Figure 1 Photo developed in the waters of Lake Ontario
Bi-national Pollution, Bi-national Solutions:
The Larger Great Lakes Ecosystem
Sarah Mitchell
The previous chapter highlighted the Great Lakes region, a highly successful hub of industry and international trade. The ratification of NAFTA and the inclusion of Mexico into the North American free trade area increases the size of the previously existing free trade zone between Canada and the United States by 83 million people. The addition of Mexico into the free trade area creates an opportunity for further economic growth, especially in areas such as the Great Lakes region, which are already accustomed to and dependent on free trade.
Growing regionalism in the Great Lakes area is an excellent example of the "glocalization" process. International free trade is becoming entrenched in today's economy, and is cemented by agreements and organizations such as NAFTA, CUFTA, APEC, and the EU. Political boundaries are becoming obsolete in the economic world, and the Great Lakes region offers the global economy an example of an intricate regional system of production and trade which operates profitably in spite of (or perhaps even because of) an international border which slices the region in two parts. Instead of allowing the boundary to hinder trade, this region has incorporated the economic strengths of industries on either side of the border to create an exemplary economic entity. This "glocal" economy harbors great potential to grow stronger and more powerful, especially with the ratification of NAFTA and the existence of other bi-national, regional, and global agreements which encourage the deepening of existing international trade links.
Before further economic regional growth can be achieved, however, the residents of the Great Lakes region and the policy makers of Canada and the United States must take a close look at the problems caused by free trade in the Great Lakes ecosystem. Pollution is difficult to control because the region is not only an interdependent economic system, but also an interdependent ecosystem. The US and Canada share the Great Lakes ecosystem, but neither country can clean up or reduce pollution by itself. Two reasons exist for this inability for one-sided action. The first is that if one country introduces pollution controls independent of the other country, an economic incentive is created for industry to cluster on the opposite side of the border, and to operate in the country with more lax and less costly controls. The second reason is that pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem affects everyone who lives in the region, regardless of which side of the border it originates on. For instance, toxins leaked into Lake Erie from a steel factory in Detroit will also pollute the lake's shores in Windsor, Ontario. Thus pollution controls or cleanup efforts in one country will not necessarily reduce pollution in either country. If it is to be addressed at all, pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem must be addressed by the region as a whole, and cooperative pollution solutions must be enforced by governments in both Canada and the US.
Transboundary pollution problems in the Great Lakes region have been highly publicized since the late 1970s, when acid rain in that area began to receive worldwide attention. The emissions of the toxins which cause acid rain have been curtailed, but other serious environmental problems in the region still abound. It will take hundreds of years for the polluted waters of even one of the Great Lakes to be replaced with clean water, so pollution that already exists in the Great Lakes is a crucial matter, one that must be considered along with the problem of stopping or reducing the emission of the newer pollutants which are increasingly problematic in the Great Lakes ecosystem. This chapter illustrates the problem of water pollution in the region. It examines the pollution's sources and effects, and the solutions and policies which have been created to deal with pollution problems. Pollution affects the health of both humans and industry, and pollution problems in the Great Lakes region must be addressed if the area is to remain a vital industrial core in North America. The current resolutions offered by the federal, state, and provincial governments are not sufficient solutions to the problems in this area and will not allow for continued economic growth.
Because of the enormity of the Great Lakes system, Canada and the US are more environmentally interdependent within the 1000 miles of border which they share in this region than in any other border region. Although in other border regions, the US shares rivers or marshlands with Canada or Mexico, the Great Lakes region is the only one in which the entire physical border is located within shared waterways. The Great Lakes is thus an important area to study when examining the interdependencies of border regions. This chapter first defines and introduces the Great Lakes ecosystem, and explains briefly some of the problems associated with pollution and industry in the region. It explores the manifestations and effects of pollutants and toxins in the area. Water and air pollution problems in the Great Lakes ecosystem have been addressed by both the Canadian and US governments in the past, and one Task Force in particular has been created to help identify and deal with regional pollution. This chapter looks at this organization, the International Joint Council (IJC), and its influences. Two case studies of environmental problems in the region which have been dealt with in the past are examined in order to get a sense of the difficulty of formulating bi-national policies to deal with regional pollution problems. The problems associated with acid rain have been largely resolved. How a quasi-satisfactory solution was reached and the deficiencies of this solution are examined. The other example which is presented is the issue of how pollution could be reduced by a mutually beneficial trade of hydro-electric power between Quebec and New York. This trade has never been fully realized, and the reasons why are explored. These case studies provide clues as to how environmental problems have been dealt with by the two countries in the past and how cooperative policies might help heal pollution problems in the Great Lakes. Finally, this chapter looks at how international free trade affects and is affected by environmental issues in the Great Lakes region. The framework of NAFTA could be used to help implement and enforce environmental controls in the Great Lakes region.
