How can the Ontario government protect the Great Lakes?

May
02
2012
Environmental nongovernmental organizations in Ontario are hoping to make a promised new provincial law to protect the Great Lakes as strong as possible.
Banding together to protect the Great Lakes
photo credit: Banding together to save the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes Protection Act, promised in the Premier’s 2011 Throne Speech, is a big deal. And why not, because the drinking water of 37 million people depends on healthy Great Lakes.

Sadly, Canada is behind the United States in protecting this essential, shared resource that affects fishing, recreation, and tourism along with drinking water. But environmental groups hope all parties can agree—as they did in protecting Lake Simcoe—that now’s a very good time to catch up.
Indeed, there’s no time to waste because the Great Lakes are showing signs of strain.
 
Andy Buchsbaum, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation in the U.S. goes so far as to say the Great Lakes are suffering from "massive ecosystem breakdowns" and are "heading for trouble". The following grim trends support his view:
-          The Ontario government acknowledges that “Climate change has the potential to lower water levels in the Great Lakes by as much as one meter by 2030”;
-          Great Lakes cities representing just 30% of the region’s population dump more than 100 Olympic swimming pools full of raw sewage directly into the Great Lakes every day;
-          People and animals are exposed to an increasing number and quantity of chemicals in the Great Lakes fish they eat;
-          70% of the Great Lakes’ original wetlands, the nurseries of countless creatures, have already been lost;
-          Populations of native plant and animal species are on the decline;
-          Water levels are dropping, resulting in further loss of wetlands and exposure of contaminated sites on the lake bed;
-          Shorter periods of ice cover allow aquatic weeds and algae to grow more, which can lead to oxygen-deprived “dead zones” in the water, and beach closures.
 
With facts like that, it’s no wonder environmental groups have banded together to write a “statement of expectations” for the Great Lakes Protection Act. They want it to:
 
- engage citizens and support vibrant waterfront communities and economies;
- protect and restore Great Lakes' biodiversity;
- and improve water quality and quantity.
 
Specifically, they hope a new Great Lakes Protection Act can help the millions of Ontarians who live by the lakes better connect to them. They are asking for measures in the new legislation that will improve the protection of wetlands, clean up shorelines and beaches, reduce pollution from air and land, attack destructive invasive species, and make use of Ontario’s high tech innovations, and natural services (like wetlands) to reduce cities’ impacts on water quality and quantity. 
 
The problems affecting the Great Lakes also affect lakes in most inhabited parts of Canada. So the solutions the Ontario government comes up with could be shared with other provincial governments dealing with similar problems.
 
How Ontario handles this legislation will reflect on Canada’s ability to keep up an important binational agreement with the United States. Under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, both countries must meet basin wide targets (for example, basin wide habitat gain). Because almost all of Canada’s Great Lakes’ territory is in Ontario, the muscle Ontario puts behind its provincial Great Lakes Act will decide how well 20% of the world’s available freshwater is protected from further harm. More than environmental groups are counting on it.  Did I mention 37 million people get their drinking water from this vital national resource?
 
Learn more about this campaign at http://environmentaldefence.ca/campaigns/safeguarding-canadas-water

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May
26
2012

How about by not digging the mega quarry in Melancthon?


Lori Griffin says:

Just curious what ED is doing to stop that catastrophe from happening?

reply to this comment
Aug
07
2012

We have been working on a


cmalcolmson says:

We have been working on a Green Gravel standard for a long time. We`re doing this because, together with community groups, we have fought a number of quarries, with little, but some, success. We don`t think it`s right that people need to spend their time and money fighting quarry after quarry. We want the industry to agree to a standard, which would improve the siting and and impacts of quarries all over Ontario.
When Melancthon came up, our legal counsel, David Donnelly, was working on at least two quarry applications and simply did not have time to take this case on too.
I frequently publish links to events in my newsletter, the SCOOP on Lake Simcoe, and I have included Melancthon events a few times. We fully support the groups dedicated to fighting this quarry and would be happy to continue to share their information with our readers. But we don`t need every cook to be in the kitchen on every issue.

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