People Power vs. Bp

Earlier this summer, a state agency gave a refinery permission to increase pollution in
the Great Lakes. Commentator Cameron Davis takes a look at lessons learned and
what they mean for the future of the nation’s waterways:

Transcript

Earlier this summer, a state agency gave a refinery permission to increase pollution in
the Great Lakes. Commentator Cameron Davis takes a look at lessons learned and
what they mean for the future of the nation’s waterways:


When the Indiana Department of Environmental Management gave approval for BP’s
refinery to pollute more in Lake Michigan, who would have guessed that within weeks
more than 100,000 people would sign petitions against the proposal?


The people of the region seemed to instinctively know that more pollution had to be
stopped. After all, millions of us rely on Lake Michigan for drinking water and recreation.


Of course, coverage of the pollution proposal took off, with the Chicago Sun-
Times
calling for a boycott of BP gasoline. The New York Times and CBS
Evening News ran national pieces about the pollution increases. A bi-partisan coalition
of politicians from neighboring states cried foul, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley,
U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, Representatives Rahm Emanuel, Mark Kirk, Jan
Schakowsky, Vern Ehlers and the entire Michigan Congressional delegation, among
others.


But while the media, elected officials, and even those of us in the conservation
community talked about the permit, the real story wasn’t about the permit. It wasn’t
about its allowance for 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended
solids from treated sludge to be discharged.


It wasn’t even an argument about jobs versus the environment. That debate was discounted long
ago by the many businesses that decided or were mandated to pollute less and then
still prospered.


The real story was what you, the public, said and what you are saying now: how we
treat the Great Lakes is emblematic of how we treat our waterways all around the
country. You’re saying that you want a new standard of care for the nation’s waters. You
don’t want the standard to be “to keep things from getting worse.” You don’t want the
status quo. You want our waters to be proactively restored. You want it better.


Like those of us who used to be in the cub scouts, inspired to leave our campsites
better than the way we found them, you want the standard for our waters to be: leave
things better for the next generation.


HOST TAG: Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

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Think Globally, Drink Locally

Some people have been looking at our relationship with water from a completely different perspective. Commentator Cameron Davis suggests how we might re-define our relationship with the water around us:

Transcript

Some people have been looking at our relationship with water from a completely different perspective. Commentator Cameron Davis suggests how we might re-define our relationship with the water around us:


Something really different came across my desk not long ago. A company called H2Om was introducing and selling the world’s first “vibrationally charged” bottled water. According to the California-based company, its bottled spring water would be the first ever to be infused with the “power of intention through words, music, and thought.” Inspired by the work of Japan’s Dr. Masaru Emoto showing that water reacts positively to positive emotions, H2Om’s water from underneath the San Diego Mountains is professed to be bottled with “love” and “perfect health.”


Interesting thought for a bottled spring water company. Part of the problem with bottled water is that when you buy it, you rarely know whether your money is supporting a company that’s damaging to the source of the water.


Ecological damage aside, there’s the issue of cost. According to The Green Guide, Americans pay 240 to 10,000 times for bottled water what they’d pay for tap water. But, here in the Great Lakes region where I live, water is plentiful and consistently ranked as some of the best for drinking in the world. Bottled spring water shouldn’t be selling for those prices here, right?


Wrong. Even though bottled water is so much more expensive, and with the risk of harming the source of the water, we’re drinking just as much bottled spring water as anyone, if not more.


I have a proposition: think globally, drink locally. If you get your water from a community within a certain watershed, drink that water. You’ll be doing your part to support “homegrown” water. If you’re nervous about tap water quality, filter it and check out your municipality’s Consumer Confidence Report for water testing results.


As long as we’re drinking water from someone else’s back yard, we don’t seem to have to care for it as much. At the end of the day, maybe H2Om has a thought. But rather than paying to infuse someone else’s water with someone else’s love, let’s love and drink our own.


Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

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Protecting Water Supplies

Water is a vital resource no matter where you go. Commentator Cameron Davis recently had a first hand look at the threats to water supplies in other parts of the world. He returned from his trip with a renewed sense of the importance of protecting water supplies at home:

Transcript

Water is a vital resource no matter where you go. Commentator Cameron Davis recently had a first hand look at the threats to water supplies in other parts of the world. He returned from his trip with a renewed sense of the importance of protecting water supplies at home:


Not so long ago, my wife and I bought a couple of cheap one-direction tickets and ventured around the world to 11 countries in 11 weeks.


