The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was first passed in 1972 after public outrage over chronic phosphorus-driven pollution problems plaguing the lakes. The agreement helped foster sweeping upgrades for industrial and municipal waste treatment systems on both sides of the border.

The lakes responded quickly. Rivers stopped burning, algae blooms waned and fish populations rebounded.

The agreement was subsequently updated in the late ’70s with a goal to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters” inside the Great Lakes basin.

But while this shared blueprint to maintain and restore the health of the world’s largest freshwater system still has grand ambitions, today it is way more words than action.

The two governments say they want to change that.

Five U.S. states lost a bid to overturn a court’s rejection of their request to close links between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River to halt advancing, invasive Asian carp.
Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania had sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and an Illinois waterways management agency, claiming the voracious fish threatened a $7.09 billion sport fishing and tourism industry. Steps taken to stop the entry into the lakes were ineffectual, they alleged.
U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow in Chicago last year rejected the states’ request, concluding they hadn’t shown the requisite imminent harm. A three-judge appellate panel of the U.S. Circuit Court in Chicago today upheld the lower-court ruling on different grounds.

EPA will spend $6 million to hire unemployed people who can work on Great Lakes cleanup projects.
Congress has appropriated $775 million over the past two years for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a wide-ranging plan to improve the region’s environmental health.

Among the priorities are cleaning up toxic pollution, fighting invasive species, improving wildlife habitat and protecting watersheds from contaminated runoff. In recent weeks, EPA has been announcing grants for projects around the region from the $300 million allocated for the 2011 fiscal year. The final $6 million from that pot of money will go to the unemployment initiative, said Susan Hedman, EPA’s regional administrator in Chicago.

The newly announced program is unique because it specifically targets jobless workers. The initiative is similar to the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Depression-era program that put the unemployed to work.

EPA will choose projects by the end of September. To qualify, they must provide immediate, direct ecological benefits and be located in areas identified as federal priorities, such as national lakeshores or areas of concern. They also must include a detailed budget and produce measurable results.

Currently, taxpayers are allowed to deduct mortgage interest for up to two homes from their tax returns. Boats equipped with bedding, toilet facilities, and a kitchen qualify even if they aren’t used as a primary residence. The Ending Taxpayer Subsidies for Yachts Act would limit the tax deduction to only those who use their boats as a primary residence.

In 2004, there were approximately 500,000 pleasure boats in the United States large enough to qualify for the tax break, but only around 100,000 people live full time on boats according to the 2000 Census.
The proposal is included in Quigley’s Reinventing Government: The Federal Budget Part II.

The International Upper Great Lakes Study will hold a public meeting Aug. 9 in Superior regarding the group’s recent study and report on Great Lakes water levels.

The meeting is set for 7-9 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin-Superior’s Yellowjacket Union, 1605 Catlin Ave., and will include presentations and opportunities for public comment.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — A federal court has rejected a shipping industry challenge to a government permitting system designed to prevent the spread of invasive species in U.S. waters.

The permit issued by the Environmental Protection Agency regulates discharges of ballast water and other substances such as bilge water from vessels.

The EPA permit sets rules for ship discharges and lets state governments add provisions to protect their own waters. Shipping groups asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to throw out the additional state requirements.

In a ruling last Friday, the court refused.

A new experimental approach to managing double-crested cormorants in Michigan will allow officials to cull birds without historical population data and will relax regulations on minimal colony sizes is some areas.
An environmental assessment on Michigan’s cormorant control efforts approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this summer will loosen federal regulations that required data to support killing birds in areas, such as Beaver Island. There, cormorant population information is scarce, but anecdotal evidence suggests they impact fish populations and vegetation.

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New York state is facing new pressure to scrap tough ballast water regulations that are set to go into effect next year. The rules are designed to stop invasive species from reaching the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes.

But as Brian Mann reports, Republicans in Congress say New York should be stripped of hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal EPA funding if the regulations aren’t scrapped

Even as the federal government insists its electric fish barrier is working just fine, evidence of Asian carp above that barrier continues to roll in.

With no fanfare, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers posted on its website this week news that nine water samples taken above the barrier in recent weeks have tested positive for the giant, jumping fish. The federal government is spending tens of millions of dollars to keep them out of the Great Lakes.

Seven of those positive “environmental” DNA tests – taken between May 10 and June 27 – came from Lake Calumet south of downtown Chicago, a body of water that has a direct connection to Lake Michigan.

The other two positive samples came from an area near downtown and an area north of downtown on the North Branch of the Chicago River.

Lake Calumet is also the site of the only confirmed find of an Asian carp in waters directly connected to Lake Michigan. Last summer a commercial fisherman hired by the state of Illinois to hunt for the fugitive fish pulled out a 19-pound bighead carp.

But there have been dozens of positive DNA samples taken.

A coalition of Great Lakes conservation groups went on the attack Wednesday for a federal spending bill they claim “guts funding” for the world’s largest freshwater system.

In an ironic twist, they also say the bill prohibits Great Lakes states from being eligible for funds from the ongoing Great Lakes Restoration Initiative if they implement ballast water regulations that are more stringent than those proposed by the federal government. Contaminated ballast water from ocean freighters has been blamed for dozens of invasive species arriving in the Great Lakes. Frustrated with years of inaction, states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and New York are pressing ahead with their own discharge rules to protect their state waters.

“Under the provision, states like New York, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in restoration funding,” states a news release from the Healing Our Waters Coalition, which includes conservation groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, the Alliance for the Great Lakes and Great Lakes United