The Great Lakes ecosystem consists of the five Great Lakes: lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, and the St. Lawrence river, the lakes' primary outlet to the sea. The environmental problems of these lakes and the St. Lawrence are especially distinctive because the lakes and river constitute 1000 miles of the boundary line between the United States and Canada. The northern shores of Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario lie in the Canadian province of Ontario. The southern shores of those lakes, plus the entirety of Lake Michigan, lie primarily in the US. Furthermore, eight US states border the Great Lakes: Michigan, Ohio, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. The St. Lawrence River flows from Lake Ontario through the Canadian province of Quebec to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and then to the Atlantic Ocean. It borders both the Canadian province of Quebec and the US state of New York. As Michelle Wolters demonstrated in Chapter 1, several twin cities exist in the region as international metropolises. These include Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, which share the western tip of Lake Erie, and Buffalo, New York and Toronto, Ontario, which are both located at the junction of Lakes Erie and Ontario. Other major cities located within the ecosystem include Chicago and Montreal. The Great Lakes system is truly a bi-national, interdependent ecosystem.
The location of the Great Lakes ecosystem on the international boundary creates countless management difficulties. Any pollutants or cleanup efforts on one side of the border can and do affect the other side. "The Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem [is] the most significant environmental entity on the Canadian-American boundary. The lakes are regional seas - hydrologically, ecologically, and economically interconnected, fractionally managed, and frequently mismanaged." The Great Lakes ecosystem falls within the jurisdiction of two federal governments, ten state or provincial governments, and hundreds of city or county governments. Coordination of pollution control ordinances is difficult. In the Great Lakes ecosystem, it is vital that the many governments work together because water pollution from a source in one governmental entity is likely to affect the residents of another. If contaminants are leaked, dumped, or drained into Lake Superior in Minnesota, they are likely to be found a few months later in Lake Ontario affecting the beaches or drinking water of the citizens of Buffalo, New York or Ottawa, Canada. The interdependent nature of the ecosystem must overshadow political differences.
The Great Lakes region is populated by 35 million Canadians and Americans, who rely on the Great Lakes for bathing, drinking water, industry, fishing, and recreation. About 10% of all Americans and 25% of Canadians live in the Great Lakes region. Additionally, the Great Lakes contain 20% of the world's fresh water reserves. About one billion gallons of water are withdrawn each day to support the residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural needs of both countries. Thus the health of the Great Lakes is vital to the prosperity of the region itself and to the nations of Canada and the US.
Pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem is linked with health problems in people who eat Great Lakes fish. Several beaches in the region have been shut down permanently because they were too dangerous to swim in. Efforts to reduce pollutants and toxins in the water have had limited success. A greater attempt must be made to clean up pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem in order to protect not just the 35 million people who live in and sustain the border's largest area of trade, but also to protect the world's precious reserves of fresh water from contamination. The ecosystem is used by both Canadians and Americans, and both parties must be involved if a feasible solution to pollution problems is to be achieved.
The pollutants that contaminate the Great Lakes ecosystem usually originate from within the ecosystem itself. Often pollution results from the operations of the many factories located in the region. Those pollutants that originate outside of the Great lakes region are also industrial. Trade and industry are thus definitely linked with environmental problems. Although the environmental costs of trade can be quite high, they are often difficult to quantify and therefore easily ignored or underestimated by policy makers and economists. This fact plus the difficulty of actually forming policy in a region with such a fragmented jurisdiction creates and reinforces pollution in the Great Lakes region and could cause the decline of both the ecosystem and the industrial base which it supports.
It is important to understand the implications of cross-media pollution in the Great Lakes region. Cross-media pollution is common in the Great Lakes ecosystem, and is defined as pollution which pollutes one medium (typically water, air, or soil), but originates as a pollutant of another medium. Water pollution cannot be considered a problem caused simply by the dumping or leaking of pollutants directly into the water. This chapter will be concerned mainly with water pollution because the Great Lakes ecosystem is not only highly dependent on its lakes and waterways, but also because these lakes and waterways are found everywhere in the region. Because a body of water is found near most industrial and commercial areas and waste sites, the possibility for pollutant transfer from the air or ground to the water is highly likely. Additionally, in the Great Lakes region air and ground pollution manifest themselves most noticeably as water pollutants. For instance, although acid rain begins as an air pollutant, one of its greatest effects is the deposition of dangerous chemicals in lakes and waterways. Thus although this chapter explicitly deals with water pollution, it must be understood that the sources of water pollution are often air and ground pollutants. In the Great Lakes region, because of the multitude and magnitude of shared waterways, water pollution problems are the pollution problems most likely to affect both countries, regardless of which country they originated in or if they originated as air, soil, or water pollutants. What pollutes the American waters of Lake Ontario affects the Canadian waters as well. Since there is a demand for solutions for water pollution is great in both countries, a bi-national solution has the best chance for success. It is hoped and expected that by cooperatively restricting water pollution on both sides of the border, American and Canadian governments will incidentally also reduce air and ground pollutants.
The water in the Great Lakes is extremely polluted, and has been so for decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, increasing amounts of raw sewage were dumped in the lakes without treatment. The sewage, as well as pollutants such as household detergents and runoff from agricultural land, caused a process called cultural eutrophication. Cultural eutrophication entailed a large increase in certain types of algae which used up the oxygen in the water. Oxygen depletion caused the fish to die, and their decomposition in turn depleted more oxygen from the water. Twenty-five years ago, Lake Erie was pronounced dead, and the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire. In the 1960s and 1970s, beaches in the area were regularly soiled by oily chemical residues washed up from factories in Chicago and Gary, Indiana. Many beaches closed permanently, and fishing commercially or for sport was virtually nonexistent.