I couldn’t help but be reminded that we’re blessed when it comes to water where we live. My home is near the Great Lakes – with nearly 20 percent of the Earth’s fresh surface water.


Other areas of the world aren’t so fortunate. India struggles with water issues every day. The sacred Ganges River, which flows downward through the majestic upper Himalayas, is used for everything from ferrying the souls of the dead into their next life to the holy Hindu Aarti ritual in which millions of people wade annually for prayer. At the same time the Ganges is revered, it’s also used for sewage and waste disposal, to the point that if the Ganges flowed through the United States, it would violate water quality standards many times over.


In Vietnam, we learned that groundwater levels were dropping precipitously in the Bac Lieu Province. Few laws existed to protect aquifers from businesses that drilled to provide water to the aquaculture industry, namely for farm-raised shrimp. The practices were expected to have impacts on the fragile ecology of the Mekong Delta.


All of this was going on at the very same time that King Abdullah II of Jordan was convening the International Water Demand Management Conference in the Middle East and beyond.


While we’re hardly immune from water pressures and mismanagement here at home, we have some important opportunities to give something back to future generations. The Great Lakes states are contemplating policy changes that might be a model for the rest of the nation. In the coming years, the legislatures of the eight Great Lakes states must consider protections under a Great Lakes water use “Compact” that the governors of the eight states signed last December.


The only question is whether we’ll ensure these new protections are strong enough, or whether they’ll slip to the lowest common denominator of protections. After seeing how water is honored yet misused in many other parts of the world, I’m hopeful we’ll do the right thing. And in so doing, give other states and regions in the U.S. some ideas for better water conservation. After all, water is one of those rare things that bring us – all of us, from all walks of life – together to form a common regional identity. Our waters are more than a resource for us to use and protect. They’re the source of life.


Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

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Point: Agreements Will Help Protect Great Lakes

  • The proposed Annex 2001 agreement is the subject of lively debate as to whether it will help or hinder the conservation of the Great Lakes (Photo by Jeremy Lounds)

In 1998, an Ontario company wanted to sell Lake Superior water overseas. Their proposal raised fears that Great Lakes water could be diverted with little oversight. Now, officials from the eight states and two provinces in the region have come up with two proposed agreements that would regulate new water diversion requests. The proposed agreements are known as the Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Cameron Davis says the agreements are a good first step in protecting a cherished resource:

Transcript

In 1998 an Ontario company wanted to sell Lake Superior water overseas. Their
proposal raised fears that Great Lakes water could be diverted with little oversight.
Now, officials from the eight states and two provinces in the region have come up with
two proposed agreements that would regulate new water diversion requests. The proposed
agreements are known as the Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements. Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Cameron Davis says the agreements are a good first step in protecting a cherished
resource:


When I was growing up, my family and I used to go to the beach every Sunday. As I stood
looking out over Lake Michigan, I was awed at how it seemed to go on forever. Today I know
better. The Great Lakes are a gift left from the glaciers thousands of years ago. That’s
because less than 1% of Great Lakes water is renewed every year from rainfall, snowmelt,
and groundwater recharge.


Two proposed agreements by the states and provinces would make diversions of Great Lakes water
to places outside of the Great Lakes a virtual impossibility.


The agreements look to be a vast improvement over current laws. First, federal law in the U.S.
allows a diversion only if every Great Lakes Governor approves. That seems like a tough standard
to meet, but in fact, it’s already allowed two diversions of Great Lakes water to take place. In
the 1990’s, diversions were approved to Pleasant Prairie in Wisconsin and another one to Akron,
Ohio. The water was used for municipal supplies.


Second, the proposed agreements are an improvement over the Boundary Waters Treaty – a pact
signed between the U.S. and Canada almost 100 years ago. The treaty doesn’t cover one very
important Great Lake: Lake Michigan. Because Lake Michigan is solely within the U.S. and not
shared with Canada, the treaty leaves the lake unprotected. This is a problem because Lake
Michigan is directly connected to Lake Huron. So water diverted out of Lake Michigan means
water diverted out of Lake Huron.


