes lawmakers responded by meeting with the EPA to hammer out an exception for the oldest ships working the Great Lakes. We—that is, the “rest of” the constituents—were able to only get glimpses of the closed door debate from a staffer quoted in the media who alluded to a cost-benefit analysis that would prove the shippers cause. But, when we asked to see such studies they could not be unearthed. In fact, when the EPA was asked, they didn’t know to what the staffer was referring.

Splashing more fuel upon this growing fire, the Canadian Embassy weighed-in supporting the Great Lakes shippers and asking the EPA to back off. In a letter, Paul Robertson, the Embassy’s Minister of Economics argued that the costs of compliance will be too high and force some companies to stop using iconic steamers that travel the lakes carrying lots of commodities.

A deal was struck that lets 26 lakers avoid complying with the new EPA standards. For the sake of profit and at a detriment to public health, 13 ships with C3 engines will get waivers from the EPA if they can prove they will go out of business by complying. Another 13 steamships (the real dinosaurs that burn dirty bunker fuel) got out of compliance all together. Nice…

Here is the best part, in order to ensure that this agreement went through, our Great Lakes House Members attached it in the form of an amendment to a must pass bill – ironically – the same bill that will provide $475 million for Great Lakes restoration programs. The Interior spending bill that pays for the operation of the EPA was overdue and had to be passed by October 31 so that government could continue to function. So, the amendment was sure to pass—and it did—although, not without some disgruntled comment from colleagues in both the House and Senate.

The exemption does the industry no favours. Politicians, instead of helping an aging fleet to modernize, let them drift aimlessly in the mid-20th century. Instead of offering a get-out-of-jail-free card, leaders could have pursued financial assistance to help those ships make a transition to a new, more fuel efficient and cleaner burning engines.

Now that the deal is done, there is some concern that this will become an issue for foreign ships operating in US waters. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) described the deal as very narrow in hopes of avoiding such a calamity. Still, others are worried that the loophole will undermine the coordinated bi-national strategy to protect human health in the US-Canada emissions control area. Time will tell.

Let’s hope our Great Lakes delegation can recover their restoration compass and gravitas among their colleagues. Future progress for restoration and clean air and water is at stake.

Tiffany Pache blogs for the Healing Our Waters Coalition at www.healthylakes.org

Debunking Bunker Fuel

Great Lakes United has been leading an effort to clear up many myths around the emissions standard and its impact on the shipping industry, the environment, and human health.

Working with the Ohio Environmental Council, Great Lakes United produced two factsheets. One provides an overview of the standard, while the second counters dire claims being made by the Great Lakes shipping industry. The factsheets are available online at: www.glu.org.

By 2000, efforts by the government agencies to pull together the RAP were failing and those responsible for the RAP had begun to step back. In 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided that the only way to get the stalling Buffalo River cleanup moving was to hire a coordinator to focus on implementing the RAP. After putting out a request for bids, the EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office chose the citizens’ group Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers to play this role. In July 2005, the Friends became the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, and they continued to be the RAP coordinator.

The first task of the new RAP coordinator was to deepen community engagement in the RAP and revitalize the Remedial Advisory Committee. With the assistance of the Remedial Advisory Committee, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and over 30 other governmental and non-governmental agencies and organizations, Riverkeeper re-assessed all beneficial use impairments, revised the delisting criteria, identified data gaps and reviewed needed projects. They then spent considerable time working with stakeholders in the community encouraging them to carry out activities that will help achieve the RAP goals.

Waterkeeper, has successfully spent considerable time pulling together partners to obtain the funding from government and private sources to carry out the assessments needed to address the problems in the area. They are now developing the funding matches to obtain Great Lakes Legacy Act grants for the estimated $60 to $100 million needed to clean up contaminated sediments in the Buffalo River.

Waterkeepers usually work outside of the normal government structures, using testing and technical studies, public exposure of their findings, and legal action, if necessary, to push others to do the cleanup. In this case, however, Waterkeeper has become the one hired by government to coordinate action. Interestingly, the same scientific, outreach and legal skills needed to advocate for action are the same that are most effective in coordinating the cleanup. By leveraging this with their credibility in the community they have been able to pull together a wide range of partners to do the task.