Currently the environmental damage is more subtle, but it could actually be more dangerous than it was twenty-five years ago, as people are less aware of the dangers posed by lake waters. Pollutants from bygone days have not been eliminated. Although much of the visible scum has disappeared, toxins remain in the bottoms of the lakes and rivers. People may be more inclined to use the waters for fishing, bathing, and swimming because the pollutants are less visible. Pollutants have not disappeared, they have been transformed. Obvious pollutants such as raw sewage, soaps, and oils have been reduced, but dangerous and less visible toxins such as mercury, the pesticide toxaphene, and DDT remain in the water, and new toxic emissions continue to pollute the water daily It is these types of toxins which concerns most scientists today.
In 1990, Jeremy Lynch, a photography student in Toronto, actually managed to develop film using a canister of water taken from Lake Ontario (see Fig. 1). The water in which he developed a clear and recognizable picture of the harborfront was analyzed at a local chemical recycling plant. The analysis showed a concentration of about 1% diesel fuel, and the presence of plenty of iron, motor oil, dye, varnish, and paint (fuel oils and paints contain some of the same chemicals used by photo developers). Lynch purposely took his water sample from a shipyard, where pollutants are more highly concentrated than in most places. Although it was a calm day when the scum on the water's edge was not broken by wind and waves, the fact that he was actually able to develop film in this water used by millions in their daily life should alarm both the public and policymakers.
Figure 1 Photo developed in the waters of Lake Ontario
The dangers of toxic chemicals in the Great Lakes can be seen by examining their effects on fish and wildlife in the area. Pollution and over harvesting during the first half of this century left the Great Lakes practically empty of fish and wildlife. During the last few decades, as many of the major and obvious pollutants have been removed and reduced, fish and other marine animals have returned to the Great Lakes. However, scientific studies have found that these fish and wildlife are contaminated by the many pollutants and toxins which remain in the water and by those which are deposited in it every day.
In 1989, it was found that 90% of the fish tested from Lake Michigan waters were "tainted with toxic chemicals at levels considered unsafe for fish eating wildlife". The results of this toxic contamination manifest themselves at the birth and during the early development of the animals living the Great Lakes region. Defects in baby birds include twisted beaks, club feet, split spines and brains, and hearts developing outside of the bodies. The problems occurring in animals should raise a warning signal for humans who live in and rely on the ecosystem.
The endangered beluga whale exemplifies the effects toxins in the polluted waters can have on those who rely on the ecosystem for survival. The beluga whales live near the mouth of the St. Lawrence and feed upon eels which migrate there from Lake Ontario. These eels are contaminated with toxins such as the insecticide Mirex, which was once manufactured on the shores of Lake Ontario. These toxins have damaged the whales' immune systems, slowed reproductive rates, and increased infant mortality rates. The contamination of beluga whales illustrates three key points: 1) water pollution is damaging to those who rely on the ecosystem; 2) water pollutants in the Great Lakes region is transboundary (in this case, eels carried toxins manufactured in the US up to Canada through the St. Lawrence river); 3) pollutants such as Mirex, although no longer manufactured still detrimentally affect the Great Lakes ecosystem.
Important lessons can be drawn from the fate of the beluga whales and other wildlife in the Great Lakes ecosystem. "The interesting thing about belugas is that they present an enlarged picture of what's happening with other species", says Robert Michaud, a scientist working on the beluga research. Warnings about contamination of whales and wildlife cannot be taken only at the level of concern for such animals. "The things which we are finding now are like the canary in the mine, an early warning that toxic chemicals are moving up the food chain". Research on wildlife in the region has raised concern among scientists and residents. The effects of pollution on humans in the area are thought to be similar but more subtle than those which are manifested in the ecosystem's wildlife.
The following section documents how human health is negatively affected by the pollution in the Great Lakes and along the St. Lawrence River. It proposes that residents in this area need more adequate information about the safety of their food they eat and the water they drink. The methods used by both the Canadian and the American governments to assess health risks often are outdated or do not examine potential risks as thoroughly as perhaps is necessary. People living in the Great Lakes area are at risk for health problems such as cancer, birth defects and delayed development.
Scientists use the studies of fish and wildlife to demonstrate the existence of toxins in the water and in food which affect residents of this area. Extrapolating from those studies which have demonstrated pollution related problems in fish and wildlife, it is argued "that these same toxins must be harmful to humans and that currently available public health data are inadequate indicators of health effects that might arise from the biomaginification and bioaccumulation of toxic substances in the food web".
Researchers from the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Protection Agency have found that people who eat Great Lakes sport fish on a weekly basis may face "high" excess cancer risks, even when contaminant levels in the fish are only one-fifth those triggering state health warnings. There is a disparity between the levels of toxins which must be present to comprise an actual cancer risk and the level of toxins which must be present to trigger a government warning. The disparity exists because FDA levels of acceptable toxins were set in the 1960s and 1970s and were never based on cancer risk assessments. Jeffrey Foran, one of the researchers involved in this study, concludes that FDA action levels "clearly do not protect human health".