The agreements are a good first step, but they need to be stronger. For example, they require
regional approval for diversions of water that go outside of the basin of more than one million
gallons per day, but they don’t require regional approval for withdrawals of up to 5 million
gallons per day that stay in the Great Lakes. In addition, the draft agreements need to do a
better job at requiring water conservation before potential water withdrawals can be considered.


We have a choice. We can be against the agreements and keep the status quo or work to make
them even stronger. We need to work to protect our region’s water so that our kids can continue
to look out over the Great Lakes and see them for what they are: vast, magnificent, but fragile
natural treasures.


Host Tag: Cameron Davis is the executive director of the Lake Michigan Federation.

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Voters Love the Lakes

The Michigan Legislature voted recently to ban new oil and gas drilling under the Great Lakes. Until the ban was enacted, Michigan had been the only state considering to allow such drilling. As the nation heads into a new round of federal, state, and local elections, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Cameron Davis says that the region’s drilling debate provides some invaluable lessons for candidates:

Transcript

The Michigan legislature voted recently to ban new oil and gas drilling under the Great Lakes. Until now, it had been the major holdout on such a ban. As the nation heads into a new round of federal, state, and local elections, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Cameron Davis says that the region’s drilling debate provides some invaluable lessons for candidates.

The first lesson to our future leaders is to beware of one element of news “spin”- that if you repeat something long enough it will become true. In pressing their case, oil and gas interests said that drilling would not result in oil bubbling up to pollute Great Lakes water. As a result, they repeated, drilling was quote -“safe.” They failed to listen, however, to citizens troubled by something different: oil and toxic hydrogen sulfide leaks on land that could put human health and fragile coasts at risk. Given the small amount of oil and gas below the lakes, citizens said drilling wasn’t worth it. So, we get to lesson number one: Our future leaders should define public safety and environmental health broadly, not so narrowly that they gloss over legitimate concerns.

Lesson number 2: the debate was as much about the need for states to be credible leaders in natural resource protection as it was about drilling itself. The Lake Michigan Federation looked at 30 active wells in Michigan and found that eight of them had in fact contaminated water supplies. According to the same research, state oversight continues to fail in the clean up of any of those sites. In the drilling debate, citizens believed that without responsive agency action, the only way to prevent similar damage from shoreline drilling was to prohibit the practice in the first place. Congress responded to citizens’ concerns over the summer by suspending new drilling for two years. Candidates can take away from this that if states don’t want Congress stepping on their toes, they need to do a credible job themselves of protecting the Great Lakes.

Last, pro-drilling interests argued during the debate that other serious challenges besides drilling deserved more attention. While concerned citizens believed that a drilling ban was the best way to prevent new shoreline damage, advocates also agree that a number of other important threats need to be addressed. The third moral of the story is that people’s interest in protecting the Great Lakes environment from drilling is the beginning, not the end.

It’s time to move onto other pressing threats such as harmful water diversions in an increasingly thirsty world. We need to prevent future invasions of foreign pest species like the zebra mussel that throw the multi-billion dollar Great Lakes fishery out of whack. With women of childbearing age and other sensitive populations unable to eat certain fish because of contamination, it’s time to eliminate cancer-causing and other pollution once and for all. And, it’s time to restore fish and wildlife habitat, including the region’s precious wetlands, forests, and sand dunes.

Voters love the Great Lakes. Because of that, whoever commits first in upcoming elections to protect them, wins.

Counterpoint: Drilling Not Worth Risk

As the debate on a national energy policy intensifies, the hunt for more places to drill and dig for new energy is escalating. States are now turning their attention to prospecting in one place that hits close to home: the Great Lakes. As Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Cameron Davis of the Lake Michigan Federation explains, drilling under the continent’s largest body of fresh surface water is not something to be taken lightly:

Transcript

As the debate on a national energy policy intensifies, the hunt for more places to drill and dig for new energy is escalating. States are now focusing their attention on prospecting for one place that hits close to home: the Great Lakes. As commentator Cameron Davis of the Lake Michigan Federation explains, drilling under the continent’s largest body of fresh surface water is not something to be taken lightly.