One concern around the Waterkeeper playing this role was whether industry and governments would fully cooperate with them. The fact that the RAP was stagnating and that no on else interested in doing the job meant that the field was open. In addition, the open bidding process lent credibility to the winning organization, who would have rose to the top as the best fit as determined by a fair and competitive process. This meant that those who would not normally be easy partners of a Waterkeeper were willing to give it a try.

The other concern is whether having the Riverkeeper become the official coordinator would interfere with the Riverkeeper’s essential role as advocate for issues throughout the Niagara and Buffalo Rivers. Would the group need to restrain itself on some advocacy in order to maintain the partnerships needed for the AOC cleanup? This has not proven to be the case. They continue their monitoring of the rivers and exposing of problems and continue to be engaged in controversial issues such as proposals for power turbines below the waters of the river, and expanded highways.

Barry Boyer, a law professor and emeritus board member of the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, says that “no situation has come up at which the Riverkeeper has been tempted to step back to protect their RAP coordinator role.” He says that they are able to combine the two roles because they always ensure that their advocacy positions are on “sound ground” and because they frequently touch base with others who may oppose their positions.

Taking Action

Jill Spisiak Jedlicka is the Buffalo River Remedial Action Coordinator and Director of Ecological Programs for Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. The lessons she has learned from this community-driven RAP implementation process have been the importance of:

• Identifying a local group, individual, or agency that is unequivocally dedicated to the restoration of your AOC to coordinate the implementation;
• Having the courage to lead and take risks. Others will follow, but not down the path of destruction – small decisions and smart decisions build credibility;
• Being creative with in-kind resources. Leverage the hidden existing local investments (sweat equity can build you a lot of in-kind);
• Using the “team of rivals” model: leverage individual passion and commitment to challenge, inspire, mobilize, and collaborate with others who can support or derail your efforts; and
  Reaching out to and educating your local elected officials and agency representatives. Get them out of their offices and onto the water.

The Cayuga Lake Watershed Network focuses on the widest and longest of the Finger Lakes, Cayuga Lake. The Lake is 38 miles (61 kilometers) long and up to 435 feet (132 meters) deep. That’s nearly 200 feet (60 meters) deeper than Lake Erie’s deepest point. Its no wonder why the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network’s over 430 members work so hard to protect this amazing lake.

For Executive Director Hilary Lambert, one of the best ways for the Network to achieve its goals is to work with the residents along the shores of the lake. As many of these communities face continued population and development growth, Lambert stresses the importance of helping them to solve the water quality problems they want to tackle.

Since it was founded in 1997, the Network has worked to bring together the six counties and 49 municipalities within the Cayuga Lake Watershed to collaboratively develop planning and water monitoring databases and documents. This provides the backbone to ensuring sustainable development and tackling obstacles like problematic septic systems, the overuse of lawn and fertilizer chemicals, and the proliferation of aquatic weeds.

To address these problems, the Network has employed a variety of outreach and awareness initiatives. Lambert described the ‘traveling road show’ that the Network uses to visit and educate the public. “The topic of lake levels is a hot button issue, especially for lakeside residents,” Lambert said. “This one gets a lot of folks to come out and spend an evening learning more about our beautiful lake.”

In addition to the road show, the Network has hosted two conferences this past year on both ends of the lake. On the north end, the conference focused on aquatic plants, both native and introduced, while the conference on the southern end highlighted the sources and role of phosphorus in the lake.

This spring, the Network will leverage the rise in awareness and bring people onto the water for a lakewide cleanup. Lambert hopes to involve people in as many of the lake’s 34 major sub-watersheds as possible by working with scouts, churches, schools, and community groups.

The traveling show, conferences, and cleanups are part of an overall strategy to increase awareness among basin residents. Lambert and the Network want residents to realize that there are methods available to protect the lakes; but they have to be used. For Lambert, the single most important factor influencing effective protection of any waterbody is the enforcement of existing laws and regulations. Unfortunately, this can also be the single most difficult factor to achieve. Through its outreach and advocacy, however, the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network is making great strides towards reaching that goal.

At the heart of the Network’s work is the understanding of interconnection, shared responsibility, and awareness. “We are linked together in the Great Lakes Basin,” Lambert explains, “and we all need to work together to protect our most valuable, irreplaceable resource: clean water.”