Two studies at Wayne State University have shown that babies born to women who regularly ate fish from Lake Michigan for at least six years are likely to have smaller heads, lower birth weights, and less coordination than babies born to women who did not. Additionally, babies were shown two pictures of the same face, side by side. One of the pictures was then switched to a new face. The baby of the mother who had eaten more contaminated fish showed less interest in the new face.
Another research project was done in the late 1980s involving the Mohawk tribe of Native Americans. This tribe lives in a narrow strip along the St. Lawrence river in Quebec, Ontario, and New York. It was found that nursing Mohawk mothers had nearly twice the amount of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in their breast milk than did women in control groups. Much of this PCB contamination came from fish caught in the St. Lawrence which are a staple in the Mohawk diet. PCBs can cause depression, lower intelligence, and impair thyroid functions, which results in less physical and cognitive growth. A possible correlation has also been found between PCB contamination and mental illness. Katsi Cook, one of the primary researchers involved in this project, has found many problems associated with the PCB and other toxins exemplified in the Mohawk population. She states, "Today, we are seeing increased rates of diseases with roots in immune and reproductive systems and neurobehavioral developments. We see diabetes in teenagers that we used to see only in grandparents and chronic liver problems in people with no history of alcohol use.". It is clear that pollutants such as PCBs can have drastic detrimental effects on those who rely on the polluted ecosystems for food and water.
Other pollutants in the waters of the Great Lakes basin include chlorine and related compounds which are produced as byproducts of industry in the region. Gordon Durnil, an American co-commissioner on the IJC, a bi-national board set up to oversee Great Lakes pollution, cites an increase in breast cancer, prostrate cancer, and endometriosis. "You can in many cases trace it to an organochloride." Concentrations of pesticides such as DDT, outlawed in the US because of its detrimental effects on humans, have also been found in the waters of the Great Lakes. Both Canadians and Americans use the water from the Great Lakes for drinking and bathing, and rely on the ecosystem for food. Neither government, however, has developed an adequate warning system to alert people of the dangers posed by the use of natural resources in the ecosystem, nor has either government developed a comprehensive prevention program. The residents must be healthy if they are to drive the region to further economic success, and it would thus benefit both countries to develop better warning and prevention systems.
Water pollution is obviously a large problem in the Great Lakes ecosystem. Pollution is harming the health of the residents of the region and is thereby threatening the likelihood of further economic growth. The residents must be healthy and feel safe and secure in the region if they are to invest in it their lives, labor, ideas, and capital. Thus, the next issue which must be addressed is the cause of harmful water pollution. As Michelle Wolters described in Chapter 1, the largest category of trade in the Great Lakes region consists of manufactured and industrial goods. Industry and manufacturing play a role in the economy of the region. The following section explores the links between industry and water pollution. Pollution can be divided into two sources: point-source pollution (waste dumped by factories or sewage plants) and runoff, which includes oils and soaps used by people to wash cars, or the dumping of a battery in a gully, as well as the runoff of herbicides and pesticides from a farmer's fields. Both types of pollutants must be controlled in order to protect the residents of the Great Lakes ecosystem. However, the issues of industry related point source pollution and agricultural related runoff are the most important issues in the context of this chapter. Not only do these types of pollution account for a greater quantity of pollutants from fewer sources than does runoff pollution from individual sources, but the issue of industry and free trade is crucially inter-linked with the pollution problem.
Industrial by-products create many different forms of pollutants. This variety makes it difficult to create a comprehensive regulation program or to pinpoint the direct sources of pollution. However, it can be shown that industry, as a general source, accounts for much of the pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem. For instance, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) are the two major pollutants associated with acid rain. They are released into the air and water through the emissions of cars and trucks, the smokestacks of heavy industry, and coal burning plants mixing with rainwater. In North America, industrial combustion accounts for more than 60% of SO2 emissions, industrial and manufacturing processes for 21%, and fuel combustion 13%. In the US, electric utilities account for more than two-thirds of SO2 emissions and approximately one-third of NOx emissions. Three-fourths of all US emissions of SO2 originate from large industrial sources. In Canada, industrial processes account for account for nearly 75% of all SO2 emissions. Thus two of the major pollutants in the region are undoubtedly linked to industry. Other pollutants, such as mercury and lead, have similar relationships with industry. For instance, the level of toxic mercury in the Great Lakes region is climbing because of garbage and hazardous waste incineration in the United States. In Chapter 1, Michelle Wolters lists some of the cities in which industry is clustered. These include Detroit and Windsor, located on the western tip of Lake Erie, and Toronto and Buffalo, located at the junction of Lakes Erie and Toronto. It is interesting to note the twin cities' proximity to both to the polluted lakes and to each other. While the relationship between industry and pollution can be discerned, when so many industries from both countries are clustered together, it is difficult to pinpoint individual sources of pollution.
Many links have been found between industries such as steel plants which are the mainstay of the Great Lakes region's economy, and the dumping or leaking of pollutants into the air, water, or ground. The Grand Calumet River (see Fig. 2) is one example which can be used to trace pollutants in the water to industry. The Grand Calumet River curls around the southern side of Lake Michigan and is blamed for dumping millions of pounds of sediment onto the bottom of the lake. Ninety percent of the water in the river's main, eastern branch is polluted by industrial waste.
Figure 2: Warning about the polluted waters in the Grand Calumet River.