No matter which estimate you believe – that there’s only enough oil and gas to power a Great Lakes state for 2 minutes or 8 weeks – opening the Great Lakes to new oil and gas drilling is simply not worth the risk. Hydrogen sulfide, known to exist in lakebed oil and gas reserves, can escape during drilling causing far-reaching human health problems. Wellhead and pipeline leaks can contaminate groundwater and surface water in streams, often without adequate cleanups by the state agency responsible for drilling oversight. And, drilling can damage some of the most fragile fish and wildlife habitat known, habitat that exists along Great Lakes coasts.


The argument that drilling means more royalties to states doesn’t even hold up. One state Auditor General recently found that oversight of leasing and royalty payments from drilling operations continues to be lax. What does this mean? It means that taxpayers aren’t getting the financial benefits from drilling that they’re supposed to get.


Last, it’s not unusual for the same state agency to serve as subjective promoter of drilling while at the same time supposing to be the objective regulator. States such as Michigan, which is leading the charge for new drilling, can’t have it both ways and maintain their credibility. If they try to have it both ways, it’s inevitable that Congress will step in – as it did this summer with its own legislation.


President Bush, legislative leaders from both sides of the aisle, and a majority of citizens have all said that Great Lakes oil and gas drilling isn’t worth the risk. So why does a bad idea keep moving forward?

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Commentary – Keeping Lakes Great

  • For more information on water withdrawals, visit the Lake Michigan Federation's web site at www.lakemichigan.org.

National and even global demand for drinking water is surging to thepoint where proposals to withdraw waters from the Great Lakes mayincrease drastically. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentatorCameron Davis tells us, we may need to risk some withdrawals so that theGreat Lakes may stay great:

Transcript

National and even global demand for drinking water is surging to the point where
proposals to withdraw waters from the Great Lakes may increase drastically. But as
commentator Cameron Davis of the Lake Michigan Federation tells us, we may need to risk
some withdrawals so that the Great Lakes may stay great.

Let’s put one and one together. First, in the next 25 years, at least 55 percent more fresh water
than is now available will be needed to satisfy the growing global population. But other
countries aren’t the only ones that are thirsty. Los Angeles is now moving toward privatizing
public drinking water because demand is fast outpacing supply.


Here’s the second part of the equation. The Great Lakes contain nearly 20 percent of the Earth’s
fresh surface water. Despite the pollution problems that affect fish consumption and other
aspects of human health, Great Lakes water is exceptionally clean for drinking.


Add these up. It’s not outrageous to think that our precious Great Lakes could be tapped. In
fact, it’s already happening. In 1998 a Canadian firm received approval from Ontario to ship
millions of gallons of Lake Superior water to Asia though the permit was later cancelled. As I’m
speaking to you, Green Bay suburbs are looking to Lake Michigan for water because their own
groundwater supplies are drying up in the face of continued outward sprawl. In another case,
Perrier is now seeking to build a number of water pumping plants in the Lake Michigan Basin.
These are just a few examples of how Great Lakes water is being targeted.


Unfortunately, we may not be able to protect the Great Lakes by “just saying no” to future
projects like we’ve been doing. Under international trade laws and our own U.S. Constitution,
we can’t arbitrarily restrict the flow of goods—water included—from one state or country to
another. To withstand legal challenges under these laws we need objective decision making
standards that don’t differentiate between proposals coming from inside the Great Lakes, the
Southwestern U.S., or overseas for that matter. If we get going now, we can make those
standards tough. The irony of it is that if we have such standards—even if they risk some water
being removed—we can protect the integrity of the Great Lakes as a whole.


Commendably, the Great Lakes governors have proposed a set of standards that take a
significant step toward this goal. They have some shortcomings—for example, they can allow
lots of little withdrawals, which could add up to a big drain on the ecosystem. With some
improvement, however, the standards can result in real protections for the Great Lakes and the
people who love them. The governors are accepting public comments until February 28.


So, the next time you stand on the shores of your favorite Great Lake, remember this as you look
across the expanse: less than one percent of Great Lakes water is renewable. Let’s get ahead of
the wave in protecting them while we still can.