Fast Facts

Name: The Cayuga Lake Watershed Network

Member Since: September, 2009

Location: Aurora, New York

Mission: The Cayuga Lake Watershed Network identifies key threats to Cayuga Lake and its watershed, and it advocates for solutions that support a healthy environment and vibrant communities.
Reason for joining Great Lakes United: We are all linked together in the Great Lakes Basin and we all need to work together to protect our most valuable, irreplaceable resource: clean water.

Website: //www.cayugalake.org/

Contact:
Hilary Lambert
315-364-2992
steward@cayugalake.org

After 15 years of fighting to address critical environmental concerns such as toxics, global warming, and water privatization, the Environmental Association for Great Lakes Education (EAGLE) was unable to recover from the slumping economy. In the summer, it was forced to shutter its operations.

Jan Conley, executive director and co-founder of EAGLE, said that like many small groups, they had about a six-month reserve of operating funds.

“There just isn’t this large backlog of funds to draw on,” she said.

When markets took a dive in 2008 grants dried up and foundations reduced their funding output. This hit EAGLE hard, as their long time funders couldn’t support them at the same levels, while others weren’t funding new programs or organizations.

Meanwhile, as larger, national groups have turned increasingly to local grantors for support, locally based groups like EAGLE have felt the squeeze from the other direction.

“Last year we put out five grant requests. In the end only one came through – for computer upgrades,” said Conley. “If you have new computers but no money for programs, where do you go with that?” The organization turned down the computer offer.

Just as foundations are tightening their belts, so too are individual donors. For the individual, it can be hard to conceptualize how this can impact the non-profits they support. Many think that skipping their individual $50 or $100 donation won’t have a major impact, but when hundreds of others make the same decision, it can place non-profits in a very tough position.

“People often don’t understand how much local groups depend on individual donors,” said Conley.

While foundations provide important funding for specific programs, they very rarely fund general operations, which are critical to ensuring that campaign work can happen. This ranges from things as basic as rent, utilities and office equipment, to elements as complex as support staff, organizational development and executive oversight.

In “The Quiet Crisis”, a report funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the non-profit sector is identified as being hit particularly hard by the economic downturn. According to the report, 94 per cent of non-profits have a budget under $1 million, and 74 per cent of non-profits surveyed have less than six months of operating reserves. In the past, when recessions have lasted 8 months or longer, giving has dropped on average 2.7 per cent per year, with the worst years being 1972 to 1975 where donations dropped nearly ten per cent. Considering the size and scale of today’s non-profit sector relative to that of 40 years ago, the report suggests the impact could be much worse.

For Conley, closing EAGLE’s doors was a difficult decision. But at the core was a question of whether the organization could continue to fulfill its mission by keeping its doors open. In the end, Conley didn’t want to just keep the lights on and watch the organization use its last remaining funds to pay the bill. Rather, what was most important was to sustain the mission.

“We decided to close down and to disperse our remaining funds to groups that we had been working closely with over the years, and whose missions aligned with ours.”

Meanwhile, EAGLE has been able to pass on some of its most successful projects and programs on to other partners. The organization of Duluth’s annual Living Green Conference, now in its 18th year, has been handed off to Lake Superior College, while Lake Superior Magazine will be printing EcoSource—a directory of green business and environmental organizations on Lake Superior.

Conley urges other groups who may be facing a similar situation as EAGLE to consider how their core work might be given a new home with another organization. When asked if there were any hard feelings in handing these programs off, Conley said not at all. “It’s like you’re running a relay – when you hand off the baton you don’t keep running. But as long as the baton keeps moving, you know the mission and work goes on.”

This year, administrative action, in the form of the Coast Guard rule, is poised to make significant progress in addressing this ecological crisis.

Broadly, the rulemaking is excellent in several regards, but needs to be improved in a few critical areas.
The strong points:

• The proposed rule requires vessels to implement on-board technology to clean their ballast water in a two-phased process. The ‘Phase-Two’ national ballast water discharge standard is excellent. It is as strong as California’s—the most stringent standard of any state—and one thousand times stronger than the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO).
• The rule is being made under the National Invasive Species Act, which does not undermine the authority of the Clean Water Act or the ability of states to protect their waters from biological pollution.
• The rule regulates ballast discharges from most lakers, which operate exclusively on the Great Lakes. Lakers do not introduce invasive species, but they can spread them from lake to lake.