In June of 1994, propelled by the river's infamous reputation, President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development made a rare field trip to Indiana to visit the Grand Calumet and agreed that the river was "sustainably challenged". The river's pollution is derived from several industrial sources. A giant steel plant, located at the eastern head of the river, pumps 350m gallons of water from the river daily, releasing the water back to the river after using it for cooling and cleaning. The river then runs past the sewage works of Gary, Indiana and past an abandoned incinerator before it nears a DuPont chemical processing plant. That particular plant has run into trouble with the EPA over ground-water contamination. The river then turns towards Lake Michigan, passing a disused battery recycling site, the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, several oil-storage tanks, an oil refinery, a refuse transfer station, and more huge steel factories. On the day the President's Council visited the river, the view was obscured by smoke from a burning tire recycling plant that had been burning for over a week. It still burned two months later.
Thus, much of the pollution problem in the Great Lakes ecosystem is caused by industry and trade. However, the flip side which must be examined is the fact that pollutants also cause harm to industry and trade in the region. The very companies which pollute the waters of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence rely on the ecosystem to provide them with water for transportation, cleaning, cooling and washing, and to use as an input in manufacturing processes. They rely on the continued health of the ecosystem to provide them with an adequate supply of healthy, intelligent workers and managers. They rely on the waterways and harbors to transport their raw materials and finished products between plants and to deliver them to consumers. In short, the industries which have propelled the Great Lakes region to become the busiest border trading zone rely on the ecosystem for their ongoing economic success.
One example of how the pollutants are directly affecting industries in the Great Lakes region is the buildup of sediment on the bottoms of heavily trafficked lakes and rivers. For instance, because of sediment buildup at the bottom of the Indiana Harbor Ship Canal, fully loaded ships cannot dock at the piers there. Affected companies would like to dredge the bottom of the Canal. But another problem arises because the sediment is too toxic to dump even in the deep part of the lake. An alternate, dry dumping site must be found, but such sites are costly and an appropriate site is difficult to designate. Meanwhile, one large company alone, Inland Steel, has been losing $500 million a year because the ships which dock at the pier must arrive and depart partially empty. This phenomenon of sediment buildup is also apparent at several other regional ports, including the busy Chicago harbor.
As the previous section shows, pollution is a serious problem in the Great Lakes region. It affects the health of the people and wildlife who live in the region, as well as affecting the well-being of industry. A solution to the problem of pollution must be found in order to prevent further toxification of the Great Lake ecosystem. Pollution which exists in the lakes is not going away anytime soon. Polluted water in even the cleanest lake, Lake Superior, will take 191 years to be replaced. It is imperative that pollution be reduced before the ecosystem becomes too polluted to live in or conduct business in. The regional economic base upon which free trade has been built is in danger, and if trade and economic success in the Great Lakes are to be salvaged and expanded upon, cooperative policies to reduce the harmful effects of industry must be developed by agencies on both sides of the border Chapter 6 discusses with policy suggestions for the future, but the effectiveness of current and historical pollution policy must also be examined in order to predict the success or failure of new policy. The following section then examines past policies.
The United States and Canada have a history of policies, regulations, and organizations which have been put in place in order to deal with pollution problems. The following section explores some of the history of problem solving in the region, and examines its effectiveness. A recent study of the region performed jointly by the Ottawa-based Institute for Research on Public Policy and the Washington DC based Conservation Foundation was summed up by writer Ward Worthy in one sentence: "So far, only the easiest problems have been tackled and only the cheapest remedies have been applied."
The United States and Canada first began discussions on establishing a mechanism for resolving transborder disputes in the early 1900s. The International Waterways Commission was formed in 1903 and made a series of recommendations which led to the earliest agreement between the two countries concerning boundary waters. The Boundary Waters Treaty (BWT) was signed in 1909. Each nation pledged that "boundary waters and waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property to the other". The BWT also established the International Joint Council (IJC) which remains today the most important international institution involved in the welfare of the Great Lakes ecosystem.
The IJC is composed of six members, three from each country, appointed by their respective governments. The commission has final approval on all matters regarding the change of water levels in the lakes. It does not have any authority regarding water quality or pollution. It is primarily an investigative body which studies problems and issues recommendations when requested to do so by either government. It has no power to compel either government to act to correct or improve the quality of the water, nor the power to enforce the terms of the BWT. The IJC's reports were largely overlooked by the Canadian and United States governments during the commission's first sixty years, because their recommendations were considered too costly. However, in the 1960s, contamination of the water in the Great Lakes ecosystem was becoming an obvious and dangerous problem.
An IJC report in 1970 outlining the nature, severity, and causes of the problems affecting the lakes and the growing environmental concerns of the public in both countries finally prompted both governments, propelled by and, to sign the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA). Water quality objectives were established for each of the lower lakes and the IJC was given responsibility for the oversight of cooperative efforts to clean up and protect the Great Lakes water quality. Progress towards the achievement of the objectives laid out in the 1972 GLWQA was slow. Many new toxins were identified in the years following the agreement which had not been considered in the original agreement. In 1978, the two countries signed an updated version of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The GLWQA of 1978 listed warning signals which should be addressed by the two countries should they appear in the region. Some of these warnings include: restrictions on fish and wildlife consumption, degradation of fish and wildlife populations, bird or animal deformities or reproductive problems, and added costs to agriculture or industry. It is interesting to note that these and other warning signals are present in the Great Lakes ecosystem today. However, no comprehensive bi-national (or even national) program or policy has been introduced to help correct them. IJC reports in the 1980s noted that although the lakes were generally cleaner, the United States was finding it difficult to uphold its end of the agreement. Funding is difficult to obtain and successful strategies to reduce pollutants are difficult to create.
In 1985, following the recommendation contained in the "1985 report of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board" to the IJC, the eight Great Lake states and the province of Ontario committed themselves to restore and reclaim the beneficial uses of the worst areas of the lakes. These toxic hot spots are called the Areas of Concern. Twenty-five of them are located within the United States, and five more are shared between the US and Canada. However, the plans to restore these hot spots have not realized their full potential because of lack of funding. The cleanup of these spots was to be primarily funded by the states and these efforts floundered without financial and technical support from the federal government. Thus, although the transborder pollution institutions and agreements are theoretically positive pollution solutions, in practice they are not enough to prevent or clean up pollution.
Pollution, especially transborder pollution, is difficult to measure and regulate. The following section explores two case studies of environmental issues which have risen in the Great Lakes region and examines the role of the involved parties. The two issues are cross-border trade of hydro-electric power and acid rain. Neither of these issues are directly affected by the IJC and they both present alternate ways to solve environmental problems other then the provision of government funding for direct cleanup of the region. The sale of hydro-electric power from Quebec to New York represents a way for both countries to gain economically while reducing common environmental problems such as acid rain and the emission of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide. Despite its promise however, the trade of hydroelectric power has not been pursued. The reasons for and implications of the cancellation of the hydropower contract are discussed. Acid rain, the other case study which is examined, has been controlled more successfully. However, acid rain solutions may not be as cost-effective nor as trade and industry friendly as they could be if a cooperative, bi-national policy was introduced.
One way pollution can be reduced is through resource management. Quebec has a high capacity for producing hydro-electric power. It is one of the few industrialized regions in the world with significantly undeveloped hydro-electric power resources. In the 1980s, Quebec began to sell hydro-electric power to New York. This trade benefited New York, not only because it helped alleviate what could essentially become a power shortage for the state, but also because it replaced more the more environmentally and economically costly alternatives such as the development of a coal-fired plant or a socially problematic nuclear plant. Additionally, it was estimated in the late 1980s that if Quebec and New York continued their hydro-electric power trade, the "net reduction in the burning of fuel fossils in New England and New York, estimated at approximately 12% by the late 1990s, will result in less greenhouse and acid-rain production, which benefits people on both sides of the border". The New York Power Authority did a study in the early 1990s which showed that without hydro-power, emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide in New York would rise by 7%, 10.4%, and 6.1%, respectively. Mercury is another toxic produced by coal burning power plants which pollutes the Great Lakes and would be reduced if imports of hydro-power could replace some coal burning plants. Thus, trade can actually be beneficial to the environment if resource management is implemented so that the country with the ability to produce the most of a product (in this case energy) with the least ill effects to the environment is allowed to do so.
There have been problems, however, with the energy trade between Quebec and New York. In 1994, a new Quebec-New York power deal was canceled, largely due to the concerns of David Freeman, the president of the New York Power Authority. His concerns included a decrease in the growth of demand for power in New York, high prices, and the potential for a new hydroelectric-power project to cause environmental problems in Quebec. However, although these issues do have validity, such a project is still both feasible and desirable. Clearly, hydro-electric power is a better alternative to the fossil fuel based sources from which New York is currently drawing most of its power. Even if demand for power were to decrease, hydro-electric power is a still good substitute for fossil fuel based power. Cost concerns could be reduced if Quebec agreed to charge the same amount for power as do the existing fossil-fuel plants - any loss in profit could be marked as environmental spending and split between Quebec and New York. There do exist concerns that dams built near the St. James Bay to harness hydro-electric power could cause flooding which would harm the environment and drinking water in northern Quebec. However, it may be possible for New York to help fund an anti-flooding project in Quebec to alleviate those concerns. Alternately, some experts suggest that it would be both cheaper and more environmentally sound for New York to pay for an energy conservation program in Quebec and then import the freed-up hydro-electricity.
Acid rain has probably been the most highly publicized environmental issue in the Great Lakes region. The term "acid rain" refers to "both wet and dry deposition of acidifying pollutants resulting from the transport of acidic substances from sources in one region to distant receptors.". Acid rain has been a transborder problem affecting and originating from both sides of the border. The provinces of Quebec and Ontario receive at least 50% of their sulfur deposition from the United States and Canadian SO2 emissions account for about 25% of total acidic deposition in Maine and about 15% of total acidic deposition in the rest of New England.
In 1980, some respected researchers were convinced that modern pollutants were not necessarily the cause of the acidification of surface waters. However, between 1980 and 1990, the National (American) Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP), a $500 million federal research program, gathered ample evidence to the contrary. In January of 1990, NAPAP unveiled the conclusions of their decade long research project. Acid rain caused by SO2 and NOx emissions is indeed the cause of the acidification of lakes and streams in the US. Acid rain quickens the death of lakes and rivers. Almost one fourth of all lakes in New York state are fishless and in about one-third of those the barrenness is caused by acid rain. Acid rain also threatens the life of forests and forestry related industries such as logging and paper production as well as threatens agriculture and food production industries.