The rulemaking can be improved in regards to the following provisions:

• The “Phase-One” standard is set as the IMO standard, and will provide only minimum improvements over ballast water exchange or ballast tank flushing. The “Phase-One” standard should be stronger than the IMO standard.
• The timeline for implementation wouldn’t require existing vessels to begin installing ‘Phase-One’ technology until 2016 at the earliest. Our freshwaters need protection sooner than that!
• A proposed ‘practicability review’ presents a serious concern. The review could allow the Coast Guard to delay implementation of the phase-two standard indefinitely. The rule needs to set a fixed deadline by which all vessels would have to comply with the phase-two standard.

Following the public comment period, the Coast Guard will prepare responses to public comments and the final rulemaking for publication. We may see a final rule in 12-18 months. In the meantime, efforts will shift to advancing improvements to the Environmental Protection Agency’s ballast management program under the Clean Water Act. This contains some of the country’s strongest enforcement provisions to protect water quality. More on the need for efficient and effective coordination between both federal agencies who have clear authority over ballast, will be discussed in future editions of Great Lakes News.

We hope you have had a chance to participate in this important process! When engaging in public comment, it doesn’t matter how long or short, how simple or detailed. What is important is that government hear your voice. In the case of ballast water management we have been fighting to get to this point for decades.

The first policy attempt to control invasive species from ballast was developed back in 1990 in response to the zebra mussel invasion. The U.S. Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990 (NANPCA) established a voluntary Great Lakes ballast water management program.

When this law was reauthorized in 1996, some incremental improvements were made, such as requiring mandatory ballast tank flushing, and it was renamed the National Invasive Species Act (NISA). There are a number of significant gaps in NISA. Ballast water exchange is the main prevention tool, lakers are exempted from regulation and hitchhikers on hulls are not addressed. NISA came up for reauthorization in 2002. Since that time, Congress was first uninterested and then unable to develop a legislative solution to the invasive species being brought to the U.S. from overseas ships.

The administrative approach through the Coast Guard rule represents a huge step forward in the protection of the Great Lakes. And we’ve reached this point because citizens spoke up. Now that the line is in sight we need one more push to get there.

To learn more about how you can help stop invasive species and take part in this public comment, contact Jennifer Nalbone at jen@glu.org.

So what else is new? We are almost always short of essential government funding for human and environmental welfare. But things do not have to be this way!

With a changed money system our governments in Canada and the U.S. could easily provide ample funding not only for Great Lakes cleanup, but also for the entire range of environmental and social needs that confront us, while also gradually reducing government debt. While social activists collectively have vast understanding of the myriad problems that confront the human community, and of the solutions required for them, they share with most of the global population a profound ignorance of the destructive impact of our present money system, and of creative possibilities for a changed money system.

We cannot conceive of these creative possibilities so long as we think of money, as we normally do, only in terms of fiscal policy—the management of income and spending. We are all familiar with fiscal policy from our own experience with managing our own income and spending. But we have little understanding—and little information to give us understanding—of monetary policy. Our awareness of monetary policy is generally limited to the manipulation of interest rates by central banks. But there is another far more powerful aspect of monetary policy concerning which we are kept in the dark. This is the creation of money out of nothing!

Our money supply is no longer based on gold or any other specific commodity. And only about 3 per cent of our money is in the form of cash. The rest is in the form of records in computers kept primarily by banks, which give us paper duplicates. How does this 97 per cent of our money supply originate? Not from our federal governments, as is widely believed. It is created out of nothing by the private, commercial banks in their process of making loans.

Banks do not lend out the money of depositors. When they make loans, they create new money. They require that we put up valuable collateral as security for these loans, and then they get to lend us money that they create out of nothing! We borrowers have to pay the banks interest, and if we become unable to pay, they take over our collateral. How is this just?

And the problem goes much deeper.