The problem of acid rain has largely been resolved by US and Canadian policymakers, although the resolution is far from perfect.. The United States government passed the Clean Air Act in 1990. The Clean Air Act has the intention of reducing US SO2 emissions by about 50% of their 1980 levels by the year 2000. The Canadian government passed a similar piece of legislation in 1985 in which the federal government and the eastern provinces agreed to reduce their SO2 production by 50% of their 1980 levels by 1994. Both countries also recently implemented additional legislation to achieve equivalent reductions in Nox. Thus, the acid rain prevention policies in Canada and the US are essentially harmonized.
Although the US and Canada succeeded in coming up with parallel plans to control acid rain, some scientists and economists think that these parallel regulations are not sufficient to deal with the issue of transborder acidic deposition. The issue of cost-effectiveness must be considered if the maximum economic productivity is to be achieved with the least environmental injury. The reduction of SO2 and NOx in the US has been primarily achieved by the allocation of tradable pollution "permits" which can be traded and sold to other companies. It might be less costly to control acid rain damages in one area of Canada by curtailing the SO2 or NOx emissions of a nearby American source rather than by restricting a Canadian source near the affected area. However, because the permits are issued by state governments, a company in Ontario cannot buy a pollution permit from a company in Michigan. Canada does not have a permit trading program, although the marginal costs of SO2 production vary greatly and it is widely thought that such a program could generate considerable savings in pollution control costs while reducing pollution to below the allowable levels set by the government. Current acid rain regulations do not allow for transborder pollution controls and their potential for creating optimal economic production. The highest reduction in SO2 and NOx emissions cannot be realized, and industries within the Great Lakes ecosystem are not reaching their maximum levels of competitiveness.
The examples of acid rain and the trade of hydro-electric power illustrate two methods Canada and the United States can use to help control pollutants. The solution the two countries have arrived at to facilitate the reduction of acid rain, a parallel emissions reduction program, has proved relatively successful. However, it is not as cost-effective as a program involving cross-border trading permits could be. With such a program, companies who can reduce pollution more cheaply would be encouraged to do so, while those companies who could not lessen pollution without relatively high costs would not have to do so. In such a way the regional economic and environmental optimum could be met. The dilemma of whether to import hydro-electric power has not been as successful as the acid rain solution. It is obvious that better management of resources such as the use of hydro-electric power versus power generated by the burning of fossil fuels must be considered if pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem is to be reduced. New York needs to consider the implications of rejecting imports of Quebec's hydro-electric power. The state and province, as well as the two countries, must work together to come up with a solution that is both economically and environmentally feasible.
Permit trading and resource management are two examples of ways pollution can be controlled. However, the direct causes and results of certain pollutants are often difficult to pinpoint. Cross-media pollution has also been difficult to regulate. Regulatory fragmentation resulted from the creation of separate groups and policies to deal with pollutants in different mediums (air, land, or water). A consequence of this regulatory fragmentation has been the shifting of pollutants from medium to medium rather than the elimination or reduction of overall pollutants. An example of this is a company which, when forced to stop polluting the air by burning its toxic wastes, resorts to burying those wastes, instead polluting the soil and groundwater. The IJC and other institutions that have been established to deal with transboundary pollution policy are inadequately equipped to deal with the multitude of problems caused by transboundary pollution.
The most recent and momentous agreement which Canada and the United States have signed is the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA is important to the issue of transboundary pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem for three related reasons. The first is the emphasis it gives to trade in North America. Trade and industry, always an integral part of the economy of the Great Lakes region, are promoted as the key to economic growth and development in North America. The Great Lakes region, with its pre-established trade base, stands to benefit from a trade based plan such as NAFTA. The second reason the Great Lakes region is affected by NAFTA is that Canadian and American investors who run their businesses in the Great Lakes basin now have the option of moving to Mexico. Environmental laws and enforcement tend to be more lax in Mexico. This has proved to be concern to industry in the Great Lakes region (see Chapter 2). Both tighter controls on pollution and the costs of not reducing pollution are likely to mean higher overall production costs for those who remain in the region. Finally, NAFTA is important to the Great Lakes basin because it is the first trade related document with environment related content. This content will be explored in the next section.
The Side Agreements are two appendages to NAFTA. One involves with labor issues and the other with environmental issues. The environmental Side Agreement is important, as it is only with this Side Agreement that NAFTA deals with linkages between trade and environmental protection and with cross-border environmental issues. Only within this Side Agreement are US-Canadian trade relations linked with environmental issues. The Canadian-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) did not include any such linkages. CUFTA dealt strictly with trade issues. With the Side Agreements, NAFTA became the first international trade agreement to specifically designate a method for "engaging environmental, health, and social values into the promotion of trade liberalization". The Side Agreements are essentially the product of President Clinton's concern that environmental and labor issues be included in NAFTA. On October 4, 1992, then presidential candidate Bill Clinton stated in a speech that although he supported NAFTA, and did not see a need to renegotiate the agreement, he wanted to negotiate supplemental agreements on the environment and labor with Mexico and Canada. Canada at first resisted signing the environmental Side Agreement because of fears that it would be forced to lower its own environmental standards. However, the three countries finally reached an agreement in August of 1993.