When banks lend, they create the principal for their loans, but not the interest they require us to pay. Borrowers have to pay back both principal and interest, but since nearly all our money comes into existence as principal for bank loans, there is almost no money available in the society for interest payments. Collectively, we are driven to fight with each other over scarce money. Businesses push to raise prices, and in response workers press for higher wages. Inflation builds. People must resort to the only source of additional money—further borrowing from the banks with even greater interest burdens. Inevitably some borrowers default, bringing recession. Then banks seize our collateral. The system is rigged overwhelmingly in favour of banks, enriching a few and impoverishing many.

This money system is, moreover, a key factor behind the drive for impossible, unlimited, exponential economic growth. As borrowers compete for scarce money, they exploit the environment unsustainably.

The problems resulting from businesses and individuals borrowing at interest from private banks are enormous, but probably even more damaging is governments’ borrowing at interest from private sources including banks, which are authorized by those governments to create that money out of nothing! At the heart of our shortage of funding for public benefit is this practice of governmental borrowing at interest, so that a large proportion of tax receipts must constantly go to pay interest. This is entirely unnecessary! Governments can create their own money, and can either lend it interest-free for public investments, or, when additional money is needed in the economy, can simply spend it into existence as a free benefit.

It is not easy to change the current money system which overwhelmingly benefits private banking interests. But if the many activist organizations like Great Lakes United should join with labour unions to press for the needed changes in our money system, we would have a chance both to eliminate the gross injustices of our present money system, and also to make available abundant funding for social and environmental needs.

George Crowell, retired University of Windsor professor, has been working on monetary issues since 1994, and has been an individual member of Great Lakes United since that time. He can be reached at georgecrowell@rogers.com.

The Corps recently began working with the University of Notre Dame to detect the presence of Asian carp through a new DNA test of water samples taken below the barrier. The tests are detecting positive results for the silver carp in locations where traditional techniques have failed to find the fish.

The Asian carp are invasive fish that are harming the environment and economies of the Mississippi and threaten to do the same to the Great Lakes. The term captures four different species of fish- the bighead, black, grass and silver carp. They are voracious filter feeders that can grow to more than 3 feet long and quickly come to dominate a waterbody. They would cause irreversible harm to the Great Lakes by consuming large quantities of algae and zooplankton, muscling out native fish populations. Meanwhile, the giant fish’s tendency to jump out of the water when startled makes them a hazard to boaters.

The electric barrier is located near Romeoville, Illinois on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The barrier sends one volt of electricity continually through the waters, an attempt to repel invasive fish species like the Asian carp from migrating between the basins. The canal itself is a man-made waterway that connects Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River basin. Originally intended as a means for the city of Chicago to overcome sewage problems in the early 20th century, it created an artificial connection through which aquatic invasive species can pass in both directions. This is the only waterway connecting the two basins.

There are three actions that should be taken to stop the carp from invading the Great Lakes. First, the voltage of the barrier can be turned up immediately. Currently the Corps is not operating the barrier at full power due to safety concerns for commercial and recreational canal users. The Corps quickly began safety testing of increased “operating parameters,” including operating the barrier at 2 volts and changing the pulse and frequency of the electric current. At press time, a decision to strengthen operating parameters had not yet been made. Given the imminent crisis, the barrier can, and should be, operated at its highest power setting, four volts.

Second, aggressive monitoring must take place for the remainder of the fish migratory season. If the carp are found past predetermined points, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, working with a group of invasive species experts from around the region, should quickly implement an emergency rapid response plan that they have been developing for over 10 years. Such a plan would probably include an application of a piscticide – fish poison – to knock the population back to a safer distance in the short term. Rapid response should not be considered the long term solution to keeping the Asian carp out of the Great Lakes.

Thirdly, when the Water Resources Development Act was passed in 2007 the Corps was authorized by Congress to determine how to restore hydrologic separation between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins and solve this problem once and for all. The Corps must quickly complete and implement a hydrologic separation plan, because we can’t rely on a barrier which isn’t foolproof, inconsistent monitoring results, and chronic chemical treatment as our only lines of defense.

Sidebar: Disconnection
Coalition member, Alliance for the Great Lakes, has explored preliminary feasibility studies for disconnecting the Great Lakes from the Mississippi basin. Their report identifies five scenarios for complete or partial ecological separation of the basins. This would halt the transfer of Asian carp, as well as other invasive species, between the two watersheds and is a critical piece of invasive species prevention and Great Lakes restoration. The full report is available at www.greatlakes.org/invasives/ecosep.