The environmental Side Agreement does not contain policy prescriptions or environmental norms. Instead it constitutes a legal process to ensure that parties to the Agreement enforce their own environmental regulations. Although the United States proposed using sanctions to force the parties of the Agreement to enforce environmental laws, neither Canada nor Mexico favored such drastic measures. Thus, the Side Agreement was structured so that trade sanctions are a last resort. They can only be applied if a country continues to fail to enforce its laws after steps such as consultation and the recommendation of an action plan have been taken. Even then a fine must first be assessed if the initial steps did not yield satisfactory results.
The environmental Side Agreement created a Commission on Environmental Cooperation with the goal of increased cooperation among the parties to the Agreement. It is headed by a council consisting of each country's top environmental official. The role of this council is to broaden cooperative activities among parties and to serve as a point of inquiry for public concerns about NAFTA's effects. The CEC is responsible for much of the dispute regulation provided for under the Side Accords. However, like the IJC, the CEC does not have the power to regulate environmental issues or to adequately enforce existing regulations.
The Side Agreement theoretically provides a good stepping stone towards a more environmentally sound border region. However, in practice its effectiveness is negligible. The dispute process is lengthy and difficult, and the potential sanctions are relatively small (only $20 - $40 million against an entire country in the first year of NAFTA). In practice, the agreement serves more as a forum encouraging discussions and the reporting of environmental problems rather than a basis for correcting environmental problems.
In the end, NAFTA is still a free trade agreement. Although NAFTA contains more environmental provisions than any previous trade agreement, it still permits challenges to any party's environmental laws if these laws are perceived as impediments to free trade. Thus, although NAFTA provides more concessions to environmental concerns than did CUFTA, it is not an answer to the Great Lake region's industry related pollution problems.
NAFTA offers the opportunity for businesses to move south to Mexico, where environmental laws are not as strict. The ratification of NAFTA means that residents and businesses in the Great Lakes region must find a way to keep environmentally related costs down for the industries that thrive there. That can be done only with cooperation between the two countries, eight states, two provinces and countless municipal governments in the region. Together, they must search for the most cost effective ways of reducing pollution.
The Great Lakes ecosystem is vital to the economy of both the United States and Canada. Industry and trade thrive in the area and boost the economies of both countries. However, Canada and the United States share not just trade and industry in the Great Lakes region but also over 94,000 square miles of the lakes and rivers which make up the ecosystem. It is the responsibility of both countries to maintain this ecosystem if the area is to continue to thrive. The economic survival of this region is of vital importance to both the US and Canada because, as described in Chapter 2, industry in both the US and Canada is clustered around the Great Lakes. The infrastructure, know-how, international connections, and trading links have already been established. It makes sense to maintain and strengthen them rather than let them decay and see a possible move of industry to off-shore locations where both the US and Canada lose out.
The flows of water in the lakes and rivers of the Great Lakes ecosystem create a unique interdependency between the eight US states and two Canadian provinces which are located along the water's shores. Anything that pollutes the waters in Ontario is likely to affect the water near Indiana or New York. However, "with transfrontier pollution, neither the polluters nor the jurisdictions where their emissions occur face the proper incentives to institute efficient pollution abatement measures." It is unlikely that companies, states or provinces, or even one country will take extreme or expensive measures to curtail pollution on their own when they will still be affected by the pollution caused by others who haven't taken such measures. Thus cooperation between players is the key element to dealing with problems in this region.
The cooperative efforts that exist between the interested parties in the Great Lakes region are inadequate. Intergovernmental organizations such as the IJC and CEC are essentially powerless to create or enforce environmental regulations. Although the IJC has suggested many cleanup and prevention programs to the US government, none have been fully undertaken. States and provinces are directed by federal governments to clean up hot spots, yet federal funding is non-existent or insufficient. Even "successful" emissions reduction programs such as those implemented to combat acid rain in both countries are not as effective as they could be if cooperation had played a bigger role in their formulations.
Pollution is already too advanced in the Great Lakes region for policymakers to ignore or discount the problem for much longer. Fish and wildlife are dying, and their reproductive ability declining. Humans are increasingly susceptible to cancer, developmental delays, and other medical conditions. Meanwhile, the organizations which have been set up to deal with pollution issues are powerless to act. Trade and industry cannot thrive in such an environment. Faced with high costs for pollution control and cleanup, whether in the form of taxation, pollution control regulation, or the decline of cheap, safe, or healthy available resources, industry may be inclined to move. Because of the bi-national nature of the Great Lakes and the tendency for pollution to affect both countries, regardless of point of origin, it is only with cooperation between Canada and the US that either country or their industries will be motivated to reduce pollution. Although NAFTA contains some environmental provisions, those regulations are not strong enough to correct or reduce environmental problems in the Great Lakes. The US government, with the help of the government of Canada and the local governments bordering the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence river, must create comprehensive cooperative environmental policies which will reduce pollution while encouraging industry to remain in the region. The Great Lakes region is a working example of the process of "glocalization", but both countries must work together to fix its environmental problems in order to prevent this thriving region from turning into an industrial ghost town.